Nokia: Values That Make a Company Global

STraTeGiC Hr commission case make with t sever exclusivelyying eminences Nokia appreciate That Make a c wholeer- let out spherical By Geraldine Willigan, MBA Project aggroup Author SHRM project contributor External contributor Copy editing Design Geraldine Willigan, MBA Nancy A. Woolever, SPHR Ram Charan, Ph. D. Katya S sufferlan, facsimile editor Terry Biddle, graphic anatomyer 2009 lodge for valet vision Management. Geraldine Willigan, MBA. This case was prep bed by Geraldine Willigan, MBA, former editor at Harvard melody Review, under supervision of Ram Charan, Ph.D. , former readiness member at Harvard Business rail, stir headwayner of best teacher award at northwest Universitys Kellogg School of Management, and a regular teacher in decision deport gotr programs across the globe. The authors gratefully ack decline awayledge the help of Juha Akras, Ian Gee, Antti Miettinen, Arja Souminen, Olli-Pekka K onlyasvuo, Hallstein Moerk, Tero Ojanpera and Shiv Shiv akumar. Note to Hr faculty and instructors SHRM cases and modules argon int great dealed for use in HR classrooms at universities. teach notes ar included with each.darn our current intent is to make the materials on tap(predicate) without charge, we reserve the superpowerily to im arrange charges should we deem it necessary to support the program. However, currently, these secondarys be available free of charge to all. Please duplicate wholly the soma of copies needed, iodin for each student in the class. For to a greater extent(prenominal) than in data formation, please seize SHRM Academic Initiatives 1800 Duke roadway, Alexandria, VA 22314, USA Phone (800) 283-7476 Fax (703) 535-6432 Web www. shrm. org/education/hreducation 09-0353 Nokia determine That Make a Company GlobalIntroduction In the summer m of 2006, the globular competitive landscape in which Nokia was operating was changing at an astoundingly fast pace. Market growth was shifting to emerging countri es, wandering devices were macrocosmness commoditized, handset prices were declining, net take ins were combining (Nokia had estimable merged its own networks infrastructure worry with that of Siemens, forming Nokia Siemens Networks, or NSN), Microsoft and orchard apple tree were fashioning moves toward peregrine devices, spick-and-span technologies were being coached, and new strategic opportunities were arising as mobile phones were becoming the gateway to the Internet.To win in such a fast-paced and intensely competitive environment, the elevated society had to move with speed and do a superb job of fulfill consumers. Decision-making would suck up to occur at the lowest possible take to radiate the peculiarities of the local marketplaces while leveraging the power of Nokias several(a) concourse, its grade, its fiscal resources, and its technology and design expertise. Collaboration between locals and headquarters and among multiple cultures and assortners was paramount.Nokia conducted blanket(a) interviews with citizenry inside and outside the keep follow, including crack awayners and suppliers, to understand how Nokia was perceived and how it efficacy have to tilt. That research informed a form of actions and renew the focus on Nokias culture and, in particular, its determine. From Paper Mill to Conglomerate to Global Brand Nokia, headquartered in Espoo, near Helsinki, Finland, is the compassionate beingss turgidst mobile handset manufacturer. It tie ups nearly 40 percent of the global device market as of the second quarter of 2008.It operates in 150 countries and had to a greater extent than 117,000 employees, including NSN, as of easy June 2008. It is the top-rated brand globally. Annual r howeverues for 2007 were $74. 6 billion (51. 1 billion euros). The accompany began in the late 1800s as a paper mill, and so evolved into a diversified industrial company and was an early entrant in the mobile era in the 1980s. In the 1990s, CEO Jorma Ollila restructured the conglomerate to focus on mobile phones and tele communications, and Nokia became the technology and market leader, starting first in Europe, then expanding to the United States and dozens of former(a)wise 2009 companionship for kind-hearted resource Management. Geraldine Willigan, MBa 1 developed and emerging economies, including China and India. In the early 2000s, Nokia was briefly challenged by Motorola and Samsung but was able to maintain and soon to increase the lead. In 2006, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo (OPK, as he is known at Nokia) became CEO. Nokias outline at that prison term was changed to cover both the mobile device market as advantageously as services and software.In 2007, Nokia announced that it would be bed more standardised an Internet company. Transforming the Culture for the modernistic Challenges As Nokias leading pondered what would hold great deal to nominateher and enhance collaboration and speed across their la rge global company, they arrived at an answerculture, of which determine had long been a ensnareation. Values align stacks hearts and emotional energy and situate how Nokia employees (Nokians) do business with each separate and the rest of the world.Because Nokias living determine had been unchanged for more than a decade and research showed at that place was several(prenominal) ambivalence about them inbredly, the executive board, comprised of the CEO and about a dozen quartetth-year leaders, decided it was time to re-examine the set. OPK selected a team up of spate to create a operate for doing so. The challenge to the team was to get all the tribe of Nokia intellectually engaged. In keeping with Nokias culture, the set would have to be the result of the many communicating with the many. Assigning this delegate was not trivial.It supplicated that senior management be committed to break down with the resultant. The determine that emerged from the bottom up would have to be taken disadvantageously and stickor the scheme would be seriously harmed. As the team got to work and explored the survival of the fittests, they determined that the best approach would be to combine high tech and high touch. The high-tech part of the values-creation cognitive operation would be through the Nokia Jamusing IBMs Jamming technology that would allow all Nokians to engage in an online dialogue. The hightouch part would come through the use of the earthly concern Cafe methodology.The World Cafe methodology had sprung up in the mid(prenominal) 1990s to accommodate a large group of battalion from diverse disciplines and far-flung locations most the world who fatalityed to discuss issues of common interest. 2 That group was known as the Intellectual Capital Partners. To create an sluttish conversation among so many people, musicians were divided into small groups seated or so tables to discuss a given question. The groups would then repeatedly di sperse and individuals would turn out to other tables, so minds were disseminated, cross-pollinated and combined.As the conversations continued, facilitators compiled the ideas that emerged. The World Cafe methodology had been utilise in some small pockets at heart Nokia but had never been healthful-tried on a companywide scale. The concept was right, but it was impractical for all 50,000-plus Nokians to right off engage in a dialogue. So the idea emerged to have a subset of people from across Nokia get unitedly to discuss Nokia values with a totally clean slate, as if they were recreating Nokia on the planet Mars. 2 2009 caller for Human resource Management. Geraldine Willigan, MBaA trip to Mars became the metaphor for assemblage a cross-section of Nokians to participate in the World Cafe format and create the new values. Nokias Trip to Mars Nokia produced 5,000 elegant, visually provoke invitations that looked like boarding passes and airline tickets. These were sent i n bundles through escargot mail to people at divers(a) organisational levels and functional areas, including HR, in each of the business units. The instruction to the recipients was to find a way to indiscriminately distribute their bundle to people in their offices and factories whom they would trust to have a interchange about Nokias values and culture.The recipients could also keep a ticket for themselves. Each ticket was in a wallet that depict what Nokia was doing. It stated the current values and gave instructions for how to proceed, first by leaving to the Nokia management web site to learn more and to register for a coffee shop in their local area. Participants also got two luggage tags, which they were suppositious to discuss with their colleagues beforehand a green one, which represented the values or ideas Nokia should be sure to take with it as the company travel forward, and a gray one, for things that could be left behind.Nokia held 16 cafes in 60 years around the world. More than 100 employees representing a cross-section of Nokia attended each one. The day of the cafe, small groups discussed a predetermined set of questions. One person served as host and stayed at the table while e rattlingone else rotated to other tables, eventually returning to their original spots. People had taken the preparation material seriously and interviewed their teams ahead of time some brought stacks of paper with various notes and ideas. As the newss excessivelyk place, ideas began to emerge and converge.Facilitators captured them graphically and in written scripts. The outputs from each cafe were then uploaded to the Nokia Way web site, and eitherone at Nokia had access to it and was invited to comment. Several gram more employees were able to participate in the dialogue through the path of the web site, giving their opinions and making touchs and sometimes asking questions they hoped the abutting cafe would address. The sessions were also fli cktaped and edited into short video blogs that were so funny and winsome that they logged approximately 30,000 visits.The video blogs, too, elicited comments from fellow Nokians. The mix of people tending the cafes was just what Nokias executive team had hoped for an assortment of people from offices and factories and from e real functional area and organizational level. The cafe carry out allowed those diverse view invests to be heard. Engineers said Nokia needed greater tolerance for risk, for instance, while marketing people deprivationed more stability. In the deal, it broke down biases and misconceptions and began to build societal bonds. Latin Ameri bears were not the only people with emotions one participant commented. another(prenominal) said At first it felt like I couldnt even find a common language with my Mexi asshole 2009 Society for Human resource Management. Geraldine Willigan, MBa 3 marketing colleagues in Nokia. It was exciting when we found a common language and vision, and e realbody was on board. As the cafes took place, four values began to emerge. These were to be presented to the top 30 leaders at the final global cafe to be held in Helsinki. But instead of writing them on a PowerPoint slide, the values were presented in a way that was experiential.Representatives from each of the Nokia Way cafes were chosen to attend, and on day one of the Helsinki cafe, they got together and brainstormed how to make the values come alive. They recreated some of the skits, songs and visual aids their local cafes had generated to evidence the thoughts and feelings that underlay the values. The illustrations from the Finnish cafes built a birds approach and a sweat room in the hotel meeting room to represent Nokias passion for innovation (the birds nest was for the hatching of ideas, the sauna to represent the fire of passion).The next day, the group made their presentation to the senior leaders, and after some discussion, the four values that had came out of the cafe process were affirmed. OPK, who, like many Finnish people, was ordinarily quite reserved, was visibly moved by the intensity and sincerity of the feelings expressed. He felt as though he could hear the voices of Nokians around the world, and he, too, wholeheartedly supported the values. He asked that a representative present them to a group of 150 top leaders that was meeting threesome or four weeks later as part of the annual Strategy Sharing process.The group selected Ganeas Dorairaju, a native Malayan who had been works in Finland for the past decade, to represent them. He stood in forepart of the top leaders and explained the values and the process by which they were created. At the end of it, the audience gave him a standing ovation. One leader wondered if the values could be turned into a catchy tune. Soon after, an employee teamed up with her husband and did just that Nokias New Values3 Nokias new values and the explanation of them are as follows n achieving together. Achieving together is more than collaboration and partnership.As well as trust, it involves sharing, the right mind-set and operative in formal and unceremonial networks. attractive You. For us, engaging you incorporates the customer satisfaction value and deals with engaging all our stakeholders, including employees, in what Nokia stands for in the world. furor for Innovation. Passion for innovation is based on a desire we have to live our dreams, to find our courage and to make the leap into the future through innovation in technology, ways of working and through understanding the world around us. Very Human.Being truly human encompasses what we offer customers, how we do business, how we work together, and the impact of our actions and behavior on n n n 4 2009 Society for Human resource Management. Geraldine Willigan, MBa people and the environment. It is about being very human in the worldmaking things simple, respecting and caring. In short, our desi re is to be a very human company. The world cafe process generated values that are different and more open-ended than most companies. As leaders at Nokia note, the values require discussion.People might not know right away what very human means, but once people start to discuss it within the context of Nokia, it becomes very clear. People do, in fact, have those discussions. They use them to say, keep on on a minute, is this engaging you? Are we meeting that value in what were doing? Very Human is closely associated with technology it reflects the fact that Nokia has to develop devices that are easy to use. And Achieving Together is about customers and suppliers as well as fellow Nokia employees. Achieving Together also helps remove the fear associated with being an intentness pioneer.The values are aspirational but also model what was already working well at Nokia. In India, for instance, where Nokia has built a dominant market position of some 75 million subscribers in a very s hort time, the values were evident before they had been articulated, which belike influenced the input of the three cafes conducted in that country. One of the severalize factors that drove business success in India was the distribution system, which Nokia and its business partner, ATL, built from scratch when large consumer electronics retailers declined to carry mobile phones because of their low margins.Working together to find an alternative, Nokia and ATL hit on the idea to mimic the small (sometimes just 5 x 5 feet) kiosks that are found in villages across India from which vendors sell fruits and vegetables. They recruited individuals interested in path their own kiosks, trained them and ensured they would have products in the right quantities and at the right margins for those vendors to make a living. The Nokia team takeed to be sure that whatsoever arrangement they designed would benefit Nokia, ATL and the individual mobile phone vendors.That way, they would secure To gether. The Nokia team in Indiaa mix of native Indians and technology and other experts from such far-flung Nokia locations as Finland, China and Indonesiacollaborated in listening to and spy people in various part of India to understand their needs. Their approach was cooperative and Very Human. As a member of the leadership team in Nokia India explains, One thing that Nokia prides itself on is that it is not arrogant. That comes across in all(prenominal) interaction. People never take for granted that they know everything. Because of conditions in parts of the country, Indians needed a mobile device that was dustproof and didnt slip out of sweaty hands. They wanted a device that could be an alarm clock, radio and great mullein (or torch) as well as a phone. Nokias Passion for Innovation drove the team to find the technology solutions Indians needed. Nokia found that the process of creating values itself had merit. It allowed the many to subsume with the many and demonstrated that heterarchy was more signifi piece of tailt than pecking order.It captured Nokia employees understanding of the challenges they were facing personalisedly and organizationally and their desire to create an organization 2009 Society for Human resource Management. Geraldine Willigan, MBa 5 that could meet them. It also reflected the savour of bonding across cultures, functions and silos. As a member of the executive team says, It is proof that a strong global corporate culture is possible. The next order of business was to track the effectiveness of the values. To that end, the company has created a form of vehicles.Nokia includes values in its annual employee survey, Listening to You, and made them a key part of the change pulse survey it undertook during a recent reorganization. The suggestion arose to have pictures to demonstrate the new values, so the company staged an employee contest for photos that represent the values. Photos were posted online, and employees vote d for their favorite. The top prize went to a quality motorcoach in one of Nokias Chinese factories, who got to accompany Nokias brand people on a photo shoot in Paris. given up the quality of Nokias artistic skills, it was a choice prize. More than 22,000 employees took part in the competition, and Nokia has a rich bank of photographs to represent the new values. Nokians now are learning to create 90-second films that tell how values are making a difference in their work. These films can be uploaded to a video hub where fellow employees can view them. As of October 2008, more than 60 films had been uploaded to the internal VideoHub, and they have had over 50,000 viewings. 6 2009 Society for Human resource Management. Geraldine Willigan, MBa pedagogy NotesGlobal companies require the conjunctive of their employees and partners not only on the system itself but also on the values needed to make that outline successful. Values reflect and shape corporate culture. A shift in str ategy often requires a shift in values. The Nokia case explores the connectedness between values, strategy, and the collaboration, innovation, speed and flexibility that are required for Nokia to succeed. Nokia is a very large company, with one of the highest brand recognitions in the world. It has the rare ability to design a new strategy and reshape its culture to deliver the strategy at the same time.The Nokia case describes Nokias social process for achieving alignment on valuesa component of corporate cultureacross geographies, silos and hierarchical levels. The learning objectives of the case are as follows n note NOTE note Instructors Note Distribute only pages one through sixNOTE case study document to of this students. A PDF interpreting of this document is also available online for your convenience. To learn the social process of engaging multicultural, multi-country employees in generating and agreeing on a set of values.To concretely demonstrate one way to build a work force receptive to crossfunctional, cross-cultural teaming that can therefore make fast, high-quality decisions and increase the organizations flexibility. To probe and alter understanding of the relationships between strategy, culture, values and business outcomes. To encourage participants to brainstorm alternative ways to engage employees and accomplish similar results. To challenge participants to think critically about whether Nokias approach to creating values can apply to other business issues. n n n nThe case is reserve for graduate students in high-level HR courses and for HR professionals at the highest levels. 2009 Society for Human resource Management. Geraldine Willigan, MBa 7 The classroom instructor might want to pose the following questions for discussion 1. Why did company management choose values as a foundation for taking the culture to the next level? Nokia needs collaboration because it must routinely leverage its technology platforms, global brand and manuf acturing footprint, experience base in multiple countries, and in-depth knowledge of consumers and the marketplace.While individuals must have some degree of freedom to act, they cannot know everything or understand in depth all of the implications of various trade-offs that must be made in the ordinary course of business. As people come together to exchange information and make trade-offs, they must also have a common glue to hold them together. Values can be a uniting factor they can be the glue. In the process of creating values, discussions touch on other topics, such as strategy, management style, opportunities, competition, priorities, and the inadequacies of organizational structure and reward systems.Values can fill in the gaps or provide what formal mechanisms missfor instance, they can support open communication outside of formal reporting relationships. 2. What is your view about the four values the cafe approach produced? Note that they are few in numberfour instead of 1 2. They describe the kind of company many people would like to work for. They can be applied in the real world and are relevant to any job function or organizational level. They are in keeping with requirements for Nokia to succeed.They capture the sense of higher purpose and human dignity people long for in their personal and work lives and therefore encourage positive, authentic behavior. 3. How do Nokias values compare with those of your company? Graduate students can compare with a company they are familiar with or one the instructor presents. One option is to look at the values of a competitorfor instance, Apple, given that Apple is now going into the cell phone business. Consider whether people connect with the values, or whether the values are too abstract or too generic to be meaningful.How many are there? Are they actually practiced? Do they relate to company strategy? 4. How allow for Nokias values help execute the change in business strategy? The process and content of t he values build trust, making people more receptive to information and ideas from elsewhere in the company. Information flows are likely to be nonhierarchical. Nokia should therefore be able to innovate and respond to change better and quicker. Take, for example, the value achieving together. This value is now fully socialized at all levels in the company.It gives a lower-level person the freedom to call a higher-level person for collaboration and expertise where needed. By reinforcing this behavior, the values help break hierarchies, silos and other barriers. 8 2009 Society for Human resource Management. Geraldine Willigan, MBa 5. concisely jell the behaviors that were stimulated through the cafe approach at Nokia. What information carry got opened? Individuals took time to think about the company and how it does and should operate. They expressed their ideas, versed their ideas could have wide visibility and make a difference.Before go to the cafes, people sought input from their peers. Participants listened to the views from many other employees. They sought vulgarism among the viewpoints. They experimented with creative ways to express their ideas. Employees became excited about the company and renewed their emotional commitment to it. Information flowed across boundaries. Because participation in the value creation process required no special knowledge, every participant was on equal footing, including newer employees, whose fresh ideas and energy got released.Thus, information flowed up even from some of the youngest Nokians, who represent the future of Nokia. 6. Whats your evaluation of the social process for engaging thousands of employees across the globe in defining the values? It was an competent way to engage a broad, diverse set of people. The ready sufferance of the values (the output) indicates that the process was effective. It mirrored the patterns of communication and cooperation in a hyaloplasm organization. 7. What does Nokias caf e process say about its senior leaders? The senior leaders were secure about their role in the company and heir personal power. Once they committed to the process, they had to be prepared to drive the output. They also had confidence in Nokia employees. They were willing to let go. elderly management of any company should not feel insecure about the outcome of the bottom-up process. Because the process is open, it has built-in sincerity. People want to do the right thing. Also, broad participation is a check against a few radicals who want their way. 8. If Nokia were to use the cafe process again in 2010, what change in values would you anticipate?The outstanding goal of this process is to produce a set of values that are enduring. If the company were to do it again, the values themselves might not be very different, but they might be deepened or tweaked because people will have examples of how they have been used, or not used. The exception is if Nokia were to make a 180-degree change in strategy direction. Then some new values might be needed. If such new values did not emerge through this process, consider whether the strategy shift will succeed.Also consider how the outcome might be different if some regions are far more successful than others going forward, and how working relationships might be affected. Consider, too, the values of younger people who will be entryway the workforce around that time. 2009 Society for Human resource Management. Geraldine Willigan, MBa 9 The instructor needs to press participants on how concrete the values are, how engaged the people are, what are the pros and cons of having values cascade upward, why this process generates energy, and how management can measure whether the values are indeed being practiced and having the mean results.The instructor can jumpstart discussion by dividing the class into ogdoad small groups and having each group discuss one of Nokias four values, addressing the following If the group par ticipants were the leaders, how would they ensure that the value takes deep roots and builds a superb social fabric while at the same time improving business results? The instructor may choose to broaden the discussion to explore issues around new theories of organization and management, such as enterprise 2. 0 and the use of Web 2. technologies that promise to overcome the bureaucracy associated with hierarchy and make the organization more agile and productive. 4 What some people refer to as Enterprise 2. 0 or depict as a flat organization includes the direct exchange of information among people at lower organizational levels and bottom-up decisionmaking. Nokias value-creation process is representative of this new way of engaging employees and doing business. The following questions can prompt discussion n Is there a negative side to mass participation, or connecting the many to the many?Lack of knowledge or commitment can cause people to generate bad ideas that nonetheless gain momentum. Senior management will appear to be heavy-handed if it derails or ignores them. The major risk is when management is not trusted by employees, is erratic or haven as incompetent. Under those conditions, this process will fail. If that failure gets the attention of the board, which in this day and age is likely, the board might well insist on a change in management. Good management should learn from anything that comes in that does not match their expectations.In what situations, or for what issues, does a cafe-type approach work or not work? Any time a new leader is starting to take charge of a unit or company, cafe-type approach is a fantastic tool to energize and align people and hear whats on their minds. This could be used to generate ideas around any particular topicfor instance, to gather ideas for coping with the global financial crisis. Do you think employees want to weigh in on all issues? In this knowledge worker society, tapping everybodys brain and energy ca n create momentum and be a competitive advantage. People want to participate.There may be some managers who dont want to hear what people have to say. The blockage tends to be from management, not the employees. n n 10 2009 Society for Human resource Management. Geraldine Willigan, MBa n How do you know if the masses are generating a better or more authentic solution than a smaller number of experts? The adoption and exertion will reveal the validity of the solution. Lets remind everybody that experts are also employees. All experts can learn from the front lines. Experts also can be narrow. An open process will surface those conflicts in point of view.In a fast-moving, highly volatile environment, it is hugely important to deplume those conflicts to the surface and get them resolved. Even if the outcome is not better in some absolute sense, it will be better accepted. to what extent does exponentiation affect business performance? How can you measure it? An employee audit or pu lse survey are common tools to measure engagement as well as perception of business performance beyond financial numbers. Have people shown more commitment? In this case, the value of achieving together might be evident in shorter decision cycle times. n 2009 Society for Human resource Management.Geraldine Willigan, MBa 11 For Further reading Lawler, E. E. III, & Worley, C. G. (2006). reinforced to change How to achieve sustained organizational effectiveness. San Francisco Jossey-Bass. Shirkey, C. (2008). Here comes everybody The power of organizing without organizations. New York Penguin. Charan, R. (2007). Know-how The 8 skills that separate people who perform from those who dont. New York jacket Business. McGregor, D. (2005). The human side of enterprise. New York McGraw-Hill. Hamel, G. (2007). The future of management. Cambridge, MA Harvard Business School Press.Goldsmith, M. (2007). What got you here wont get you there How successful people become even more successful. New Yo rk Hyperion. 12 2009 Society for Human resource Management. Geraldine Willigan, MBa endnotes 1 For more on the history of Nokia, see The explanation of Nokia on the Nokia web site, www. nokia. com/a4303001. For more on the World Cafe methodology, see www. theworldcafe. com /reading. htm. Nokias earlier values are as follows 2003 n guest Satisfaction n Respect n Achievement n transposition 1992 n Customer Satisfaction n Respect of Individual n Achievement n Continuous Learning 3 4 For more on theories of organization, see, for example, Andrew P. McAfee. (2006, Spring). Enterprise 2. 0 The dawn of emergent collaboration. MIT Sloan Management Review. 2009 Society for Human resource Management. Geraldine Willigan, MBa 13 SHrm members can download this case study and many others free of charge at www. shrm. org/education/hreducation/pages/cases. aspx. If you are not a SHrm member and would like to become one, please visit www. shrm. org/join. 1800 Duke Street Alexandria, VA 22314-34 99