You were the longtime CEO, of course,

of Novo Nordisk, which is, well,

it was once a small company here in

Scandinavia and then since grown to be a major global corporation.

From your experiences from that vantage point where

you have had experiences around the world,

do you see any differences in Scandinavian approaches to leadership and management than,

for example, approaches you may see in the United States, for example?

Yes, I see differences.

But I'm not certain that they are,

if you will, the lasting differences.

I think, perhaps, they are more traditional differences.

The way we have tried to deal with cultures' issues,

et cetera, is that we work very,

very hard with defining what our company values are,

and making certain that we could measure if people lived up to them.

Because if you are going to be fired because you don't live up to company values,

you better believe that your boss knows what company values are, et cetera.

But anyway, I made one of the worst mistakes ever,

shortly after I joined the company.

I fired our then US CEO,

who had been a mentor to all of us,

and who we all were very fond of.

And it was because in all those times that I had this gut feel.

And how can you run a company by a gut feel?

In Denmark, we do it differently.

So, I let him go.

And later on, I found out that what I've been trying to do was to export behavior.

Why don't you behave like we do? That's not important.

The important thing is that you, as a company,

are founded on a set of values that you operate all over the world up to.

But does that mean that you do the very thing?

No it doesn't, because if you do the very same thing, they become rituals.

When we, in the 90s,

really implemented after merging in Novo and Nordisk,

our values, our Japanese colleagues spent an awful long time working on our values.

When they were done, they had made

little stands where they were written on one side in Kanji,

on the other side English.

I looked at the Japanese writing and one of them was not in

Kanji but in this cartoon language Katakana. And I asked him.

I turned around and that was open and honest.

And I asked our leader of our Japanese operations, why this?

And he said, it's because in Japanese business culture,

we don't have a tradition or words that

express open and honest in traditional Japanese language and sign language.

So, we spent some time finding out what it meant.

Now, do I believe that it means the same as open and honest in Denmark?

No. But the important thing was that our colleagues had gone through, and that,

what would it require in our society to be

regarded and operating with honesty and openness,

and that's what's so important that you get people all over the world to get your values,

a contemporary dress, and a contemporary field or contemporary setting.

And that's what we've been working on.

I think you mentioned open and honest is one of these values.

Can you expand on this?

What are some of the other values that we're part of this?

When I started writing, helping,

or trying to draft values,

I thought it's got to be things that are written in fire.

But the important thing is not the actual language,

the important thing is that you live them.

That it's not something you pull out of your desk drawer,

but it's something that people observe you doing every day.

The values we have was to be responsible, accountable,

not only vis-a-vis the company but vis-a-vis your colleagues and yourself,

to be open and honest.

And I think that's the biggest,

biggest open obligation any company has towards,

again, the people who are the company.

Because how, otherwise, can you show respect?

But by letting people know exactly where the company is,

where they are in relation to the company,

what their challenges, and et cetera.

So, honesty and openness is

what is an investment you must make and the pay you will for the contributions.

And then, I think also again,

engaging very directly with people.

I always felt that there's obligation to be very honest with people.

It's like the other things,

you have to be observant of what you see.

Human logic, for example.

I think that one of the greatest of greatest obligation you have as a CEO is to realize,

and I may be exaggerating my own influence,

to realize the influence you have on every person's life.

I think each of us are heroes somewhere.

And I thought about that, for instance,

when we had to let people go.

And I always made a point out of finding out if we could not find,

for real, an alternative position to offer that person.

Think of the difference if you go home and tell your family,

"I've been offered this lousy job after all what I've done for that company.

No way." Rather than coming home and say,

"They just fired me."

Remembering that dignity and everything there.

And I think it's one of the great gifts of the culture of leadership

that you can help people succeed.

And also that, of course, hurts in your stomach if you don't.

But then you've got to pick them and yourselves up because it's not nostalgia.

It's running the business.

So, you've mentioned a couple of qualities that I've heard you associate with leadership,

humility, encouraging critical reflection and dialogue,

that I would imagine it's very much part of a leadership attribute.

Can you speak to how these qualities that you associate with leadership,

that quite frankly I would argue very much are,

are indicative of that Scandinavian approach,

if there is to leadership?

How might they then be linked to the sustainability activities and

performances that you've realized here within Novo Nordisk?

If I may just add one thing that I

think is critically important also when you are in a leadership position,

it's the ability to listen,

but particularly to hear the things that are not being said.

There are a lot of people who will tell you what you should think and what's going on.

But the ability to hear what's not being said and act upon them is critically important.

We would never have gotten as far as we have and

there still a way to go and see us on sustainability,

if it wasn't because of Novo Nordisk people.

It is making certain that they both

feel that they have an obligation but also a mandate to think CSR,

to think sustainability, into every business or whatever action they take.

That is so critical.

And that is why it is so important that

sustainability is embedded at the highest levels of the company.

When we go out and tell society what to do,

we're likely to make mistakes because we go into political,

we go into societal,

we go into whatever relationships,

where we're not used to sail.

So, we will make mistakes.

But if you're not prepared as a CEO to make mistakes,

how are you else going to tell all the rest of your colleagues that you must do it,

and that it is all right to make a mistake?

You have that mandate to do it,

and we'll back you up even if you make a mistake.

If board of directors, corporate management,

say we've got that path, corporate communications, HR,

know all about this, cut it down path.

It's not going to work. You've got to show yourself as

a CEO that you're prepared to take the risk of working with sustainability.

One of the big advantages

or one of the big reasons to go into CSR sustainability is that it's risk minimizing.

Because you reduce the risk of your supply chain,

you reduce the risk of losing your reputation.

I actually believe that if you do these things properly,

you sometimes increase your risk again by going into uncharted for new waters,

and getting messed up in political issues,

and being blamed for that, et cetera.

But unless you are ready to do that,

unless you're ready to take that risk, it's going to be,

again, a museum piece and not something that is a living part of your company.

And then, when you say, increase that risk,

I presume, does that mean you may increase your risk?

Maybe over in the short run?

But perhaps over the longer run?

Yes, of course.

In our business,

smart mistakes are the price of progress.

And same thing goes in CSR.

I don't mind being, of course, I do,

being criticized in the paper for having said something that was foolish.

But if I was doing it in the sense of furthering social responsibility, et cetera,

I know that the people in the company would say,

"Well, that's what we stand for and sometimes we may make mistakes.

But it still comes from the way we want to be perceived as a company."

Yes.

Conversation with Mads Øvlisen Part A

Sustainable Vikings: Sustainability & Corporate Social Responsibility in Scandinavia

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