Spontaneous Planning

It´s been a while since I last wrote. Full time demanding job, two small kids, business trips, house chores,…between all this, sometimes it is hard to find an opportunity where I have a moment to myself and I am not tired. Finding energy and motivation to write is also sometimes challenging. I really need to pick up pace with writing before I start forgetting everything. So, I am trying to take the advice from my AI companion Copilot and taking small moments where I have time to myself, in this case on a flight to London. 😊

Last time you were reading, you left me crying in my new home in Montreal. The move to Montreal was quite a journey, however the geodynamics did not stop there. You see, the job that I signed up for involved a series of job rotation assignments across the globe during the first 1.5-2 years, as part of an early career leadership program. I moved to Montreal end of July 2010, and in early September on that same summer, I was on my way to my first assignment: a month stay in Stockholm for the onboarding to the Global Graduate Program. I knew very little about the program itself or the other participants. All I knew is that we were 18 individuals coming from different parts of the world, the “future leaders” of Ericsson. I did not know anyone, so all this was a bit intimidating.

We were all provided apartments scattered across Stockholm. I got an apartment in the southern part of Stockholm, in the same building as 4 other participants: a Spanish girl living in England, an Indian girl, a Cameroonian living in China, and an American. You can already see where this is going…it will be a very diverse environment indeed. The Spanish girl was the first one I met, since I spoke Spanish, she was the closest to “home” 😊 we immediately became close and stayed that way throughout the program. We live in the same city now (Madrid) but between Covid and life in general, I am embarrassed to say, we lost touch in the past years. I need to reconnect, put it on my TODO list, marked in red. Meeting the other three in the building did not take long. By next few days, the 5 of us became inseparable, calling ourselves the Vaganers (based on the street name where we lived). The name sounds quite horrible but that was part of the fun.

After we all settled in, we had the official program kick off at the Ericsson HQ in Kista. The Ericsson complex in Kista was impressive, with numerous buildings of Ericsson, it felt like the whole neighborhood belonged to this company. The neighborhood itself was nothing spectacular, but Kista would become our home office for the next several months and will remain afterwards forever part of our hearts. Meeting the whole team for the first time was unforgettable: aside from our Vaganer D&I crowd, we had 4 people from China, 4 people from Sweden, 3 Hungarians, one Iranian living in Sweden, and one more American. It was quite a crowd: all engineers, with very diverse cultural backgrounds, different ages, different personalities, but with several traits in common: everyone was very talented, super motivated and very ambitious. That´s why we were all there. For example, one of the Americans was a PhD student in Engineering with experience of managing a gym at age of 25, the other one had already founded several start ups, one of the Chinese had parents who were illiterate and moved to a big city to become a successful Engineer, the Cameroonian moved to China to do his Engineering studies and learned fluent Mandarin along the way, etc. No matter what the background, talent always floats up. In parallel to our program, there was another program more business oriented, with another set of very diverse and talented individuals. This brough an additional mix to our already fun crowd.

That first month in Stockholm was all about getting introduced to the program and the different stages of it, doing some initial leadership training, and, above all, team building. Creating a connected and effective multinational team that will be functioning remotely for most of the time, was a very challenging task for the program leadership, but also an indispensable one if the program was to be a success. We all needed to build that network between ourselves because it was meant to a) build up our leadership skills and b) last us a lifetime and help us in our career paths afterwards.

For a big number of people, this was the first time they had travelled outside of their home countries, so the cultural shock was huge. One of the Americans pinged us before the trip asking casually where we will rent a car in Stockholm, the girl from India came with a winter coat, some members from China brought pillows to the office. Then there were some inevitable biases. One of my colleagues casually commented to me after a few days: “When I heard one of the participants is from Croatia I was doubtful, but now I see you are very good.” These were just some of the little cultural differences we started to get introduced to. And we did not even start to work together yet! 😊

Team building activities were very Swedish. The first one was curling, a strange ice version of bowling. It is one of those weird sports at the winter Olympic Games that you watch at 2 AM because there is nothing else on. I was teamed up with a colleague from South Korea, Hungary and Hong Kong. You can imagine how bad we were, but surprisingly curling turned out to be a much more of a fun event live than it is on TV. Now I watch it during the Olympics for real. (No, I don’t)

Another very Swedish team building activity was camping in the wilderness. Over the course of the program, I will learn about the love for outdoors that all Swedes share, and most of us will adopt. Since I was not much of an outdoors person, I did not really think through the packing for this event. For example, as I was leaving the apartment with my backpack, I forgot my winter jacket. On the street we were commenting whether we would even need a jacket since it is September. I mean, it’s still summer, right? I did not feel like going back to get the jacket so I figured, what the heck. Wrong move. I froze my butt off those two nights in my hoodie. Lesson learned: never go outdoors without extra warm clothes, especially in the Nordics!

The team building itself was amazing, we had to build tents together, go for treasure hunt in teams, shoot out of a bow and arrow, enjoy some Swedish sauna, we saw lots of Nordic animals, did all kinds of other activities and really got to know each other.

Then there were lobster dinners, Swedish Fika (oh how I miss those coffee breaks with cake), and then there were the most important team building activities: parties. Lots of parties. What better way to really get to know people than with good food, drinks and music. This type of networking works no matter where you are from. Party is a global word, isn’t it? Oh, and I forgot sightseeing! For most people it was the first time to visit Stockholm and Sweden, so lots of after work was done with cameras in hand and smiles on faces. True smiles, not fake ones. 😊

This was my first big exposure to such a diverse pool of people, I was amazed by all the wonderful cultures, languages and personalities, but what amazed me even more is how much all of us had in common. Our life goals, values, and pursuit of something bigger. These traits do not come with a passport, they are truly global. This experience launched me into a global mindset that I hold to this day.