Talking about the future of work and the recipe to great leadership
Talking about the future of work and the recipe to great leadership
We recently hosted a live broadcast featuring top corporate decision makers to share experiences and lessons on the recipe for great leadership. Naturally also, given the circumstance to reflect on going into, through and out of the pandemic. Below is a summary of the conversation we had with Caroline Farberger, Hans Stråberg and Per G. Braathen.
Fight, flight or freeze
Representing different industries it was interesting to hear their experiences from the ongoing pandemic. Per G. Braathen is, among others, Chair of Scandic Hotels Group and Braganza, a holding company, where, amongst others, BRA Airlines is part of the portfolio. His experience from the pandemic has been very real, acting at the heart of our most affected industries, hit most harshly by worldwide lockdowns.
“This was a most unreal situation that became very real as we were faced with being responsible for the livelihood of 25.000 employees and no guests in our hotels.”
Braathen shared that at Scandic Hotels they quickly managed to step on the breaks and found much understanding from their employees in the tough decisions they had to make. The pandemic is no one’s fault, Braathen stated, and this fact has helped to motivate the actions taken, along with maintaining an open dialogue with focus on problem-solving and teamwork. In a crisis such as the one we’ve now seen, setting up short-term goals and engaging survival-mode is a necessity when you see risk of cash-flows being drained. Braathen also stressed the need for courage in your leaders to make the important decisions, often with very few facts at hand, despite those decisions being very controversial. Per shares that his courage comes from a basic belief in people and determination to see things through. It is really important to believe in what you are doing is the right thing and to surround yourself with a team of people that will support you along the way but people that are also aware of the risk.
An advantage for many of our Nordic companies is that many of our corporate leaders have been through a recession before, which has helped us prepare. However, none of us could predict how far this pandemic would make us go and how hard we would need to hit those breaks. One of the lessons from Hans Stråberg is to never reduce sales activities as they are more difficult to get back up and performing again. It’s best to review other parts of the organisation first.
All speakers agreed that we must have enormous respect for those industries that we have seen take a beating from this pandemic and lend support where possible getting back out of it and into a new normal. Braathen says, about the airline business, that they have contributed with 4% of BNP, yet taken 95% of the problems during the pandemic. In the future we must see that everybody has a role to play to support the society and infrastructure we wish to have.
Watch the full interview below —>
Alumni Spring Summit 2021 (in Swedish)
A new type of leadership
Caroline Farberger added a different perspective to what good leadership is about but agreed with Braathen that successful leadership very much depends on a group effort and has little to do with one individual. Today she places much focus on getting to know the members of her management team, seeing them for the unique individuals they are how they individually can best contribute to the overarching goals they set for the company. With a more inclusive leadership style today, she gave the example of making a point of listening to her management team’s opinion before she makes up her own mind/ shares. hers. Having gone through a very personal experience and openly sharing this with employees and members of her team, she is a strong spokesperson encouraging leaders to be more transparent, generous of themselves and more human. Farberger goes on to say that being placed in charge calls for you to be visible in a new way, to instill stability and security. She shares that in this past year she has had to work hard to accomplish this and to get input on what is going on out there on the office floor, without being able to physically be present, as before the pandemic.
Farberger means that it’s only when leaders are authentic, showing vulnerability and truly listens to those around them that honest feedback can be given and provide opportunity to learn. She calls for a new type of leadership and sees that the leadership in any organisation is becoming increasingly important to employees and particularly younger generations entering the work market. In the modern workplace she is striving to create, leaders will listen to each employee and be able to adjust the conditions of the workplace in order to help each employee perform on top.
Stråberg who is one of Sweden’s most experienced corporate leaders, for many of us, represents a more traditional type of Nordic leadership. He also attributes his success to having a great team around him. Stråberg spoke of his conviction in the importance of organisations being able to foster good leaders. Having built a career within the fortune 500 company Electrolux, he sees how this has helped him develop his own leadership and others with him. Being given much responsibility at a young age and held accountable for decisions made, has been key to his development. He raised some concern about the more common matrix organizational structures of today, which he says do not as easily foster good leaders. With vague reporting lines and too many stakeholders involved in decision-making, few or none will ever get a fair chance to test and grow. Clear mandate, authority and responsibility are important prerequisites to fostering great leaders, in Stråbergs’ view.
Whilst few would react to a leader inviting the opinions of their employees here in the Nordics, it must be remembered that in other cultures and geographies this is not always the view. A leader may even be considered a bad one for asking their employees and inviting them to share the responsibility for finding the answers, rather than providing it themselves as the person in charge. Given more diverse organisations and global corporations a leader must naturally be aware, able to adjust and considerate of the different norms across their organisations.
The most important question for the board of directors
Priority one through three on the board agenda should always be choosing the right CEO, according to Stråberg. This will be affected of course by the strategy set and what type of skillset the CEO would need to have, but at centre must be a CEO that is able to understand how to put together his management team.
“A good CEO with a mediocre board of directors will always come out fine. However, a bad CEO coupled with a good board of directors will almost never work out.”
Having been Chairman through the pandemic has demanded much more legwork and Stråberg sees a clear disadvantage for board members being brought in during this time of lockdowns and travel restrictions. According to him it’s crucial for the board of directors to get a sense of the company, to help guide their understanding and advise in the boardroom work. This has not been possible during the pandemic and something else which has been hindered, is the strategy work that is not suitably conducted in a digital format such as we’ve been restricted to.
Building company culture and ways of working
We are many that agree that in the Nordic countries we have come out from the pandemic in better shape than first anticipated. In the long-term it is going to be difficult if not impossible however to build company culture when working only remotely.
“We must get back to our offices. We are social beings and it’s when we meet that we make things happen and together reach new achievements.”
As Braathen notes we all have the opportunity now to make really good business, as after having had these many months of lockdowns and restrictions, people are really keen to meet in person. Where before it was difficult to find time for meeting others to discuss new opportunities, today it’s a completely different scenario.
“Where you were grateful for 30 minutes before the pandemic, today there is no issue getting one hour of a person’s time because everyone is so keen to meet.”
With company culture constantly evolving it becomes even more important that our leaders are good representatives of this in everyday life in every way they can, adds Farberger.
It will be interesting to see if organisations going forward will be able to stick to the discipline, we have shown each other in front of our screens the past months and if we will continue with the high level of punctuality that so many of us have noted as a clear area of improvement. Farberger shared how at ICA Försäkring they are looking at changing some of the meeting formats, splitting the agenda in to one part for operative reporting and knowledge exchange and another part for visibility and spending time on the floor.
Hybrid meetings with parts of the participants joining online and other present in the room will become more normal, but also demand more from the meeting organizer to ensure all are included and have a much more structured approach for round-table discussions.
With online meetings being an everyday occurrence Braathen reflected on our tendency to be more honest now. We have mastered the unmute button and can control our cameras and therefore it becomes easier for us to tune in and out, multitasking along the way. It becomes clear that we must tailor meeting room format to the message we are communicating.
Advise to a leader at the start of their career
Farberger emphasizes the importance of staying true to oneself. Have the courage to be yourself, stay true to your own values and dare to be more personal and practice an authenticity in your leadership.
Stråberg says to pick the right people around you is crucial. Make sure you adapt your team to fit with what you wish to achieve at a given time, in line with strategy and what you are trying to achieve.
Braathen agrees and says it’s important as a young aspiring leader to come to turns with the fact that as one person you can’t do and solve everything. You need others to help you in your vision.
From getting to know what these leaders have learnt in recent times, to lessons learned throughout their career and what they take with them going forward, much of our talk centered around courage. As an important characteristic in any successful leader we wanted to understand how they themselves have been courageous and how they themselves foster courage within their organisations. We also spoke of where they seek inspiration and what their source of energy is. All this and more is of course available in a recorded version of our talk here (only available in Swedish).
We wish to thank everyone who joined us on the day and also our guest panelists for generously sharing with us all their lessons on leadership.
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Our speakers
Caroline Farberger
Caroline Farberger, is since 2016 the CEO of Ica Försäkring, subsidiary to ICA Banken and part of the ICA Group. Caroline is a financial services professional with 26 years of experience covering line management, consulting and entrepreneurial activities.
She started her international career as management consultant with McKinsey before entering the insurance business nearly 20 years ago, where she prior to ICA had Nordic Business Leader roles within the Trygg-Hansa/ Codan group.
Hans Stråberg
Hans Stråberg is today among others Chairman of Atlas Copco, SKF and Roxtec. He is also board member of Investor and Mellby Gård. Hans started his career within Electrolux in 1983 and was the Group’s President & CEO from 2002 to 2010. Stråberg was one of the youngest CEOs of a Fortune Global 500 company.
Per G. Braathen
Per Georg Braathen, is a Norwegian investor and Chair of Scandic Hotels Group. Since 1992, Per is the owner, Chair and CEO of Braganza, a holding company, where amongst others, BRA Airlines is part of the portfolio.
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