7 Insights From Scandinavia After 7 Years

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I moved to Sweden in September 2017 and left the country in July 2024. Here is what I understood after living for 7 years in Scandinavia.

1. Work Life Balance is not a myth

A person can actually have both professional and private lives. The world does not stop and businesses do not collapse if people take 3+ weeks long vacations during summers. Even if I personally was not able to do it. I met many successful professionals who can totally disconnect and forget their laptop password.

2. Social connections and sense of community matters

A social distancing is a norm in Sweden. It is hard to find new friends and build relationships there. People live in an isolated society. And, as a foreigner, it impacts you more than I thought. It does not mean that Scandinavians are not friendly, they very much are. But being friendly and nice to others does not convert to a friendship. Even after seven years, I did not acquire a sense of belonging to the society.

3. Long term planning is a king

Birthdays planned 6 months ahead. Weddings – a year ahead. Construction projects – decades in some cases. Cons – there is no room for spontaneous gatherings, it is not common. Pros – people learn think long term from an early age. And they have a tremendous patience, which is also a by-product of queues for everything and everywhere. When life is stable, the one can plan for the distant future.

4. The annual circle of life

People live in a certain cadence. A year starts and from the middle of January people are looking towards the Easter break (påsk). After that, there are a couple of days off in May, like a segway to a summer. And then, Midsommar as an official kick of a holidays period. July is a time when the country takes a month long break. In September people start Christmas (Jul) preparations which culminates in several Julbords with colleagues, friends and family. And the cycle repeats.

5. Lagom is lagom

Not too good, not to bad. Just the right amount that is enough. Ambitions are good, but a person can settle and enjoy stability. When bonuses are taxed with 57%, what is the point to aspire for more? There is no “get rich or die trying” mentality. It is quite surprising that a proudly egalitarian Scandinavian society is able to produce so many startups and entrepreneurs. Probably, innovations are driven not only by a need and a hunger but by a natural human curiosity and desire to build new things.

6. Sport and being outdoors

In Sweden, I got used to walk a lot and invest time into workouts. When a health-care system has 6 months waiting time for a doctor visit, you have to stay healthy pro-actively. And it is affordable, subsidised by employers and integrated into day to day life style of many. This is awesome, thank you, Scandinavia!

7. Flat Organizational Hierarchies

Swedes challenges their bosses without hesitation. Sometimes, I even felt uncomfortable with that. Titles may not matter much. I witnessed situations when oversee colleagues could not comprehend why an opinion of a person with “QA Engineer” business title is important. Swedish workplaces often have flat organizational structures, meaning there is less emphasis on hierarchy and more on teamwork and collaboration. And, of course, Fika!

Let’s see what the next 7 years will bring!

First, Break All The Rules

Book Review: First, Break All The Rules by Gallup

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My career as a people manager started several years ago at Amazon. Folks way smarter than I am developed Amazon’s best practices and processes how to lead people. After reading the “First, Break All The Rules” book, I can certainly say that they were inspired by it in many cases.

In the ocean of management literature, this book challenges the “conventional wisdom”. Or how authors define it – widely accepted management practices and beliefs that prioritize uniformity and correcting weaknesses over individual strengths. Authored by Gallup, the book is the culmination of decades of research, summarizing the essence of what makes great managers and what great managers do differently.

One of the book’s most interesting insights for me was its detailed exploration of the twelve questions that gauge the emotional engagement of employees. These questions serve as a practical toolkit for managers, offering an understanding of what drives satisfaction and performance in the workplace. The answers on these 12 questions help a manager to see an employee’s perspective on four key areas: “What do I get?”, “What do I give?”, “Do I belong here?” and “How can we all grow here?”.

The book also provides clear definitions of what is talent vs skill vs knowledge. Talents are defined as naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied. Skills are the steps of an activity; these are capabilities that can be learned or acquired through training. Knowledge encompasses the facts and lessons learned, including both factual knowledge (know-what) and experiential knowledge (know-how). This framework helps differentiate the innate abilities (talents) from what can be taught or developed (skills and knowledge), emphasizing the importance of leveraging natural talents in the workplace.

Many ideas and methodologies about employees emotions I found in the book are used in some way of form in modern workplaces. And this is good. I believe that is more effective to identify the few emotions you want your employees to feel and then hold managers accountable for creating these emotions.

Awarding “First, Break All The Rules” a 5 out of 5, I recommend it as an essential read for those who want to dive deep into people managers main job – how to convert talent into performance.

How Generative AI Is Changing The Future Of Work

Report Review: How Generative AI Is Changing The Future Of Work

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OliverWyman Forum consultants released 100-page report for Senior and C-level management about how GenAI transforms the modern workforce, society and consumers’ habits. And it is a very exciting reading!

The authors interviewed 15,000 respondents in 16 countries during October-November 2023 and presented the report at Davos 2024 conference. The report provides both high-level picture of GenAI impacts but also go into details into regional, industry and generational differences for the current state of GenAI adoption and potential future.

Apart from the obvious things, like the speed of adoption (17 years it took for Internet to acquire the same amount of users that ChatGPT did in 10 months) and overall optimism of people about AI (96% of respondents of say generative AI can benefit their jobs), there are very interesting insights that were interesting for me to read.

Mass adoption ≠ mass productivity

The dramatic uptake in generative AI has been useful for many but hasn’t yet resulted in significant productivity gains across the board. Why?

Authors suggest that we may face what is called the productivity paradox (also the Solow computer paradox). It is the peculiar observation made in business process analysis that, as more investment is made in information technology, worker productivity may go down instead of up. This observation has been firmly supported with empirical evidence from the 1970s to the early 1990s.

Workforce pyramid disruption

While it is clear by now that entry-level jobs will be affected the most with GenAI adoption, there will be an another effect as well. As generative AI replaces some front-line roles, it will disrupt the pipeline of manager roles, akin to the “collapse of the middle” in the job pyramid. To simplify, the role of a front-line manager/supervisor may become obsolete as this role could be replaced with former “junior” employees.

Disconnect between employees and employers priorities

There is a clear difference between what employees and employers see what is important to learn today. My opinion on this discrepancy is following – AI adoption will happen as part of companies strategy, so employees will learn it how to use AI anyway. It will be just part of roles descriptions. But analytical and creative thinking is way harder to master than prompt engineering.

The Shorter MBA

Book Review: The Shorter MBA by Niel Thomas

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I decided to read this book to understand a usual scope of a MBA course. Probably, when the first edition of this book was published, it was relevant but not anymore. Most of the information in the book is outdated. Approaches of people management and self development have changed, marketing strategy has evolved. The world is simply different now.

The book has a good structure but the content does not go into details and examples provided by the author are not applicable in a modern business environment. The strongest part of the book, from my perspective, is financial analysis. Maybe, the book could be more useful for a person who is just starting their career and requires basic knowledge about business operations. For everybody else, it will be a lot of repetitive things that a business manager sees in their day to day professional life.

So, this is the first book that I do not recommend for reading. Overall, 3 out of 5.

Reading List 2024

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The time has come to have a look back on reading during 2023 and create a new list for the upcoming year.

In 2023, I read 14 books with 5 837 pages in total. There was around 10% YoY growth in the number of pages in comparison with 2022.

For 2024 I selected 12 books so far and tried to cover following themes:

  • People Management and Performance Management
  • Preparations for GMAT exam and MBA course
  • Networking and relationship building

Leadership and new skills

  1. First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently
  2. High-Performance Coaching for Managers: A Step-by-Step Approach to Increase Employees’ Performance and Productivity
  3. GMAT™ Official Guide
  4. The Shorter MBA
  5. Principles: Life and Work
  6. Connect: Building Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends, and Colleagues
  7. The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business
  8. Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It
  9. Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World’s Top Minds
  10. Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

Non-Fiction

  1. The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
  2. Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium

Guest lecture at Chalmers University

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As a great wrap up of the year, myself and Sebastian Lennskog have delivered a guest lecture at Chalmers University, Gothenburg. We spoke about AWS Global Infrastructure and Sustainability to master’s degree students at the university facilities.

This was the second time I was honored to be invited as a guest speaker and I hope to continue this collaboration with Chalmers in 2024.

IELTS Exam

IELTS Exam

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With this short post, I want to celebrate a completion of the first step towards my MBA degree. I have passed IELTS Academic exam with overall band score 8.0 out of 9.0.

As per official IELTS score system:

This means you’re a “Very Good User”. The test taker has fully operational command of the language with only occasional unsystematic inaccuracies and inappropriate usage. They may misunderstand some things in unfamiliar situations. They handle complex and detailed argumentation well.

I have used the official IELTS 18 exam guide and the practice tests included with it. Overall, the exam for me was more about learning the expectations of the exam itself rather than about knowledge of the English language.

The next step is the GMAT exam.

Never Eat Alone

Never Eat Alone

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Social atomism is a theory that refers to “the tendency for society to be made up of a collection of self-interested and largely self-sufficient individuals, operating as separate atoms.” I witness and have an empirical experience of this theory in practice – people become more isolated from each other, fulfilling emotions of belonging to a “tribe” has moved online and companies have hybrid or fully virtual employment contracts today.

As I reflected in one of the posts, loneliness is one of the backlashes of increasing atomization of the society. One of the consequences of an exposure to prolonged periods loneliness is a degradation of social skills. Our “social muscles”, ability to read others and create social connections degrade as our physical muscles, if we do not use them. And we need our “social muscles” to advance our careers.

Last month, the Nature magazine has published an article where authors analyzed data on competition outcomes from 6363 ballet students affiliated with 1603 schools in the United States and came to a conclusion: “In both scientific and artistic careers, where performance is subjectively appreciated, career success is strongly influenced by social prestige and visibility. This suggests that artists’ career success is highly dependent on their social networks and prestige.” The best parameter to predict ballet students success was not physical performance or artistic talent but the size and complexity of their social networks.

The same is true for any other profession. You have to be good at networking to progress further. Hence, you have to train your social skills. And in our virtual, post-COVID work environments it becomes more and more difficult to do. I see a solution to this challenge in setting networking goals and push yourself to socialize and approach people.

I have my personal goal to meet at least one new person every week who I never met before and have a meaningful conversation with them. It could be just an introductory call, a coffee or an afterwork. So, I have a rule – “Never Eat Alone”. If I am at the office, I try to find somebody to have a lunch with. If I cannot find anybody, I will try to approach somebody in a queue in a restaurant or join a group of people in a canteen. By doing this, I met different kinds of people and faced multiple reactions from them – very often a pleasantly surprised ones and very rarely negative ones. Because I know, that is equally difficult for others build new social connections as it is for me but they equally want to do it as myself.

It is very uncomfortable to approach strangers, but as with any skill, the more you do it, the easier it become. The benefit is – this is a great practice of social skills which are invaluable. Give it a try and don’t eat alone next time.

Immunity to Change

Book Review: Immunity to Change by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey

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There is no doubt that change is difficult. Both for organizations and individuals it requires conscious efforts, dedication, commitment and time. And even when you have all that, a success is not a guarantee. Why it is like that? Not enough resources thrown in by management? Not good enough educational materials? Or there is something more that prevents changes to be adopted smoothly?

To answer on this question the authors of Immunity to Change book first explain a model of a mental complexity. The book explains the mental complexity not as a summary of skills and knowledge but as a “object-subject” relationship between individuals and their believes system. The more complex an individual mind is, the more freely it can operate with the one’s believes, ideas and frames. A more complex mind acts as an object towards believes, ideas and frames and able to transform them or create new ones. A less complex mind is a subject of believes, ideas and frames and can act only in the limited context dictated by accepted believes and ideas.

It was quite fascinating for me to learn about this model and how it can be applied to myself and others to calibrate and discover where are we according the model. In the next chapters, the book addresses the question “Why change is difficult?”. The authors show that we are “immune to change” because it protects our certain values and assumptions that are “threatened” by a change we are trying to adopt. The outcome of our “immune system” actions is our behaviors contradicting to a committed goal, i.e. a change. We end up acting (or not acting) in a way that prevents implementation of the change.

Most part of the book provides a coaching framework that can be used by individuals and organizations to overcome the “immunity to change”. The book gives multiple examples of actual coaching situations and how the authors employed the proposed coaching framework to achieve progress. In the last part, the authors give a detailed instructions how to use the framework, track progress and organize a coaching process.

The obvious question for me is how to use the coaching framework and what problems to concentrate on. After reading this book, this is my next step – use the framework for myself and uncover my own “adaptive challenges”.

Overall, this is a great book, 5 out of 5.