A community based on respect and appreciation
12 | 2022 Kari Kellokoski, Co-founder, COO
To have a respectful atmosphere in the community, you have to dare to speak up. To dare to speak, there must be an atmosphere of respect and appreciation. So which comes first or do they go hand in hand all the time?
My own and Kipinä's thinking is based on how we should respect all people and all living things. The same values-based thinking applies both in our leisure time and at work. How you treat others is in line with your values. In the business world, manners and respect are the basic requirements for psychological safety. Of course, there are others, such as fairness, justice and honesty. But it must not be forgotten that business, and in particular maximising profits, must not override manners and respect.
At Kipinä, we have believed from the start that we will also succeed in business terms when we maintain our integrity by respecting each other and our particular way of doing business - in addition, of course, to having the fundamentals of our business in place: exceptionally experienced talent in teams for our clients' core digital projects as entrepreneurs with their own faces.
There is a false norm in working life, which Kipinä has wanted to break right from the start. The norm is that it's okay to laugh at being bad at something when it's part of the job. Or that difficult things are not tackled or talked about. The minimum requirement in working life should be to respect everyone as human beings. And not to laugh at inconveniences. This means
Good communication
That, not to lie
That, let's be frank
Individual and community come before business
The atmosphere is open
People are cared about as employees and as people
Dare to talk about difficult issues
The great moments when I always realise that the path we have chosen is the right one and that it has value are the ones when the people at Kipinä dare to say that they don't know something and dare to ask their colleagues for help. Or when a large group of people discuss and know how to disagree, and yet the discussion is respectful and good and understanding of others. Or when someone is just excited to share new information about something they have learnt in a technical field.
Traditionally, companies want no one to ever leave and everyone to stay in the same place - and preferably quietly, on a low wage and with everyone's skills growing all by themselves. We don't want the good guys to leave either, but we feel that if you want to leave and learn something new, or do something different with your life, you are free to go. If you want to hold on to someone by force, that's valuing the business, not valuing the person and putting them first.
At work, respect for people can be shown in many ways. Everyone's life situation changes, and the Kipinä's model may no longer fit your situation. In these moments, we want to support the person at the moment of decision and think about the well-being of the individual. And to recommend a new place with warmth. We do not own people, or their thoughts. Experts work for us because they want to work for us, as members of the Kipinä community.
At the heart of it all is ultimately the shared values of the people and at the heart of it all in Kipinä is shared decision-making and equality. The kind of honest open decision making where there are no hard feelings or barriers to trusting others and everyone is respected and valued equally - not because of hierarchy, but as a member of the community.
A great moment in my own career is when we had a meeting at Kipinä, which was well prepared, discussed in advance on Slack, and then at the meeting itself we decided together on things that were important to us, such as salaries, length of holidays, and how long we would be paid if the sick leave was long. Quite a lot of decisions were made, and a couple of points were voted on when there were different options discussed. The feeling that all the discussions were based on caring for others and values - that was priceless.
We want to work all the time to ensure that the values of Kipinä are not just words. We want to make visible a new kind of working life, that such a prosperous working community can be achieved by doing a lot of the right things.
Kipinä's thing is a strong community where we respect and value each other as people, partners and experts.