What can we learn from The Nordic Secret?
SEMINAR
Malmö 7 March 13.00-16.00
Stockholm 8 April 13.00-16.00
Welcome to a seminar with Lene R. Andersen
In her book, The Nordic Secret, Lene explores aspects of what has proven meaningful for the success of the Nordics whether we talk of business, social development, or equality. Part of the answers, according to Lene, lies in the early focus on Folk-bildung in the Nordic countries.
With this as a background, Lene will share why she believes that the world needs more bildung and less psychology, particularly in the business world.
Organisations and managers today are navigating a world that is quite different from the world they were trained to navigate. Our old optimization mindset has a stronghold, eagerly emphasized by business psychologists and consultants. It builds on a top-down organizational structure where decisionmakers set goals and KPIs that the organization implements and either succeeds or fails. The model is to a high extent built on military structures and language; meanwhile, humans are seen as a resource, and education and personal development have been turned into marketable skills. How can less polarization and more differentiation lead the way forward?
Based on The Nordic Secret, Lene and the think tank Nordic Bildung suggest an alternative to a marketization of humans. They suggest bildung with a Nordic multilayered twist: A fundamentally different way of looking at leadership and business – and a new, more meaningful way of defining success:
- Business bildung instead of business psychology.
- Informed, distributed decision making instead of top-down command.
- Self-organization, systemic creativity, and meaningful development instead of goals and KPIs.
- Inspiration from the lushness of nature instead of the power game of military.
- Balance, fruitful friction, and collaboration instead of hierarchies and toxic competition.
- Getting a free ride on complexity by understanding it instead of trying to either avoid or control it.
- A multilayered, truly growing, regenerative, and living economy instead of a GDP growth economy.
Bildung: Bildung is the formation of personal character, bildning in Swedish, but what does that entail?
Lene offers a 2-minutes explanation here:
HOST
Lene R. Andersen
Futurist, economist, political thinker, author, and bildung activist. President of Nordic Bildung and author of The Nordic Secret.
Her first books formed the series Baade-Og. Her books in English are The Nordic Secret (2017), Metamodernity (2019), Bildung (2020), What is Bildung? (2021, online), and Libertism (2022). In 2018, Andersen co-founded the Copenhagen based think-tank Nordic Bildung and the Folk Bildung association Fremvirke. In 2019, she was the main initiator of European Bildung Day and in 2020 the co-founder of the European Bildung Network. Since January 2019, Lene is a member of the Club of Rome.
PRICE
1500 SEK ex. VAT.
500 SEK ex. VAT. for MiL Foundation member companies.
Locations
Studio Meetingpoint, Nordenskiöldsgatan 24, Malmö
United Spaces Waterfront, Klarabergsviadukten 63, Stockholm
A series that matter
This seminar is part of A series that matter, where we invite you to three perspectives of high relevance to questions that leaders and organizations are facing today.