Many businesses and products begin with and end in people’s everyday life. The companies I worked with had plenty of BIG data and market research, but I often discovered the most insight by simply talking to people. 

When I travelled, I often made a point of visiting local people at home. We shared stories. We cooked and ate together. And I learned first-hand about how they live and their dreams of an even better everyday life. During my work, I always aimed to keep my connection with customers in focus. 

At the same time, many companies are about large-volume and low-cost. In addition to keeping customers in focus, we constantly had to ensure scalability and efficiency throughout the value chain. A small change in one part of that huge machine could have a big impact on many other parts. So, I invested time not only in understanding the needs of retail store operations, but also the needs of suppliers, logistics partners, and what it takes to develop more sustainable products.

I was inspired and energised by this balancing act of keeping customers, suppliers and the environment in focus. It helped me constantly sharpen my systemic thinking as I learned to look beyond each immediate challenge to identify root causes and anticipate big-picture impact.

During a train ride through southern Sweden, I had an especially meaningful conversation with a person who was responsible for many key design decisions at IKEA. I assumed that her main inspiration came from new furniture, home decoration trends, interior design magazines, and sources like that. 

Not only, she explained. She found the most inspiration in experiences like wandering through a museum, visiting architectural iconic buildings and places, or watching a fashion show.

I loved that approach, and I continue to be inspired by it. I keep myself updated with the latest knowledge about business and leadership. But I also spark my imagination and feed my curiosity by exploring many different fields.

Jazz-infused pop music might help me solve a challenge that felt impossible. A book about the work of an architect might give me inspiration for how to lead a team. An innovative art exhibition could open my eyes to a perspective I had never considered.

My constant curiosity about our world inspires me to connect and re-mix ideas from across disciplines and from across the globe. Plus, I have fun doing it!

For many decades, retailing was all about large-scale stores, often placed on inexpensive land outside of cities and a key to becoming the huge success that it is today. But, when we started looking at the big picture and where our world is going in the future, we started to see that stores alone would not be enough. 

We began more actively developing and testing new formats, such as smaller locations, apps and other digital tools and channels, enabling customers to interact with a brand whenever and wherever they want. At the same time, these formats would need to be much more connected and provide a great and seamless experience.

In this process it was important to keep testing, trying, learning and developing even if a test didn't deliver the results we hoped for. Our mindset was, that one test isn’t enough and it’s important to be brave enough to fail, while always protecting the brand.

In my experience, inventions are born from an understanding of the context, an exploration of the options and knowledge of the limitations. Then it’s about experimenting until you crack the code and capture the opportunities. And that’s what we did.

Change is hard. Transformation is even harder.

One constant in my journey is leading people and organisations through transformations, big and small. In my experience, true transformation begins with changing mindsets or finding new ways to direct the energy of a unique company culture. This in turn generates changes in process, products, structures and more.

As CEO of a worldwide operating franchisor, I was part of leading the biggest transformation of a very successful retailing concept since its inception. We moved from a retail concept based on physical stores to an omni-channel concept fit for purpose and ready to meet the needs of customers today and well into the future. It wasn’t simply a matter of sketching up an idea on a whiteboard and executing it. It started with listening and learning throughout the value chain, from customers all the way back to manufacturers and everyone in between.

It was a challenging and emotion-filled change that we were only able to make by understanding data, listening to many stakeholders and gathering many opinions and ideas. Then we brought together people’s capabilities and passions to develop an improved approach that could better match our omni-channel operations.

So yes, transforming a concept that’s been successful for many years isn’t easy. But sometimes it’s what’s needed to build sustained success.

One of the most exciting parts of the IKEA business is bringing the brand and retail concpet to more people around the world. I was always proud to see the lines of people on opening day. They were thrilled to have access to a new store. I worked for several years leading market expansion and I got experience with incredible amount of work that happens long before the doors of a new store open in a new country.

During my time working with expansion we brought IKEA to 12 new countries. I saw how we solved challenges like: How do we transfer our unique culture and values to a culture that might be very different? How do we secure our product range to meet the needs of the local people? How do we ensure that we’ve got enough supply to sell in a new market? And that’s just the beginning! The challenges go all the way down to details like product packaging that meets the requirements and language of a new market. So, to grow our business had to constantly think through the entire chain.

Some of those questions can be solved with the head. Others are all about the heart. Growing a business depends on teams that are enthusiastic and motivated to drive growth. Teams that are open to learning and to changing. Teams that have a clear mission they can focus on.

When I was leading the global kitchen business for IKEA, we made a huge push to increase kitchen sales. Rather than driving growth with new products, we decided get started by maximising the potential of our existing range. We developed focus and energy throughout the organisation. We created new sales solutions in stores. We developed better tools to support kitchen planning and sales. We invested in improving the skills of sales co-workers. We improved the marketing. And much more. We unleashed incredible strength when we had the whole organisation aligned and in few years we had doubled our global kitchen sales.

The opportunities we have are often the opportunities we create.