Finland was recently ranked the happiest country in the world – for the 7th year running.
Reading this took me back to an episode from half a life-time ago.
In Aug 1994 – armed with youthful exuberance, curiosity and a full head of hair – I flew to Helsinki. I’d just joined Finnish company Nokia in Singapore and my new manager wanted me to spend six months at the company HQ immersing myself in the company culture, learn about its products/services and make friends I could call on for help later.
I happily jumped at the chance.
As I read the article, I reflected on what I’d learned from my time in Finland. Three lessons stand out.
1. Work-life balance doesn’t accidentally fall on our laps
I’m sure what constitutes work-life balance now has changed in the 30 years since, but even back then many of my Finnish colleagues methodically went after it. E.g. they’d come in early (before 7am for some) and leave before 4pm so they could have a few hours of daylight (10 months of the year at least) and time with their family.
Lunch was a short functional affair so they could just get on with work; no long social lunches during the work week I’d soon learn. I tried once to organize a mid-week birthday (my own!) lunch only to be consistently counter-proposed with a Friday evening drinks session.
Admittedly this was pre-24×7-connectivity, but weekends were sacrosanct. You know how a piece of work always expands to fill up whatever time you have for it? A colleague’s view was that the time available for work should never include time that could/should be spent with the family or on hobbies.
Nothing sustainable lands on our lap accidentally. So Stephen Covey was right – we’ve just got to pro-actively go for it. Years later, just before my first child was born, I had an opportunity to manage two countries at work. With our first-born due in a few weeks, my wife and I felt it’d be more manageable if I didn’t regularly travel for work. So I requested that I manage only one country. Asking for a reduced scope of my job took a pro-active decision but this was the balance my wife and I needed. I struggled mightily with how to even approach my regional president about this but when I did approach him, he said ok. A year later, the second country did fold into my responsibility in any case – but having that first year of minimal travel was a true blessing.
2. Self-awareness rocks
Finnish is a tough language to learn. I know only 2 phrases (hello and thank you). I jokingly blame it on the fact that whenever I had a meeting or a meal in Helsinki with my Finnish colleagues, they always spoke English – even in side conversations among themselves. As long as a non-Finnish speaker was in their midst, my Finnish colleagues would go out of their way to make them feel included. If I joined a meeting late, they’d switch from Finnish to English the minute I joined.
This got me thinking. Do my colleagues and I do that in Singapore? Sadly, no. It’s not uncommon that we (my Mandarin-speaking colleagues and I) would speak to each other in Mandarin, even though a non-Mandarin-speaking colleague was in our midst. Not surprising perhaps that I had to leave Singapore to learn not to do this.
3. In case of emergency, keep calm and carry on
Sisu is a Finnish word that captures a quintessential Finnish spirit. It doesn’t quite have an equivalent English word. It’s roughly translated as quiet resilience, determination, perseverance and acting rationally, morally and sustainably in the face of adversity. I learned about the concept of Sisu only after I left Helsinki, but I saw plenty of it while I was there.
Three months into my stint in Helsinki, I spent a week in Vilnius, Lithuania supporting a Finnish Big Boss in a series of meetings with a key client and an exhibition. The week had gone well until the penultimate day, when Big Boss received feedback that a critical deal his team had been working on for close to a year was about to go sideways. The company had invested a fair chunk of Euros into the business development. As I was new to the team and just supporting them on a temporary basis, I didn’t understand the seriousness of this development. It was serious enough though for a late-night team huddle, where I saw Sisu in action. Big Boss very calmly updated the team and they brainstormed what they needed to do. Big Boss knew I didn’t have the history with the project to understand it completely so he explained it in better detail the next morning when we were on our way to a meeting. I asked him how he could be so calm. He memorably said “We’ve set in motion a response, everyone knows what they need to do. There’s not much more I can do now.”
I can’t claim to have cracked the Finnish code to happiness. But I rather suspect their ability to prioritise what’s important to them, to place others’ emotions into that equation and to keep calm in the face of adversity have some part to play.Terveterve to my Finnish friends, and kiitos for giving me a life-long affection for your country.