The Surprise Loop framework of communication – Kenneth Nysten

Team Filtrabit profile: The unique communication framework of Business Development Manager Kenneth Nysten, who joined Filtrabit in May of 2024.

What is your best asset – the superpower?

I think my strongest asset is being a communicator.

I’m very deliberate about it and I have a framework for communication that consists of searching, receiving, processing, refining and sharing information. You could call it the surprise loop.

Searching is about figuring out who to talk to and about asking questions. Sometimes it means literally searching for information on the subject to deepen my own understanding and figuring out the right questions to ask.

Receiving is all about listening. Truly listening (or reading). It helps if you concretely adopt the attitude that now I’m in receiving mode and that’s all I’m focused on.

Processing means to take time, at least a moment when in direct conversation, to let the received information sink in and to make sure you understood it. Perhaps ask a clarifying question before jumping to the next stage.

Refining is the process of deriving new insight from what I’ve just learned. How does it relate to my prior knowledge? Does it affect my planned next actions? Can I offer an alternate perspective that my counterpart has not considered?

Sharing is about making sure I reflect back any insight from the refining. That insight might be valuable new information to the recipient outright but at the very least it shows that I’ve learned something new as a result of our communication. Frankly, it just makes the other person feel good. It shows that there’s a purpose to what we’re doing and we’re making progress.

You’d be surprised, no pun intended, to find out how well it works to do these things deliberately in sequence.

I’m also lucky to have been born into a Finnish-Swedish family. Having two native languages is an extra bonus for international customer work. Globally all of us Nordics are a tiny minority, so we must be able to communicate our story well. I’m sure there are other benefits of having neurons fire in different ways, too.

In general, I do my best to make sure that my communication focuses on benefiting the customer throughout the sales process.

Can you tell us more about your background?

I found my Ikigai* pretty late but it’s clearly learning. I guess I’m a bit of a late bloomer.

*Wikipedia: Ikigai is a Japanese concept referring to something that gives a person a sense of purpose, a reason for living.

In 2010 and 2011 I invested both time and money into an eMBA in international management at the Hanken School of Economics.

I missed this purpose when I started my professional studies in engineering. Student life and work offered so much more at that time so my first degree of B.Sc., Mechanical Engineering took 8 years, from 1996 to 2004. I actually finished half of the studies in about one year.

I’ve found that learning happens outside the comfort zone, so after more than 13 great years at Hentec, I moved to Filtrabit. It was emotional to leave, but at the same time it was time for new challenges. Hentec supplies high quality components like slewing bearings, sliding bearings, bolting tools, fasteners, gears and so on, to the machine building industry. Hentec has activities in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, UK and Ireland.

Can you describe your role at Filtrabit?

My role at Filtrabit is studying the customer business and finding new opportunities to generate strategic value together with the customer team. Every customer case and contact are a huge learning experience. I can’t wait to get more and more of those opportunities.

I’m kind of a double agent – I’m working for both the customer and Filtrabit organizations at the same time. But not undercover, though – perfectly transparently to both sides. Technical innovation just isn’t enough if you fail to combine it with customer intelligence.

Why did you choose Filtrabit specifically?

I feel like I’m in the right place, at the right time, and for good reason. It’s very rewarding to be a part of transforming something as powerful as heavy industry. As a society, we benefit so much from its outputs but there has always been this dark side, this massive con to weigh down all the pros: pollution. I get to be a part of eliminating this negative aspect and hopefully making more room for the positives.

You can always plan your career based on your own goals and starting points, but without the right situation and opportunity, it’s hard to get anywhere. This just seemed like one of those opportunities that don’t happen all the time.

This period in a relatively new company, building new markets and opening new customer relations is also very motivating and interesting.

For Finnish companies, the domestic market is a comfort zone, so exporting and building export operations together with distributors is a leap into an area of learning and more importantly, creating something of consequence on a larger scale.

Global industrial competition increasingly takes place in the areas of operational quality and responsibility instead of pure price competition. It really is our time to shine. The future looks bright from here.

What have you tackled first in your new role?

Right now, I’m diving deep into studying how to bring value to customers in the metals and mining industries.

There are a number of high-quality value propositions to choose from for each customer case.

We need to know the business and situation of the customer deeply before we build our proposition based on true value in the economical, technological and strategic dimensions. The environmental point-of-view seems to be the common denominator when dealing with industrial dust filtration. It’s starting to touch every discipline in unprecedented ways.