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Connect with Bjorn Lunden
Episode Transcript
Lisa: Bjorn, could you start by telling us about how you came to found the company and how it was in the beginning?
Bjorn: It’s a long time ago. It’s 31 years ago, and I was a goat farmer at that time living in a small village, small community, very socialistic. And I started helping people with their documents, with some papers. Just by the way, I was asked to give a conference about taxes for small business people, and I made a small booklet about that—16 pages—and tried to explain. You know, if you are not an expert yourself, it’s much better because then you understand how difficult it is to understand. So I wrote in that way.
It was so popular. The conference was popular, but even more the booklets, the information, the written information. So I thought maybe I could make some business out of that. So I started writing books for these very, very small people, for these handcraft people. Then I wrote a book for the beekeepers, very small area, and it was so popular, and I sold so many books. I sent by mail—not email, then it didn’t exist—by mail. I sent some offering: “Put a hundred crowns in my account and I will send it to you,” and it was amazing.
I didn’t have money to print the books. I copied them and then I glued them together at the kitchen table. It was really, really small scale. And if somebody at that time had told me that 30 years later I would have 150 team employees, I would have laughed. It was unbelievable for me. And I’ve never been a businessman. I’m good at goats, cows, horses, but business I’ve never been, and still I’m not a businessman. But I like to have started, to have created this company, and very proud of it.
Lisa: And when it started to become a company, when it grew from you to more people, you made very conscious decisions about what kind of company you wanted to create. Was that always important to you then?
Bjorn: I had had works—I’ve never had a steady employment, but of course I had worked during the summers, during other times—and I realized how hard it was to be employed. These silly bosses, these rules—you have rules about how to be dressed, what time you should be at the office, if you should stand up when the boss came into the room, and so on and so on.
And I thought I would make a company that is not like the other companies. It was kind of reverse. And also I had read this book by Ricardo Semler about this amazing company Semco in Brazil, and I was affected by that. And I was a socialist, I was anti-capitalist, and I’m still anti-capitalist. And we are… I don’t really know how it came, but it came.
Lisa: And today you know obviously you have a hundred and fifteen employees now, very successful and profitable, and of course you share profits with employees as well?
Bjorn: Yes, we have a system for that, yes. Because of course it’s the shareholders who will have these profits. The people who have created the profit should have it. The company just keeps so much money so we can continue growing.
Lisa: So there are no bosses here, there’s no hierarchy. So when it comes to salaries, for example, they’re completely open and you decide those together. So how did that happen? Was that always the case?
Bjorn: Yes, always. But of course when we were four, five, six people, we sat around the kitchen table and decided together, talking, discussing. But now everybody fills in a form, an Excel form, every year. Once a year in May, and there you put on the line of yourself, you put your wish of salary for the next year. And then you judge the closest colleagues that you can judge.
For a newcomer, maybe you judge five, six people. For those who have worked here for decades, you can judge 60, 70, 80. So everybody fills in that form, and then your salary will be the arithmetic medium of what everybody thinks.
And it’s funny, I studied it some years ago, and I was astonished by seeing that the average of what your colleagues’ opinion was about your own salary was higher than your own wish for your own salary. I don’t know how it comes, but…
Lisa: I was speaking to Anna who works with the finances, and she was saying that every year or so the salaries can come up for discussion and people talk about differing opinions—should we change the system, shouldn’t we—which I thought was interesting. That things aren’t set here, that they’re always kind of up for discussion and people can be involved in having a say in how things are.
Bjorn: And I mean, salary is very personal. It’s very important for you. So of course we are… This system is not good, it has disadvantages, but until now we are discussing, discussing, we haven’t found out a method that is better.
The last years, the managing director is looking at it and giving some changes if he sees something that is not good. So that is new, that is since six, seven years. But how to do it? I don’t know. You can’t make a lottery, you can’t have… Some of us—me too—I think it’s a synthetic idea that everybody should have the same salary. But no, no, they don’t want that. They want to kind of be judged—if not by a boss like another company, should be by your colleagues.
Lisa: Another thing that’s interesting to me, because a lot of people who I speak to who are interested in working in more self-managing ways really struggle with making decisions together. So we know that in the beginning when you were smaller you made decisions. I believe everyone in the whole company now—that you’re, you know, more than a hundred people—how did you experience growing as a company and were there tensions about making decisions together as you got larger as a company?
Bjorn: Not that, no. Decisions, there are so many different ways of deciding. Most things are decided among two or three people in a group in three minutes, and that’s it. And really big decisions… But what is big decisions? I don’t know.
We have a conference every week with everybody. And those who don’t work here are connected by video, so they are connected all. And then we have protocol, and the first line’s “Decisions,” then it’s “Discussions,” and then it’s “Information.” And we can’t… And anybody could, and without telling his name, you can put some point or some line on that protocol without anybody sometimes knowing who has come up with this proposition. And sometimes we have some things to discuss first, and then maybe the next week we take the decision. But it’s not so often anymore.
It was when we bought this local form for our conferences in Stockholm for millions. It’s when we decide how many people should we employ. Then we take those decisions. But most decisions are just taken. If you need a new computer, you don’t have to ask anyone. You go to Erica or Patrick and tell him or her, “I want a new computer, can you please buy one for me?”
Lisa: Sounds like there are very few rules or policies here?
Bjorn: Yeah, I think most policies in companies is just to degrade employees so they can feel that they are inferior to the bosses who have decided the policies. And it’s horrible, like how you should be dressed, that you should put on shoes, that you can’t go in shorts. It’s horrible.
In the bank, you meet people with a suit and a tie, and they feel uncomfortable. I think this tie is just to stop the blood coming up to the brain so you get more stupid. How can anybody like to be dressed in a suit? So I never have.
And that you should be at work at 7:12 punctual every morning, it’s bad. What more? That you should… how you should answer the phone? You have some small manuscript—how you should answer your phone so it should be the same in the whole company. You have rules for everything—how you should apply for the summer vacancies, which weeks… “You’re applying for that, please can I have my vacations in this week and that?” It is always somebody up there who is deciding and somebody down there who is begging. And it’s awful.
Lisa: And of course here people can work whatever times they want and they can take whatever holidays they want, so long as they check in with their colleagues of course.
Bjorn: Exactly. And that is important. And if you get sick and you are on the schedule for the call center, the support, I see the emails coming: “Oh, my kid is sick, I have to be home. Who can take my hours?” And then, “Yeah, I can take until 11:00.” And then, “I will go skiing, but I can take until 11:00.” “Yeah, then I can take until lunch.” And so on. In ten minutes emailing, it’s solved. It’s amazing.
And by the way, we have very much more sick leave in our company than average in Swedish companies. We have more sick leave, and that we are proud about. You know why? Because it means it’s not so stressful. When you get this flu and coughing and feeling so bad, you can be home in peace and resting and getting another game without worrying. In other companies, you have to work though you don’t feel good because nobody else can do your work. Here, we try to employ before we are needing it. It’s not so tense, the situation here.
Lisa: I’ve spoken to a lot of people here. This is either their first job or perhaps before they worked, they were self-employed or an owner of a company maybe. So it seems like the people I’ve met at least haven’t had much experience of really hierarchical, like, corporate companies, if you like. Is that quite common?
Bjorn: These people who want to work here, they are kind of freedom seekers and have been that before too. But there are some people coming from very hierarchical organizations, and they hated it. And then when they come here, they feel they have come back to life.
Lisa: And do you feel that for those people who have come from very hierarchical companies, is it a challenge for them to sort of unlearn some of those habits?
Bjorn: Exactly. “Unlearn” is the word. We used to say, when we employ academics from university, it takes about one year to break them down to be normal people. And also, these people coming from other organizations, they don’t believe it’s true. “You mean I can go and buy a new computer if I want one?” Of course you can, because you are the one who can decide if you really need one. Nobody else can do that.
“Yeah, then I can buy a luxury computer, the best, best, best that I don’t need, for forty thousand crowns instead of fifteen thousand for a normal one?” Yes, you could, but everybody will see you as a stupid person, so that will stop you from doing it.
“Yeah, of course I was just joking.” And they don’t believe, “Don’t I have to pay for this? Can I really take one hour off in the day and go to the dentist and then come back and work? I don’t have to take off the whole day like in another company?” No, it’s true. Everything you see, it’s true.
Lisa: And this decision for people, too, so people are kind of paid by the hour?
Bjorn: Yeah, that is forbidden if you have a union contract. You can’t… you should be paid per month. But we pay per hour, yes.
Lisa: And what are the benefits for that, and what drove that decision?
Bjorn: It’s because that makes you can work whenever you want. Mind the words, “whenever you want.” And if you are on a schedule for support that day, of course you don’t want to be free that day because you have made a commitment together with the other people. But you can work when you want, and not only that. Here, you can also work as much as you want or as little as you want.
We have people who sometimes work 20% or take five months vacation. And there are some people who want to earn a bit more, they work maybe 110 percent. It’s totally up to you how much you work. And that means that every month you get a different salary because you don’t really work the same amount of hours.
The Försäkringskassan—the office that pays your sick money when you’re sick—they get crazy because you don’t know how much your salary is, to be compensated by the government. But we have made a decision with them: we look 12 months back and see the average, and that you get. And if you ask people what is the main benefit of working here, then the first thing is the flexibility in working time, and the second is wonderful colleagues.
Lisa: Yes, that’s been my experience when I’ve been speaking to people here. And two words come up over and over again, which are “freedom” and “responsibility.” And people have been telling me that those things just go hand in hand somehow.
Bjorn: Exactly. When we hire new people, we don’t ask them, “Are you a responsible person?” because it’s a stupid question. It’s an effect of this system that you get… you can’t avoid getting responsible. You can’t kind of hide from the work. You can’t do that because you’re a good person—everybody is a good person—and in this environment, the responsibility comes even if you don’t want it. It comes.
Lisa: Do you think it makes a difference as well, the notion of sharing in the profits?
Bjorn: No, no. They talk about it the month when it will be paid, and “I said I would make a travel trip for this,” “I will buy paint to paint my house for this money,” and so on. But never, never say, “No, we should save some money on these costs because this profit sharing will be bigger.” It shouldn’t be. It’s kind of a bonus that comes once a year.
Lisa: What are some of your favorite stories about the people here and some of the beautiful triumphs that they’ve had together?
Bjorn: There are so many. I mean, I remember when we hired a law student who had made her exam, and she had enough. She was young, 26 years old, had no idea about working at all. And we hired her for a very low salary, and she was so talented. And she told me after two years here, she had learned more than during five at the university. And she was talented, and her salary was—I think it was doubled in five years.
Because here, you don’t have a high salary because you are popular with the bosses. You do because you make a good job. And when we put the salaries, everybody is having his or her own references. Somebody puts a high salary for someone who is very, very quiet and working hard all the days, specialists. Some others put higher salaries on people who can do anything, who are very wide. Somebody gives high salary for someone who is very caring and helping others.
And then we have people visiting us, and they always ask questions about and saying that, “This is not good, this is not good.” And somebody asked me, “But why do you pay more money to those who are caring? Caring is not giving income to the company.” Of course it gives money if someone is caring, and people who are… when a visitor comes in, goes up and says, “You want some coffee?” And it’s natural.
Lisa: And over the 30 years or so of the company’s life, what have been some of the challenges along the way, would you say?
Bjorn: We don’t have challenges. Or you can turn it around—we have challenges every day, small challenges, because we never make major restructures. We always go in small steps and getting bigger, getting better. So those challenges we have had are from the outside.
If it’s so much snow so the post car can’t get here, we have to run out and get the packages by foot into the company. Or when we have made a problem in a book, how to communicate that error to everybody. But challenges? No, we don’t like challenges.
Lisa: But I understand that you’re not a fan of visions and goals and things like that. Is that right?
Bjorn: Yeah, because that’s mostly words. And I hate even more when the boss or the leading group puts up a goal and then tells the employees, “This is the goal for this year.” No, the goal is not to have goals. The goal is doing good things all the time.
Everything that everybody, every minute here, that does what is the best for the company, then the effect of that will be that we are prosperous. But we don’t want to earn so much money. If we are really prosperous and have a balance sheet that looks fabulous, everybody will come and buy us. And so now we are hiding. Our competitors, they think we are just small, so they don’t… “Oh, they can, they are not afraid of us.” But we are. But it’s not visible.
Lisa: You were telling me that lots of groups of people come and visit and are interested in this way of working and curious, and yet somehow so few companies or people seem to go away and actually make the transformation. Why isn’t everyone working this way?
Bjorn: Very good question. I always ask them, because when I finish this sightseeing around the company, and they have put a lot of questions, and they are really asking, “But how can you do this? How can everybody be home when they want? Then nobody would come.” “Yeah, but then they wouldn’t get a salary because we are payer per hour. It’s kind of automatic solution of that.”
And then I asked them every time, I asked them, “So now you have heard about us, you’ve seen us, you have scented the atmosphere here, and you are so impressed, isn’t it so?” “Yes, yes.” “But why don’t you do that in your company?” And I always get the same answer—or there are two answers.
One: “I want to feel the power, and I want to get the money to myself. It’s my reward of this hard work starting this company.” And that is one.
And the second is, “My employees can’t take that responsibility. They need me like a father to guide them and to tell them how to do things. And if they have different opinions, I am coming and telling, ‘Don’t fight about this—I know we should do like this!’ Because they are just employees.”
“Are they really so stupid, your employees?” “Yes, they are. Sometimes I hate them.” “But why do you employ such stupid people?” And they haven’t thought about that. In a company, you should employ people who are better than yourself. But in some companies, it seems like if you are boss, you have struggled to become a boss, then you should employ somebody like an assistant or sub. And of course, you don’t dare to employ someone who is better than you, or he will be your boss, and you don’t like that. So you try to employ someone who has distance to you in competence. And that is horrible.
Lisa: Yeah, you have this phrase in the documentary I watched about you—“preservation of incompetency.”
Bjorn: Yeah, it’s so funny.
Lisa: What are your thoughts about the current landscape of the world of work? Because there just seems to be more of an appetite now for these ideas. Are you optimistic about the future?
Bjorn: I’m an optimistic person about everything, about the future too. So I think and I hope—after my days at least—it could be some change. And of course it has changed even in hierarchy companies. It’s changing. It’s better.
And the worst companies are the governments. And those companies—those very few strikes we have in Sweden, it’s not like you could think… multinational capitalistic companies, big, big companies—those employees don’t strike, because the bosses are intelligent enough to make them at least a little happy. But in governmental companies, there are strikes.
And you think those companies, the hospitals, those own people’s caring companies who are run by the government, they should be run the same method. They are not. They also have these bosses. This year, the hospital is horrible.
Lisa: We haven’t talked about the “SAME method.” What SAME stands for?
Bjorn: It’s “Scrapping All Management Errors.” It’s a joke—the name. It’s like a joke about these three-letter abbreviations. But yes, it’s my method. If you would: summarize the characteristics of the SAME method, take away regulations that are stupid or just making people feel bad—like how you should be dressed, working times, applying for things. You name it. There are maybe 20 regulations that you could just skip, and then it’s done.
And no bosses.
Lisa: What is important to you about the “no bosses” part?
Bjorn: Because it’s a regulation that somebody should have power over other people. And that is humility. It’s like parents having power over the kids, and sometimes the kids are suffering about that. And it’s the same with employees. And I see the result here, that people are very happy. They can say whatever they want. They don’t have to feel that somebody, some bosses, looking at them. You are getting much more free.
Lisa: And do you think it’s possible for a hierarchical company to transform and shift to the SAME way of working?
Bjorn: No, it’s impossible, I think, because the bosses, they will not give up their power without fighting. And what should you do with all these bosses who don’t know anything about the job, just knowing about being bosses?
But I think in a big, hierarchical company, you could try to take some small part of the company, some small product or something, and start with five, six people and start with this and see how it goes. There are big companies like Gore-Tex, like Morningstar, but I think they have started like that from the beginning. I’m not sure.
Lisa: And it seems with a lot of these companies, like Morningstar and Semco, there’s always a kind of visionary founder, it seems—someone who holds the space for this way of working.
Bjorn: And I think it has been my role, to be this founder, this visionary. And now, now your role is changing somewhat.
Lisa: Because you’re no longer an owner, is that right?
Bjorn: I have been owner on the paper, but I have never been a leader, never. Both the present managing director, it’s just a title because the company has to have one. He’s a little more like leader. But I’m too lazy to lead. I want to be in Colombia for a month, and I can know that everything is working without me too. And they are happy when I’m coming back, but that’s all.
So I personally, I like… I’m never stressed. I have a wonderful life, and I feel very proud of creating this. And now I’m sure, when I’m gone—dead or in Colombia for good—it will continue at least 10, 20 years.
Lisa: What do you think you’ll be most proud of in terms of the legacy that you leave behind?
Bjorn: That I wasn’t greedy and selling my share to some ordinary company. I could have got double so much money for my shares if I had done that. But I’m proud that I haven’t done. I have, at least as I can do it, promised to continue the company as it is.
Lisa: Yes, because you sold your shares to people within the company?
Bjorn: Yeah, and they didn’t have that much money that that big Norwegian company who wanted it. So I’m happy that an old goat farmer, without education, without university, without nothing, has been offered to be on this trip for 30 years together with these wonderful people. That makes me feel so good.
