I read the book about the impossible success

Today we can read in the magazines and newspapers that Nokia's headquarters will be microsofted. I feel sad as many Finns feel even if they say that Nokia will head for new futures. Nokia was a part of our national pride and even if there were many failures and the pride even got in the way of being sensitive to new innovations, Nokia was important for us and maybe still will be.

I just finished reading Jorma Ollila's story about the impossible success and I did it as a person who  lived in a Nokia family for 23 years (1987-2010). I must say, that for me the book was a therapeutic journey that materialized what happened in my home during a period of time where the important thing at Nokia was to accomplish, execute and show results, something Jorma Ollila was really demanding of himself and the employees. I even remember how I felt when I found a book on our bedroom table that talked about execution (The discipline of getting things done). The book seemed hostile to me with a language like that, but at the same time I understood the point. Anyway all the organizational changes were explained in the book, how people were chosen for different positions, who was rewarded and how the language of Nokia became a language of those working there, leaving out others. It was not easy to understand all the achronyms and words as infrastructure, backbone services, platforms, escalating transitions etc. The Nokia language was for a closed community.

In the year 2010 in the spring time I had a meeting with an application guru at Nokia and as I was waiting for my colleagues to come I had time to look at those who came to work. I wonder if you could already see that the Nokia stereotype had taken over and bureacracy ruled? I saw people walk through a tube or transparent corridor from the parking space at the same pace, in clothes of same nuances (black and beige), same hairdo. There was nothing of that entrepreneurial spirit that built up the incredible growth in the nineties. Well, if you can see entrepreneurial spirit of the way people behave and are dressed of course...

Anyway, Nokia mobile phones are gone but they gave birth to several good innovations and I hope that these innovations will create an atmosphere that will give birth to nice innovations for our ageing society. And at the same time I hope that we can see more women as innovators as well as leaders. In the Nokia dream team there were too few. Maybe that is the reason why the innovativeness and spirit of doing things died out?

Marie-C.

Ps. I really would like to thank J Ollila for his book :-)