Mika Korhonen: Guided by Spiritual Law
Challenging his superiors and facing unemployment time rather than compromise his principles, Mika Korhonen is an unlikely candidate for a successful business manager. And yet, eight years with Nokia in Finland and India, director of R&D for a telecom business, product program manager, and more recently Project Manager with Digia Plc Smartphone division (“very cutting edge, latest state-of-the-art technology, extremely challenging business environment, and lots of fun”) tells a different story. In this interview with EBBF, Mika talks about the principles—what he calls “spiritual laws”—that enable him to navigate and succeed in a competitive business sector while simultaneously nurturing his family, friends and engaging in community activities and service.
In addition to a degree in software technology, Mika has studied leadership in Helsinki University of Technology focusing on a coaching kind of leadership. Mika joined the EBBF board in September of 2007 after a year as EBBF National Representative for Finland, and currently serves as a member of the EBBF events organizing team. When not working Mika enjoys spending time with friends, “which we have many and see too rarely, or at my parents' place in middle of beautiful Finnish countryside”, helping with the integration of immigrants into his religious and local community and “creating a new culture” therein, playing soccer and games with his two boys, ages four and five, and relaxing in a sauna—“the Finnish gift to the world.”
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EBBF: When I first spoke with you, you said that the integration of values into work was less about heroes and heroines giving great talks and creating grandiose projects, but more ‘like a way of life’. What do you mean by this?
Mika: The past few years of my life have been quite ‘educational’, I have to say. I went high up in the career lift – from a software engineer to a director - and then ended up dropping off and spending fifteen months home with my two sons. I lost something in that process and I think it was the ‘wrong’ kind of ambition acquired by imitating the surrounding business culture. I thought that what I did defined who I was. If somebody asked who I was I usually answered with my work position and name of the employer but I eventually learned to replace that phrase with ‘I am a father of two boys’. What is important in life was redefined. It became clearer that I am happier if I do not make compromises with what I believe is right, even at the work place, and as a side effect I might also create something good.
Of course it is not just me defining what is right and what is wrong. Over the years I have learned that spiritual laws are as real as the laws of physical reality. The law of gravity does not cease to exist if I don’t care about it, and the same way the principle of doing good to other pays back. With those spiritual laws I have tried to ‘calibrate’ what I consider right, and that same thirst for learning about these laws led me to the Bahá’í Faith over ten years ago. I guess you could say that all I am doing is to try to live my life by those rules and to learn more every day. So it has become like a way of life.
Then I found out that a lot of work has been done in EBBF in translating those spiritual principles into business language and it was a natural step for me to become a member. Learning the principles that EBBF represents and seeing them in action in my workplace has been quite a journey. For many people values are something that you can choose to follow and can select the ones which you like most. For me understanding the relationships better is helping me to become better in what I do at work. Take honesty: from my childhood I have learned to be honest, so it is not matter of choice to be honest or not, but it is fascinating to see how it can be applied at work, for example, bringing additional value to the customer and finally making it a competitive edge for the company. At work we use an agile software project management framework called ‘Scrum’, knowing that it makes everything visible to the customer, and this new transparency requires that there is only one truth: you cannot save the game by saying something to the customer which is not true. It makes the whole organization ramp up better practices, better leadership, better communication. All because the virtue of honesty is applied.
- Mika with one of his sons
EBBF: The idea of a ‘law’ is that it is a constant, and therefore obedience to it isn’t a matter of choice, but applicable to everyone. Connecting this concept to religion is justifiably scary to many people, especially when there are some who would make, for example, church attendance compulsory, or restrict women’s freedom. Is there any difference between the existence of ‘spiritual laws’ you mention and the imposition of ‘religious law’?
Mika: I can understand this very well since I also used to be quite puzzled by this question. What I have learned is that there is a major difference between universal laws, which have always existed, and social rules, which are relative to the social conditions and must change with the culture over the time. Gravity has always existed, so has the unity of mankind and The Golden Rule, told by all the world religions throughout the times. Trustworthiness, respect, courage, friendliness are values which help to get along in life. What is common to all of these that understanding these makes your life easier, similar to traffic rules which are assisting us to get place to place. There is always a sound reason behind each law. Conscious thinking and logical analysis leading to understanding of these laws is therefore warmly supported, as opposed to ‘blind’ obedience to something without any rational explanations. So nothing to be scared about!
With my kids I try not to ‘invent’ any rules for them but try to impose only rules which are absolutely necessary and be ready at any time to explain carefully the meaning of each rule. That way their own understanding grows and they learn. It would be a disaster if I imposed rules for my own amusement or to satisfy my thirst for power as a parent. How would I explain that rule to the child? Unfortunately this is the case in many places in our society, also in religious circles, and naturally that kind of irresponsible use of power creates mistrust and raises fear.
EBBF: What have you found that assists in one’s efforts to apply these principles to your life? I think you’ll agree that many people if they see a list of principles—social responsibility, the oneness of humanity, equality of women and men—will agree with these and would like to apply them. But translating these into action isn’t easy. How do you go about doing this?
Mika: What seems to make a difference is a conscious and active attitude towards the implementation and integrity. Many people do right things unconsciously or by following their instincts—and that’s ok! But it is still a different thing to follow certain principles consciously regardless of the opinions of surrounding people. The best way to learn is by making conscious values-based choices over and over again, and before you know it has become a habit. But I have to say that leaving a job because of your values, or turning down a financially rewarding job offer for the same reason, sound relatively easy; but being the sole breadwinner of a family with a mortgage to pay—these were real-life situations for me. You can also never say ‘its my way or no way at all’ and keep your own head and values no matter what–you have to know when it is wiser to find another way to proceed. Luckily I have had full support from home and from true friends, which comes in really handy when I have had a hard time seeing the big picture.
As I have learnt these principles and tried to apply them to my decisions and life, I have also become aware that I am probably going to face different obstacles all the time since the current business climate is pretty far from that standard. This is also good news. Somebody said that even though we know that without physical exercise it is impossible to get physically fit, we still have difficulty accepting that acquiring spiritual strength does not come without spiritual challenges! When going through challenges one can always stop and think: ‘What am I supposed to learn from this?’ because the true purpose of all challenges in life is to learn from them. It is important to stay humble and accept that we are also learning all the time and sometimes making mistakes.
- Enjoying his natural surroundings
EBBF: It is no doubt important and laudable for one person to act honestly and uprightly at work, and there is no question that this has an impact on the workplace and on the lives of the people around him. But is this enough?
Mika: I think we need to see all of this from a greater perspective. What we are doing is creating a culture which does not yet exist in this world. Setting this new standard is to me pretty much same as when Bob Beamon jumped 8.90 meters in the long-jump competition in Olympic Games in 1968 in Mexico, a few years before I was born. Before that it was unimaginable that a man could jump 9 meters but suddenly it seemed possible. Due the action of one man the world suddenly changed. The truth is that jumping almost 9 meters has been possible as long as the world has existed but nobody had demonstrated it. So has the sustainable way of doing business always been possible. People just do not believe in anything else than the current culture of contest, unless they see a viable option. Nor did I, I guess, until I met all of these successful business people who operate in a socially responsible and ecologically sound manner and create happiness around them. It is a strong message! To send this message to the world we do have strong networks of people around the world showing example and setting the new standard.
Through networks all our actions are connected together. It is, therefore, even more important that when we are there in the workplace or in front of our troops we try to put those principles into action based on our best understanding, demonstrate that we do not make compromises in our actions and we are ready to always develop ourselves. Only in this way will we send the message that what we are doing is not just a set of random acts, but based on spiritual laws in action, and part of a network of people creating a new culture for the world.
EBBF: Do you have any insights into how to build up this kind of network? How are the people going to achieve unity of thought and action in regards to what the nature of these laws and principles are, and how they should be applied?
Mika: EBBF has done good job in this sense. It has gathered like-minded people all around the world together to share thoughts and experiences regarding the exploration of a new business culture. What is most staggering to me every time in the EBBF Annual Conference is to see wise, experienced, successful, truly happy business leaders demonstrate their commitment by applying spiritual laws via their businesses based on their own understanding. People may come to the EBBF conference with loads of questions on their mind: How do I deal with this and that? How to apply this principle in my specific situation? And what I see them leaving with is not the answers they were hoping to get, but with the realization that there is no easy answer - and that the only way they can get ahead is by raising their own understanding so that they can start finding the solutions themselves. There lies the true value of EBBF.
Business has a great power in determining what directions the development of the world is taking. For example, we have seen that in businesses supporting the tightening of environmental policies. Stronger companies support tight rules because they have the ability to compete under harder control because their processes are so well developed. What seemed to be too far to reach through political force is advancing greatly through business force. So you don’t need to be a big visionary to say that if full application of spiritual laws means better business it does not take too long before other kind of business is not even accepted. To get there we need a group of determined, uncompromising businessmen and women around the world who set the new standard–-and end up being extremely successful along the way.
