How to survive in big companies

My time with Nokia and Accenture is now over. I recently moved to a much smaller company called Contribyte. I've never been a career driven person as such, but I've still had the luxury to get in to some really interesting projects in my time with Nokia. What I mean, is that I've never made big plans about my career and I don't work to have career, but I actually work to enjoy work and have a decent income for my family. Still I've always got to better positions and bigger projects all the time. Based on what has worked for me, I wanted to share couple of thoughts and tips on how to survive in big companies.

First tip: You can't win all the fights

In big companies there's always bureacracy and processes, that you don't like or see the sense. Many of those will cause you some extra work and also are annoying. Don't waste your time trying to fix all of those. It's easier to agree with some of the processes which are not important for you and go with flow. Then on the other hand, fight the fights that are important for you. When you notice something that is really causing more harm than benefit, make noise about it. Try to understand for what purpose the process is there for the first place, and then try to invent better ways to fulfill the original need.

Second tip: Be consistent

In big companies, there are lots of busy people. Some of them are really busy, some of them are just busy being important. What's common for these people is that they don't truely listen. You can introduce important information or issue to them, but they ignore it, due to they are not really listening in the reception mode. They are just listening, because that's what people are supposed to do. So be consistent and even stubborn. Be sure that information or issue that is important in your opinion, gets truely understood by the ones, that need to understand it. If they then ignore the issue, that might be fine, but then at least they are aware and understand the issue.

And for some issues, you might want to raise noise with many channels. If you feel that issue is understood by those in responsible of it and still they don't act on it, you should raise the issue in other channels. One way is to go to their bosses, but that's a longer and harder way. Easier way is to use social channels of your company. Most of companies seem to have intra with blogs, discussion areas or some other social channels. Test your thinking there to see if others agree on the importance or not. If they do, then you have tools to raise it again or let others to do it.

If your issue or information don't make a change in the company, be a good loser. You are not in charge of the company, and you will not get all of your thoughts trough. Lift your head up and continue with next subjects.

Third tip: Learn the tools

This might be one of the most important things to loosen your stress at the office. Also this is the thing that is most complained at the office. The fact is, that some of the tools always suck. They just don't seem feasible for some tasks or are inconvienable to work with. The best thing you do, is to learn to use those. All the tools are easy to learn and those will actually have some features that make sense.

Learning to use company tools will make your days easier. It will also make you the person, who knows how to use tools and can help others on those. It's a win in the long run. So don't whine and fight against the tools, but just learn those.

Tip four: Be transparent

In big companies it's better to communicate to too many, than to too few. This will increase the email waste, but it will keep people happy. Those guys who complain that they are getting too much email, often love to get the email. They want to be aware and kept in loop. It's better to include even the guys who you know that might not be supporting your ideas quite early. That way they don't have the luxury at the end to start arguying that they wasn't aware of this. All the information will get to them at some point, so it's better to include them early than trying to hide information from them.
  
Tip five: Understanding is the key

This is not really related to big companies only, but it's more generic working guideline. Never work for items you don't understand. If you don't understand why you are doing something, seek for understanding as long as you do. That's the only way to get job properly done.

Be also willing to share understanding to all whom might ask and all you think would benefit from the information. This will help you to understand even more and it will make sure that they will share important information with you on the next time.

Tip six: Make friends

I have to say I hate networking on it's worse. Random people are gathering names and cards of random people. That's not real networking. What I mean is really making friends. Using few extra minutes with people will make a difference in the long run. Really listening and discussing with people will pay off. But you must be real. Everyone can detect a fake person, just networking with you, but you must really care about who the other is and what is her interests. That doesn't require lot's of time, but it requires you to care. Friends will help in big companies a lot, if you are planning to stay any longer.

Tip seven: Concentrate

In big companies you can get asked to do lots of work which are really not that important. Learn to detect what really makes a difference, which really are the tasks that needs to be done properly. Then the rest you can leave undone. I know, that in reality there are tasks you don't think are important, but you must for some political reason do. So learn to do those in ease, a bit lighter way than the really important tasks.

In big companies there are people who look like really busy all the time. They complain about the lack of time all the time. Quite often they just lack the skill to concentrate to the important. Hours won't increase in the day and long working hours are not really increasing productivity. Best thing is to really learn to concentrate on the essentials.

Tip eight: Learn to live with noise  

What ever companies do with their communication solutions, one thing won't change; there will be more and more information flying around available for every person to catch. There will always be multiple communication channels in use. Even some companies are thinking on solutions to the noise, the only real way is to learn to live with it. There will be always more information available and pushed for you than what you can handle. You need to learn to pick the right pieces of information from the huge flow of information. It's not easy, but tools and practices will help you there. Try different things out to find what is the most suitable for you.

Tip nine: Be yourself

This again it's not only for big companies, but it's still a valuable lesson. You can't change yourself due to work mates or processes. You need to learn your way to be yourself with your own priorities and working habits in your working environment. That's the only way to be truely happy at work. And you must be truely happy at work, because that's such a big part of your life.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

You'll never know what good things make good things happen

Good things happen to good people. This is the mantra I've believed my whole life. If you do good things, world will pay you back and good things will happen to you.

There's one catch. You will never know who are the people that will actually affect your life later on. Most of the times you end up with nothing else than a good feeling yourself when helping someone else. Time to time, life surprise you and you get a response you would have never imagined to get and often it's from a person you would have never guessed.
Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Forbidding email is not a solution*

There's been news flying around that some companies are abandoning email. Atos Origin for example is going so far that they are forbidding email totally according to Computer world. I've seen many similar news from other sources also, claiming that big bunch of emails are waste. I have to say I second that, majority of emails are waste. There's no question about that. What's worrying me, is the proposed solution to that problem.

In organizations, there's natural demand to communicate clearly to large groups. Often the sender of the message can't be sure whom all would benefit from the information in the message. This causes, that many of the emails have receivers who are not interested about the subject. This then starts to cumulate, when people in the mail chain start to answer and will not drop anyone out from the mail chain, due to they are not sure why the people was there in the first place. From both of these, there comes the waste.

Solution for the waste problem doesn't go away with new tools like social networks, intranet feeds, wiki's and instant messaging chats although the problem does change a bit with these tools. With these people need to themselves tune in to the forums they think are relevant for them. This will cause at the end that people are tuning in to all news sources they think might be relevant for them. This then will cause the same information overflow as with email quite soon. And at the end it might be, that people will use even more time with these new tools than used with traditional email for example.

Don't get me wrong, these new tools, IM, Social Networks, Wiki's and whatever are really essential for any company to communicate better. These just will never replace email. There is a need and place for all of these. Problem isn't in any of the tools, but with the people using those. With short and effective trainings, people would learn to use right tools for right communication. There are always subjects that go best with email or social networks and subjects that require more rapid feedback either face to face or with IM.

Also there's the second thing. Tools rarely work when forced. Tools which are irrelevant will die away when there are better ones available. Tools that add value, will find the way to be used. For example forbidding the use of email, will make people angry and frustrated. Offering better tools for communication and letting people to find the benefits themselves, will cut some of the email communication automatically.

The real problem with communication, isn't in any of the tools. Noise is the real problem, not email or any other tool. Learning to cope with noise is a skill that should be taught and learned in all organizations. It's a new skill in a history of mankind, but it's a really important skill for the knowledge workers of today. And noise isn't going away anytime soon, but it will keep increasing, because sharing information is getting easier all the time.

Solution to noise is always changing the behavior of the people, not changing the tools. Offering new tools and ways to use old tools can help with noise, but only if person understands and agrees that noise exists. In modern organizations everyone should learn to cope with noise and at some point also to reduce the noise they are making. And at the end, even noise isn't the real problem, it's the lack of skill to cope with it.

* Title was changed from "Don't blame email for the noise" to the current 1.12.2011

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Book Review: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield was a book I really looked forward to read. It had been mentioned as reference in so many different books and so many interesting people, that I just had to read it. Even with high expectations, but no real glue of the style of the book, it surprised me how wonderful it was.

The book is about making things happen. How one can truly follow it's calling and actually make things happen. It's a perfect guide for everyone to start creating the things you want to and stop making excuses why you couldn't be doing these things. It talks a lot about writing, but the learning's can be reused for anything one wants to do.

Most important part of the book is the explanation what is resistance. Resistance is the force is in us, that prevents us doing things. It's the rationalization, fear and everything else in one package telling us reasons, why we shouldn't do somethings. Everyone finds it in themselves. If they don't, then they have lost the game totally to resistance.

Book does tell also about turning in to a pro and fighting the resistance. Still the important part relies in acknowledging the resistance. When you learn to know it's there, you can fight it. If you don't learn to recognize it, you don't have the change to beat it. Such a powerful and cunning it is.

I loved most of the contents of the book, and in addition I loved the way the whole thing was presented. Chapters were really enjoyable and short enough with excellent stories in those. It really was fun to read. Couple of times, it really struck me with such a good insights, that I got surprised and even offended before I realized truth in those. It was a true self learning journey for me.

As a foreign English speaker, the text was bit difficult sometimes. I've been reading lot's of business/science books lately and those use easier language most of the time. I can notice that Steven Pressfield is a novelist in his heart and he uses more variety in words than regular business writers do. That made the book even more interesting to read, but it also did it bit harder for non native English speaker to read.

Book is a true masterpiece. I loved and hated the book at the same time. It revealed to me so much of myself, that I got amazed. When you want to achieve something, get this book to you hand and read it. It's worth every page.
Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Social media has ruined headings

Many websites title their texts with headings that don't tell exactly what the text is about. Those use headings with falsely sets the expectation about the article, but then at the end article isn't really living it's promise.

I blame social media for this. Some websites think they can drive traffic to their site, with interesting headings. Then they post the title to all the different medias and hope for people to catch the link and come to their site. Headings role has changed from telling about the text to being the sales guys of the text. Heading is the one time shot to get person to be interested on the text.

I really hate this. I check tens of texts a day because of a title shared in social media. Too many of those are disappointments due false headings. Headings and the text don't match at the end.

I already have a list of sites I never go since they always exaggerate with their heading and don't really tell anything valuable with their texts. They just make headings out of speculations or copy news from others. Or then they do the worst tell old news with new headings.

Fake article with striking header

Too often there's headings like: "Google's social site is doomed. Will be closed in few weeks!", and then the news is about ending Google Buzz, which no one cares about anymore. So they are not totally lying, they are just setting totally different expectations towards the text.

This tactic might work for a while, but hopefully people will start to realize, that these companies are always playing tricks on us. Setting expectations higher than delivering, is never really a good tactic. I believe that delivery (here meaning quality of the content) is the key to success. Even sites are getting faster growth rates with sensational or striking headings, it still might turn out to be more valuable to make truthful headings about the content in the long run.

I would imagine, that in some companies there are discussions ongoing, that we should concentrate on the texts and contents, not just driving the traffic to our site. Traffic is important and valuable, but traffic with high bounce rate and unsatisfied customers will hit websites to their own ankle in the long run. I would hope that there comes a time, when deception is not a good strategy. With a world of quarterly business plans and short term bonuses, deception is a really good strategy to meet the targets. It's just not good for us the customers.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen