Tomas, you have worked as a leader in various industries and cultures, where companies under your leadership have achieved growth with improved profitability. Is there a universal solution?
One should be a little careful about preparing assembly instructions before understanding the purpose and goals of the organization. Each company has a unique history, with its strengths and challenges. Furthermore, we live in a rapidly changing world, where each company must find its own identity and purpose.
Isn't there a "lowest common denominator"?
Yes, in my opinion, many companies get stuck in the internal agenda - and forget the customer. Profitable and sustainable growth can only happen by helping the customer's challenges to achieve their goals. Regardless of industry, one should focus on:
-Find and develop your "sweet spot", where you have great customer value and are better than your competitors.
-Improve the customer experience and make it easy to cooperate with you to win the customer's heart.
-Build a strategy that is about choosing where to play and how to win. The difficult thing is often to choose where not to play in order to be really good at a few things - instead of being mediocre in many.
-The right leader and culture are crucial to motivate the rest of the organization.
Simply put: success lies about 1% in the strategy work and 99% in the execution.

With your international background, how does the organizational culture differ between Sweden and internationally?
We have more in common than differences between different cultures. We have the same needs to be seen, develop, feel safe, and to be part of something bigger than ourselves. Our Swedish leadership style has an advantage through greater transparency and inclusion between management and the rest of the organization, where we are on a first-name basis with each other. However, we should be less afraid of conflict and "test and learn" to achieve success faster rather than discussing to reach consensus (the English "fail & learn fast"). Many international companies have major challenges in keeping up with the market's rapid fluctuations linked to the fact that they are stuck in old pyramid organizations where many decisions are controlled too slowly centrally.

If you were to pick out the three most important areas all leaders should focus on, what are they then?
-Create a self-aware and learning organization, go from a static to a dynamic thinking through "you become what you train yourself to be". Focus on each employee developing their strengths rather than their weaknesses. Everyone naturally develops their strengths faster than areas in which they lack talent. Through diversity, the organization develops faster where different people complement each other.

-Make the customer the central focus. Creating this culture is central for all managers in the organization, e.g. to get their team to think about customer value.

-Through a high-performing team, build a sense of togetherness. Create a decentralized culture and ensure that communication from management is open and continuous. Celebrate more victories than just those linked to classic financial KPIs. Understand what the employees are inspired by and celebrate common victories linked to common challenges.