Corporate Plasticity: How to Change, Adapt, and Excel

Leadership

As a global leader in complete life cycle power solutions for the marine and energy markets, the Finnish company Wärtsilä can look back at an impressive growth trajectory that includes several large acquisitions.

In 2005, Wärtsilä was organized by country and functional silos. These have gradually been replaced by cross-functional collaboration that in itself could merit a long chapter in this book. What we would like to highlight though, because it is more unusual than anything else we have observed, is Wärtsilä’s approach to leadership.

Historically, Wärtsilä did what any other company in the world did: they promoted experts into leadership positions. Sometimes this worked, but often it did not. When it did, the company had lost ...