Tell me about the hardest thing about your job?

My role as a program manager implies coordinating many initiatives or smaller projects in parallel and tying them together in a single picture that everyone can understand. Often, this requires keeping several topics in mind, reacting quickly to specific issues across different areas and making relevant decisions. That doesn't leave a lot of time to sit with my own thoughts and focus - be it to figure out a solution to a specific issue, brainstorm improvement ideas or prepare proposals for new initiatives.

Internally, I always want to go out there, get involved, drive initiatives, communicate with others and learn what they are doing, discuss how my team can support and what impact it will bring. But at the same time, I also know that organizing thoughts & ideas, creating a plan and using a structured approach will allow me to do things more effectively and achieve more. Finding the balance between the two (reacting vs. focusing & planning) is the hardest thing about my job, especially on days when there are more issues that require immediate attention.

Nokia helped me a lot to learn how to balance this better. The idea of work-life balance is heavily promoted across the company and Nokia does a lot to teach its employees how to improve personal productivity, be effective at time management, prioritize better and so on. It's effective at it as well - I still maintain the meditation practice that Nokia helped me to adapt several years ago and it helps a lot to improve the focus.