Bridging Finland and the city of Charlotte, N.C. in search for the Great Life

The Charlotte-based Gambrell Foundation focuses on bridging the gap of inequities in society, wherever they may exist.

I had the pleasure of giving a breakfast speech in Helsinki for Gambrell's delegation, including the mayor of Charlotte Vi Lyles. The foundation's great life project brought a delegation from North Carolina to Helsinki to learn about the Nordic model and how we tackle societal challenges. Thanks to my Davidson College experience, I found myself keynoting for the group to set context for the study visit. I believe there is great momentum of bridging Finland and the Charlotte region for new growth, mutual learning and investments!

Good morning. My name is Jouni Eho.

I am the mayor of City of Riihim?ki, 43-years old, a father of three teenagers, and a proud alumn of Davidson College, North Carolina.

To be here, joining the Gambrell foundation’s visit to Finland and to be the first speaker in your impressive programme is an absolute honour. I would like to thank my fellow Davidson alumni Will Cardwell and Todd Wiebusch for inviting me to be part of this breakfast event.

Davidson College as the common denominator

Davidson was a life changing experience for me in so many ways. I majored in political science, with a focus on international politics during 2000-2004. During the four- year span I witnessed the Bush-Gore election while simultaneously attending Introduction to U.S. Politics with Dr. Pat Sellers, who happened to be an expert on polling and public opinion. I witnessed 9/11 and the buildup for the war on terrorism with Professors Ken Menkhaus and Russell Crandall, cancelling their classes for being flown to Pentagon to brief on their respective subject matters - Menkhaus on Somalia and Crandall on Latin America. I was part of a student panel on a live TV show discussion between students from Davidson and the University of Baghdad, just weeks before the statue of Saddam Hussein was torn down by the allied troops. I took classes titled Classical Buddhism, Biology for Poets and Religion in the movies.

I swear, I could have stayed another four years just attending classes with proffesors who were at Davidson for the love of teaching, not for the sake of publishing research papers!

I also had the pleasure of playing Duke every year at Cameron Indoor Stadium with a starting five full of NBA first round picks. My sophomore year, I was part of a team beating UNC at Chapel Hill in 2001 in one of the greatest David beats Goliath upsets in college basketball. I still have the Charlotte Observer newspaper clip, where I am rushing the court with my teammates, our eyes glooming under the retired jerseys hanging in the rafters:

33 Jamison, 52 Worthy, 23 Jordan.

Since graduating in 2004, I have stayed in close contact with my basketball coach Bob Mckillop, whom I have the privilege to call my lifelong mentor - as do hundreds of other former Davidson Wildcat basketball players across the world all of whom have graduated. Among them the greatest shooter in the history of the game, Steph Curry.?

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I applaud your willingness and humility to learn and study Finland, a country that many consider as one of the success stories as a nation state in the 21st century. I see many opportunities in bridging Finnish cities and regions with the greater Charlotte area. I welcome follow up discussions on what this could mean on a practical level. For me it’s obviously more personal, since I have a special relationship with the Charlotte area having lived there for four years of my life.

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But I am also here to learn from you. Yesterday I watched Richard Reeves’ TED talk on How to solve the education crisis for boys and men. Richard, I would like to offer you a personal and a sincere thank you. After listening to your powerful talk I realized that not only do I want to redesign my own speech for this morning, but I also realized that the biggest leadership challenge ahead for me is rather a parenting challenge and NOT the city budget planning for next year.

I have a 15-year old son, who is struggling right now - nothing unusual for any 15-year old to go through.? My son has a hard time getting up in the mornings and attending school on a regular basis – for reasons unknown.

We have a growing number of young boys and girls having a hard time fitting well within the current school system. I strongly believe it is not their ”quote on quote” fault, but it is in many ways a systemic flaw. As my wonderful fifteen year old is discovering himself at his own pace, yet our school system is not designed to work within his pace. As Richard points out referring to a number or research, boys tend to mature slower cognitively compared to girls. So I believe, just as Richard eloquently puts it, it is rather the system that is not fitting the young boy, not the other way around. Thank you Richard.

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Some of you might know, that I was a recipient of the Father of the Year award in Finland in 2014. Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs hands out an award to three fathers every year, on their efforts to promote fatherhood in Finland. The theme of award in 2014 was fathers as employees or representatives of employees.

At that time I was the CEO of a Danish based company, where I had placed flexible policies to enable remote work - I suppose I was ahead of the game as remote work has now become the new imperative in the post-Covid world. I had a male colleague, who wanted to work 80 % because of his newborn baby. I said I would rather take employer committed 100% to his 80 % time over a 100% working time employer with 50 % commitment. The guy landed one of our biggest deals during this period.

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Just as you have outlined in your Great Life project, there is a growing trend for our teenagers to ”fall out” and families from ALL income classes are faced with a question mark, rather than a solution how to fix this. Finland is world known for our education system and engineering skills - We are absolutely great in fixing things. I once heard a great comparison about the Finnish and American societies. Whereas Finns are ”backyard” people, Americans are ”frontyard” people.

Whereas us Finns love to fix our lawnmowers in the backyard, whereas it is more important for Americans to have their frontlawn properly fixed, so that it looks good for the neighbours, for appearences’ sake. Wish we could combine these two skillsets!

Gambrell’s Great life project raises and addresses many important, universal topics about societal challenges and I appreciate your mission to shed light, to better understand and address these topics. I am just as worried about the state and condition of our youth as you might be and puzzled in front of the inability for us as leaders of cities, institutions and households to help our boys and girls to navigate the complexity we call The great life.

Even though I carry the title ”Father of the year in Finland” I don’t have a silver bullet or a formula for you to take home on ”how to fix the issue of helping teenagers who fall out”.

I cannot answer you how we’ve managed to create sustainable support mechanisms for young boys who are struggling to go to school in Finland - as we, in my mind, haven’t. We have rather failed.

So then, what can I give to you, as a Finnish leader of a relatively small city compared to yours on this rainy October morning in Helsinki? As our time together this morning is limited, I thought it would be most helpful to keep this as personal as possible. The least I could do is share some thoughts on how I approach leadership. Hopefully it will help set some context for the rest of your programme and inspire conversation on this morning and beyond.?

When President Putin’s vicious and unjust war in Ukraine began, Our president Sauli Niinist? was famously quoted” the masks have come off, showing the cold face of war.” The mask has come off - that’s a powerful quote by our president I must say.

Dear friends, I want to address you with no???? mask????? on.

What you see is what you get. I believe leadersip is to the core, personal.

One cannot lead geniunely, honestly or sincerely with a mask on.

On leadership principles

I would like to share with you my personal reflections on leadership principles that I’ve conceptualized through experiences, conversations, successes and failures along my own leadership journey.

Believe it or not, leaders are more often judged based on their sheer presence. Leadership is at least as much if not more about being who you are, not what you are trying to accomplish.

Through a leaders honest, genuine presence can we inspire actions in others. And that’s what I believe, leadership is all about. Inspiring action in others.?

My leadership prinicples consists of three elements: Culture, Values and Purpose.

Let me now break down these principles one by one, starting with culture, working my way up through values, concluding with purpose.?

Culture

1.??? Optimism??

I was born in the most northern village in Finland called Utsjoki. My father was a lutheran minister at the church, with a strong indigenous Sami population where he had to learn the Sami language.

My parents devoted their professional life to the church, my mother also served as a priest later on in her life.

A big driver for their priesthood had to do with the tradegy of losing two daughters, both under one years old, to a rare genetic disease - My parents have altogether lost three children - the greatest tragedy any parent could ever imagine. Three times they have had to face the most difficult thing any parent could face - losing their own child, three of my siblings.

And still, somehow they found the strength in devoting their life to helping parents in similar situations nationally and internationally.

I have often asked my mother, how did they survive and stay sane after such tragic loss.? She is the strongest human being I know.

And she always answers with a gentle smile and refers to her faith in a better tomorrow.

I call that optimism. To have a positive outlook on life, even in the face of a devastating loss is probably the greatest gift I received from my parents.

Optimism is a choice every day. As a mayor, I face doubt, criticism and cynicism every single day. I believe, Mayor Lyle you are well aware of these same visitors - doubt, criticism and cynicism that we let in and let out our office on a daily basis.

• ”That’s not going to work, we’ve tried it a thousand times”
• ”You must be out of your mind proposing this initiative - where are we going to find money for this project!?”
• ”The previous mayor tried, let’s see how bad this guy is going to fail”

In creating healthy organizational cultures, you have to start with optimism and believe that the future will be brighter, in spite of all the doubters and nay-sayers. Davidson beat North Carolina at the Dean Dome in 2001 - don’t tell me it can’t be done

1. Diversity?

The second element within culture is diversity.

When I was playing at Davidson, I had teammates from 8 different nationalities.

Once we were playing on ESPN and the announcer said” Davidson does not have time outs. They have UN summits”. Being exposed to such an international and diverse community planted a seed in me to see diversity as a winning teammate not as an enemy.

Finland’s population is on a major decline and there is a big national debate about immigration policy. I often refer to Steve Job’s father being a Syrian refugee from the city of Homs as I discuss the current Ukrainian refugee issue in my city. Can we really afford to turn our backs to war fleeing Ukrainians while at the same time we have a growing number of companies struggling to find workforce within the native Finns??

I am proud to say that the City of Riihim?ki has been one of the largest recipients of Ukrainians (measured by per capita) and happy to say that many of our companies have employed Ukrainians, the city included. Sure the numbers are still marginal, but we need to send a loud and clear message that the Finnish economy will not survive without embracing a more constructive approach to immigration. This is an issue Finland cannot claim to be a world leader, perhaps something for us to learn from you.

Diversity and inclusion are vital in creating future-proof cultures within organizations.

3.??? Learning

The third element within culture is learning.

I’ve been a student of mindfulness meditation for some years now and am probably the only certified mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) Instructor within mayors in Finland, if not the whole world.

In the mindfulness practice there is concept called the beginner’s mind. I have applied the beginner’s mind philosophy to my leadership - approaching new situations with a curious and open mind, trying to avoid fixed presumptions or strong opinions in advance. This approach has steepened my own learning curve enormously.

Let me be loud and clear - I am here to learn, today this very morning. The opportunity to deliver a speech to you this morning, will make a better speaker tomorrow. So, I want to thank you for making me better.

We should embrace learning as a critical component within our organizations, helping our organizational cultures become more resilient.

So the elements for my first leadership principle - culture - consists of optimism ; having faith in a positive future, diversity - embracing it as a teammate not as an opponent and learning-? having a beginner’s mind and not assuming that as a leader we should or could know everything.

Values

The second leadership principle that I lean on are values -

I Try to anchor my work around the values of Trust, Care and Commitment.

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1.?? Trust

As a Mayor, if you cannot be trusted, you are out of the office in a hearbeat.

• Can you be trusted to do your best every day?
• Do you trust yourself, your strategy and your people?
• What are the actions and behaviours we as leaders take that build trust and not break it?

2.?? Care?

The opposite of care is neglect.

The people who we lead have the natural urge to be seen and recognized.

• How do You show that you care through your actions?
• When was the last time you wrote a thank you card - not an email - to your colleague or direct report?
• Do we care enough to show that we care and spend The time necessary proving it?

3.?? Commitment

We live in a remote control society, where it has become too easy to flip the channel.

Don’t like your current job - click - change your job.

Don’t like your current wife - click- change your wife.

When did we forget that less is more.

Where we put our focus - energy goes. And where energy flow, life grows.

I think it’s a great saying and resonates with commitment.

The elements of my second leadership principle has to do with values.

Can you be trusted to do your best?

Do you show that you care?

Can you commit to focus on finishing what you start?

Purpose

The final element in my leadership principles is purpose.

Purpose is the driving force, the meat in the kebab stick, the reason what gets you up in the morning.

So what gets me up in the morning to do what I love and to love what I do?

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Positive change through compassionate leadership.

That is my purpose statement. No matter what my job, my job title or my task - I know I am aligned with my values and the culture I try to create, when I am working for positive change through compassionate leadership.?

It ties together all the other components of my leadership principles and gives me a strong sense of direction.

Concluding remarks

Dear friends - The Great Life project sounds to me like a great quest.

Again, I am humbled by the fact that you have chosen Finland as destination to deepen your understanding about how to create better lives for the citizens in Charlotte.

In the introduction of this speech, I wanted to show my appreciation for my Davidson experience at it has been fundamental in shaping my worldview, teaching me about hard work and dedication to strive for greatness on the basketball court. Thank you for welcoming me with the southern hospitality, I hope we can do the same for you here.

I hope by me sharing my leadership principles of culture, values and purpose can help you crystalize the way you want to approach your own respective, personal leadership journeys.

Leadership is about relationships. Relationship is the conversation.

I hope that this speech will spark meaningful conversations in your pursuit of the Great Life project.?

I look forwards joining you in this conversation.

Thank you.

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