Aalto EE Profile Magazine 2/2012

Un iv er si o f Aa lt o M ag az in e

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ency. sense of urg a te a re c ts s capitali 8 Venture nt. r developme e re a c p u s thm. d ement spee mpany ’s rhy g o a c n r a u o m y t n to le in Ta periods build slower 18 Dare to

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2.2012 Speed is a deceptive and evasive concept. Wise executives try to optimize conditions for organizational, team level and individual

Junnu LUSA

speed.

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In Lewis Carroll’s classic work, ‘Through the Looking-Glass’, the Red Queen’s race is an incident between Alice and the Red Queen that has Alice constantly running but remaining in the same spot. “‘Well, in our country,’ said Alice, still panting a little, ‘you’d generally get to somewhere else — if you ran very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.’

‘A slow sort of country!’ said the Queen. ‘Now here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!’”

From Carroll’s work comes the expression the Red Queen Effect, a strategy concept defining contexts of fierce rivalry and fast pace of competitive actions.

But speed is a deceptive and evasive concept. I was planning to deliver this editorial in only a few days’ time after first receiving the request. It did not happen that speedily.

Only after numerous kind and more forceful reminders did I finally get started, but fortunately I jotted it down very fast. Speed can be seen as time to Aalto EE’s websites, delivery or as a spurt when things actually happen. It can also be Facebook page and blog interpreted as our ability to anticipate and react to changes in our keep you up to date on environment, an action-oriented synonym for agility. the latest events.

Not all moments are created equal. Some of them are dense and Check out www.aaltoee.fi rich and have special immersing propensity. These are the moments and www.aaltoee.sg. we feel we are making progress, finding solutions and making breakthroughs. Wise executives try to understand the pattern and optimize conditions for organizational, team level and individual speed. Some companies seem to have bigger engines or at least a better ability to find shortcuts than others.

On a more individual level we strive for more speed by promoting multitasking. Doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that in parallell reinforces the dangerous illusion we are getting things done and being effective. Nonetheless, a convincing body of research suggests that multitasking only weakens our performance. Multitaskers are less effective and efficient, as a shifting focus always takes time and interrupts Dr Pekka Mattila, the process. They are also less – not more – creative and D.Soc.Sc., Executive MBA; cling to traditional inside-the-box solutions. Furthermore, Group Managing Director, multitaskers suffer crippling stress more often than others.

Aalto University Executive Regardless of how we pursue greater organizational Education; Adjunct Professor and individual speed, it is important to get the facts right of Practice, Aalto University and know our own nature. For this editorial – and my life in School of Economics general – the deadline is a very inspiring muse.

Take part in creating the next issue in Blogger

Some people are afraid of going fast.

Others know nothing better.

When venture capitalists step in, the pace steps up.

Publisher: Aalto University Executive Education Ltd, Mechelininkatu 3 C, 00100 Helsinki, Finland tel. +358 10 837 3700 www.aaltoee.fi

Speed at work.

Speed in innovation.

Speed in virtual teams.

Fast track to the top

Creating momentum

Editor in Chief: Pekka Mattila, pekka.mattila@aaltoee.fi

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Talent management helps to retain and engage high potentials.

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Steve Tsai thinks you should learn to speak Chinese.

Balance Sometimes finding your pace is all you need.

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What is the speed you need?

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We filled the toolbox with tips on how to pace yourself for ultimate productivity. We also help you deal with the most stressful day of the week – Saturday.

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You can also find this material from web sources.

Aalto Executive Education Academy Pte Ltd, Singapore 25 North Bridge Road, EFG Bank Building, Unit 08-03, 179104 Singapore, Singapore tel. +65 6339 7338 www.aaltoee.sg

History repeated.

Ending

Editorial office: Maggie Oy / Zeeland, www.maggie.fi Producer: Annamari Typpö, annamari.typpo@maggie.fi Creative Director: Miikka Leinonen Graphic designer: Sissu Muhujärvi Printing: SP-Paino Oy, Nurmijärvi, ISSN 1458-2058 Address register: profile@aaltoee.fi

Aalto University Executive Education (Aalto EE) offers high-quality executive education services supported by the competence of Aalto University. Aalto EE’s mission is to build a better world through better leadership and to educate a new generation of leaders. The organization’s strengths lie in its global operating model and versatile offering. Aalto University brings to Aalto EE a multidisciplinary approach to executive development along with innovative learning methods.

Aalto EE has two strongholds: the office in Helsinki coordinates operations in Europe and South Korea and the office in Singapore serves as a hub for the Asia Pacific rim. In addition to Finland and Singapore, Aalto EE offers education programs in Poland, South Korea, Taiwan, China, Indonesia and Sweden.

The whole magazine is also here:

What have you learned about...

Fear

Explained

Toolbox

Features

Departments

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A faster way of doing something is not necessarily the best way to do it. Still, speed remains a constant goal.

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Fear

Explained “If everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough.”

Mario Andretti

Not so fast! a.k.a. fear of speed

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“Tachophobia is the condition of having an abnormal, extreme, and persistent fear of speed, that is, the experience of traveling quickly.”

Text: Risto pakarinen

ach new generation seems to be moving faster than the last one. Take any sport, for example, and you will see world records broken, even if they seemed impregnable when they were set. Yes, Jim Hines, the first person to run 100 meters in under ten seconds, held his world record for 15 years, but his time of 9.95 seconds at the 1968 Olympics would have landed him in sixth place in Beijing 2008.

We are always trying to go and be faster. Faster is the first word of the Olympic motto, Citius, Altius, Fortius – Swifter, Higher, Stronger. Almost as soon as we learn to walk, we start to run. Just ten years after Henry Ford introduced the Model T, attempts were made to build a car that would fly. And with his Model T, Ford developed the assembly line, a method of faster, uniform production that revolutionized manufacturing.

The thing with speed is that when we do something faster, the risk of losing control rises, and it is that lack of control that rattles us. On the other hand, as American novelist William S. Burroughs wrote in Esquire magazine in 1986, “Among elite speed-sport athletes, the feeling of having absolute control, that demonstration of mastery under enormous stress, produces a euphoria unlike anything else they’ve experienced.”

Two-time Formula 1 world champion, Mika Häkkinen, was involved in a big accident on the first lap of his first race when he was five years old. His memory of the event is not of the crash, he has said, but the worried look on his father’s face.

Mika was not afraid of speed. He needed it.

In 1995 in Australia, he was involved in a serious crash that nearly cost him his life, yet went on to win two world championships. But once he became a father himself, his taste for speed diminished. He started to think.

“The good news is that brain speed, while inherited, can also be exercised.”

when we feel we are losing control, that we cannot keep up or catch up, that our brain no longer computes, things start to move a little too Speed is everywhere. There is speed fast, whether we are behind a wheel or in a conference room. chess, speed dating, not to forget competitive speed eating This sense of losing control has given rise to a counter– who can gulp down the most hotdogs in ten minutes. culture, a backlash to the speed of modern-day life. We now But just as surely as we strive to go faster – and farther have a slow movement promoting a slower pace of life: slow – a fear of speed lurks as well. “What can be more palpably food, slow travel, slow science, slow design, slow art, even absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling slow gardening. twice as fast as stagecoaches!” wrote the Quarterly Going slow is one alternative, but if you want to face your Review – in 1825. fear of speed, why not take a page out of the snowboarders’ It is not only the speed of the outside world that matters. handbook? Livestrong.com lists five steps to overcoming We also need speed inside our brain, says Paul Thompson, the fear of speed: professor of neurology at UCLA’s School of Medicine, who

1. Get instructions from someone who knows. found in a 2009 study that people with higher IQ scores also

2. Practice taking falls. had faster brains – their nerve impulses were faster.

3. Breathe deep and slowly.

4. Stay warm.

We need speed. The good news is that brain speed, 5. Know your basic moves well. while inherited, can also be exercised. “The wires And if you are still fearful, just remember that between the brain cells, the connections, can be www.youtube.com twenty years from now you can look back on today modified throughout life. They change and improve Tachophobia - The Fear as the halcyon days. The slow days. through your 40s, 50s, and 60s,” says Thompson.

Of Speed

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Text: Marikka Nevamäki, photos: Junnu Lusa

Mika Okkola is a Director, Developer and Platform Evangelist at Microsoft Finland.

He has a special interest in organizational development and digital working environments.

Prior to moving to Microsoft he held several executive positions, most recently at Quartal, Defcom, and WM‐data.

Working in global online teams – what are the pros & cons of speed?

Working with people from different time zones can either be an advantage or disadvantage, depending on your ability to schedule the workflow to your benefit. At best, when one “shift” ends, another team player catches the baton seamlessly, so that there is someone working on the case around the clock. But if the baton is not moving around according to time zones, it can be dropped for a long time in-between.

How are cultural differences regarding speed manifested in online meetings?

I think cultural differences are not as significant now as they were some years ago. People are more aware and able to adapt, probably thanks to travel, globalization and social media. Of course some cultural characteristics still remain. For example, the Finns are very hands-on and result-oriented, sometimes at the cost of personal relationships. While others might feel the need for further discussions and softer communications, a Finn might push ahead rather relentlessly. We should perhaps learn to appreciate the fact that a great deal of the added value in knowledge work is created through interaction. Another great skill is to stop for a minute and think – speed can blind us to attractive alternatives.

How should an online meeting be organized to proceed at good speed?

It is important to involve all the participants in the online meeting. If there are people “listening in”, the chances are that you will lose their attention in no time. A common mistake is that the organizers who sit in one room together start to dominate the discussion. You should find a good rhythm, ask a lot of questions to involve people and avoid long monologues.

Establishing mutual trust is more difficult online than face-to-face, but just as important.

out b a d e n r a le u o Y e v a h t a Wh s e ti ri la u c ti r a p d n a d e The spe

s, m a te e n li n o in g in rk o w of

Mika Okkola?

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On top of my agenda Steve Tsai is the CEO of

the Pan Asia International Education Center in Taiwan, a subsidiary of Pan Asia Human Resources Management Consultant group, and a leading HR company in Taiwan.

The Education Center provides services to advanced students and works in partnership with Aalto EE.

Current in Asia. Public issues, such as energy-savings and carbon reduction, reinforcement of human rights and public welfare are high on the agenda of Asian enterprises in 2012. Other discussions include how to cope with the impact of the EU debt problem and how to transfer our hardware expertise into influential software know-how.

Building original Chinese brand names is also a hot topic.

What have You learned about

Speed in innovation,

Sajid Niazi?

Taking innovations from an idea to implementation - what role does speed play in this?

While studying at the Aalto University Executive Education, I developed an iPhone application called Dream Talk Recorder. As the name suggests, it records you while you are talking in your dreams. It only activates when there is noise in the room. I had six weeks to transform my idea into an actual product, while working full-time and studying part-time.

Many great ideas never materialize because of a prolonged development process. The more lead time we have, the more it costs, and the further away we move from actual sales and customer feedback. Speedy execution enables us to consult the customer about further product features and enhancements. You can do market research and ask customers what they want before you launch a product. What the customers tell you is what they think they want. But when they have a real product prototype in their hands, the feedback is real, informed and concrete. So if you can quickly launch a prototype and get it into the customer’s hands, the more likely you are to succeed.

What does speed mean for business success?

Sajid Niazi is a Senior Software Architect at Tieto, an entrepreneur and a student in the Aalto Part-time MBA Program.

He has developed an iPhone application called Dream Talk Recorder, which has been downloaded by over 300,000 users worldwide.

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I think speed and agility are the two cornerstones of business success. Agile modern practices and communication technologies enable businesses to be more proactive to meet the demands of the everchanging external environment. In nature, every day brings new opportunities to grow, but also new threats of extinction. There are valuable lessons to be learned from this – stay alert!

Are there any risks connected to speed at work?

Speed can sometimes blind us to different opportunities and cause us to overlook critical issues. While certain tasks can and should be carried out with speed, there are times when it is good to slow down. For example, if we rush product testing, chances are that the customers will suffer and this will harm our business.

A new era. Asia has gradually transformed itself from the largest factory in the world into the world’s biggest consumer market. Hong Kong has overtaken New York and London to become the No. 1 global financial centre. Singapore is reaching a GDP per capita higher than that of America and Japan. South Korea has evolved from manufacturing to establishing its own brands. Taiwan enjoys a solid position as the No. 1 technological Original Design Manufacturer in the world.

Speed at work in Singapore – how would you characterize it?

Singapore is closer to the Western working culture than what is usually thought. In general, it could be said that Singaporeans value efficiency and the speed of life rather highly. It is a very competitive society, starting from an early age. Working hours in Singapore are reasonable but the “arrive before the boss, leave after the boss” mentality is certainly there.

What are the most noticeable differences and similarities regarding speed in Finland and in Singapore?

Singapore and Finland are both relatively small nations that take full advantage of their good geographical location between continents in air travel. This reflects at speed as well: in our industry, the one who flies the straightest routes is always the fastest!

Certain cultural characteristics, such as avoidance of uncertainty, collectivism and hierarchical relationships, may slow the pace down a little

Educate yourself. The growth of many American and European companies will be connected to developments in Asia. That is why it is wise to learn about the local cultures and be respectful of them. Learning Chinese is never a bad idea: there are 1.6 billion people in the world who communicate in Chinese. Realize the fact that close regional integration and cooperation between Asian countries is likely to take shape. And hitch your wagon to the establishment of Chinese brands!

in Singapore compared to Finland, for example, when it comes to innovations. The Finnish working culture is more straightforward. However, there is a great deal the Finns could also learn from Singapore’s long and international business history. In my dealings with Singaporeans, mutual respect for other cultures has always resulted in good business cooperation.

What is your own relationship to speed at work?

The way in which we perceive speed and efficiency is a cultural matter. I have worked with different Asian cultures for years and this has perhaps led to some adjustments in my own perceptions.

I enjoy the kind of hurry that positively drives things forward, but I also appreciate a job well done in one go.

Despite tight schedules, I try to avoid an extreme sense of urgency when leading projects as it might reflect on quality or dilute creativity.

ut o b a d e n r a le u o Y e v a h t Wha d e e p s f o t p e c n o c e Th Jarkko Konttinen is

a Vice President at Finnair Plc. He has been responsible for Finnair’s marketing in Asia for the past 10 years. Jarkko completed an Executive MBA at HSE Executive Education (now Aalto EE), studying in both Helsinki and Singapore in 2006.

in Singapore,

Jarkko Konttinen?

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Feature1 Speed in venture capitalism

A sense of urgency

It has to do with stepping up the pace, making things happen right now. Yet there is more to it than mere acceleration. It is rapid progress paired with an astute appreciation of the job, supreme confidence, and unstoppable willpower. It is the state of mind it takes to change the world.

Text: Joanna Sinclair, Illustration: Antti Kyrรถ

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W What is it that venture capitalists do to create momentum in their protégé companies, the shear force that enables the best of them to take the world by a storm? Profile spoke with three forces in Finnish venture capital and private equity to reveal some of their thinking. What follows tells a tale of what bricks and mortar companies could learn from venture capitalists.

A mindset for magic. No two venture capitalists are alike. The three whose brains Profile decided to pick represent a good cross-section of the versatility in the field.

Conor’s Sami Ahvenniemi is a familiar name to aspiring technology companies who believe they have the next Big idea. His early stage venture capitalist firm searches for the best and the brightest in the Nordic countries and the Baltics. Conor specializes in pushing and motivating potential global winners through those critical first years, easing access to new markets and paving the way for changing the world with technology.

Tuomas Lang’s private equity firm Intera Partners invests in slightly larger companies operating in different industries. Intera has a reputation for taking companies with good track record – such as family businesses stuck in familiar markets – and turning them into great companies with an exemplary track record. High growth potential, an appetite for conquering new markets and market leadership are attributes often affiliated with Intera’s investments. ☞

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Profile’s third expert requires no introduction in Finland. Tero Ojanperä, known for his career at Nokia spanning over two decades, is a newcomer to the VC field. He intends to change the Finnish VC scene with his new company and colleagues at Vision+. Ojanperä’s company provides help in acquiring customers and targets long-term cooperation, yet Vision+ is investing not in companies with equity, but in specific products through revenue sharing without diluting current ownership.

No matter their goals – fast exit, long-term partnership or something in-between – all three venture capitalists have something in common: when they step in, the pace steps up.

“Experience has shown us that there is a time span, a momentum, during which you need to make the difference. Given the right incentives, people will work hard toward goals they believe in, but you need to get everything going full speed during the first year,” Lang says.

“We crystallize a company’s vision, set their aspirations a great deal higher with a goal to remove all growth obstacles, and establish a 100–day program to kick-off the development work. There is a Darwinian aspect to it, as people who do not accept it tend to leave. Key people, however, will work especially hard when properly motivated by a change agent, provided they see results all along,” Lang continues.

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In reality, even real time is not enough.

Ojanperä explains accelerated pace as a something of a paradox: in a sense, change has become continual and instant, yet larger trends evolve with time, often through a thousand trials and errors.

“You need to be constantly developing something new. Otherwise you fall behind.

In the worst-case scenario, you may never manage to jump back onto the cutting edge.

Larger trends and major technological innovations, however, are not evolving at an unreasonably fast pace,” Ojanperä points out.

Large-scale technological innovations are indeed still very much within the reach of everyone from innovators and early adopters to laggards. The lesson corporations need to grasp is that companies that focus on developing one service or product for years on end will not create the world changing innovations of tomorrow.

“The day-to-day changes in the global market add up. If you do not stay in tune with the small shifts, you will be irreversibly outdated with whatever you come up with in the end,” Ojanperä asserts.

Some call it real time business. In reality, even real time is not enough. You need to have one eye on the road and the other way ahead in the future. ”If a business is not constantly focusing on the day after tomorrow, it can be assured that it is already late,” Ahvenniemi asserts.

Forget the nine to five heroes?

Speed is crucial. It is not surprising that venture capitalists often choose to work with people who have a very different mindset from your average corporate Joe – or agile individuals who are willing to adopt a new attitude.

Ahvenniemi sees a rather sharp dichotomy between people who take the entrepreneurial ☞

Entrepreneurial spirit is at the heart of Aalto’s actions Aalto University takes pride in the versatile ways in which it nurtures an entrepreneurial spirit among its troops. Its entrepreneurship-related activities are coordinated by the Aalto Center of Entrepreneurship, ACE. ACE’s head of startup services Patrik Louko is a busy man.

Together with Will Cardwell, head of ACE, and Antti Aarnio, ACE’s business development manager, Louko oversees an impressive array of entrepreneurshipinspiring activities and services.

“We have a wide range of

services, and this is a good thing as Aalto has a tremendous amount of high potential entrepreneurial talent to support,” Louko explains.

ACE is an umbrella organization for everything related to technology transfer, intellectual property management and the commercialization of university research within Aalto.

“We see the creation of new innovative startups from the university as one of our most important challenges,” Louko adds.

“Supporting the creation of a

A

vibrant startup community is also an important role for us.”

ACE also oversees the support and funding of Aalto Venture Garage, Startup Sauna, Summer of Startups, and Startup Life operations – all programs that foster student entrepreneurship.

The sheer volume of ACE’s services speaks for itself.

To many Aalto students, an entrepreneurial mindset is one of the greatest assets they can offer the job market after graduation.

“There is no question about it. There has been quite an

attitude shift towards valuing an entrepreneurial mindset very highly,” Louko affirms.

Today, working for a startup is a merit, and being part of a founding team is a sought-after position.

“The Aalto students are bright, international and constantly come up with great ideas for startups. Our task is to support the promising ones, encourage the really good ones to continue and learn to be professionals, and finally back the winners into becoming self-sufficient companies,” Louko explains.

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path and those who decide to work their way up the corporate ladder.

“There is a portion of each generation who wants to change the world. You motivate high potentials with the freedom to try to do that.

Make a difference. I do not think that the most enthusiastic talents even consider corporate life. Why would they?” Ahvenniemi questions.

“There are exceptions, however. A classic example is Xerox. PARC has a great reputation among individuals with an entrepreneurial mindset. They come and they go – I knew many people at Nokia Research who were ardent to change the world back in the day.

Yet if you are looking for generalizations, many large companies are not offering big talents the incentives they want: an opportunity to work with the best minds in the business and the freedom to take a shot at changing the world,” Ahvenniemi says.

The difference between large company employee outlook and entrepreneurial spirit is quite apparent in the ideas of all three VCs. If they have it right, then perhaps what large companies should do is take a long hard look at whom they are recruiting. It might not be the best idea to hire the people most eager to work for you. The nine to five heroes might simply be after security, with no

appetite for world altering business heroics.

There is, however, no need to condemn all corporate talents straight off. Growth may be hindered partly because companies are attracting the wrong people. The corporations that offer employees visions of mediocrity are a larger problem.

“It is not hard to find people with great potential in corporations. Often they are snuggled up in their corporate comfort zone with no real incentive to change. We always offer key people ownership incentives.

You can see a rather sharp attitude shift in someone who has put their own money in the game and who realizes that for once they have a chance to make a real impact on the business,” Lang says. the Midas touch is a culture question. Speed matters, attracting the

kind of talent that wants to make a difference.

Yet the buck does not stop there. When you ask Ahvenniemi, Lang, and Ojanperä, one of their core skills is creating the right culture for rapid growth.

“The task at hand and the vision you are striving for have to be so meaningful to you that you are not only willing to give it your all, you cannot wait to surpass yourself,” Ahvenniemi describes.

“The words VCs use to describe a winner’s mindset are often emotionally-laden: drive, hunger, even passion. In the end they all mean the same thing – an atmosphere that fuels growth,” Ojanperä affirms.

Venture capitalists are often seen as the change agents with the Midas touch.

Something they do turns companies into gold. VCs admittedly seem to have a good sense of how to make a company thrive.

Can their lessons be summarized? What is their secret? Is it a question of speed, a hunger to innovate or a winning attitude?

Lang has a ready answer.

“All of the above, but it can be summarized in one sentence: we create a sense of urgency.

You find the people with potential, you set their sights much, much higher than they were before, convince them that they have what it takes to make it big and then you make sure they start doing it today instead of tomorrow,” Lang sums up.

A sense of urgency sounds about right.

At least it nicely describes the impression one gets when speaking with venture capitalists. •

The best change agents come from outside For venture capitalists, a sense of urgency is an attainable goal. Large corporations may find the challenge considerably harder.

Venture capitalists come onto the scene as outsiders and set the stage for change.

Oftentimes they bring onboard refreshing diversity with new talents they hire to jazz things up. Above all, they do not represent the established management, who often carry the burden of a past ridden 12

with necessary, tough decisions brought on by economic downturns and heightened competition.

Overtime spent willingly on a genuinely interesting project is invigorating. Burning the midnight oil just to get through business as usual demoralizes even the keenest company man.

Corporations cannot expect staff to be future-oriented, innovative and love their job if employees have been given more than they can handle in the name

of efficiency. Most individuals’ creativity and innovative skills decrease hand-in-hand with uninspiring, repetitive overtime.

Companies going through their fourth statutory co-operation negotiations in as many years should not be surprised if their staff does not to jump at the chance to change the future.

There are numerous companies where a sense of urgency is achieved in large-scale operations: Google allocates 20 percent of everyone’s time

to dream up future projects and Facebook has its all-night hackathons. It is doable, but in all likelihood, these corporations are not suffering from a negative work atmosphere or overworked staff.

Large companies known for a less than adequate work environment probably should not try to achieve a sense of urgency on their own. An outside coach – or a venture capitalist – just might make the difference.

Working with

Knowledge Until I am measured, I am not known. Yet how you miss me when I have flown. What am I?

What’s the time?

The answer generally takes the form of hours and minutes.

The concept of time is the same the world over. Or is it?

often

time for us is a scarce resource, measured and expressed by the clock.

Early sundials show that man’s concept of time dates back centuries, but measuring the day in hours, minutes, seconds, and fractions of seconds and the idea of time as a precious commodity are relatively new.

Did you know that Britain was the first country to set a standard time throughout its region, and still today the world’s clocks are set to Greenwich Mean Time. It was the railroad companies that forced through a standardized uniform time for the country. The Great Western Railway, in 1840, was the first to adopt London time. Other railroad companies followed suit and by 1847 most of them were running on London time.

We fight against the clock. We think we can manage time. In fact, time management has become a huge industry and part of the curriculum in leadership courses. Thousands of consultants advise on scheduling and how to use time wisely and efficiently. Time is money. The world moves so fast that we have next to no time to understand, to think, to reflect.

Google’s motto is Fast is better than slow. The company has made finding information faster and easier than ever before, putting voluminous amounts of information at our fingertips in little more than the blink of an eye.

We are obsessed with speed. We judge our own and others’ stature by the fullness and pace of our daily schedules. The rat race as social status. Today’s world requires speed and efficiency, and we see the road to efficiency as working fast and faster.

Fast beats slow, efficiency means accomplishing more.

In search of efficiency – or harmony? The modern – western – businessperson sees time as linear. A meeting is considered efficient only if it is covered in a set order with set times. Discuss, make a quick decision, and move on to the next item. Fast, efficient. But where is the time for reflection?

The concept of ‘time well spent’, however, is not universal.

Different cultures view time differently. I have had the pleasure of visiting China on several occasions and have had the opportunity to observe the culture there.

The head of a large organization that does business in China says the Asian concept of time is different from ours and one must understand that. Linear is out. Where a European will start with an orderly agenda with specific targets, beginning with the first item and working down the list in what seems like an orderly fashion, in China, one may find that the first order of business is item four or eight.

It may not make sense to a European, but it’s perfectly sensible to an Asian.

In dealing with different cultures it is important to be aware of their concept of time and sensitive to their ways of conducting business. Where a European may put a priority on efficiency, Asians may put a higher premium on harmony.

Time is a resource. Should we not make the most of it, focus on what we do with it, and perhaps slow down? Speed is not necessarily the answer. Purpose and satisfaction, are.

“Time goes, you say? Ah, no! Alas, time stays, we go.”

Henry Austin Dobson 1840–1921, English poet and essayist.

Riitta Lumme-Tuomala, Senior Advisor at Aalto EE, M.Sc. (Econ, EMBA), is a curious person.

At the top of her list of interests is leadership from many angles; what will be required of leaders in the future, CSR, social media and the digital revolution in general, how different generations and individuals work together in organizations near and far – just to mention a few. Riitta teaches in many Aalto EE programs and lectures on leadership at various events.

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Feature 2 Speed in career development

Putting talent on the fast track Text: Leena Koskenlaakso, Photos: Chin Yong Sak, Petri Juntunen

Yahoo! uses talent management programs to motivate, engage and retain key talent, and Fortum has embarked on a never-ending leadership journey.

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Leadership for High Potentials.

A new 3-month talent development program, Leadership for High Potentials, will start at the Aalto University Executive Education in October 2012. The program is aimed at high potentials who want to develop their leadership skills; new and future managers, people identified in corporate talent programs, and people on development paths to executive positions. The participants will develop their self-knowledge, acquire confidence to lead in demanding situations, learn to achieve results with people, grow as team leaders, and learn to recognize future leadership challenges.

The program consists of 3 modules: Leading Self, Leader Role & Tools, and Leading Others. It includes 6 seminar days, and is based on sharing experiences, application assignments and virtual working. The program language is English.

The price is EUR 5,600 + VAT. More information at www.aaltoee.fi.

We

do not just offer jobs; at Yahoo! we promise a career,” says Human Resources Director Jessie Lim of Yahoo! South East Asia.

“Through our talent management process, we get to know who our talents are and can develop them for future leadership roles. The process offers our key talents good career development opportunities while ultimately engaging and retaining them in the company,” she notes.

Accelerating high-potential development. “In Yahoo!, we have a yearly talent review process where the leadership team assesses and reviews our key and high-potential talent based on their performance and capability potential, and discusses development opportunities for them. The objectives are to identify critical roles and build robust talent pipelines, differentiate the best talent for the future, and accelerate high potential development.

The outcome is a talent bench chart containing high-potential leader successors and emerging talent.”

Each talent will have an individual development plan detailing their accomplishments, leadership potential, strengths, development opportunities, career aspirations and their readiness for their next role. The plan can comprise development initiatives, such as an overseas learning program involving a stay of 4–8 weeks in another market, in-house or external training programs, career development workshops, special projects, and job enlargement initiatives.

High-potential programs. “High-energy talents are also singled out and assimilated into a high-potential program. It is called Leadership Excellence Academy Program (LEAP) for the highpotential leader successors, and Accelerated Development Program (ADP) for the emerging talent,” Lim explains.

The selected employees go through an intensive one-year program which exposes them to multiple facets of the business beyond their scope, and prepares them for future roles.

“The LEAP program integrates business knowledge with leadership skills, developing future leaders for the organization. It is organized by an external, reputable business management school – Aalto Executive Education Academy, the hub of Aalto University Execution Education in Singapore – and comprises interactive class sessions with professors, case analyses and discussions, simulations/role plays, assignments and exams, project work, and reading textbooks and articles. The key modules cover topics such as leading change, managing diversity through power and influence, developing strategic thinking, understanding business finance, managing innovation, and business simulation.

At the end of this course, participants are granted a Graduate Diploma in International Business.”

The 4-month ADP program is a scaled-down version of LEAP. At the end of it, the participants can progress on to the LEAP and complete it within two years.

“I would recommend our LEAP program also to other companies, as it helps them become stronger leaders.

While offering the participants good career development and growth opportunities, it also serves as a strong retention tool,” Lim suggests.

Managing and leading Yahoos.

“All newly hired and promoted leaders and managers undergo our Yahoo! leadership and management programs. One of them is Managing Yahoos, a three-day workshop that focuses on the leadership and management skills necessary to deliver Yahoo!’s Leadership Standards.

It teaches how to establish the team’s mission, vision and goals, how to think strategically and make effective decisions, how to interview and hire people, and how to coach low performers and motivate top performers.”

More experienced leaders can attend the two-day Leading Yahoos workshop, which focuses on building a leadership language and a culture of accountability. It also covers a shared view of the beliefs that drive the organization’s results today and in the future, and teaches how to practice generous listening, how to solicit focused feedback and how to use storytelling. ☞

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You own your own career. “Above and beyond all developmental efforts that we have instilled in this organization, we strongly stress the Yahoo! belief in ‘You Own Your Own Career @ Yahoo!’. Every Yahoo is encouraged to take ownership by articulating clearly what they envision their careers would look like in the span of the short to medium term. They identify the right opportunities to make the next step, and then do what is needed to make it happen. We encourage internal growth opportunities and constantly give priorities to our existing talent for internal job rotations and promotions,” Lim points out.

To help newly promoted employees and managers cope quickly with their new responsibilities, Yahoo! has a mentoring/ buddy program that assists them in jumping onto the fast track.

Lim herself has attended a fast track management development program while working for a previous employer, Hewlett-Packard Asia. The program was organized by HSE Executive Education (now Aalto University Executive Education).

Fortum’s big leadership journey. Finnish energy company, Fortum, has invested actively in human resources development during the last years. The company has focused on developing leadership skills in order to increase the transparency of its strategic goals, so that its 11,000 employees know what is expected of them and see the link between company strategy and themselves.

“We have embarked on a long leadership journey that will never end. We want to change our corporate culture by increasing openness and encouraging co-creation and collaboration.

We are striving to change our behavior by challenging each other positively, coaching each other informally in everyday situations, giving due recognition and feedback, and celebrating our progress together,” says senior vice president Mikael Frisk of Fortum corporate human resources.

“This leadership initiative, which involves more employee engagement in business planning projects and strategy work, has been a big challenge also for our management team, and I am pleased to discover that the results are already visible.

I keep hearing employees saying, ‘Hey, what has happened?

You are leading people differently than before.’”

Coping with transition and quick changes.

Fortum has an extensive on-boarding and induction program for newly appointed people. It involves meeting all new colleagues and getting acquainted with the current technologies.

“I believe in on-the-job learning and learning by doing,” Frisk says. “We must dare to put young leaders in charge of new and demanding tasks by challenging them positively and encouraging them. It is not a sink-or-swim situation, for a safety net is always provided, as well as training for new competencies, should it be needed.”

Choosing your immediate manager well is another way to cope with transition and quick changes, according to Frisk.

“You should not be blinded by a fancy brand or a big salary, but choose a job where your superior is able to let you develop your capabilities to the full.” •

16

On the road to the fut Sometimes an entire society is propelled on a fast track to the future. This was the case with Kosovo, which for decades was an autonomous province of Serbia in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Kosovo suffered from the strained relationship between its Serb and ethnic Albanian inhabitants, which later escalated into a full-blown war. From 1999 to 2008 Kosovo remained under United Nations administration, but on February 17, 2008 it unilaterally declared independence from Serbia.

Kosovo’s independence has been recognized by 89 countries but not by Serbia and Russia. “Their continuing refusal is just postponing our legitimization in the international arena. In a few years, we will get a seat in the United Nations,” claims Hedon Blakaj, who left Kosovo in 2006 to study for a degree in Finland. Today, he works as a researcher at Aalto University School of Economics, Marketing Department, acting as a DJ in his spare time.

Ibrahim Rugova, a veteran ethnic Albanian Kosovo leader, was the first president of Kosovo from 2002 to 2011.

ure

“His motto was that Kosovo should become an independent state, join the EU and Euro-Atlantic institutions and maintain strong and friendly relations with the USA. He was loyal to this formula until his death,” Blakaj says.

In terms of leadership, different circumstances often require a different type of leader. President Rugova’s consistent leadership was necessary in the period leading up to Kosovo’s

independence, but as times have changed, another type of political Kosovo leader has emerged.

Hashim Thaci, Kosovo’s current prime minister, served as prime minister also from 2007 until 2010. This former Kosovo Liberation Army leader has undergone a big transformation from a fiery left-wing guerrilla in the late 1990s to a mainstream political leader who has had to learn to compromise.

“The whole region is still politically fragile, and as stability is the primary concern in the eyes of the international community, sometimes our political leaders make decisions that in the long run prove to be strategically inadequate,” formulates Blakaj.

Atifete Jahjaga, Kosovo’s current president and the first woman to hold this post, was thrown into the precidency overnight. She is a senior police officer who was chosen as the interim compromise candidate until direct presidential elections could be held. Not many had heard of her previously, but now Foreign Policy magazine lists her as the 12th most powerful woman in the world.

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Take your time.

3 Featubare lanced Speed in a business.

Life moves fast and so does business. But are we really achieving our best if we always have our eye on the next deadline and never have time to stop and reflect?

Ilkka Halava, futurologist and business coach, and Dr Mika Pantzar, research professor and lecturer, have been looking at how working life is changing and how businesses sometimes need to allow us the time to take things at our own pace.

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B

ut work needs to do more than just become more enjoyable. It must also be flexible, and conform to people’s lives rather than demanding the traditional and outdated nine to five. More than that, further research must be done on people’s natural biological and social rhythms, to discover how work can take them into account.

Halava is clear that “the next quantum leap in productivity will definitely come from rhythm-economy thinking”. The concept of rhythm economy, explains Pantzar, “means that any economic actors must take into account the different rhythms

Mika Pantzar

in our society. We all know about 24-hour rhythms, but there are also hundreds of different biological rhythms, like those related to the strength of our muscles, for example. On top of that there are social rhythms dealing with how we interact with each other. These biological and social rhythms are related: for example, our biological rhythm of needing to eat is related to our social rhythms because it is beneficial to eat with other people.”

More and more companies are already offering some sort of flexitime, allowing employees to arrive, say, between eight and ten, and then leave eight hours later between four and six. This has many knock-on benefits too, staggering the rush hour and easing traffic congestion, for example. As long as the hours are done it is not a problem. But this should be taken further, says Pantzar. Businesses need to change their focus when it comes to judging the efficiency of their employees. “We must move from recording inputs to recording outputs. I have always been a bit surprised to see how much effort is put into measuring hours or some other kind of input, and how little our output is measured. If we are interested in efficiency we must reverse this, because intellectual work happens all the time – even when sleeping. Clever companies already say their employees can do sport at lunchtime or other times during the day, because at least with intellectual work your brain is working even when you are swimming or exercising, so there is no loss.”

N

ight owls catch worms too. It is certainly true that we all already know when we work at our best. “We all have different rhythms, and when we look at our family and friends we can easily tell who is a morning person and who is a night owl,” explains Halava.

“Early birds and night owls tend to work at certain hours simply because they are at their best and most productive at those times. But night owls have to follow the same working schedules as early birds anyway – the evening hours you work at home often aren’t seen as having value; you still have to wake up at 7 am and get to work at 8 along with ☞

Ilkka Halava

Text: Amanda Thurman, PHOTOS: SHUTTERSTOCK

ttitudes to work are changing. Whereas work used to have a fundamental role in people’s selfidentity, now, more often than not, your job is something you do rather than who you are.

At the same time, advances in technology have led to people taking their work home with them, answering emails late at night or over the weekend. These two factors have led to increasing dissatisfaction with the traditional nine-to-five day, with strict division of work and leisure.

Employees are now demanding the same flexibility from their employers as their employers demand of them, and the life element of work-life balance is now encroaching on the workplace. “Work often invades life, but, in the future, everyday life should be introduced to the world of work, too,” explains Pantzar.

“Motivating employees is different now; it’s more about lighting a spark.

This generation of workers needs challenges, freedom and the ability to manage themselves.”

“Work can, and must, learn a lot from play,” adds Halava. “The older generations tended to think that play was something contrary to work, but basically they are on the same side of the coin, with the opposite actually being inactivity.”

19

B

usinesses should in future tailor their incentives to individuals too, as Halava explains. “People are looking for a lot more flexibility, and it would make sense for businesses to look for more options in their incentive systems.

Some people are focusing on between now and next Christmas – maybe they have booked a trip to Thailand and are dreaming about it. Their incentive cycle is perhaps one year. And then you have those people whose perspective ends next Saturday, so they are mainly focusing on going out at the weekend.

The idea is that if you want to create motivation with your bonus system you must think about people’s own rhythms and understand that it makes sense to reward a good job with a couple of movie tickets for someone who focuses on the next weekend, 20

Slow and steady wins the race?

everyone else. Currently people are doing nine-to-five work and then extra hours on top of that, depending on their rhythm.

I think we are necessarily going in a direction where people will again work eight hours, but at an optimal time for them.”

Pantzar talks of ‘timestyles’, a concept that explains how everybody has their own ideal schedule and businesses will get more out of their employees if they adapt to that. “Some people would like to go late to work and others would like to have a nap in the afternoon. People are different in their use of time and how they react to different interruptions.

Some people are willing to work on different things simultaneously, others would be better working for a concentrated three hours, and some others prefer eight hours with many breaks.

These timestyles show us the individual optimal patterns people are willing to have.”

and for someone who thinks in the longer-term perhaps offer a five-year incentive period with a holiday as the reward for success.”

Companies that manage to achieve this flexibility and find the spark to motivate their employees on their own terms

will be rewarded with high levels of productivity. “The best workplaces ranked by the Great Place to Work® Institute perform three times better than the general market,” points out Halava.

“There’s more and more data on what it really means to have people who are on fire, who really enjoy their work. My only wish is that there would be more intelligent measures, more profound ways of measuring not just happiness, but also the way people like to think about their company, how they like to help it, how devoted they are, and how much enthusiasm they have to find something new in that environment. There is a lot more to measure but I think that we are now taking some steps in the right direction.”

“In countries like America and the UK, even governmental bodies are actively monitoring happiness,” adds Pantzar. “So it is important, but working life should be more about how much you can use your own potential.

Happiness is a very momentary state, while using your own potential, living with your own hopes and goals, is a slightly different thing. But these psychological variables are certainly becoming more and more important, and people who are happy and satisfied with their job also give more to their companies.”

E

ven for those of us whose employer does not yet provide the flexibility we need, there are things we can do ourselves to restore balance to our lives. “I’ve met a lot of managing directors who say ‘my door is always open’, and I have to ask ‘who, then, runs the company?’

Because if you keep your door open, the longest period you are not disturbed is probably about six minutes,” warns Halava. “It is good to have fixed days or mornings

when there are no emails or meetings,” agrees Pantzar.

“Working life is more efficient when we are not in contact all the time – separation is important, at least in intellectual work.”

Another suggestion is to look at the past in order to see where you can make improvements in the future. “It really makes sense to look at the last three months of your calendar every now and then, to see what really happened,” suggests Halava.

“What was the plan versus the reality? How much time did I actually have to focus? And then use that as a basis for discussion with your employer.” There are already some natural lulls in yearly work rhythms. “People seem to be able to stop the fuss every January and August when they come back from vacation,” he explains. “There is a little time to take things slower and many people find that very productive.”

It seems that companies that want to speed ahead of their competitors must first take care to build slower periods into their rhythms. In the story of the tortoise and the hare we learn that slow and steady wins the race. Businesses must now understand when to be a hare and when to be a tortoise, with every individual employee allowed to find their own pace. In future, it seems, the race for productivity will be run at different speeds. •

[A case of innovation] Wine is not a drink to rush. But although those in the winemaking business must take their time over their art, that measured pace must be balanced with the more immediate demands of capitalism and fast-changing consumer trends.

The Torres family have the balance right – they have been making wine for 140 years and have consistently managed to produce exactly what the consumer is after.

Slow process, quick thinking. Although the winemaking process itself may be slow, there is no time for slow thinking.

“We have been in the wine business for many years, but at the same time one of the values that we always try to encourage is that we want to be quick,” explains Torres. “We want to make quick decisions. We pass information between our workers quickly so that we can react. Every generation has actively competed for business, trying to make better wines and then selling them in a better way, not just waiting for the orders to come.”

Investing in quality. According to Torres, being a family business is definitely an advantage in the wine industry. “Wine takes a long time to produce,” he explains. “First you have to plant a vineyard, and then you have to ferment the wine and put it into oak barrels – and it takes a long, long time. Winemaking companies that are on the stock market usually base their decisions on short-term profitability. For wine I do not think that is such a good thing. Families can think more in the long term as they do not usually want to squeeze the company to get dividends, instead choosing to reinvest their profits.

For example, we reinvest between 95% and 100% of our profits every single year back into the company.”

“Being a family is also important for the wine itself,” Torres adds. “We take care of every production process, from harvest to final sales – something that a corporation can not always do so easily. To make high quality wines you have to look to the long term, and a family structure allows you to do that.”

Cultivating quality. For the last two years the winery’s growth has been around 33% – proof that while slow processes must be allowed the time they need, it is quick thinking and an emphasis on quality that brings success. “We have a philosophy that every year we have to make better wines than the previous year,” explains Torres. “We have seen over the years that in the wine business, if you make a fantastic product that really has its own history there is always a market for it. There are always people ready to try something different, something that has not been done before.”

Let’s raise a glass to that!

Miguel Torres Maczassek

ver 30 years ago, the Torres family expanded their operations to Chile, turning their passion for wine into some of Chile’s most important and innovative vineyards. The family brought innovation with them, turning a market which was not exporting its wines into the globally popular wine region we know today.

“We brought new technology to the winemaking process, like stainless steel tanks and new oak barrels,” explains Miguel Torres Maczassek, Executive President of Miguel Torres Chile.

“This allowed us to make better wines, a benefit that was then shared with the whole Chilean wine industry.” Around 75% of the 400,000 cases of wine currently produced by the winery is now exported, ready to be enjoyed in over 90 countries.

Tasting success. Innovation has always been part of the Torres family history. In 1979 in Spain, all the grape varieties being cultivated were Spanish, but the Torres family changed all that. “We decided to plant Cabernet Sauvignon in the Penedès in Catalonia,” recounts Torres. “The wine this produced – a Cabernet Sauvignon called Mas La Plana – has now become one of the most awarded Spanish wines, showing extremely well against top red wines from around the world.”

Another example of the family’s innovation comes from Chile.

“We have started to make a sparkling wine from a grape variety called Pais,” Torres says. “This variety was the first to arrive in Chile – some 500 years ago – and it was used to make bulk wine, so it had very low prestige. But we knew that by taking care of the vineyards in a different way we could make a very special sparkling wine with those grapes following the methods used in Champagne in France.” It was a success, and this year Santa Digna Estelado was named the best sparkling wine in the country by Descorchados 2012, one of Chile’s most important and best-known wine guides. The judges at the 9th Annual Wines of Chile Awards felt the same way, also naming it Chile’s best sparkling wine.

21

We are marinated in the culture of speed. Being

‘crazy busy’ is commonplace. You can even take a class in speed yoga. Or go to a drive-thru funeral.

Award-winning journalist and author Carl Honoré has taken to exploring our society’s compulsion to rush, and suggests we put on the brakes. His bestselling book, In Praise of Slowness, made him the godfather of the slow movement.

Yet it is not about doing things at a snail’s pace. At work there are deadlines to meet. But doing everything fast is counterproductive; it will burn you out and cause you to make mistakes. Pacing yourself will make you more efficient and produce higher quality results.

Honoré has simple starting points for those who hurry but wish to slow down: • Do less. Streamline your diary by listing things in order of importance and cut from the bottom.

Doing it all is just a recipe for hurrying it all.

• Unplug. Ring-fence moments in the week when you unplug your phone, internet, laptop.

• Build a slow ritual into your day. Reading, knitting, gardening – whatever makes you switch to a lower gear. It’s all about the art of changing gears.

You are here.

And about being disciplined.

Text: satu rämö

What is the speed you need?

Time is money, sometimes literally. We all try to make the most of our time and keep up the speed. Can we go any faster, or should we slow down? Read our tips for the speed you need for ultimate productivity.

Most of us cannot wait for the weekend. It is when you feel most stress-free and your body and mind relax.

Or so you would think.

Finnish research company Firstbeat Technologies conducted a well-being analysis of almost 10,000 Finnish workers. The study revealed that Saturday is the most stressful day of the week.

Optimum balance between stress and recovery is reached between Monday and Wednesday.

“It is crucial to let loose over the weekend; however, in some cases this may eat away at the worker’s resources rather than increase them,” says Joni Kettunen, the CEO of Firstbeat.

“It is alarming if there is no room for recovery in the week.”

To avoid stress building up for Saturday, remember to take breaks also during your work week and have regular meal times.

It is all about balance.

Pace yourself Balance your recovery time

A typical office worker is interrupted by a distraction such as email, IM or a phone call every three minutes. We live in an age of technology and information overload. Media multitasking is an increasingly ubiquitous phenomenon and a commonplace requirement in the workplace.

A recent Stanford University study ‘Cognitive control in media multitaskers’ shows that multitaskers are, in fact, paying a high mental price.

Heavy media multitaskers perform worse on a test of task-switching ability, likely due to a reduced ability to filter out interference from the irrelevant task set, the study shows.

Trying to media multitask might impair your cognitive control. If you are in a situation where you are bombarded with myriad sources of information, you may not be able to filter out the things that are irrelevant to your goal. Multitasking may keep you busy, but not always productively so.

How to avoid the Saturday stress?

The so-called Saturday stress is a sum of many things, says well-being expert Satu Tuominen from Firstbeat Technologies.

As weeks are paced by work, it leaves hobbies, household chores and parties for the weekend.

• Stress increases the need for sleep.

Sleep well – also during the week.

• Spend your spare time engaging in personally enjoyable activities rather than obligations. There is a difference between negative and positive stress.

• Remember that alcohol is also a physically contributing factor to Saturday stress.

Do less, accomplish more Reduce your Saturday stress

You can use Toolbox materials at work or when giving a presentation, link them to your blog or forward the entire Toolbox to your colleagues. The background ideas are available in a variety of web sources.

• Exercise is obviously good for you. But combining intensive exercise with an already hectic weekend may increase your stress levels.

Remember that learning new things uses more resources than routine work. Stress levels vary depending on the content of your work. If you feel you cannot get anything done, it is worth looking at the types of issues you have been dealing with in the past weeks; familiarizing yourself with a new idea demands more input.

As slides: www.slideshare.net In pdf format: www.scribd.com

The whole magazine: www.issuu.com

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You are here.

Check out

Increasing enjoyment, creativity and efficacy at work is the goal of Redesigning 925, a design project embedded in the World Design Capital Helsinki 2012.

This year-long project aims to discover many small ways to redesign and manage our usual ‘nine-to-five’ work weeks, developing solutions together with companies such as Fortum and UPM. In February this year, Redesigning 925 arranged The National Inbox Day in Finland.

People were invited to clean their inboxes with easy steps and report the number of deleted emails. Once email is under control you know how much work you have and you are back on track.

According to one study, 62% of adults are addicted to checking messages during meetings, after office hours and while on holiday. 50% of us will respond to an email immediately or within 60 minutes. A few years ago Hewlett Packard created a guide to avoid info-mania and enhance your productivity.

http://bit.ly/ avoidinfomania

• Set dedicated daily email time.

• When writing emails use subject headers that will help your audience prioritize responses by indicating actions.

• Invite only the relevant people to a meeting.

• Take yourself offline if necessary. This does not have to be for a lengthy time, but it can provide an opportunity to deal with a vital task.

Check out More ideas to redesign your work week: 925Project.com

Switch off!

It is important that you learn how to switch off from time to time...

Crazy Busy App. Psychiatrist Dr Hallowell has launched a ‘Crazy Busy App’ for the iPhone. It helps you find your rhythm, reduce wasted time and find solutions that work for you. www.drhallowellapps. com/crazybusy.htm Freedom App. Productivity application Freedom will help you ‘fight evil distractions’ so you can get your work done. It will disable your Internet connection for up to eight hours at a time.

For Mac and PC. macfreedom.com

The guide to ‘Info-Mania’ has been published by Hewlett-Packard in association with Dr Glenn Wilson, Reader in Personality at the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London.

Achieve more without a burn-out Avoid info-mania

The secret to getting things done is to make

them more automatic so they require less energy.

There is power in the routine. Dr Roy Baumeister and his colleagues at Florida State University have concluded that we each have one reservoir of discipline and will, which is gradually exhausted throughout the day by any act of conscious self-regulation.

We do things daily that require no self-discipline.

Making coffee, driving to work; complex routines, yet performed as if on autopilot. These routines are the secret to enhanced work Check out productivity. The more things you do by theenergyproject. routine, the more there is in your reservoir com/tips for demanding projects.

“Civilization advances by extending the number of operations we can perform without thinking about them,” says Tony Schwartz, CEO of The Energy Project, a company that aims to energize people and transform companies.

Reduce wasted time Get swept away by routines Recharge with a useful book

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, 2011.

This seminal book deals with human rationality and irrationality. It explores the capabilities, faults and biases of fast thinking and uncovers the influence of intuitive impressions on our thoughts and behaviour. the shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr, 2010. The book argues that every information technology carries an intellectual ethic. Carr offers insights that may change the way we think about media and our minds.

CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked, and About to Snap! Strategies for Handling Your Fast-Paced Life by Edward Hallowell, 2007. Do you often feel ‘crazy busy’? Through quick exercises and focused advice on issues from lifestyle to time management, Dr Hallowell offers a step-by-step guide through the process of unsnarling our frantic lives.

25

Follow Aalto EE

more updated information www.aaltoee.fi, www.aaltoee.sg

With roots in Finland and operations throughout Asia, Aalto University Executive Education has now set its sights westward with a new office opening in Sweden in May. Wi “We are striving to become a bridge between East and West in the executive education market. Our aim is to be the preferred partner for those Scandinavian companies who look to Asia as their strategic market for growth,” says Dr Pekka Mattila, Group Managing Director and Associate Dean of Aalto EE. Sweden, as the leading Nordic economy, faces new challenges in the midst of the global turmoil. “It is imperative that go-to market strategies be successful, and no one, especially in manufacturing, can afford to lag behind. A crucial factor is how skillfully the companies can develop truly shared global leadership cultures and practices. I think that our experience is seminal for those Nordic companies who pursue truly global excellence,” Dr Mattila elaborates.

Theresia M. Andersson, Country Manager of Aalto University Executive Education Sweden, agrees. “This is the solution for all companies who truly want to adapt to the speed and agility that today’s business world requires.

It is the combination of Aalto EE’s cross-disciplinary focus, immense international network of professors and long tradition of close cooperation with the business world as well as an education format that is internationally acknowledged for its top-quality that guarantees participants concrete business benefits.”

update

update

Aalto EE jumps to Sweden

Aalto Executive MBA International Week – Designing Superior Organizations The Aalto Executive MBA International Week (iWeek) brings together Aalto EMBA participants from different locations – Helsinki, Seoul, Singapore, Taiwan, and Poznan. This year iWeek will be held in Helsinki, August 20 – 25.

During the iWeek, Aalto Executive MBA participants will complete two elective modules for their EMBA award. The participants will also have a unique opportunity to meet business leaders, visit the Aalto University School of Economics, enjoy the city at its best and network with EMBA peers and alumni participants.

The International Week has a strong emphasis on teaming and interaction. The week consists of two 3-day modules, each starting with a day of teaming workshops or seminars. The iWeek participants have three modules to choose from: Innovative Corporate Responsibility with Professor Minna Halme from the Aalto University School of Economics, Strategies for Mergers and Acquisitions with Professor Tomi Laamanen from the University of St. Gallen, and Project Management with Dr R. Britt Freund from the University of Texas at Austin.

The second half of the iWeek brings together all the International Week participants for a CEO Day and insightful sessions to discuss customer-centric business models. The CEO Day is Thursday with prominent guest speakers from Finnish companies and organizations. Friday and Saturday will concentrate on the topic Driving growth through customer centric business models with Professor Kaj Storbacka from the University of Auckland Business School.

Aalto EE improves its standing among the top global customized programs The Financial Times published its Executive Education Ranking 2012 in May, 2012, giving customized programs provided by Aalto University Executive Education (Aalto EE) excellent results. Under overseas programs Aalto EE was ranked 7th globally.

There are approximately 4,000 executive 26

education and MBA programs worldwide.

Aalto EE ranked 44th globally in the Financial Times Executive Education overall ranking in 2012. Among European top business schools Aalto EE ranked 20th.

The Financial Times Executive Education Ranking is published every spring. Open enrollment and customized

program providers are ranked separately.

In the open enrollment listing Aalto EE was especially noted for new skills and learning as well as program preparation.

In addition to overseas programs, the strength of the customized programs lay in value for money, gaining new skills and knowledge, and aims achieved.

HiSTORY LESSON

“Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797)

Fast flight fallacies Edmund Burke’s famous observation could also apply to man’s age-old desire for speed and a yearning to fly. Humans have laboured long and hard to go ever faster. We ask here if speed itself is a worthy pursuit.

Text: Joe White

We are evolved to go not much faster than about 20 km an hour when chased by a sabre-toothed beast, even though early man could run down his prey until it dropped, due to humans’ unique ability to sweat.

He could not outrun his prey, but he could run it down.

Yet, lurking in the hearts of humans is a strong and unquenched desire to be as fast and fleet as the cheetah and soar like an eagle. Our bodies were not built for such speed and we cannot fly, yet we still try to go faster, farther, and higher. Athletes make torturous demands on their bodies and will again this summer in London do their best to outrun and outshine their fellow athletes in races short and long.

Yet even with crippling training schedules and the use of performance enhancing drugs, we feel we are still too slow. Man enlisted other animals to piggyback him across the steppes as he himself was too slow. Still not fast enough. Man’s obsession with speed has led to the development of ever-faster machines, even if people died in the quest for greater speed.

It was not until the early 19th century that man-made machines could outrun a human sprinter, yet they overtook us swiftly and decisively – belching, hissing, terrifying, magnificent monsters that transformed the world. Steamships superseded sailing vessels, and by 1894 a tiny craft called the Turbinia shot through the British fleet at an astonishing 34 knots (about 63 km/h). By 1904, a steam car held the world speed record of 205 km/h. Not enough though. Man developed the petrol engine to go even faster, and then came the aeroplane. Speed and the soaring of an eagle in one design.

jet motors that were suddenly capable of what had been unthinkable – shattering the sound barrier. The supersonic plane was a military development, but then it was adapted for public service with a fleet of commercial SSTs. Enter the Concorde, a plane with the sleekness of a bird, the world’s first supersonic passenger plane. Opinions on the Concorde were split, and I will not revive old debates here, but Francis Cholle in his book Intuitive Compass points to a few reasons why the SST was not the success it should have been, begging the question what the speed bug is all about and whether it is worth it.

A popular BBC TV car show raised similar questions when it reviewed a zippy little sports car that most healthy young alpha Romeos aspire to possess. It is fast by family sedan standards, but! Ready steady go! In you jump – well, squeeze – only to find the pedals so close you need narrower shoes. Unbuckle the four-point safety belt, shimmy yourself out, change shoes, squeeze back in, and buckle up only to discover your keys are wedged into your jeans by the cramped cockpit and that belt. Repeat the process, reach for the keys, start the engine and – oh, race over. In fairness they reckoned it was a great, fun car, but you get the point.

Speed and sleek design trump practical.

Keys are one thing, basing a flight concept on similarly flawed principles is quite another. Cholle’s point that speed alone does not necessarily get you there faster, more comfortably, or more productively is not a new idea, but he states it well. The Concorde saved time over the Atlantic, but what about at each end?

A faster way of doing something is not necessarily the best way to do it, though speed remains a constant goal. Plans are still afoot to build an even faster Concorde! www.topgear.com

The demands of war spurred the development of flight with new kinds of

Do you prefer speed or practicality?

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Triple crown.

Now also in Sweden.

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