70 years old | Juha Rantanen, a mountain councilor who now owns a substance abuse rehabilitation center, once fired on people with alcohol problems: “If I had known what I know now, I would have acted differently”

Corona pandemic time has changed the way people work and the way they work. That has also happened Juha Rantanenan experienced business executive and a long-standing board professional.

Rantanen thinks he has sat in thousands of meetings throughout his career. However, after the outbreak of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, practices changed. They no longer gathered at the same table, but began to meet remotely.

“It was a huge change,” says Rantanen.

According to Rantanen, the matter has had both pros and cons. The advantage of a remote meeting is that everything is very accurate, organized and efficient. The downside is the loss of immediacy.

“Communication is much more than words,” says Rantanen.

“It’s up to the government to look to the future and think about what’s going on in the world and how a company should position itself for opportunities and threats. Such brainstorming and free exchange of ideas work poorly in remote meetings. The conversation easily becomes mechanical. ”

Rantanen has held careers in management positions in large industrial companies. He has served as Neste’s CFO and Outokumpu’s CEO and has served on the boards of large companies such as Stora Enso.

Over the years, there have been many rotations of numbers.

Rantanen says that he himself is still most fascinated by leading people. According to Rantanen, analytics account for only 20 percent of the challenge in the work of a company manager. The remaining 80 percent is how to make people act the way they want to.

“And you don’t learn that from books,” he says.

Manipulation?

“Well, you can try that too,” Rantanen says and laughs.

“However, I think the manipulation is very short-lived. Rather, it’s about making things understandable, giving the right kind of feedback, and interacting. Motivating people. ”

What The beach itself has been driven forward? Most likely, the desire to learn new things and seek the limits of their own competence, he guesses. Under no circumstances would he call his career planned.

“When I graduated from business school, I had no idea that I would be sitting here today, or that I would have had such a career. There is room for a huge number of coincidences. Some situations have been caught and some have not been caught, ”says Rantanen at the table of his lavish home along the Boulevard.

Has power fascinated you?

“That’s a good question,” he replies.

“Of course there is power associated with leadership positions, it cannot be denied. But power is not an absolute value, and it has never motivated me. And power is not always nice. You have to lay off people and make other unpleasant solutions. There is no power to pursue it for its own sake. ”

Four years ago, Rantanen was once again facing a new challenge. At the time, he became one of the owners and chairman of Kantamo, a drug rehabilitation center specializing in Minnesota treatment.

Rantanen estimates that he currently spends about a third of his working time on company matters. What motivates him at work? The annual turnover of the range is in the range of two million euros. It is a button trade compared to billion-dollar companies like Stora Enso.

Rantanen says that he sees the alcohol problem as a serious social and inevitably economic problem, and has wanted to use his own skills to help people suffering from alcohol problems.

At least there is enough work to do.

It is estimated that about seven percent of Finns suffer from alcoholism. According to Statistics Finland, about 1,700 people die each year in Finland due to alcohol. The majority of alcohol-related deaths were due to diseases associated with long-term alcohol use, such as liver and heart disease.

Rantanen says he also has a personal interest in the job. He recalls himself giving kicks to his subordinates who suffer from alcohol problems instead of being referred for substance abuse rehabilitation.

He is left with a “bad feeling” about these situations.

“If I had known what I know now, I would have acted differently.”