LEADERSHIP | BUSINESS | BENEFITS OF THE SAUNA
The Essential Missing Piece Of Great Leadership Is The Use Of The Sauna.
Warning: this story contains strong language and nudity.
Have you ever seen 20 businesspeople sitting naked in a steamy hot room, talking business and occasionally throwing water on the heated stones and then whipping themselves with leafy and soft birch tree branches?
I have. Welcome to the Finnish leadership in action.
Saunas are the secret to the continuing success of the Finnish business. These claims are empirical and based on my weekly sauna habits over 50 years. But wait, there is also science to support these claims. I’ll get back to the science later.
Without a sauna, there is no leadership in Finland. And without the saunas, Finland would not have been able to keep Russians at bay during WWII. It made our warfare clean, clear and purely purposeful.
Read more about Finns and saunas during WWII here.
In Finland sauna is a sacred place
In Finnish culture, the sauna has been around since the remotest past.
It is how to keep yourself clean, resilient and ready to face the challenges life throws at Finnish people.
Finns have given childbirth in saunas and gently washed the bodies of their deceased loved ones there, too.
Sauna is the prism of Finnish life, love and belonging: it shows us the full spectrum of life without discrimination and bias. It is pure life.
You are one with others in the sauna, and the etiquette is strict
When you go to a Finnish sauna, you leave your clothes, roles and appearances in the small room and then enter naked in the hot heaven of the inner sanctuary of the sauna.
You are then one of Finns, not a CEO, Marketing Manager, Janitor or a PhD. Sitting there in the dimly lit, merciful heat makes it impossible to judge or be cynical.
Because your balls and tits (whichever you have been equipped with) are there without any cover, it is impossible to take yourself too seriously. You are part of many similar but interestingly different skin, bones and hair forms.
In the sauna, the differences melt into an understanding that we all have our bits, but what really matters is what we have in common, i.e. our humanity.
The worst insult you can make to Finns is to hide your private parts, giggle or behave like a dick in a sauna.
Finns are so used to nudity that they won’t easily forgive your hypocrisy. Instead, they make fun of you — which you don’t want to experience because Finnish humour is edgy, dark and mischievous. Metaphorically speaking, they will squeeze you by the balls regardless of your gender.
Unlike most other cultures where people obviously are born fully dressed — at least some of my British friends had this firm belief — Finnish people don’t give a rat’s arse about your shyness because Finns were born naked; they think it is the most natural way for humans to be.
So, enjoy everything and leave your bigotry, high horses and roles behind. The sauna will set you free.
The good news about the sauna, according to the science
Recently I came across maybe the best article I have ever read on the benefits of saunas. Dr Mehmet Yildiz wrote this excellent summary of the health and fitness reasons to use saunas.
You can read it here; it is full of goodies and deep insights supported by research and Dr Yildiz’s intimate observations and experiences.
The seven main benefits, according to this article, are:
- The sauna will improve your cardiovascular health.
- It will also strengthen your immunity through cellular cleansing.
- It will increase the metabolism.
- It reduces stress and inflammation.
- Your sleep quality will improve.
- It will lower the risks of neurodegenerative disorders.
- And finally, it will help you to live longer through epigenetic changes.
Quite a list. So, we should start building saunas, learn the proper sauna etiquette, and get those benefits in our life.
The substantial scientific evidence and even stronger and longer Finnish cultural experience validate the benefits of saunas.
It’s time for leadership by sauna
Now data-driven leadership is one of the buzzwords, and big data eats us alive and feeds us to Google’s insatiable black hole; it’s time to use science to implement new leadership behaviours.
I believe the Finnish sauna can be a laboratory for better leadership, a more humane and engaging business culture, increasing tolerance and embracing diversity.
Nothing beats a good löyly, the Finnish term for the heat and steam in a sauna that comes from throwing water on the hot stones. And nothing makes you so relaxed and clean as whipping yourself with the vihta, a bundle of fresh and leafy birch branches.
It helps you to listen better; it gives you time to hear more than the noise inside your head. It gives you a sense of life instead of abstract fiddling with the data. And it will provide leaders with humility, vulnerability and a sense of humour they so much seem to lack. And finally, it will help the teams gel and build stronger bonds and belonging.
One of my British puritan friends said after his first shock and horror when I dragged him to the sauna and then to swim in the lake at night when the summer sun was still above the horizon, — ‘I have never felt so clean in my whole life’.
It might take a couple of centuries before all businesses can happily start their strategic planning in the sauna, but it’s a vision worth pursuing.
I am a curiosity expert; if you want to know how I can help you to become a more curious leader, creative and confident thinker, book a free discovery meeting with me here.
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