Boo Energi approached Beyond Talking with a clear brief: strengthen relationships and continue developing collaboration within the executive management team. When we conducted the pre-study, we saw that there was something else to address as well. In an organisation in the middle of structural transformation, where a traditional electricity grid business needs to coexist with a newer digital services business, good relationships are not enough. The management team also needed a shared way of navigating the two different logics. We raised this with the client. It became the starting point for a broader engagement.
What was the challenge? The management team at Boo Energi needed to find a shared way of navigating that tension and leading the transition together. That required both stronger relationships and a common language for driving the company’s development as a collective, and for meeting employees with a unified direction.
What did we do? Beyond Talking delivered a structured development programme for the management team, consisting of recurring residential sessions, individual coaching for all members, and ongoing process support. The work aimed to strengthen both relationships and structure. To support the coaching, we used structured analytical tools to identify patterns and prepare each session.
How did we do it? The programme began by establishing sufficient psychological safety for the group to have the conversations that needed to happen. We combined structured exercises with open dialogue, worked both indoors and outdoors, and created space for the group to work independently, without a facilitator, because we believe that openness practised without support builds more lasting trust. The individual coaching sessions ran in parallel and served a dual purpose: to strengthen each person’s leadership and to understand the systemic patterns influencing the group as a whole. The work was iterative. Each session was designed based on where the group actually was, not on a predetermined programme.
What were the results? Members of the management team now actively draw on each other’s competence and perspectives, and the group has developed a shared language for navigating the tension between the company’s two business logics. The friction between the stable infrastructure business and the more agile services business will always be there, but the group has an even greater capacity to manage it without becoming stuck. This has led to faster decision making and better conditions for driving change across the organisation.
“We knew we needed to lead the change together, but we had not quite found the way to do it. This work has given us a shared language and the ability to make decisions that hold, even when the questions are difficult.”
Per Svenningsson, CEO Boo Energi
What did we learn? Tension between different professions and business logics is not a sign that something is wrong. It is a natural feature of how modern organisations work. What matters is whether the management team has the capacity to navigate that tension openly, together. That capacity can be developed.