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FRIENDSHIP, ETHICS AND PERFORMANCE

I usually try to separate business and friendship. As an economist, I saw the two spheres of life as incompatible. Business maximizes profits, and friendship maximizes satisfaction.

Then I met Curt Nicolin.

I had pursued him for an interview – in Washington, D.C., in Stockholm, and in Oslo. I finally completed the interview and was stunned by the wisdom and insight of his responses to my questions.

He grew up in Northern Sweden, working as a lumberjack. Already then he wondered how lumber companies could make money felling slow-growing Northern pine trees, sending them down rivers, and processing the timber, pulp and paper in factories on the Baltic Sea. He calculated what the productivity would have to be for all the process steps to make it possible for Sweden to compete in world markets. He was a born industrialist.

He became the youngest member ever to be elected to the Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. He rose to become the powerful president of ASEA, and then was the force behind the merger with Brown-Bovery of Switzerland, thereby creating one of the world's leading industrial companies, ASEA Brown Bovery (ABB). He became the custodian of the Wallenberg empire through a holding company, Investor AB, that controlled companies like Saab, Electrolux, Ericsson, Stora and AstraZeneca.

One day he asked me: May I call you by your first name, Tor?

It was his Swedish formality finally yielding. It was also a high honor for me to have him change from the Swedish formal “Ni” to the informal “du” - a distinction not made in English grammar. It was an invitation to be friends.

In a discussion at his beautiful home, where we showed him some documented productivity improvement results from a project we had completed, he asked: Would you consider working for SAS (Scandinavian Airlines System)?

He was Chairman of the Board of the airline. That is how I met SAS' President, Jan Carlzon (author of Moments of Truth), and that's how we ended up with a major engagement for SAS Heavy Maintenance, and that's how that operation became exemplary in performance in its field.

I knew that this was a kind of test, but it was not a test of our friendship. Based on what we did for SAS, he decided to work with us and contribute his own talent and insights to the World Confederation of Productivity Science.

He offered to head up the National Organizing Committee for a World Productivity Congress in Stockholm in 1993. I was President of the World Confederation of Productivity Science at the time, and recommended him to our Board.

When I asked him why he wanted to take on such a complex and demanding task, he said: “Sweden is in a bad way right now and it is getting worse. I think a Congress that focuses on the right issues could be very good for my country.”

Sweden was indeed in a “bad” way. It ranked near the bottom in manufacturing productivity in comparison with other advanced industrialized countries in the world, and Dr. Nicolin concluded that it was mainly caused by the absence of a free market orientation by the Swedish government.

We went to work. The Congress was opened on May 24, 1993 by the King of Sweden. The Prime Minister spoke as well. So did four winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics, leading CEOs and statesmen of the world, and a glittering array of experts in our field. I believe that a great number of issues were addressed and resolved at that Congress, and many of them were subsequently implemented by the Swedish government.

In the years that followed, Sweden went from last to first among the advanced industrialized countries of the world in manufacturing productivity. Curt Nicolin had given his country a lasting gift of inestimable value.

We started to work together on engagements of interest to us both. We presented at World Productivity Congresses in Istanbul, Turkey (1995) and Santiago, Chile (1997), and at conferences of CEOs in the U.S., England, and Sweden. I know he was looking forward to working with me in China.

One day, on his way to Minneapolis, he abruptly changed his itinerary in Washington D.C. and returned home to Sweden. I knew something was wrong. Curt Nicolin would come when he said he would come. I worried about him.

Curt is one of the strongest and healthiest men I have ever known. I always marveled at his extraordinary intelligence, his tact, and his capacity for work. He is one of the great industrialists of Europe.

In Washington, D.C. he had suffered from an inexplicable onset of momentary confusion.

It was to be the first of many.

And then he sank into the darkness that is Alzheimer's.

I grieve for my friend. And for the exquisite intelligence that I had been privileged to know, and that is now only a memory.

His legacy to me is a folder of elegant and formal letters in my files, extraordinary papers and speeches, a thriving business empire, a treasured book on ethics (translated by Gaute Sandberg from our staff at the time).

I never thought we would be friends. The difference in our ages, experience and backgrounds seemed too large. But we found and pursued a shared, common vision, and we became friends. And business partners. Through Curt I got to know some of the finest business leaders in Europe, and accepted some of the most interesting engagements of my professional life.

Curt does not take calls anymore, or answer letters. I have lost touch with him. And for those who know and love him, this is a terrible thing.

Here are some of Dr. Curt Nicolin's observations from his book on business ethics¹:

• Ethics is an expression of our respect for other people.

• Ethics can never be replaced by laws regardless of how detailed and sophisticated the laws are.

• Violations of ethical rules destroy trust and respect.

• It is unethical to lie, but ethics does not necessarily demand that you express everything you know.

• Good ethics occurs through proper upbringing, exemplary conduct and self-discipline.

• Decreasing ethical standards portends the decline of cultures and nations.

• Good ethics is to ask yourself if you are doing enough for your fellow human beings.

• Good ethics is to demand as much of yourself as you demand of others.

• Do not make decisions until they are needed, but never hesitate to make a decision when it is needed.

• It is unethical to exploit confidential information for your own gain.

• You should take care of what you own. You should not own what you are unwilling to take care of.

• Markets do not exist to profit company owners. They exist to satisfy people's and society's need for goods and services. Those businesses that are unable to make a profit can no longer fulfill their fundamental role in society.

• It is difficult and time consuming to earn a good reputation.

• It is quick and easy to lose a good reputation.

• A good business deal should benefit both partners.

• A company's ethics determines its reputation. A good name is a company's greatest asset.

• More than anything, it is the CEO's policies and leadership examples that determine a company's ethical standards.

• It is better for a company to be known for high quality than for low prices.

• Prompt reports are more important for bad news than for good news.

• Busy people always have enough time; they can prioritize.

• It is unethical to hire a manager for reasons other than competence.

• An inept manager fears adept coworkers. Good ethics imply that the inept manager be replaced.

• A good manager does not attempt to do the job of coworkers.

• A manager must be able to listen. The risk of talking too much is greater than the risk of listening too much.

Reading these excerpts from his book is like conversing with Curt. It feels like we are together again, eating crayfish in his office in Stockholm, drinking Ramlösa water.

Somehow, I feel that these thoughts are the guardians of his legacy, that they somehow surround him in his beautiful home in the country. I've been told that with Alzheimer's, the oldest memories are the last to go. In his mind, then, should be the Midnight Sun of his youth, embracing him, holding the darkness at bay.

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