By Anders Sorman-Nilsson

You know it’s going to be a bad day when she storms into the building, screams at the receptionist, walks in without saying hello to anyone and slams the door of her office behind her.

You see her typing away furiously on her keyboard behind closed doors and it isn’t long before you hear the incoming mail alert.

“Dear colleagues,

Our productivity was below average this month and as such, we will be instituting new rules, effective immediately:

• Bathroom breaks are to take no longer than five minutes and are not to be taken more than twice a day.
• Coffee breaks are hereby banned. You are paid to work, not to drink coffee and chat. You can do these things on your own time.
• Women in the office are to wear concealing clothing and no make up. We feel you are distracting your male colleagues and this must stop.
• Spot desk checks will be performed. Your desk is a place for you to put your work. Photo’s of ‘loved ones’, cartoons or other distractions will not be tolerated.”

So, perhaps the above story is a little exaggerated (or perhaps not, in my own experience!), but we’ve all worked in offices with managers who make you wonder how they actually got to be managers in the first place. After all, it clearly had nothing to do with their people skills.

Type A personalities of the old school Anglo ‘Command and Control’ style of top down management are thankfully becoming a rarity in Australia, but remnants of this archaic and aggressive style of management can still be seen in corporate Australia from time to time.

Interestingly, the above picture is in direct contrast to the Swedish style of Management.

In Sweden, the manager is considered to be a facilitator rather than a dictator.

It is common for staff to go on long coffee breaks, with management’s blessing, in order to reach consensus on different ideas and thoughts.

Consensus is really the key word when it comes to Swedish Managers. Like Australians, the Swedes pride themselves on being an egalitarian society. However, they take it a little further than Australians, particularly in the workplace.

It is not uncommon for a Swedish manager to work within an open door style management framework, allowing employees to come and speak about the concerns and worries they have and facilitating a solutions-based discussion.

In this country, it is an outlandish and perhaps revolutionary idea – that by not cracking the whip you may actually be able to achieve better results from people. The Swedish style of management is also on trend, as coaching, mentoring and facilitation are becoming the catch phrases of choice in 21st century management vocabulary.

The concept of personal responsibility is a culture within the Swedish workplace. This puts the onus back on the worker to, in many ways, manage themselves and this is backed up by the fact that everyone else is doing the same thing and it has become an expected standard of behaviour.

Importantly, this is also the style of management that Generations X and Y are inherently drawn to. So, guess what? If you want your company to build its employer brand and become an employer of choice among Gen X and Y, you need to make sure that your managers are adept at this open style of Swedish-designed management.

The Swedish style of management also lends itself to innovation – as evidenced by highly innovative Swedish companies, like IKEA. The freedom people feel to speak their minds without fear of negative repercussions or put-downs leads to an environment in which innovation can flourish.

The Swedes understand that by listening to all ideas, even the ones that seem foolish, they foster a culture of employees who think for themselves.

This is not a practice that can be replicated and implemented overnight. It needs to be ongoing, so that employees have time to trust and believe that this isn’t just a one-off change and that everything will revert to normal fairly soon. A corporate culture of personal responsibility will also take time to foster.

The pay offs, however, are potentially substantial. Managers will spend less of their time managing disputes and grievances and more time fostering consensus among staff; staff will be more content and have a greater investment in the success of the organisation; innovation and free-thought will flourish; and attraction and retention of staff, particularly those in Generations X and Y, will become easier.

It seems clear that Australian managers potentially have a lot to learn from their Swedish counterparts.

By opening the door on consensus-based Swedish-style management, Australian organisations may find a range of benefits, for less effort, than they had ever thought possible.

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For more information about Anders Sorman-Nilsson, please go to: www.Thinque.com.au