In times of turbulence, it’s worth paying attention to things that are good or can be improved rather than dwelling on negative news. The Finnish Happiness or contentedness as Melanie Dower explains, is about feeling seen, heard and valued. Melanie had a presentation in our Culture workshop and here are some learnings about happiness that I’ve found beneficial.
Teams working for better CX and business benefits
I’m fortunate to be working with four software development teams every day. They operate in the area of digital identity, either building solutions for customer authentication as Elisa ID and Mobile ID or for better customer experience as ECC (Elisa Capabilities for Common Identity and Experience) and EDS (Elisa Design and Development System). The teams are agile, independent, responsible for their services and work end-to-end.
Even though the teams can build solutions from idea to production, there are a lot of dependencies for other services and teams in most business cases. We can’t make good results unless we have people contributing to our work and vice versa. There are technical dependencies, like the large number of online services, CRM systems, devices in stores etc. as well as business and customer experience dependencies with multiple teams working towards the same goal of serving our customers better. In a company of 6000+ people operating worldwide, there are plenty of people to know.
All the teams are for both B2B and B2C. Efficiency comes with knowing the right people, technical solutions, and operating models across the company and domain knowledge outside the company. Sharing learning is crucial to keep that happening. Efficiency and getting things done generate happiness.
Speed of learning
All of these teams are relatively new, most of the team members have been recruited by me in the last couple of years. That’s why sharing the learnings we have gathered from the company, business and tech is very important. We need to be courageously asking when bumping into problems. All the teams have their messaging channels for quick sharing which are used all the time. We also have bigger joint channels, but sometimes people are shy there. As we know, trust builds the best in groups of max. 8-10 people. Specific channels and other common tools for sharing epics and tasks help a lot, as well as pair-coding and the old-fashioned way of just asking from the next table.
Spending time together regularly in the same place is the most efficient way to share learning. Of course, you can have good demos and retros remotely, but I have felt happy when different teams have suggested more live-only events. Learning and shaping ways of working happen much easier when you can look the other person in the eyes and see if they think the idea is worth experimenting with.
Culture workshop for Finnish Happiness
I’ve written about Culture workshops for Happiness before and the benefits that last many weeks after the workshop. We have been doing Culture workshops with Sami Kallinen in different companies for over a decade, and I’ve seen the benefits for both individuals and businesses. This time we had a wonderful opportunity to look at happiness through the lenses of Melanie Dower, a Mobility lead at Supercell and a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach. Melanie has wide experience with different cultures, originally from New Zealand, and has lived in Finland for a decade. Last year, she published a book The Finnish Guide to Happiness.
Before the Culture workshop, there was a pre-assignment about personal happiness hacks and a wish to nominate a song that made the participants instantly happy. So when Melanie started our Culture workshop people were already in the mood of what would happen. Melanie deep-dived into what unhappiness is, how happiness is a fleeting emotion, and what contentedness, values and goals mean. Typical things Finnish people associate with happiness many of us can understand, for example, time outside in nature, silence and solitude, and authentic communication.
Most of our people are software developers so Melanie’s explanations about what makes people at Supercell happy were easy to relate to. Common goals, freedom to choose how you get there and teams having different ways of doing things. Some things were not that close to us, like an in-house therapist and spouse support, but that comes with the competitive gaming industry, you need to have a bit of extra. What can be achieved are social experiences, hangouts and workshops, and I was delighted to hear about the importance of these activities.
Melanie gave us a lot to think about: what makes us happy, and what are the things we would not change. The most beautiful thing for me was that people came back to me afterwards talking about Melanie’s thoughts. Most mentioned was the concept of changing your perspective on your situation. One example was the way of thinking that one isn’t willing to receive help because they would feel it’s a sign of weakness. That could be looked at from another perspective where the offering of help is a sign of appreciation and should be received as such. You need to see yourself as valuable and that will spread hopefully. Changing your perspective comes in handy also when dealing with difficult things or people: “I get to take my child to the dentist”, instead of “I have to take my child to the dentist”. Melanie encouraged us to reward kindness and the ability to see the other perspective.
We continued the Culture workshop in smaller groups after Melanie’s presentation. Many of her ideas followed there and were transformed into concrete actions for better ways of working. In the Culture workshop, we also had some fun like always, we played the songs people had sent before and revealed who had guessed right whose song was what. We also had a pub quiz and an open bar.
I gave an individual candy bag to all participants. It usually takes a couple of evenings for me to think and shop for the candies since the name of the candy bag has to say something about the receiver and the things they have done. I want to say something meaningful to the person, and it gives me a lot of joy to think each and every one of our team members in advance and what they have been doing recently.
The best part for me in the Culture workshop is spending time together and the good things that follow. Last week, a month after the workshop, I had a 1on1 with one team member. He mentioned Melanie’s presentation and what he had been thinking afterwards about the changing perspective and how he had benefited from the idea. That’s the whole point of spending time thinking about happiness, small changes that can have an effect for weeks after.
Kindness and geekiness
Last week I also met 40 people from Deutsche Telekom visiting Elisa and had the pleasure to talk briefly about innovative management and experimentation culture. Rapid prototyping, fast learning loops and customer feedback build the foundation. With the exchange of ideas with our guests, I found myself returning to the root of happiness which is the wonderful people I’m able to work with. Most importantly I haven’t made compromises in two things when recruiting people: kindness and geekiness. With the right people, you can create magic.
One of the participants asked me: are the software developers in Finland normally kind? I was happy to answer yes. Of course, there are selfish people in all groups, but the majority of the hundreds of developers I have worked with are kind and humble. He replied that it must be a Finnish thing then. Maybe so, although I’ve worked with kind developers from all over the world. Originally Laura Snellmann-Junna talked about kindness and geekiness in our Culture workshop for Happiness a year ago, so that presentation had a long impact. In happiness long-lasting effects and benefits are what you are seeking, and they apply both to business and people.
Thanks for reading, let’s continue as DM on Linkedin if you have some thoughts to ponder.
Melanie Dower, The Finnish Guide to Happiness, 2024. The book can be bought from Audible.
Thank you, Reaktor, Peik Aschan and Lari Salonen for having us at your beautiful office.
Thank you 8-bit-sheep, Sami Kallinen and Leevi Kokko again for greatness. Photo by Reetta Eskola.
Small experiments and inspiration 