Björn Jeffery

I think you have to choose a management philosophy that fits your personality. Building businesses is harder than an HBR article might imply, and while it is interesting to read how executives do things that doesn’t mean that their experiences would work for you. In that sense, these articles can be quite deceitful. The grass is greener and all that.

I have tried to design around who I am as a person, and then complement with the skills and traits that I lack. Anything else would make daily life a struggle since I would constantly try to make myself act differently. Improvement is always good, but always thinking about what is the right thing to do according to a certain management style would be draining for me. Instead I have looked for people around me that can see and act on the things that I’ve missed, or that I’m not very good at.

I like playing the long game in business. This matches me as a person in general. I’m very interested in the future and less interested in the exact road to get there. This can sometimes be misunderstood as not caring about individual performances along the way, or not noticing them at all. This is incorrect. But calibrating a company on an individual decision basis is not where I excel. So while the direction is kept intact, the exact path to get there might sway from time to time.

This works for me. I’m sure it won’t for you, and that is sort of the point. Find what works for you, communicate it to your team, and get going.