NORMAL LIFE: Finnish Management: Is It Me Or Is It Them?

In the UK, the hierarchy in the workplace still very much exists. The boss is there to tell you what's going to happen and not the other way around. In Finland, there's more flexibility in how things get done and there's more negotiation as to the timing. This was very much the case until our new boss started on January 1st. Our new boss actually made a very bad impression on me already last September when, for the sake of meeting some important colleagues, he was invited to an annual event in the US.

We met our boss for the first time and I, the only non-Finn in the Helsinki team, just didn't get on with him. On the return home, for example, I was waiting at the Gate to the aircraft reading one of the many supplements of USA Today. Without even asking, he took the remaining supplements from my lap and didn't even return them. Is that just rude, or am I overreacting?

It's now the end of March and, while he has for sure introduced some good processes which will help us to get organised and make sense of all the industry chaos, as people we just can't get on. Two things anger me about the Finnish work ethic:-

1. Finns believe that coffee breaks are a god-given right. There's nothing wrong with having a coffee break, but when people get comfy on the sofas for an hour and I'm forced to listen to their phone ringing because none of their fellow colleagues will pick up your extension, my own productivity is affected.
2. Decision-making takes forever. Each and every issue must be discussed in detail and, quite often, you leave a meeting and realise that the matter that was discussed hasn't been resolved because no decision was made; this is where the negotative style conflicts with the hierarchical approach.

I'll give you an example of the latter. A month ago, I had a meeting with my team. We had received a request for some support at an upcoming exhibition in Brussels. The team requesting the support should have sufficient manpower of their own so, naturally, we questioned their rationale for asking us to participate. Nobody responded. A month passed and a fellow colleague - one of the members of the team who had requested the support - called me to ask if we would be supporting their team at the exhibition. I was embarrassed that we, as a team, hadn't decided nor communicated our say in the matter. I emailed my boss, who was away on business about it and awaited his response.

The first thing he said to me this Monday morning was that I would be going to Brussels. I was speechless because, out of the team, I was the least experienced. Unashamedly, I pointed this out (it's his own fault because he has refused to approved my requests for training), claiming that it wouldn't be good to be at the exhibition and, when asked by customers about such and such, that I wouldn't be in a position to answer. He thought I wanted to go, because I had written the email to him. I explained that getting our boss to make the decision about whether or not we would support our other team was the courteous thing to do and that, ultimately, I didn't care who went to Brussels. I was amazed at how he had misunderstood me for he is oh-so-proud of the fact that he has worked in various countries throughout Europe.

Our meeting actually escalated into an argument of sorts. My boss suggested I organise some customer visits and meetings. I explained that, due to contractual issues, I'm not allowed to talk to my customers and, due to the short notice (five working days), arranging a meeting or customer visit was out of the question. Still, no go! My boss was insistent that his way was the only way and, rather suddenly, he said: "I'm not even sure if you want this job anymore!" His comment echoed something that a boss had said in my last job. Instantly, I realised that Finnish managers just cannot handle objectivity nor rationality. Immediately, the question that had plagued me all along was answered: it isn't me, it is them! Rather cooly, I responded: "If I didn't want this job, I wouldn't even get out of bed to come to it!"

When I left his office, I was reeling from the argument, amazed at how unwilling he was to listen to my rationale. When I had calmed down, I realised that I was actually fighting against a Finn who:

a) had never had a job in Finland before yet had;
b) somehow learnt how to rule like a British boss tends to do in the hierarchical structure.

I went home on Monday night and discussed this with Bree. As a manager, himself, he could see my boss' perspective, but he said he would have made the decision earlier to allow for myself to planning adequately. I pondered upon this episode all night, unerved by the similarities between this and my previous boss. I simply told myself, if I didn't want to face a repeat of what happened in my last job, that I should just imagine that my boss was British and that I should assume/act the role of subordinate in the workplace.

Given my boss' international work experience and the fact that he dated an English girl for a while, I'm amazed that he had misunderstood me so easily; so much so that I have read the email I had sent him more than a hundred times and I just don't get how he had got the impression I wanted to go to Brussels. If anything, this proved that you can take the Finn out of the country, but you can't take the Finn (known for bad management) out of the person.