A CEO’s story of a cultural transformation

Kjartan Briem is CEO of the Icelandic air navigation service provider Isavia ANS, and this is his story of the cultural transformation he launched after starting in the company in 2021. It is a story of learning about the company culture and the importance of knowing yourself as a leader and as a human being.

We will be talking with Kjartan at various stages of the journey he and his company are on. This time, we talked about where his organisation started and where they are now as well as his personal reflections on this ongoing transformational journey. 

Please tell us about your early days in Isavia ANS

In early 2021, I found myself at a crossroads. After 24 years in the telecoms industry, I was yearning for a new challenge. I joined the aviation industry, a vital part of Iceland's infrastructure.

My time at Isavia ANS began with an intense period of adjustment. On my very first day, one of the managers escorted me to a spacious, private office on the fourth floor, complete with a locked door and a secretary holding the key. It was a marked contrast to the open, collaborative environment I was accustomed to in telecoms. This initial encounter was a wake-up call for me, because I realised that I needed to learn more about the whys and hows of the culture in the company. I could not simply assume that everything worked the way I was used to in my previous company. The culture at Isavia ANS was rooted in a strong and proud legacy but it also represented its own set of challenges in terms of hierarchy.

When I first joined the company, employees frequently sought my permission for minor tasks. It was probably because they did not know what my expectations where, whereas I wanted us to have a more free and dynamic work environment. One of the first things I did was to transform my large private office into a shared space for five people to symbolise a move towards a flatter hierarchy, greater transparency and collaboration.

I began to realise that if we were to achieve our strategic goals, we needed to address some of the underlying cultural dynamics in the organisation.

Our parent company, Isavia Ohf, had begun their own cultural transformation journey, which inspired me to begin the same in Isavia ANS.

What do you want to achieve with this cultural transformation?

My vision for the future is clear:

To create a united, collaborative company where every voice is heard, and every member contributes to our collective success.

This is critical to achieving our strategic objectives and leveraging all our strengths as a company. But more importantly perhaps, we will also become a workplace where you can thrive both as an individual and as part of a team.

Where did you start the cultural journey, and where are you now?

Our approach provides a structured process and clear metrics to gauge our progress. We have structured our transformation journey in phases.

In the initial phase, we did a survey with the entire organisation to understand their wishes for a desired culture. Subsequently, managers and ambassadors from different departments used the input from the survey to define the desired culture. They worked on defining what our ideal culture would look like in reality, both in terms of our mindset, our behaviour and norms and the expectations we have of each other. We then focused on training our leaders and ambassadors in the language and concepts of this new desired culture.

The next step involved presenting these concepts to all employees so they would have a chance to familiarise themselves with the concepts and new forms of communicating and interacting. We had a mix of positive and negative reactions, with some employees embracing the change and others resisting. This is where we are now.

Over the next 18-24 months, we aim to tackle real tensions via constructive dialogue and live out the behaviours we have learned, essentially integrating them into daily operations. This really will be the true test of everything we have learnt, and especially a test of how much I have learnt.

I have to be a role model and ambassador for the change if I expect others to also change. I am still learning to listen and ask guiding questions instead of immediately jumping into let-me-tell-you-what-to-do mode.

I will certainly make mistakes along the way, I’m sure, but that is how you grow – as a person and as a leader. And learning from mistakes is also how you grow as an organisation.

We’re also updating our strategy these days and setting KPIs that will help us measure if we are moving towards our desired culture.

I strongly believe that your company strategy and cultural journey need to be closely aligned. We need both to achieve our goals.

What are some of your main personal challenges on this journey?

One of the hardest parts for me personally is learning to understand and appreciate the perspectives of our employees. I don’t always understand why people behave in a certain way and the history behind it. I need to understand their behavioural norms to have a constructive dialogue with them. This journey and learning a new language about culture and behaviour is helping me to be open, to listen and not judge.

I knew early on that I needed tools that would help me meet the perspectives of the people around me with more empathy. Now, I’m learning to listen actively and avoid pre-judging.

I’ve realised how crucial it is to have an open mindset if you want to foster a constructive dialogue, and I work actively on seeking to understand the historical context behind certain behaviours.

But to understand the behaviour of others, you first need to understand your own behavioural patterns and the mindset behind them. The in-depth and repeated coaching sessions as well as a comprehensive psychological assessment have provided valuable insights into my personality and behaviour and given me food for thought, particularly regarding passive and dominating traits.

Being aware of these tendencies allows me to work on them consciously so that my own behaviour does not become a barrier to the open dialogues and safe space that I want to become the norm in our company.

What have you learnt so far?

My key takeaway from this experience so far is the profound impact of understanding and improving company culture. I would encourage all leaders and managers to work on understanding the cultural dynamics within their organisation and enhancing them.

An open, communicative environment will enhance overall company performance. Creating a workplace where people feel safe to talk about personal and professional challenges WILL improve the performance of the company in any sense. A higher employee satisfaction rating will strengthen any company, regardless of size and industry.

And it all starts with yourself, your own behaviour and mindset, your own norms. So to understand and improve your organisation, you need to understand and improve yourself first.

Kjartan Briem, CEO of Isavia ANS (photo credit: Isavia ANS)

About Isavia ANS and its CEO

Isavia ANS provides air navigation services to both domestic and international flights within the North-Atlantic region known as the Reykjavik Control Area. The Reykjavik Control Area is approximately 5.4 million square kilometres and is one of the largest control areas in the world. The area stretches from the west of Greenland to the prime meridian, and from the north pole all the way south of the Faroe Islands.

Kjartan Briem was appointed CEO of Isavia ANS in January of 2021. Kjartan Briem holds an M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark with a focus on telecommunications. Kjartan has extensive experience in international relations and worked for more than two decades in the telecommunications industry in Iceland. For the majority of that time, Kjartan served as CTO of Vodafone Iceland.