Over the past six months I've had the privilege of spending time with the management and employees at HP in Denmark. After several tough years during the financial crisis and a shifting environment for the IT industry, the Country Management Team wanted to rediscover and focus on the strengths of the Danish HP organization in order to increase engagement, motivation and pride within the organization. Stagis was invited to work with the management team to rediscover the authentic strengths of HP and to help the organization remember and reclaim what they are good at – what HP in Denmark is passionate about.

During the spring I met most of the managers in the Danish organization and during May and June I’ve personally been meeting and interviewing a lot of managers and employees at Hewlett-Packard in Allerød. When I started out I mostly thought of HP as the hardware company that most people think about – a company that produce servers, laptops and printers. But then, as I met with people and joined workshops and meetings, I remembered some of the things I had heard and read about HP over the years. When Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard founded their small company in a garage in Palo Alto in California in 1938, they were not only founding a small tech shop, they founded what is now known as Silicon Valley, the cradle of an entire industry. And they led the HP company from being good to great through a number of leadership principles that have been praised in well recognized management litterature. Like “Management by Walking Around”, “Open Door Policy” and “The HP Way”. Here’s one of the ads that ran during HPs “reinvent” campaign reconnecting to the historic garage and the principles of Bill and Dave:



I think the ad captures some of the greatness of HP. Since the time in the garage HP has come to be the largest IT company in the world with more than 320.000 employees around the globe. But during the past few years things have been tough in the tech industry due to the financial crisis. The former CEO Mark Hurd introduced new forms of reporting and cut costs in order to help HP stay afloat. Just a few months ago the former CEO of eBay, Meg Whitman, took over the role of CEO. The shifting external environment had an impact on the tech industry and on HP. Customers are reluctant to invest in IT, the strategy of HPs PC division is subject to media commentary and naturally, life in the tech business is not what it used to be, five or ten years ago. As you can imagine, the financial crisis naturally leads into identity questions like “who are we?” and “who do we want to become?”.




When I first entered HP one of the things that struck me was the lack of visual identity. The building is new, cool and looks great, but if someone had removed the HP Invent graphics from the building I wouldn’t be able of seeing, which company was working here. The same goes for the reception area and the meeting rooms. Where is the physical, visual or tactile expression of identity and the passion for the products, the employees and the customers? Every organization needs to express and show who they are in order to build a strong authentic identity.

Here’s the good news. Last week I was visiting HP in Allerød again. Newly appointed Managing Director in Denmark, Jakob Schou Meding, was on his tenth workday at HP, talking about community, knowing each other, working together and how to build trust in front of about 200 employees. People were cheering and seemed to have high hopes for the future. I joined to give a brief presentation of the authentic strengths of HP Denmark that I discovered over the past months. When I walked out of there I was proud to be part of the process and I felt quite sure that I was witnessing a local organization becoming a new, more focused version of itself. In the very near future the organization will be working with a series of initiatives to increase the sense of community, appreciation, engagement and leadership – and to help the potentials of the Danish organization grow.

I går holdt jeg foredrag for 100 oplagte og glade efterskoleledere på Efterskolernes årlige lederkonference i DGI Byen. Før jeg kom på podiet var der præsentation af samtlige fremmødte og fællessang. Ikke noget med at sidde og pippe ned i sangbogen - der blev sunget igennem! Min kollega Louise og jeg diskuterede, om ikke vi skulle indføre fællessang på kontoret - der var høj energi og masser af fællesskab i det. Mit foredrag handlede om autentisk identitet og så forsøgte jeg at udfordre  efterskolelederne i forhold til efterskolernes identitet. Er hver efterskole god nok til at finde sine særlige styrker og dyrke både ledelse, aktiviteter, organisering og kommunikation ud fra netop "min" efterskoles styrker? Vi havde en rigtig god debat med gode spørgsmål, gode kommentarer og reflektioner. Heine Boe fra Efterskolen for Scenekunst (tidligere Femmøller Efterskole, som Stagis har udviklet identitet for) sagde, at det var overraskende, at "sådan en reklamemand (jeg kunne ikke dy mig for at gøre indsigelser mod dén titel) kom og skulle tale om kommunikation, men så talte om alt det, der ligger før kommunikationen - nemlig hvem man er". Rigtig god pointe, for det er afklaringen af identitet, der er grundlaget for god kommunikation.



I forbindelse med lederkonferencen har jeg skrevet en artikel, som berører nogen af de emner, jeg fortalte om, og som vi diskuterede efterfølgende. Jeg kaldte den "På udkig efter efterskolens autentiske styrker" og den kan downloades på stagis.dk. Den kan også ses i færdig form på Efterskolebladets hjemmeside.

Tilbage i 2006 - 2008 bloggede vi en del om uddannelse, efterskoler og skolevalg - indlæggene kan findes her på bloggen ved at trykke på "Categories" og vælge dette emne.

We are closing the office for two weeks, from July 16th through July 31st as we leave to spend time in the sun rather than in the hot office in Kompagnistraede, Copenhagen. We will be back, ready to take on new projects and finalize ongoing work from August 1st.

I have been spending most of my time in June and July in Rome, Italy, working on my book projects. The manuscript for the Danish book titled "Den autentiske virksomhed" was finalized in June after massive editing from a total of 365 pages to 303. While the Danish editor at Gyldendal is reviewing it I will be starting up the other half of the project which is to edit and change various parts in order for the book to be published in an international version. Also, I've been spending time in Italy working with some Italian case studies. On Friday, I'm interviewing one of the masterminds behind the city planning in Rome through the past 20 years, Eugenio La Rocca, Superintendent of Cultural Heritage of the City of Rome during the 90s and 2000s. We will be discussing the paradoxes between massive cultural heritage and the need to change and develop a city. Two important factors that do not always work out nicely - just like in all other aspects of understanding, preserving and changing organizational identity in organizations, large and small.

When I return from Italy and my colleagues return to the office in Copenhagen August 1st, we will also be welcoming a few new members to the Stagis team. During May and June we have been busy recruiting new skilled people and four new faces will show up at Stagis during August and September. I look forward to that and I know everyone else does too!

It is about 35 degrees celcius in Rome today - a bit too much to be in front of the screen if you ask me - I hope you will enjoy the summer as much as I do! Enjoy La Dolce Vita!

I have just begun a two month visit to Accademia di Danimarca in Rome, where I'll be starting a new process of the international edition of "The Authentic Company". During the next week I will be finishing the Danish edition of the book "The Authentic Company". It examines what the three dimensions of authenticity is, how they can be mapped and illustrates through examples how leaders can handle authentic organizational identity. An impressive line of leaders, founders and owners have agreed to enter a discussion of their management practice and the authenticity of their organizations. The Authentic Company offers case studies from Ducati, Alessi, Ferragamo, Hästens, LEGO, BMW, Novozymes and the World's no. 1 restaurant, Noma. The Danish book should be out on Gyldendal this fall... Finally!

In Rome I will be starting the process of an international edition of the book. I will be collaborating with several Italian institutions and organizations as well as discussing a possible Italian publication. Italy is a leading nation in terms of celebrating and utilizing the heritage of organizations, it being commercial companies, industries, cities or regions. More than 50 Italian companies celebrate their cultural history in large high-end corporate museums. The museums are organized in l'Associazione Museimpresa, which is unique in the World. One of the fundamental paradoxes I discuss is, how heritage can be a driver of identity as well as a limitation for development and innovation. A question that leaders across industries and organizations struggle with, it being Alessi, Ducati or the city of Rome.

One of the debates of recent development of Rome is that it takes ages to build the Metro because of the massive presence of ancient history under every street and piazza. Every time they start to dig tunnels, new archeologic treasures pop up. The development of Metro A opened in the 1980s and it took 20 years to build, delayed by archeology. How do you lead and develop a city which is constantly on the verge of becoming a museum of ancient history rather than a place of contemporary life and ongoing development? ABC News reported on the story a couple of years ago.

For the past three years I've been working on 'Den autentiske virksomhed' (or, The Authentic Company, as it may be in English). Now I'm finally coming to an end. There is a full 360-page manuscript which I'm now editing to about 300 pages. I'm planning to deliver the final document to the publishing house Gyldendal Business sometime in May and hopefully see a real book looking a bit like the picture above during the summer. Besides my theory on business strategy development based on the authentic strengths of the organization, there is a string of case studies in the book. Some of them are Noma, LEGO, Ducati, Alessi, Hästens, Novozymes, BMW and Absolut. I've been really lucky to visit them and talk to their CEOs, owners and leaders.

During the fall I'll tour Denmark to talk about The Authentic Company and discuss how companies of all sorts can explore and develop their strengths from within. Some of the talks are already being arranged as I receive calls almost every week from people who want to discuss authenticity and what it means. Here are some of the talks that I'm doing soon:

14. April 2011, Hewlett-Packard Denmark (workshop)
3. May 2011, Vanebryderdagen 2011, 'Bremen' in Copenhagen (conference)
5. May 2011, Dansk Industri (talk)
11. May 2011, Dansk Kommunikationsforening (Day seminar)
13. May 2011, Medieforbundet i DR (workshop)
23. May 2011, Danske Fysioterapeuter (talk)
23. August 2011, FTF (workshop)
10. October 2011, Master of Management Development, CBS (education)
1. November 2011, Efterskoleforeningens lederkonference (talk)

During May we'll put more video clips from some of my talks on the website and once we get closer to the release date of the Danish book we'll start publishing parts of the content here on the blog, on Facebook and elsewhere. We'll make sure you get notice!

If you want to know more or want to book me for a talk, take a look at stagis.dk (Danish) or stagis.com (English). Lots of students want to know more - don't hesitate to write!

I was fortunate enough to participate at "Kom-dag", the annual event created by the Danish Communication Association. The theme this year was Authenticity and Credibility. Apart from a 30-minute talk in the morning, I gave a brief interview that you can watch on YouTube and an article about the talk has been published.

In janurary we will launch a video with clips from the talk.

'The crisis makes the trade union look inside'. An article on the website of Danish trade union FTF is concerned with the organizational crisis of their market: the members of the trade and labour unions are fleeing. They interviewed me to get a perspective of possible solutions in regard to maintain existing members and attracting new ones. It seems that the unions are not as attractive as they used to be. There is a sense of a lack of purpose. The financial and economic crisis may have helped a bit as people felt insecure about jobs, economy and day-to-day life. But when things get better financially what will the unions bring about that really inspires people to join and participate? What is the movement about?

The unions - like all organizations facing a crisis - will have to look inward to find their authentic strengths and they will have to make a strategic selection as to which beliefs and competencies they will pursue and which will have to be left behind.

Article in Danish - read it on the FTF website.