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05 Profile
A Different kind of
Good Life
Marjukka Mäki-Hokkonen is the CEO of Ascender , an HR and Payroll outsourcing company servicing around 3,000 companies across the Asia-Pacific and Middle East .
Workforce Life ( WL ): How has your international experience influenced your leadership ?
Having early exposure to very different cultures and value systems really teaches you to value diversity and to recognise that you need to keep an open mind , to appreciate that there are many ways of viewing the world .
My cultural background is Finnish , but from a very early age I was exposed to other cultures as my father ’ s work took us across the world . I was an exchange student in the US and I have lived and worked in Germany and the UK .
One of my key management principles is to try to hire people that are unlike me . In a fast changing business world , diversity creates stability and improves performance because it brings different points of view to the table .
WL : What prompted your own career change from banking into HR ?
I did an undergraduate degree in international business and I was fascinated by macroeconomics , statistics and finance , so I had a banking traineeship in Frankfurt .
Since then I have worked at a number of companies such as IBM and KPMG , and I ’ ve advised organisations ranging from private equity firms to listed companies .
I realised , though I ’ m good with numbers , that ’ s not what I enjoy doing . I use that realisation in my own leadership , helping staff understand what they have an intrinsic motivation for , the things they really enjoy doing .
WL : How can you hire people who fit your organisation ?
When cultures and values in an organisation are aligned and clearly communicated , there ’ s often a self-select process during recruitment so that staff expectations match business needs from the beginning .
At Ascender , we are a business providing payroll and HR services , so qualities such as compliance , accuracy , timeliness and trust are critical in a business such as this , and all of my staff tend to hold those as core values .
In other roles , like heading up teams of management consultants , I ’ ve had staff who were highly educated experts , and highly individual contributors working autonomously and might sometimes be described as ‘ primadonnas ’.
WL : What are your tips for leading millennials ?
The first step is to recognise that different people will have different expectations around what a ‘ good life ’ looks like .
Previous generations may have an expectation of being committed and dedicated over a fixed number of hours , to earn promotion through the ranks and so on .
For others , many millennials are a good example , a good life may mean not staying with one company for more than a year or two , or perhaps working long hours for four months and then taking a month off for some travel .
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WL : What are your tips for leading difficult people ?
The cleverest people are often the toughest to manage . Often it ’ s all around creating a relationship of trust . The business writer Daniel Pink talks about how key motivations for all staff come down to three things : autonomy , mastery and purpose .
Leadership is about creating an environment that allows people to have those things in their work , rather than directing someone to do X by a certain time .
The key is in understanding where people are coming from , whether they are challenging or not . You need to give them time , to listen and have empathy . When you try to put yourself into another person ’ s shoes , then you are also able to understand what their different motivations are and work with them to achieve those goals .
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Workforce Life | ISSUE 04