#33 - Agile implementer

One may consider cross country skiing as a way to travel and therefore worth of mentioning in this blog. Some decades ago Finns used to ski daily to school and work, but not anymore. The interest of the people has changed or the people have got lazy. Talent is temporal, so remember to keep up your competences.

I used to ski a bit when I was young, even in some competitions. Ten years after I had finished my active skiing career, I decided to refresh my memory once more. I enrolled in Pirkka ski race from Kankaanpää to Tampere (check the route from http://www.pirkankierros.fi/hiihtokar.htm). 90 km is a fairly long distance and I had practised almost double that much during the whole winter. It should be fine, I thought. I also believed that muscles have good memory, so it will be actually a piece of cake. Let me explain how it eventually went.

As a skilled professional, I made a clear strategy and tactics for the race, i.e. Finish the race – no need to hurry. Good plan, half done. The rest is just implementation.

I found my 10 years old skis and waxed those the previous evening. My wife, who promised to be my custodian, drove me early in the morning to the starting point. The area was very crowded, so I made first change to my tactics; Instead of going to my real starting position at the end of the queue, I chose one of the first rows among the top skiers.

The first ten kilometres felt perfect and I had good speed. The muscles really seemed to remember my exercises back in the history, so it was time to change to the third tactics. I was hungry for a big challenge and set myself a target time for the race.

Everything went perfect the first 20 kilometers until the first long downhill started. I could not anymore keep the speed to follow my peer competitors in the queue. Even if I made a lot of work, plenty of skiers bypassed me in the downhills due to their better skies. I just had to accept that and do my best. Just before midpoint I felt really tired and it was difficult to climb even a tiny uphill. Midpoint service point was approaching, so it was time to change to my forth tactics, i.e. eat so much food at the service point that it covers the participation fee. 

After eating and resting for couple of minutes, I continued the journey. However, it was not so easy because the muscles in my legs started to have cramps even in small uphill. It was time to take the original tactics into use again. 

After few kilometres when the route crossed the highway, I suddenly saw our car bypassing me. It was time to take into use the fifth tactics; i.e. stop the car, quit the race and take an easy ride back to home. I was waving to my wife, but she waved back and continued driving. 

Easy ride to home was not an option anymore. After thinking a while I decided to continue the race with sixth tactics which combined the original and the fourth tactics, i.e. no need to hurry and eat as much as you can to recover the participation fee. 

The journey continued slowly and painfully. Suddenly after 80 kilometers I felt energized and was not suffering the cramps anymore, so I took into use my seventh tactics; i.e. finish the race as soon as possible.

I was tired, but very happy after the 90 kilometres. My finishing time was 6.23:50. It felt so good to relax peacefully the rest of the day. What a journey! Never again. However, at the moment of writing, I am re-considering that decision.

Lessons learned:

Be well prepared.

Retain your agility - be ready to change according to situation.

Talent is temporal – it is only your responsibility to keep up your competences.

Sneaker Traveller in Pirkan hiihto ski race

#32 - A usual day in China

The Great Wall

Beijing by night - The dark area probably has a ready made sky scraper already.

We all know that China is a great country. For example the Forbidden city and The great wall – interesting historical places to visit, but also huge national achievements. If you think that everything is big in the USA, everything is even bigger in China. Once they decide to implement a change, they will do it big way.

The difference between the rich and poor people is huge. One example of the Chinese luxury is the Shunjing spa in Beijing, the biggest in the world according to Guiness World Record. The complex was so big that it was difficult to see the wood from the trees. My friends told me about a pool where you can swim together with fishes and enjoy the small fishes biting your skin. I wanted to visit that pool, but never found it among the 90+ other pools. It is easy to get lost in such a spa area. In Finland we are used to enjoy luxury of a spa where you have three pools; one for adults, one for children, and maybe an additional hot water pool. Imagine if you multiply all that by 30 and increase the temperature of all the pools by ten degrees. That is the Chinese way and it keeps the world economy growing.

Peak into luxury -
Tiny and modest entrance of the Shunjing spa hotel, the biggest spa in the world.

Protection on to wall

The other side of the coin is the majority of Chinese people. I cannot even understand the poor conditions, but I had once opportunity to see the daily living of a Chinese middle class. One of the highlights of that trip was an excursion to Chinese school and family. It was an eye opening experience. We were visiting a school and couple of families at an industrial area outside Beijing.

Chinese school girls and boys playing

The school was really like a kindergarten to me, except the tight education process. High stonewall with pieces of broken class on top of the wall were protecting the children against unexpected visitors. Classroom had very tiny beds, some toys, whiteboards, and books. The headmaster told us that the children started to study Chinese, English, and Math as soon as they started the school (i.e. kindergarten at the age of one or two years). They had monthly test in order to verify the progress. They also slept daily naps, as well as played outside. That’s a tough competition in which the best get good education and well paid profession, the average get their job at the factory and the worst have to be innovative to survive. However, Chinese face the same kind of competition everywhere, e.g. traffic and sports.

Home of a middle class family

Preparing food for a family

I was lucky to visit an average income middle class Chinese family. I do not know how could they have two children, despite of the republic’s one children policy (i.e. you have to pay a lot in order to have two children in the family). Only the husband of the family was employed. He was working at the factory close by and the monthly income was about 200 €. The family was very lucky. They were living in a house without any rent, because they were taking care of the old man who owned the house. In addition to their one room, they had also permission to use the washing room of the house. Next to their bed there was a stove that was heating the room, as well as their food. They had also a very innovative system to heat their double bed, i.e. a long copper pipe that conducted hot air from the stove to the bed. It should be warm to sleep under the blanket even if they did not have afford to keep the room very warm. Big portion of the monthly salary was used to buy their mobile telephone, as well as their monthly telephony bills. They needed to use mobile Internet in addition to speech calls in order to stay in touch with relatives. They were originally coming from countryside, but they did not have afford to visit every year their families. One tiny room for a double bed, stove, small TV, and a mobile phone. That’s where the mother, husband, and two children of an average income Chinese family lived happily.

Innovation against cold winter nights

Lessons learnt:

Customer insights - Seeing gives more than reading.

#31 - Chinese service – almost perfect

My first trip to China was a company training course in Beijing. We had a group of Finns travelling on the same flight overnight. Once arriving early in the morning to the airport, our group gathered to the lobby in order to wait for our guide. Because we were asked to leave our luggage to the lobby, we did a big pile of suitcases in the middle of the lobby and headed to our bus. While walking to the bus we were joking about the last time we saw the luggage.

Soon we arrived to Swissotel Beijing. Since the program was starting on the afternoon, I decided to take a nap in my room. I woke up in the middle of my nap while the suitcase was brought to my room. What a perfect service, I thought.

The training days went fluently. I learned the basics of Chinese business, as well as Chinese culture. I still remember that Beijing duck tasted good and Chinese acrobats were very talented.

Beijing duck

Chinese service made a deep impact to me. The suitcase episode was just the beginning. During the week I was hardly opening any doors myself, because there was always someone doing it for me. The most extreme service was on toilet, where the servant was wiping and cleaning all over me while I was trying to have my peaceful personal moment. During that week I got used to the level of service. I was already wondering, what is the life without such a service when getting back to home.

The time was flying and it was time to return back to home. We had again a pre-arranged bus drive to the airport. As usual, I was very punctual last minute person to check out my hotel room. Everyone else was already queuing at the lobby when I arrived. I really tried to keep my suitcase with me while checking out, but the hotel piccolo insisted me to put it on the nice row of all the suitcases in the middle of the lobby. What a nice service again, I thought. Finally I had my check-out done and everyone else was already out of the lobby. I needed to walk straight to the bus.

At the airport, everyone else found their suitcase from the trunk of the buss, except me. My suitcase was not there. I started to make a poll, which revealed to me that my colleagues had carried their own suitcases from the hotel lobby to the buss. I had not done that, because I thought that Chinese hospitality will take care of that. I was very worry. What is going to happen to my luggage? Am I going to lose all that silk I bought to my wife? My head was full of all kind of scary thoughts. There was not enough time to pick up the suitcase, not enough time to wait someone bringing it to me.

Then I realized that one of my colleagues; Mr. K. was going to stay the weekend in China. I called him and he answered the call at the Great Wall. Don’t worry, he said.

Beijing airport

Two days later I got a call from Tampere airport. I needed to pick up the suitcase myself. No Chinese service level anymore, but I was happy anyway. Mr. K. had really made a big effort to get my suitcase routed to Tampere while he was personally flying to Oulu. Only the most talented spokesperson with Finnair Platinum card could do it.

Lessons learnt:

We should learn from Chinese service.

Success depends heavily on your personal network.

Dangerous way to get down from the Great Wall.
Risk is unknown term over there.

#30 - Local service - Reference for improvements

It was a beautiful summer weekend and I was going to start a business trip. I had booked a taxi already one day earlier in order to make sure to get it on time. Dream on, should I say.

I had a well known punctual schedule. No worry about traffic jams in Tampere and no worry about long queue at the Tampere airport. However, taxi delivery was not as punctual as I was expecting. Five minutes late and I started to be a bit worried. Ten minutes late and I was already very worried. Then I called to taxi dispatch center to check the situation. They had tried to get a taxi to me, but all of those were busy. They promised to keep trying. What a service. I was pretty angry and refused to accept their offer.

Luckily my wife was at home and drove me to the airport. As usual, I was on time at the airport.

The trip went well and I was back at the office. Our company made an official complaint to Tampere taxi center about the bad service. The official response was that taxi service does not have any responsibility to deliver the taxi according to order. They just have responsibility to answer the calls and try to seek a taxi. The rest is up to a good luck. I hope all the other customers have better luck in the future.

That's when I decided to look for a partner. Since then I have called directly to a taxi entrepreneur and he has never let me down. He is always on time and the service is very good. In case that taxi is already booked by someone else, I need to trust my good luck and have some safety margin in the schedule.

Lessons learned:

Build long lasting partnerships.