2433 - A Complete Roadmap for Family Business Success and Succession Planning with Bjorn Vikard

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0:46Visit podverify.com if you'd like to be featured as a future guest. I'm Josh Elledge. Let's get into it. well with us right now bjorn vikard bjorn it's great to have you uh you are the author of the new book leading with character across cultures the complete guide to authentic global leadership uh you are a growth-minded family business coach you work with a lot of folks in manufacturing and bjorn your website is bjorn vikard.com bjorn it's great to have you A great being here. Thank you for inviting me. Absolutely. You know, before we get going, I always love hearing what high-level leaders do for fun when they're not at work.

1:31Hobbies, games, movies, music, TV shows, just whatever you happen to be geeking out on right now. What are you currently doing for fun when you're not at work? When I'm not working, actually, my wife is a trained Thai chef, so we do a lot of cooking. so I'm lucky on that but unlucky because it's hard to keep the weight but it's great to have a really good cook so we do a lot of cooking but also we have started our next project which is building a sustainable farm so we have two acres of land up where we have our house in Kanchanaburi so we're going to build that a sustainable farm it's a it's kind of a concept that came from the thai king from many many years ago but it has started to be popular for people who go goes into retirement after some years because the farms give you everything you need you have fish you have veggies you have everything and you trade with your neighbors wow so the neighbors has the eggs and another egg have milk so you go with your veggies and you trade with them it's kind of a pretty cool concept so we have planned to build that so we have that for the whole family when it's time for retirement oh that sounds so picturesque so i love it so but other things we do is uh i mean i'm living in thailand so it's a lot of scuba diving water around here it's not like the barrier reef i'm not saying that that was my first dive my first scuba diving was barrier reef so it's kind of hard to match up to that level yeah yeah well and and no doubt again you you're in the land of just i mean probably my favorite asian country of food or origin for food i just in fact i just made a thai curry last week and so can't get enough of it.

3:41Bjorn, let's talk about your superpowers and the work that you do, Leading with Character Across Cultures. That is your book. It's available at your website. It's an Amazon bestseller. You got a lot of great reviews on it. And Bjorn, why is Leading with Character Across Cultures an important topic for us to be talking about today? To me, I think it's important because a lot of leaders, if you're looking at leaders in general today, they don't have character. They actually don't have self-awareness either, which Goldman has been talking about it for years and years and years. And when I started to get leadership role, I never got the training.

4:28So I had to learn by doing. A lot of crash and burn, as you say, in the U.S. A lot of them. And over time, I started to kind of put down my own leadership program, which then I built to the book. But as I realized that after a while when I have done some mistakes, the same things, especially when you go to different countries in Asia that you think the cultures are very similar, but it's not. It's a very big difference between, it's like in US, people from north and south or west and east. It's different mentalities and different cultures, more or less. Here, it's the same. If you live in Sri Lanka, which is very connected with India, and it was the same country 6 ,000 years ago until they break apart.

5:31they are completely different cultures it's like 180 degrees and so i started to kind of look at it from the perspectives that i had gotten from the different countries i've been to so one thing i learned was that without knowing yourself it's really hard to kind of lead someone if you actually don't know yourself. So I went through a lot of courses. So I took a diploma in life coaching. And that's kind of where I, because in life coaching, you have a lot of reflections and all of these things. And you get to learn so much about yourself when you go through the course. So then I understood a lot of the mistakes I do because they started to kind of be lifted up on the surface.

6:31Yeah. Well, Bjorn, how can we, I guess, you know, again, I think any time that we could be more sensitive to someone's background, to cultures, I mean, it's only going to make us a better leader rather than expecting everybody to conform to our way of how we operate. That's one way of thinking or doing it. I don't think it's very effective. And so what are some traits that, you know, based on your study, your work, your coaching? Are there universal traits that are part of this leadership style that you think are just going to be far more effective when you're dealing with? And by the way, you know, even if you're working, I believe, you know, just based on what I know about your work, this is very relevant.

7:18even let's say you're in America and you got all Americans working with you, you still have a cross section of backgrounds and experiences of people coming in, you know, as part of that team. So these are universal principles. Bjorn, could you give us a bit of a taste of what you teach on this topic? I teach a lot of communication. I do a lot of listening because i think one of the biggest problem most managers or leaders have is that we we are very quick to decisions we are very quick to need a solution very quickly and so we listen to maybe 60 percent and then we have already made decision and just an example i done the mistake in sri lanka i've done it in indonesia in indonesia i came in and i kind of had the mentality from americans fast quick quick quick and when i was working in europe and i was working in us that mentality really works because it it goes faster when you come to asia especially sri lanka and indonesia as an example they need to kind of discuss it out first so one of the biggest problem i have had in my leadership is that i don't listen enough so i took decisions and it was like bang bang bang get going and nothing happened because the way I was kind of leading we do it in Sweden and it works in the US it works in the Netherlands very well as we are very straightforward it's like bang bang and it's done but in Indonesia my leadership team became anxious they didn't know what to do because they felt that I don't listen to them because I didn't let them finish the sentence.

9:39And it took me a couple of weeks until I realized that what I'm doing is not right for this culture. And Sri Lanka, as an example, they don't get anxious. They just get quiet because their culture, when I came there in 2010, is similar to the Chinese. They don't speak up against their manager. So you say something and nothing happens, and then you're like pushing, pushing, pushing, but that doesn't work in these cultures. And it comes back to myself thought that I had listened enough, but I didn't took in the culture into it where you have to let them speak out until they finish and not kind of slow down if we call it like that and that's one of the biggest thing I see on a lot of my friends that are leaders in Asia they come from US, they come from Australia, they come from countries where we are used to kind of green belt black belt it's like get results very quickly reduce cost get result and in asia they are really really good on doing these projects but if they don't feel that they have part of the ownership and it's similar in all cultures really that if they don't get the ownership, then they don't feel accountable.

11:19And then they don't do anything because you are telling them what to do. And then they, they sit waiting for you to do it.

11:30Well, there's a better way. So Bjorn, I suspect leading with character across cultures is your book. What is the transformation that you would hope, you know, someone would experience when they read your book. And also, if you wouldn't mind, maybe just kind of talk about how you work with leaders and what that looks like. What I'm hoping that they get from the book is really a roadmap. So if they follow the book and do all the exercises and use the templates, they will build themselves into a leader that has self-awareness that actually have a character as well that can build trust with the people they are working with because in the end the way I was working when I don't listen enough I don't get the trust from the people and if you're really going to be a good leader you have to have the trust with the people so so that's kind of it's a roadmap to become that kind of leader when when i when i work with the leaders i i i have six modules in my program and one module is self-awareness one is character And that's like the longest chapters that I have in the training.

13:06And it's a lot of exercises. It's a lot of self-reflecting. So if I go out and I do the training with them, every day I do self-reflecting one-to-one with each person that's in the training. and then I usually take two to three people that has been in the training and then I give them six months mentorship. If they have done very, very well, then I usually kind of give it as an add-on for those guys to really get to the potentials they have. Well, Bjorn, your website is Bjorn Vicard. dot com, which we have linked up in our show notes. Bjorn, when somebody goes to your website, what would you recommend they do, you know, in terms of resources that you offer, or, you know, if they'd love to, you know, grab some time with you, what should they do?

14:07When you're looking at my website, I mean, my focus on my business today is really a family-owned manufacturing that is for the succession is the founder wants to kind of exit the company and let the next generation to take over and part of that you have the leadership training inside in that program but i i can always do the leadership as a separate thing as a separate program as well But right now I'm focusing mainly on the succession where I help the company to, from an operational and leadership side, to be able to transfer and keep the legacy going. Because a lot of the leaders that's leaving, they don't really plan for the leaving because they don't know what to do after they leave.

15:11so they cannot let go so they either try to stay too long and that inadvertently it ends up that the daughters or the sons, they might go to other companies because they don't see that daddy is not leaving mama is not leaving I cannot wait until I'm 60 so then they automatically leave out And that's what we're trying in this program that I have tried to reduce the risk with that because you want the family business to continue keeping the legacy for several generations longer. And a lot of it comes down to that, say, the founder, they don't really trust next generation, but they haven't trained them in leadership to take over.

16:04so when the succession discussion comes up then if you speak to the people on the floor or middle management they don't trust the person who's going to take over because they haven't really worked with them and they they haven't had the chance to show that they can lead or they have the tools to be able to become a good leader so that's where my leadership is really coming in nowadays. But I would say that if they're interested in leadership, then set up a meeting with me. I do 30 minutes free with a discussion if they like. Same if they want to do succession planning. then set up a meeting with me and discuss what what they what they're looking for because there's many different ways of doing it yeah well bjorn uh it's a small small world as they say and um you know any company of of note today is uh you know is going to have cross-cultural leadership considerations.

17:23And it's pretty easy. You know, if you're a leader, there's probably, you probably have some blind spots and, or maybe you have some issues or some issues that you don't even realize. They just might be manifesting in ways that, you know, are unattributable or, well, Bjorn, you can help them out. yeah and as a thing because we're doing the podcast if anyone wants to book me I'll give the eight first bookings for free and I will help them doing a assessment and give them a blueprint of what they need to work on from a leadership standpoint so that If they book, I will send them the assessment and they fill it out.

18:23And then we sit down and we go through. And I will tell them what I think they should work with or work in what area they need to improve or where they can improve. Bjorn Vikard, your website, BjornVikard.com. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Thanks for listening to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur. If your goal is to grow your business, increase revenue, and build authority without gimmicks, this show is designed for you. Each episode gives you practical insight from leaders who have turned trust and credibility into real business results. If you value short, thoughtful conversations that respect your time, make sure you're subscribed.

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19:57Thanks again for spending your time with us. I'll see you next time.