Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at a conference at Copenhagen Business School (CBS) together with my good colleague and dear friend, professor Majken Schultz. As always it was a great experience to share my theory and experience with an interested and engaged crowd, who were keen to learn more about how to create value in a company by using authenticity to grow a passionate brand.

I have lectured at CBS a number of times, however this was the first time after the launch of my new book Den autentiske virksomhed (“The Authentic Company”). I was delighted to share the podium with Majken, who was my supervisor back when the book was still a dissertation in 2006. The whole experience brought me back to where it all started – it has been a wonderful and exciting journey to where Stagis and I stand today. A journey that included visiting owners and managers of companies such as LEGO, Hästens, Alessi, Absolut, Ducati and BMW.

More than one hundred and twenty managers, communications professionals and students attended the conference. They heard Majken and I speak on authenticity, branding and identity and the value of joining these three elements as a means of creating growth, passion and leadership in the brand of the company.

I started the conference by presenting authenticity as a concept and a tool. I had chosen the two companies Ducati and Noma to illustrate where authenticity has been used successfully to respectively create a turnaround and provide inspiration for a new unrecognized position in the market place. I then elaborated on the three dimensions of authenticity (historical, reflexive and expressive authenticity) and how a company can be rated on these three dimensions in order to discuss possible ways forward for the brand. The discussion that followed had excellent questions and insights from the audience and I really enjoyed the debate. For me it's certainly the most interesting part of giving a talk, when the participants want to know more, discuss the cases and the idea and question to what extend it can be used.

In the second half of the conference Majken explained organizational identity and how this ties to authenticity. One of her most important points in this regard was the fact that identity is at the same time “who we are” and “where we are going” and an ongoing internal discussion in the company between employees, managers and stakeholders to reach consensus on this. Authenticity can be used to create a point of reference for all involved parts.

At the following networking reception I spoke to a bunch of interesting people telling me how their companies are working – or not working – with creating a focused and passionate identity. Many of them told me that they felt inspired by my presentation. Well, I am the one getting inspired by all of you. Every presentation that I give leaves me with loads of inspiration and new perspectives and viewpoints on authentic identity and I often receive feedback that I can use in my future work. I know Majken Schultz had a great time too, so hopefully we'll get back to doing more talks during the fall.

Thanks to everyone who participated at the conference – I look forward to meeting you again sometime. The participants have received emails with a link to our presentations. If you missed it, don't hesitate to send me an email. We might put together a few sound clips and video from the event - until then you can view videos from our conference in February.

Noma is once again the World's best restaurant. Through their concept which is at the same time historic and uses the terroir of the Nordic region innovatively, they are able of creating a unique experience - what I call an authentic identity. When I released my book Den autentiske virksomhed ("The Authentic Company") in March, Nomas CEO Peter Kreiner gave an excellent talk on the authentic identity of the restaurant. He talked about the concept and how Noma has continually been striving to focus and narrow the identity and the concept of the restaurant in order to be more and more clear on the identity and the story of the organization.

You can view a segment of his talk on my vimeo-channel here:

Nomas fornemmelse for tid og sted med Peter Kreiner

I was ever so pleased to participate in a live interview on Danish TV2 News this evening during the event in London where the 50 best restaurants 2012 were named. You can also read about Noma and the importance of their identity in the article Det gør Noma rigtigt ("What Noma is doing right") on Berlingske www.b.dk today (Danish article).

At the art museum ARoS in Aarhus managers from two of Denmark’s most successful companies share their stories on the development of their business’ authentic identity.

“LEGO Idea House is a sanctuary, that shows where we come from. The first casting machine, carpenter's bench, our first motto cut out in tree in that carpenter workshop, in that building, where it took place. It is full of sounds and smells and old products and archives”. In the book “The Authentic Company” written by Nikolaj Stagis, this is how Jette Orduna describes the significance of the LEGO museum.

But the LEGO Idea House is much more than a dusty museum. Both the developers and the management in LEGO utilise the house to generate ideas, for sales meetings, management meetings and the like. The company’s history is used actively in the daily work and that is a completely calculated strategy. Come and take part in the conference where Jette Orduna will talk about the significance that the museum has for LEGO, a company that in only 6 years turned crisis into success and today turn out one record-profit after another.

While LEGO is an excellent example of a large authentic company, Bøgedal Brewery is an excellent example of a small company that has positioned itself on the basis of its history, its dissociation with the market and the high level of personal presence. Bøgedal is a two-man business, with only an outcome of 700 bottles of each brew. The bottles reaches the consumer through the best restaurants in Denmark and internationally, and through exclusive wine merchants. Casper Vorting, one half of the two-man business, will at ARoS share the secret behind the success.

Nikolaj Stagis will not only facilitate and host the conference but will also talk about the methods to define organisational authentic identities with the aim to create companies with transparent purposes, uses their history actively and differentiate itself in the market. He will use several of the case-companies from the book, among others Ducati, BMW Museum, Alessi and Hästens.

The conference will take place in the auditorium at ARoS the 25th of May:
15.00-16.00 Book signing
16.00-19.00 Conference
19.00-20.00 Networking

Participants have the opportunity to visit the museum exhibitions both before and after the conference. The price for the conference including a copy of the book “Den autentiske virksomhed" (in Danish) is 590 kr. The price for the conference alone is 300 kr. Buy your ticket here. Stagis is hosting the conference in corporation with the Danish Chamber of Commerce and Erhverv Aarhus.

On February 23rd I launched the Danish book "Den autentiske virksomhed" (The Authentic Company) in the Old Stock Exchange in Copenhagen. During the conference and the reception in the evening some 300 guests joined the event. I was especially grateful to Federico Minoli, former CEO of Ducati and Dr. Andreas Braun from BMW in Munich for travelling to Copenhagen to join the conference and deliver two very interesting talks about the turnover of Ducati and the ideas and qualities of the BMW Museum.

We've just created a video channel where we'll present videos regarding authenticity and the book "Den autentiske virksomhed". The first eight videos are available now - all from the event in the Old Stock Exchange. Most of them are in Danish but Minoli and Dr. Braun and the last video with the panel discussion are in English.

The presenters on stage were:
Peter Kreiner, Noma
Andreas Braun, BMW
Majken Schultz, CBS
Astrid Gade Nielsen, Arla
Casper Vorting, Bøgedal
Nikolaj Stagis, author

If you didn't have a chance to join us at the event you'll have a chance to discover some of the ideas - if you were there you can rediscover the talks. I'm working on a new Danish website that will accompany the book - it's soon to be launched... You can watch the first video with Federico Minoli here:

Hvordan jeg lærte fra Ducatis fans med Federico Minoli from Nikolaj Stagis.

Yesterday we launched my book "Den autentiske virksomhed" (The Authentic Company) at a great conference in one of Copenhagens most beautiful and historic settings, the Old Stock Exchange. The speakers at the conference were Federico Minoli, former CEO and president at Ducati, Dr. Andreas Braun, BMW Museum, Dr. Majken Schultz, professor at Copenhagen Business School, Casper Vorting, owner of Bøgedal Brewery and finally Peter Kreiner, CEO of Noma restaurant.

I've worked on the book for about four years – a great journey into the authentic and less authentic including visits with some of the greatest companies and their leaders and owners. A lifetime experience that led to 360 pages and climaxed at the conference and reception yesterday. Great crowd, wonderful talks, good food from Aamanns and about 300 people coming to visit either the conference or the reception. Thank you all for your kind support, questions and interest. It's been a long journey sofar - and it's only just begun. i'm looking forward to get around Denmark and visit different companies, organizations and cities to talk about the authentic companies over the months to come...!

During the next few weeks I will launch a new website focusing on the book and I'm looking forward to sharing more pictures and videos from the event!2

How do you market an executive master program that excelles by letting the participants shape the program themselves? At Master of Management Development, an executive program for experienced managers at Copenhagen Business School, the managers attending the program decide for themselves what to read, what they want to explore, what the content of their exams are and how they will implement their learning in the day-to-day work in their organizations. Every participant in the program is evaluated on six different parameters, among them are personal leadership, reflexivity and relational abilities. If you are to lead management development processes, you have to be able of developing yourself and to evaluate that process. To make things more difficult the market for executive master programs has become somewhat strained by the financial crisis. Most companies think about the budgets twice before they send their managers off to school.

The authentic strengths of MMD
In 2006 and 2008 Stagis helped the program get more attention in the media and fill up the program with curious leaders who want to develop themselves as well as their organizations. Since our longlasting collaboration with Copenhagen Business School began, some 40-odd articles in the Danish media has passed. We also created a series of podcasts with the participants and professors called 'MMD Refleksion' in order to convey the people and the ideas in the program. This year we are helping the program get the much-deserved attention again. This time we are using the authentic strengths of the management development program by creating an experience that will help some 200 leaders, consultants and change agents see for themselves what the program is about. We are setting up the 'Be the change' conference. Three professors and two executives are the main attractors at a half-day conference on November 9th that will demonstrate the idea about changing your world (being Society, the company or your department) by changing yourself as a leader. The much-needed side-effect is framing the theme and creating an event that will generate several types of communication in the press, newsletters, word-of-mouth etc. The conference is set up with Danish newsmedia Berlingske Tidende on their businessliv.dk platform where you can buy tickets.

Be the change
Working together with my colleagues Christel and Niels, I named the conference 'Be the change' with inspiration from Ghandi's "You must be the change you want to see in the World". In organizations, too, you can't change anything if you're not ready to change your own way of thinking or putting yourself to use in the transformation. During an intense three week period Christel booked professors John Christiansen (head of the MMD program), Jan Molin (founder of the program and CBS dean), Patricia Shaw and executives Jens Moberg (former Microsoft and Better Place) and Michael Christiansen (former Royal Danish Theatre and now head of DR). They all have theoretical or hands-on experience on how to transform yourself in order to change things. Personally, I'm looking forward to hearing Michael Christiansen talk about his experiences at the Danish Royal Theatre where he went from being what he calls 'Napoleon' to 'Cousin Sensitive'.

Stagis is making it happen
We set up the conference at the Danish National Museum where 200 participants will experience a great mix of practical experience and advice and get a sense of the theoretical ideas flowing through the master program. Hopefully they will also partake in networking, getting inspiration from one another and talk about the experience to colleagues, employees and friends. The Stagis team is setting up invites and newsletters, dealing with the location, preparing talks and slideshows, posters, handouts, handling press, running the facebook and google platforms and documenting the event.

Want to be part of the change on November 9th?
If you want to know more or participate, take a look at the Be the change page on the MMD website where you can also sign up. The conference is in Danish except for Patricia Shaws part.