It is easy to imagine that the organization with the most knowledge is also the one best prepared for the future. That is why we subscribe to newsletters, follow reports, read trend analyses, and fill our digital feeds with information. Yet, an organization that knows everything happening around it can […]
erik
501 posts
There is something strange about publishing our five hundredth post on a website. When you start, each text is a project in itself. You think about what you are going to write, whether anyone will read it, whether the idea is interesting enough and whether there is really something to […]
There is a decision that feels right when we are stressed. It is the decision to wait a little with things that we are not sure about or secure in. We wait to give creativity space until the current workload has decreased. We wait with the innovation work until the […]
There is a moment that almost everyone who creates something knows. You sit there with a piece of material in front of you, an idea in your head, but no particularly good reason to start. There is no clear client, no stated business goal, and perhaps no one else has […]
There is a question that is rarely asked of a business leader. Not how much the company is growing, not how much turnover is, and not how much value has been created for the owners. The question is much simpler: Are you proud of what the company is doing for […]
The greatest danger to a successful organization is rarely its competitors. The greatest danger is that it begins to believe that the system that once created success will also create tomorrow’s. It’s a tempting thought. When something works, we want to understand it, document it, and repeat it. We build […]
“That doesn’t sound logical.” We’ve probably all heard or said that comment. It’s often uttered as if it were the definitive argument against a new idea. At the same time, almost every innovation that has changed the world is something that was not initially perceived as logical. Flying machines seemed […]
Imagine someone asking you to invest a hundred million kronor in a project. You are given only one condition. The project must be guaranteed to succeed. Not with a high probability, but absolutely certain. What would happen? Most people would immediately start reducing risks. They would choose proven technology, well-known […]
Imagine two companies that have been equally successful at developing new products for several years. In one company, there is a person who always comes up with the best ideas. Her colleagues know that when problems get really difficult, they just have to go to her. She sees connections that […]
Most of us have experienced it. We are sitting in a lecture, reading a book or having a conversation with someone over a cup of coffee. Suddenly the person says something that doesn’t really seem remarkable. It’s just a sentence. Yet time stands still for a moment. Something falls into […]
Imagine waking up on a Saturday morning with a perfect plan. Breakfast is set, taking a walk with the same route as usual, the restaurant has been booked for a long time, and the evening ends with the movie you’ve already read the reviews about. Everything goes exactly as you […]
The most robust system is rarely the most optimized. It is the system that has the greatest ability to continue to function when circumstances change. The same idea is now starting to gain increasing importance in innovation research. In a world where technology, society and markets are changing faster than […]
Take an organization where people are curious, brave, and full of ideas. In meetings, questions are asked that no one has thought of before. Employees experiment, help each other, and sometimes dare to fail because everyone knows that learning is more important than prestige. There is an energy in the […]
Imagine a change project. People have met, relationships have been built, new ideas have been tried out and old conflicts have slowly begun to dissolve. But then nothing seems to happen. Meetings become fewer. Activity decreases. Some people start to get impatient and wonder if the work has lost momentum. […]
A development team has been working methodically for months to solve a complex problem. The solution is important, complicated, but not entirely clear. Then something happens. During a casual conversation, a person passing by happens to use the wrong word. Another person misunderstands what was meant. The group starts laughing […]
Imagine a colleague leaning forward during a meeting and saying, “I have an idea.” Everyone gets curious and the person starts describing a solution that feels unexpected, a little different, and maybe even a little too simple. The silence lasts only a few seconds before the questions come. How is […]
Imagine two people who spend an hour developing an idea. The first person sits in a conference room where the fluorescent lights hum faintly, the phone is next to them and vibrates occasionally with new notifications, and you can see through the glass door that other people are standing outside […]
It is easy to think that innovators encounter resistance because their ideas are bad or unrealistic. Of course, this happens sometimes, but much more often the resistance is about something else entirely. New ideas challenge people’s sense of stability. We humans build mental models of how the world works. They […]
It’s a strange sight that plays out in many organizations every week. A project starts with energy, commitment and high ambitions. A meeting is booked. Roles are assigned. Timetables are drawn up. Working groups are created. Budgets are discussed. Whiteboards are filled with activities. Everyone feels that something important is […]
Imagine an old cabinetmaker who has worked with wood his whole life. Over decades, he has learned how different types of wood behave, how to stop a crack before it gets bigger, how an old table can be given another hundred years of life and how to sharpen a tool […]
Imagine two products standing next to each other in a store. One solves a real social problem, saves resources, improves the environment, and has been developed over many years by skilled engineers. The other actually adds very little. Maybe it’s just a new version of something that already exists, packaged […]
Imagine you are leading a creative workshop. Around the table are a designer, an engineer, an economist, a behavioral scientist, a marketer, and a lawyer. The conversation comes alive almost immediately. The designer sees the user experience, the engineer sees the technical possibilities, the economist thinks about the business model, […]
Imagine that you are standing in front of two construction projects. On the first site stands one of the country’s most skilled carpenters. He has fantastic knowledge, vast experience and an impressive sense for materials and construction. The problem is that he is standing there alone. There are no drawings. […]
If someone had asked fifty years ago what investments would create future prosperity, many would probably have pointed to factories, machines, warehouses and large industrial complexes. Economic development was something you could see. It smelled of oil, sounded like steel and produced physical products that were transported around the world. […]
Experience does not automatically create competence. Experience only creates more experience. It is only when experiences are processed through reflection that they are transformed into competence. And it is only when we begin to question our habitual ways of working that creativity and innovation have room to grow. Work without […]
Imagine a building where people are constantly bumping into each other in the corridors. Irritation grows. The work environment deteriorates. For several years, people try to solve the problem by putting up signs, painting arrows on the floor, building wider corridors and introducing rules for how people should walk. Each […]
Imagine two people trying to understand the future. The first thinks carefully before he says something. He wants to be sure he is not wrong. He formulates a well-thought-out forecast about what will happen and sticks to it. If reality changes, he tries to find explanations for why he is […]
Imagine that you are standing in front of the mirror and thinking about changing your appearance. You can choose to put on a new hat. If you don’t like it, you can take it off five minutes later and no major damage has been done. You can also go to […]
Imagine you are buying an old house. At first glance, it looks charming, but when the renovation begins, you soon discover that the house has been rebuilt for over a hundred years. One room was once a porch. A kitchen has been moved. The electricity has been redone several times. […]
You go into a store to buy a work jacket. It is available in navy blue, dark blue, medium blue, light blue, sea blue, gray blue, blue black, cobalt blue, steel blue and sky blue. It comes in a number of green, yellow, rose-red shades. In addition, each color is […]