In my last post I wondered why the job market keeps treating “Ways of Working People“ as ”overhead”. These are people focused on how work gets done, separate from the people who create and deliver it. Separating the ”how” from the ”what” is, of course, a false dichotomy, because the people doing the work should own how it’s done, too. So why is the improvement part often lacking?

I’ve lost count of how many times a team has told me oh, we can’t change that. That sentence always makes me curious. If there’s a blocker, a dependency, or a working relationship issue, why go to a dedicated ”Ways of Working Person” instead of the manager? Great question. A good manager already removes blockers and reads team dynamics. That’s the job.

I think it comes down to mandate. Who’s allowed to change things? How many people need to sign off first? How much hassle do you have to wade through before anything moves?

Some issues sit outside what any one manager can hold, no matter how good they are. A blocker between two teams belongs to nobody’s roadmap. A pattern that shows up in every retro is different from a surface-level, one-off issue a manager fixes and moves past. Sometimes the manager is the issue, and the person raising it needs to talk to someone with no formal power over them.

None of this is a competence gap, but a systemic one. Changing our habits is notoriously difficult, and there are always forces resisting it. Someone has to act as connective tissue between teams, managers, cultures, and time zones, full-time, not squeezed in between planning and one-on-ones. And that someone needs the mandate to actually act on what they find, not just notice it. This work is not optional. It’s capability building.

That’s the case for a dedicated role, alongside managers, covering ground no single manager’s span of control was ever meant to cover. I explored a related idea, AI-empowered triads needing ”tribal leaders”, in an earlier post.

Marty Cagan (the author of several influential books) has an article about ”process people”: people who scale companies with process. That’s not what I mean. I’m not talking about someone coming in with a process and rolling it out across the organisation. I’m talking about people-owned, living ways of working: simplifying things, noticing where structural or cultural problems are getting in the way, and helping the people doing the work address them.

Improving that is not ”overhead” or ”waste”; it’s a way of identifying and minimising waste in product development. Marty’s ”makers” and ”managers” can sometimes do this well. When they can’t, that’s the gap a ”Ways of Working Person” fills. And I agree with Marty that it’s helpful if that person has been a ”maker”.

Special thanks to a few ex-colleagues for the conversations that inspired this post.

I keep putting ”Ways of Working Person” in quotes because I genuinely don’t have a better name for it. The job market doesn’t have a name for it, at least not one that captures what I mean. Some of you reading this have that job without the corresponding title. (Phil Karlton was not wrong when he said naming things is hard.)

Help me out, let’s keep at it.

Why are “Ways of Working People“ so badly neglected in today’s job market? When you “remove the overhead”, what are you really optimising for? Are you getting bang for your buck?

Everyone’s obsessed with outcome. I know, outcome is what changes things, what actually drives profit. But much less emphasis is put on how the team works together, and who should own that part. If you only focus on outcome and not on how you work, you’re also not focusing on learning.

Mike Rother wrote about this years ago, in Toyota Kata: leave a process alone and it erodes. It doesn’t matter if it’s a factory line or a team retro, the people doing it have to keep tending it. Let me repeat: it doesn’t happen automatically, and it’s hard, continuous work. It’s hard because change is hard.

You can’t control or secure the outcome. That’s why I firmly believe you need not only to focus on the how, but also to enjoy it; enjoy it so much that you make time to improve it. How else would you learn?

Easier said when you’re in a stable job. I know that well right now. But cutting the how to save on “overhead” isn’t optimising anything. It’s just shooting yourself in the foot. The bill comes due eventually.

Project details

Dates

July 30–August 1, 2026

Location

Monte Rosa Massif, Italy

Peaks

7 summits over 4000m in 2 days

Guide

Guide Alpine Alagna

This spring and summer have been frustrating: no new job in sight since I was let go due to redundancy at the end of December 2025. Many people and companies are on holiday right now too, which hasn’t helped—things have felt stalled for longer than I’d like 🤔

Still, I’ve kept looking for work while trying to focus on my well-being.

Between my own job situation and the unstable state of the world, I needed a break and time in the mountains, like I do every winter and summer. So this time I decided to go bigger: I booked a guided 7 x 4000m “mini-spaghetti” tour in the Monte Rosa Massif, Italy, July 30–Aug 1, 2026—a more ambitious mountaineering endurance challenge than I’d taken on before.

Planning and Preparation

To maximise my chances of success, I trained a bit more cardio and strength than usual for about three months beforehand.

I took my trekking boots and a 10–13kg backpack and walked up and down my local hills in Hyllie, Malmö, 3–4 times a week, 1–3 hours per session—roughly 2000 vertical meters up and down each week.

On top of that: swimming 1km once a week, cycling 2–3 times a week, home strength training 2–3 days a week, and my usual daily walks, which I’ve kept up for years.

Finding a Guide and a Group

I’ve joined mixed groups with strangers a few times before, which can be risky given differing acclimatisation and fitness levels among participants. So this time, to maximise my own chances of success, I opted for a private guide instead. That turned out to be a good decision. I’ve used different guide offices over the years; this time I tried a new one for me, Guide Alpine Alagna, and it worked really well.

The Tour

Before the glacier, a few highlights from the start of the trip: the Alta Via 1 route from Cheneil to Col de Nana (2775m) was beautiful. I also climbed Becca Trécare (3033m, route 3C) and Bec de Nannaz/Falconetta (3010m, route 3A), both from Col de Nana: 360-degree views over the Alps, the Matterhorn, and the whole Monte Rosa massif, under a clear blue sky.

Next time I’m keen to explore other peaks near Col de Nana, including Petit Tournalin (3207m) and Mont Roisetta (3324m). The Cime Bianche valley looks beautiful too: another one for the list.

After a night at Rifugio Grand Tournalin (2550m), I continued to Rifugio Guide di Frachey (2060m) in Resy, Val d’Ayas. These few days of acclimatising across Cervinia, Valtournenche, Val d’Ayas, and Gressoney (trekking via Alta Via 1) set me up for the main event: Monte Rosa’s 4000m peaks.

The Seven Summits

We woke up at the very crowded Rifugio Gnifetti (3647m) at 3:30 on July 31 and stepped onto the glacier around 4:45. Five peaks that day, two more the next morning.

1. Schwarzhorn / Corno Nero (4322m)—Summited 7:20, July 31. Beautiful morning light and a fun climb, with a short rock section before the statue of the Madonna on the summit.
2. Ludwigshöhe (4341m)—Summited 7:50, July 31. A short trek across the glacier from Corno Nero, with good views over the other Monte Rosa peaks.
3. Parrotspitze / Punta Parrot (4432m)—Summited 8:50, July 31. A beautiful, narrow snow ridge.
4. Zumsteinspitze / Punta Zumstein (4563m)—Summited 10:25, July 31. The fifth-highest Alpine four-thousander on the official UIAA list of 82 summits.
5. Signalkuppe / Punta Gnifetti (4554m)—Summited 11:05, July 31. Home to Capanna Margherita, the highest mountain hut in Europe. This was my second time up here. In 2017, thick clouds and fog meant I barely saw the landscape, so this time I was determined to catch both sunset and sunrise. The mountain had other plans: as we arrived at Margherita, the weather turned to snow, and the morning brought no change: the wind was still strong. We pushed on regardless, setting off again at 6:00. Third time’s the charm, maybe 😜
6. Balmenhorn / Cristo delle Vette (4167m)—Summited 06:55, Aug 1. Balmenhorn isn’t on the official UIAA list of 82 four-thousanders, but it’s included in the extended list of 46 ”lesser summits”. Either way, it felt like a worthy peak in its own right, including a 10–15m ladder-and-rope section just before reaching the Cristo delle Vette statue on top.
7. Piramide Vincent (4215m)—Summited 07:35, Aug 1. The final summit of the tour. My second time on this peak (first was 2023). The weather wasn’t as kind this round, but it didn’t take much away from the experience. Grateful for the chance, and for those views.

In summary, the weather was mostly good throughout the trip, with the one exception being that night and morning at the Margherita hut on Signalkuppe.

The Broad Peak Avalanche

I was mostly offline during the tour. Coming down from 4500 meters, I learned about the avalanche on Broad Peak in Pakistan that claimed 10 lives on July 30, 2026. I was deeply affected—I’ve followed some of those climbers on social media for years.

It was a hard reminder that we’re just visitors here: the mountains can be cruel, and one mistake can be fatal. I’m merely a tourist compared to those professional climbers, but as someone with a real love for mountains and nature, I feel I can relate to the pain and the senseless loss. May they rest in peace.

Reflections

Whatever happens, the mountains will be there. The glaciers might not. You could see it in the thinning ice and the growing number of crevasses. The ice has visibly retreated even in the few years I’ve been coming here, while Europe burns with heatwaves and wildfires further south. Both are signs of anthropogenic climate change. I’m wondering what more needs to happen for people, businesses, and politicians to change course. I’m not hopeful.

Coming back from the Alps, I’ve had a bit of a blues since I don’t have much steady ground to land on right now—no job, no fixed plan, just the next stretch of uncertainty to sit with.

It’s become a test of resilience, and not just mine—the same instability I feel personally, I see playing out globally too, as the rules-based order that’s held for decades comes apart.

I’ve used the time to reflect, dig into the foundations of AI and related tools, and think about where my renewed self fits into this changing landscape. For now, I’m grateful for every new day and opportunity that comes—and if you know of one, I’d love to hear about it.

What’s Next?

This is a tour that will stay with me. I’ve now summited 12 4000m Alpine peaks—11 of them on the official UIAA list, since Balmenhorn falls just outside it.

For reference, here’s the full list:

1. Punta Giordani (4046m) — 2017
2. Punta Gnifetti/Signalkuppe (4554m) — 2017, 2026
3. Castore (4223m) — 2018
4. Piramide Vincent (4215m) — 2023, 2026
5. Gran Paradiso (4058m) — 2024
6. Western Breithorn (4165m) — 2025
7. Central Breithorn (4159m) — 2025
8. Schwarzhorn (Corno Nero) (4322m) — 2026
9. Ludwigshöhe (4341m) — 2026
10. Parrotspitze (4432m) — 2026
11. Zumsteinspitze (4563m) — 2026
12. Balmenhorn (4167m) — 2026

I’m already planning the next ones. I’m not a climber, but here are some candidates still on the easier side, with a mix of glacier trekking and some short rock scrambling in Monte Rosa and around Saas-Fee:

• Pollux (4092m)
• Allalinhorn (4027m)
• Alphubel (4206m)
• Nadelhorn (4327m)
• Rimpfischhorn (4199m)
• Strahlhorn (4190m)
• Lagginhorn (4010m)
• Weissmies (4017m)

The future will tell. For now, the highest priority is finding a job.

And that’s a wrap. Special thanks to my excellent guide Fabio Guglielmina from Guide Alpine Alagna—couldn’t have done it without him 🙏

Build it and ship it. That’s the default. The assumption is that adding things to the world is good: a new feature, a new tool, a new step in the process. Adding fills a perceived gap. It’s visible and easy to point to.

AI makes it trivially easy to add something—a feature, a workflow, a paragraph. And that ease is a big part of why so many products slide toward enshittification: layer after layer added, nothing ever taken away, until the thing barely works for the people who use it. Adding isn’t the enemy; the problem is that it’s rarely questioned.

Removing is harder. To remove something well, you have to understand why it was there in the first place, and have the judgment to know it’s no longer needed. Things depend on it in ways that aren’t obvious until you pull it out. That often takes more thought than adding ever does. There’s also a quieter fear that we’re throwing away something valuable we might need later.

The skill that’s getting scarcer is subtraction. We rarely ask: What can we take away? What can we make simpler? What problem are we actually solving, and is it even worth solving? These questions matter more now, not less.

Answer those, and the payoff is real: what’s left works better, is easier to explain, and is easier to trust. Simplicity isn’t the absence of effort; it’s the result of it.

Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.

What did you remove or simplify today?

I’ve lived and worked in six countries and collaborated with people from 40+ nationalities.

The biggest cultural difference I’ve found isn’t between nationalities. It’s between people who’ve worked across cultures and people who haven’t.

That difference matters most in distributed teams where you can’t rely on physical proximity to build what culture requires.

Distributed isn’t a location setting. It’s a culture you either build deliberately or inherit accidentally.

The distributed team that works well has one thing the others don’t: someone who treats connection as part of the job.

4000m Peaks of the Alps - Normal and classic routes is a brilliant book if you’re interested in Alpine four-thousanders. It covers all the 82 peaks from the UIAA list, with normal and alternative routes, and a bit of history thrown in. Long out of print, I’ve been eyeing this book for several years. So you can imagine my enthusiasm when the new edition dropped this year. I’m not aware of any other modern Alpine book on the market like this at the moment.

I also own the late Martin Moran’s book The 4000m Peaks of the Alps - Selected Climbs which is also very good and recommended (revised version 2012). This book by Marco Romelli and Valentino Cividini is newer, updated (third edition 2026), and comes with excellent photos mostly by the authors. It’s hugely informative, well laid out, and a joy to read and look at.

I haven’t read the whole book yet, but I can already see how much effort and passion has gone into creating it.

Having climbed only 10% of these peaks (at the time of writing), most are still a way off for me, but I’ll for sure be using this book to learn more, get new ideas, and prepare for the next target. It serves both as a guide/planning book and as inspiration for armchair mountaineers 🙂

Worth the wait. Get it now before it sells out again.

Working in two or more languages every day is invisible extra work. No one factors it into the planning. It takes energy.

But it also gives something back: perspective, flexibility, and a deeper understanding of other people.

Choosing which language to use based on who’s in the room (not just what words you want to use) is a leadership skill.

Language choices don’t just shape communication; they shape participation.

That’s why, often without us realising it, these choices influence who belongs in the conversation.

Language is belonging, trust, culture, and power; all at once.

And switching languages is invisible work that shapes who gets included.

The Law of Jante says: blend in. The job market says: stand out. Something has to give.

Jantelagen (written as satire in 1933) is built on collective unity, yet Nordic countries score among the highest in the world for individualism. Those two things are in direct conflict.

Taking Jantelagen literally might be the most Jante thing of all.

Being Finnish, I now recognise experiencing something similar in my childhood. But I wasn’t aware of what that was, or where it came from—like a fish unaware of the water it swims in.

The first time I heard about it was when I was working in Copenhagen. Since then, I’ve been navigating that narrow space between standing out and sticking out. One is admired. One is punished.

Who controls the interpretation of your visibility? The community does. That’s the real mechanism behind Jantelagen. It’s also its biggest problem.

It belongs to a stable, predictable world. In a job market disrupted by remote work, AI, geopolitical earthquakes, and climate transition, blending in is the riskiest strategy of all.

In a job search, knowing who you are and what you bring—and giving yourself permission to make it visible—eats Jante for breakfast.

I just received my certificate in the course An Introduction to Climate Change and Human Rights at UN CC:Learn. A couple of days earlier, I also completed Net Zero 101: What, Why and How.

Both were short, but they gave me a clearer picture of how climate change connects to the way we live, work, and treat each other: from emissions pathways to Net Zero, to the human impact of a changing climate, particularly on the most vulnerable.

I’ve been trying to live climate-conscious in my own daily choices, and courses like these are a small but useful way to turn that curiosity into a better understanding of the bigger picture. Always looking to keep learning and find ways to do things a little better.

I’ve been using AI tools for a couple of years now. This week I decided to formalise that with some structured learning.

I completed four Anthropic Academy courses on AI literacy and AI fluency, plus two others: Elements of AI, and Career Essentials in Generative AI.

Six AI certificates in six days, across three platforms:

Anthropic Academy

• Claude 101
• AI Fluency: Framework & Foundations
• AI Fluency: Capabilities & Limitations
• Introduction to Claude Cowork

University of Helsinki

• Elements of AI

Microsoft & LinkedIn

• Career Essentials in Generative AI

AI is moving fast, and it’s largely being shaped by a handful of large American commercial companies with their own interests. That’s worth keeping in mind.

But I’d rather engage with it critically and create a foundation to build on, than dismiss it. Ignoring it is not an option.

Knowing how it works, how to apply it in real workflows, what it can and can’t do, and where the risks lie feels more useful than either hype or dismissal.

All six are free and self-paced if you want to form your own view.