ON THE TOP OF THE WORLD. SOLIDWORKS reseller SolidEngineer’s chief, Björn Lindwall, stands atop Mount Everest. It’s in the company DNA to assume tough challenges; both in the CAD arena, and for its leaders to dare to stand out and perform beyond the usual.
Earlier this year, the head of Swedish SOLIDWORKS partner, SolidEngineer, decided to climb Mount Everest. On May 16, 2018, Björn Lindvall managed this tough challenge. You can see him in the picture below displaying the SOLIDWORKS flag.
It is not the first time that people in the SOLIDWORKS sphere have been distinguished by exceptional adventures. For example, there is former CEO John McEleney, who climbed Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, in 2006. Or there is Tobias Andersson, who went to Russia and flew a Russian combat aircraft model Sukhoj in crash-breaking loops.
But why do they go on such “journeys”? It doesn’t only boil down to a desire for adventure; it’s also part of a business philosophy.
The reasons are many, but for Björn Lindwall the most important one is that, "the expedition life develops mental ability, and there are many parallels with the company's leadership."
Certainly, you can draw parallels in this to leadership ups and downs. Managing these ups and downs, and being able to relate to and know when you’re in the right position to take risks, are aspects that most executives can recognize. Mount Everest puts all this at its peak.
Transparency for Change
Björn Lindwall connects his efforts to leadership development. He believes that the operation of an innovative company means that you need to be open to change, prepared to take risks and quickly make decisions.
Today, the world is changing at an ever-increasing pace, and companies need to switch to an agile, fast and learning way of working.
"I feel that traditional corporate governance with rigid business plans is not effective in today's dynamic market. I think many companies can develop their own way of managing the business, and in ways that were not thought of before. In a fast-moving environment, creative leadership is required,” Lindwall said.
Right or wrong, today’s organizations are rarely designed for rapid changes: the processes are long, the documents many and the decision structure unclear.
“The biggest challenge is to rebuild a heavy ship into a fast speedboat without ceasing to move forward,” as Sofie Lindblom of Ideation 360 noted in an article. The dilemma is, she continued, that “there is often also a crew on the heavy ship who has no desire to go into a speedboat at all. How fast one can turn over his crew to encourage lifelong learning and constant change determines who wins, who can swim and who is drowning."
You probably don’t face any risk of drowning at the top of Mount Everest, but the symbolism with the heavy ship and the speedboat has some connection to Björn Lindwall’s points.
And SOLIDWORKS’ CEO, Gian Paolo Bassi, agrees: “We are everywhere,” he tweeted.