ALUMNI QUARTERLY - Harvey Nash

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ALUMNI QUARTERLY
SPRING 2010
1
Having a sense of purpose
at work is increasingly
important, particularly
among younger people
Niclas Kjellström-Matseke, CEO Novamedia
Swedish Postcode Lottery
IN THIS ISSUE:
Social media networks change the face
of leadership
- Editorial
Come on in – the water’s lovely!
- Market
Daring to be different
- Interview with Niclas Kjellström-Matseke
How to put up a good fight
- Leadership
Book review: Rules of Thumb
- Leadership
Does the impact of social media mean
the end of executive search?
- Insights
part of the Harvey Nash Group

2 E D I T O R I A L
Social media networks change
the face of leadership
From our very beginnings, human beings have depended for their survival on their sense of
community, their emotional fulfilment centring on their interactions with others. Such interactions
fill the emotional void of solitude, provide security, nurture their egos and often provide a reason
for existing.
In the past, leaders didn’t really take the time to nurture competence and a sense of selfworth.
More recently, however, the best leaders have provided security, guidance, vision and the
opportunity to be part of a group that provides its members with a sense of ‘purpose’. Work gave
us a sense of identity, worth and community that fulfilled many of our emotional needs. Work had
a ‘higher purpose’ – as well as providing an income, it also enriched us by helping give us a sense
of who we were and how we fitted into a bigger picture. It was even a place where we could find
solutions to our problems. Work, in short, was a social network.
But that concept of work – along with traditional leadership styles – is being challenged in
the age of social media networks. Nowadays, people of all ages are fulfilling many of their social
and emotional needs through social media networks such as Facebook. Social and emotional
gratification is now available at the click of a mouse when and where people need it.
Because we no longer rely on our employers to provide the things we need to create a
balanced psychology, we are looking for something more from them. Our expectations are higher:
what we would have settled for five years ago just won’t do today. If employers don’t meet that
challenge, then employees can reveal their ‘failings’ to all and sundry on Facebook.
How can leaders meet these new expectations from their people in an age of quick social
fixes? They still need to provide security, guidance, vision and a sense of purpose, but they need to
think harder about how they do it.
Leaders can only be successful in the Facebook era by embracing the new patterns and
seeing them as an opportunity rather than a threat. There are huge opportunities in the fact, for
example, that employees can now interact with so many people so quickly, and that they can get
information and analysis quicker than their bosses. And the very fact that employees have higher
expectations of their leaders in terms of creating something that social media can’t is in itself an
opportunity.
So leaders need to be even clearer about their vision and strategy. They need to create an
environment where employees feel inspired, challenged and that they are working towards a
goal that is exciting and worth fighting for. If they succeed, their success will be shared across
the social network community, with positive repercussions for employees, for leaders and for the
organisation as a whole.
About Alumni
Alumni is the largest and most innovative
consultancy within executive search and
leadership services in the Nordic region. For
20 years we have developed tools and services
to strengthen organisations.
Our clients are found throughout the
private and public sector. Through a service
offering ranging from executive search and
management audits to people management
and board services, we help create business
success.
We have offices in Stockholm, Gothenburg,
Malmö, Copenhagen, Helsinki and Warsaw.
Internationally we operate through our owner
Harvey Nash with 4000 employees in 35 offices
in Europe, US and Asia.
Magnus Tegborg
CEO Alumni and MD Harvey Nash Nordic
Contact information for Alumni AB:
HQ Stockholm: +46 (0)8 796 1700
Gothenburg: +46 31 60 42 90
Malmö: +46 40 35 48 70
Copenhagen: +45 77 99 32 60
Helsinki: +358 40 727 9727
Warsaw: +48 22 428 47 28
www.alumni.se | alumni@alumni.se
For queries regarding Alumni Quarterly:
Natasha Pantic: natasha.pantic@alumni.se
Content must not be copied, distributed or sold without
permission.

M a r k e t
3
Come on in - the water’s lovely!
Companies that embrace social media networking may reap benefits that go beyond pure marketing, says Pernilla Jonsson
While social networking media such as
Facebook, Flickr and YouTube have gained
huge popularity among individuals seeking
to connect with each other, the considerable
benefits to businesses of engaging with
such media are only just beginning to be
understood.
So far, most businesses have only just
dipped their toe in the water. They might have
a budget, but really don’t know where to start.
So the typical approach is to set up a Facebook
page. But that’s going about things the wrong
way. You shouldn’t establish a social presence
until you are clear what you want to do with it.
The first question a company should ask
itself is what it wants to achieve through social
networking. And to answer that, it needs to
revisit the goals outlined in its marketing plan
and try to determine whether it could achieve
those more effectively through social media or,
indeed, if there are groups of consumers whom
it doesn’t reach through traditional channels
that it could reach through social media.
Most companies have not yet realised what
a fantastic source of consumer insight social
media represent. But to properly harness those
insights you need to do the right qualitative
and quantitative analysis.
The first step is to establish where your
customers and potential customers are in the
social media landscape. To do that you need to
conduct a thorough analysis of social media,
focusing specifically on consumers’ interests
and opinions in areas affecting the climate in
which your business operates.
So the analysis should include consumer
views on your own brand or organisation, on
your own and parallel markets, and on broader
societal trends affecting your brand and
market.
Gaining such insights into consumers and
their culture allows organisations to shape and
mould their communications accordingly. But
you might have to be prepared to completely
rethink your proposition, because such an
unadulterated consumer interpretation of
your brand could be at odds with your own
perception of it. You might even find you have
invested a great deal in a proposition that is
not relevant at all.
But armed with this rich source of
consumer insight, you can start to work out
how to add value to your target consumers in
a way that makes them want to engage with
you and buy your products and services. But
Pernilla Jonsson
Pernilla Jonsson is head
of the consumer, markets
and innovation division
at Kairos Future. The
company has developed
a tool called Social Media
Mapping, which combines
quantitative and qualitative
ethnographic analysis
of social media. For
more information go to
kairosfuture.com
Most companies
have not yet realised
what a fantastic
source of consumer
insight social media
represent
marketing through social networking media
is very different from marketing through
traditional mass-market media, whether abovethe-line
advertising or direct mail, both of
which depend, to a large extent, on ‘nagging’
their way into the consumer consciousness.
By contrast, the trick with social networking
media is to have a sufficiently engaging
message that the people you are targeting
seek you out, and are willing to disseminate
the message to others. The exemplar of that
approach was President Obama’s election
campaign, which harnessed the full potential
of the internet to involve voters from the grass
roots up in a collective ‘co-created’ endeavour
to bring about change – ‘Yes, we can!’.
But one of the greatest barriers to
companies’ ability to exploit the power of
social networking media is fear about the
negative things consumers might say about
them, and the sense that they will lose control
over their brand and communications. But
negative word-of-mouth has always gone
on: the difference with social media is that
companies can actually see exactly what
consumers think about them and, if they are
wise, act on it.
This can be quite challenging, particularly
for organisations with strict, policy- and
procedure-driven corporate cultures. However,
companies that meet that challenge head on
may reap considerable benefits that go beyond
‘marketing’. New research shows that 80 per
cent of consumers across the world want
companies to show a more human face and to
be, and act, in a more authentic manner.
No company can ever be perfect, however
hard it tries, but consumers respect those that
try – and showing more humility, admitting to
mistakes and attempting to put things right
are obvious ways to demonstrate that they
are trying. In many cases, that will require
organisations to adapt or completely change
their corporate culture.
So if you are about to dip your toe in
the water, but are slightly nervous about the
temperature, come on in – the water’s lovely!
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Jane Simms is a freelance writer and editor.

4 I N T E R V I E W
Daring to be different
After ten years as a strategy consultant, Niclas Kjellström-Matseke discovered the latent entrepreneur inside himself when
he gave momentum to the Swedish Postcode Lottery, a pioneer of ‘market-driven charity’. You can adapt and change your
leadership style, he tells Alumni Quarterly, if you are willing to learn from others.
NICLAS KJELLSTRÖM-MATSEKE
Niclas Kjellström-Matseke is CEO of
Novamedia Swedish Postcode Lottery,
and a pioneer of ‘market-driven charity’,
an approach that uses commercial means
to generate sustainable funding for good
causes. The organisation makes money
from ‘doing well’ and ‘doing good’ at the
same time. The owners make a profit
– around four per cent of turnover; the
beneficiaries receive about 27 per cent
of turnover; and all the principles in the
company – not least employing highquality
people and providing a highquality
service and being prepared to pay
for it – are commercial.
The Swedish Postcode Lottery has
become increasingly popular with the
Swedes since it was set up in September
2005. It has already donated 1 billion SEK
(€900 million) to good causes, including
WWF, UNICEF, Médécins sans Frontières,
the Clinton Climate Initiative and
Amnesty International. It aims to donate
1 billion SEK a year.
Kjellström-Matseke, who is 39,
previously held senior management
positions in companies including Alumni
and Accenture, and was CEO of Spero,
another Swedish lottery. He has MBAs
from Stockholm School of Economics
and Babson College in the US, as well
as a degree in economics from Uppsala
University and training from The Swedish
Coastal Rangers.
AQ: You have pioneered the concept of
‘market-driven charity’ in Sweden. What
kind of leadership is required to make
a success of such an innovative new
approach?
Niclas Kjellström-Matseke: When we set
up this organisation, we went into the market
on the commercial platform – the lottery –
and took an aggressive approach to gaining
market share. We deliberately played down
the ‘philanthropic’ side of what we wanted to
do, knowing that most people would find the
combination of commercial and charitable
aims difficult to fathom.
We only started to communicate our
charitable ethos – sustainable fund-raising
for good causes – at the end of the first year,
when we were able to hand out some money –
61 million Swedish Krona (SEK).
Having a sense of
‘purpose’ at work
is increasingly
important,
particularly among
younger people
So the initial challenge was primarily a
business challenge because, as for any business,
the tough part was to create profit. But to grow
as fast as we wanted to, I needed other leaders
around me, who were equally committed to
what we were trying to do. People generally
were looking for us to trip up, for signs that we
wouldn’t be able to achieve our vision. So you
need to be determined, and committed, and
enjoy the ride, because you are going to lose
battles along the way.
My background is management
consultancy – I spent ten years in this field
as a strategy consultant. But when launching
this venture, I behaved much more like an
entrepreneur. I didn’t do the greatest strategic
work, nor had the clearest vision about how to
do things, nor had the most excellent system,

I N T E R V I E W
5
structure and processes. Our strength was our
determination to keep going and to learn from
our mistakes. I can look back now and pretend
that that was our strategy, but in reality we
were opportunistic. You burn your fingers, but
you have another go. We were addicted to
investigating opportunities, and it was fun.
I didn’t exactly leave my strategic
analytical background behind me, but I didn’t
need it during that first year: what I needed
was determination, commitment, focus and
pragmatism. We were ‘results junkies’, happy
to ask for and take advice on how to reach our
goal rather than being proud or concerned with
prestige.
What sort of people do you need to
work with you in such an environment,
and how do you motivate them?
Some people find it frustrating when you keep
changing your focus – whether because of
legislation, or because things aren’t working.
When setting up something completely new
like this, you go down blind alleys, and have to
backtrack and redouble your effort, and you
need people around you who feel comfortable
with working in the same way.
I have always had one or two people close
to me, who are older and more mature, and
who act as a check and balance on what I do
as the ‘visionary’ leader. I consciously recruit
people who are excellent at that, and finding
great people is one of the few things I am really
decent at.
In the beginning it was relatively difficult
to attract employees – on the face of it there
was nothing very different or ‘sexy’ about
us. But that changed when we launched the
concept of ‘market-driven charity’, and we
now appeal equally to individuals from top
consultancy firms and those from social
services backgrounds.
We are much closer in structure and ethos
to a traditional corporation than we are to a
non-government organisation (NGO) or charity,
but having said that, people are motivated by
being able to ‘do well’ and ‘do good’ at the
same time. Indeed, having a sense of ‘purpose’
at work is increasingly important, particularly
among younger people, and being able to
offer them that is a differentiating factor for an
employer.
Many companies are adjusting to this
new reality. For example, Accenture, one of
my former employers, is increasingly building
opportunities for its staff to get involved in
voluntary work and is supporting them to
do so. We are lucky: we have built it into our
business model. NGOs visit us on a weekly
basis to discuss world challenges, and we take
our employees out into the real world to see
how the money donated through the lottery
is being used. Employees – whether a chief
financial officer or customer services agent –
are motivated by seeing the work they do in a
bigger social context.
I have always had
one or two people
close to me, who
are older and more
mature, and who
act as a check and
balance on what I
do as the ‘visionary’
leader
How have you adapted your leadership
style as the company has grown?
As the organisation grows you have to become
more structured and organised and better
adapted to policy making and managing risk
and so on. We are going through that now
and it can be a bit painful. It is very different
from the entrepreneurial work we did at
the beginning, and it can pose a leadership
challenge. Some people find it impossible
to adapt their leadership style, and ought,
arguably, to move on. Others, meanwhile,
seem too keen to move on when, in fact, they
could learn and develop through tackling the
challenges inherent in growth.
We have had a series of huge challenges
here at every stage of our growth for the past
five years, and throughout it all I have had to
go back to school and educate myself in order
to keep up. I am back at Stockholm School
of Economics at the moment. I did a Masters
in social sciences and economics in the early
1990s, and an executive MBA ten years later.
Now I am taking courses on professional board
work. That’s additional to the day job and is, in
itself, a challenge.
You can grow with the company, if you are
prepared to. It is lots of fun, and it gives you
great opportunities to look outside the box
rather than doing the same thing over and over
again. You should also learn from the greatest
advisers you can imagine. I made a list of the
greatest Swedes in business, NGOs, politics
and so on – some active, some retired – and
approached them for help. Some responded
and some didn’t. I also made a list of all the
great leaders in the world: you don’t have to
speak to them, but you can learn from what
they have done.
Among the leaders you have met, who
has been the most inspirational, and
why?
I’ve not met Bill Gates, but I admire him
for innovating early in his career, for
continually stepping outside the box and
doing unexpected things, and now for his
philanthropy – eliminating malaria, as he wants
to, would be an amazing achievement.
I have met Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela
and Tony Blair, and you get different things
from each of them. Mandela’s approach,
for example, is to stand back and let people
understand how they should behave, rather
than telling them – a sort of coaching
approach, if you like. Blair, by contrast, is more
direct, but his leadership gift is that people feel
totally comfortable and relaxed in his presence.
But what unites all the leaders I most admire
is that they make everyone else feel that they
count equally and can contribute to making
things better.
How do you balance your high-profile
external persona with your internal
leadership role?
It’s difficult, and I don’t think that I often
successfully do both simultaneously. Employees
aren’t necessarily motivated by the external
role I play: they would rather participate
themselves, I believe, by going on field trips,
meeting inspiring people, great NGOs and
so on. I am aware that I need to work on
that, but I do have this hand-picked team of
brilliant individuals who can step in and provide
leadership when I am out of the organisation.
------------------------------------------------------
Jane Simms is a freelance writer and editor.

6 L e a d e r s h i p
How to put up a good fight
Don’t mistake a lack of open conflict for agreement, warns Richard Brown
How well do you deal with challenge? If we’re
honest, most of us handle it poorly – it’s a
hard-wired human response to a sense that our
authority or credibility is being questioned. But
business leaders probably handle it worst than
most, because they fear appearing indecisive or
losing control. So the tendency is to snuff out
flickers of challenge to the point where no one
dare contradict you.
That’s a far from healthy state of affairs,
particularly if you mistake a lack of open
conflict for agreement and alignment.
Anger and table thumping may prove more
productive than withdrawal, passivity or
sullen ‘acceptance’, because people can take
their misgivings underground and spread
them through the organisation. That has an
insidious effect on morale, performance and
productivity.
Our recent research among over 3,500
top, senior and mid-level managers in public
and private-sector organisations indicated that
firms that encourage, embrace and manage
challenge make far better strategic decisions
and generate far better understanding of and
buy-in to those decisions than firms that don’t.
There are three main reasons.
1. The best decisions take account of a range
of different views and perspectives.
2. If people challenge it means they are
involved, and are therefore likely to be
more committed to the outcome of a
discussion, even if they aren’t in complete
agreement.
3. Well-managed challenge brings differences
out into the open, helps prevent the kind
of collusion where individuals agree to
protect each other’s backs and overrides
the reluctance to upset someone that
prevents some people speaking out.
But while most managers understand this at a
rational level,
• fewer than 50 per cent of managers we
surveyed said their organisations actively
encourage challenge
• 25 per cent said they discourage it
• just 10 per cent said challenge happens ‘a
lot’ in their organisation
• where there is challenge, 60 per cent of
respondents said the challengers are often
labelled ‘troublemakers’.
Richard Brown is managing partner of Cognosis
Firms that encourage,
embrace and manage
challenge make
far better strategic
decisions than those
that don’t
Further disturbing findings include the fact that
• non-executive directors challenge strategy
in only eight per cent of organisations
• chairmen challenge strategy in just ten per
cent of firms
• HR challenges strategy in only nine per
cent of firms.
No wonder powerful banking chief executives
felt free to pursue strategies that ultimately
proved so destructive – and no wonder the
people aspects of so many corporate strategies
are bolted on as an afterthought rather than
being treated as key to an organisation’s ability
to achieve its goals.
Nurturing a culture that harnesses
challenge has to start at the top. If the
leader and top team embrace the ‘challenge’
challenge, then a culture of challenge will
permeate the organisation without the need
for a formal culture change programme. But
ensuring the challenge is constructive and
‘functional’ rather than degenerating into
personal attacks, exacerbating internal politics
or reinforcing personal agendas, is hard.
There are several steps organisations can
take to foster functional conflict.
• Ensure the leadership group is ‘wholeminded’
by seeking out complementary
styles, personalities and approaches when
hiring.
• When developing strategy, involve as
many representative voices as possible,
particularly in the early stages. Even
someone saying they don’t understand
something can be extremely valuable.
• However, make it clear that everyone must
support the ultimate decision, even though
they might have preferred a different one.
While boards and leadership teams may be able
to manage their own challenge processes, it
sometimes requires a more impartial observer
to pose the really challenging questions – not
‘how can we do this better, faster or more
cheaply?’ but ‘why are we doing this at all?’ Only
when you delve deep do you get the insights
that are real gold-dust.
------------------------------------------------------
Jane Simms is a freelance writer and editor.

L e a d e r s h i p
7
Book review: Rules of Thumb: 52 truths for
winning at business without losing your self
Alan Webber, the co-founder of Fast Company magazine and former editorial director and managing director of the Harvard
Business Review, has summarised his key learnings from over 40 years of work in sectors ranging from federal, state and local
government to being an entrepreneur in the media industry.
Through his work he has had interactions
with some of the world’s leading thinkers and
highest achievers and has created a collection
of 52 ‘rules of thumb’ – lessons he has learned
that can be applied to both business and
personal life.
Though sometimes philosophical,
the lessons are also practical and easy to
incorporate in everyday leadership and life. The
book is very flexible in its form: you can read it
from cover to cover or dip into randomly for
different ideas. What is inspirational about the
book is that Webber draws the lessons from all
sectors and geographies and gives the reader
new perspectives on everyday issues. In today’s
world of dramatic change where you can’t take
anything for granted, you need to sort out the
new rules of the game before working out how
to win the game.
The examples below give a flavour of the
range of lessons in the book.
• The way to succeed in business is by having
serious fun. People rarely prosper when
not having fun and strategic work is all
about looking for ideas and focusing on
opportunities rather than realities
• Everything conveys a message – your office
space, your web site, what you wear, how
you act, what you do and don’t do. So be
clear about what your values are and what
you want to communicate, and let that
inform all your actions.
• The soft issues are really the hard ones.
The two most influential management
books in terms of popularity and impact
(In Search of Excellence, Tom Peters
and Bob Waterman, 1982; Good to
Great, Jim Collins, 2001) both come to
the same conclusion: fantastic people
create fantastic companies delivering
extraordinary financial results. The
equation doesn’t work the other way
round.
------------------------------------------------------
Åsa Idlund, Manager of Development and
Operations, Alumni Nordic
Fantastic people
create fantastic
companies
delivering
extraordinary
financial results

8 I N S I G H T S
Does the impact of social media mean the
end of executive search?
The growth of social media networking has
dramatically enhanced the ability to identify,
connect with and maintain a wide and active
network. Even when approaching candidates
at senior executive levels, a quick online
search will help you identify almost everyone
that could be of interest to you. You can also
find relevant and detailed personal, as well
as professional, information about potential
candidates online, not least through sites such
as Twitter and Facebook and through blogs
Networking opportunities are almost infinite,
and sites such as LinkedIn make staying in
touch and keeping your network alive much
more natural than in the days when you used
to have to pick up the phone every few weeks.
Information overload?
Because information is available to everyone,
managers are more closely scrutinised than
ever. Facts accessible by you as an employer
are also accessible to the media, and scandals
involving senior managers’ personal, financial
or legal difficulties make regular media fodder.
Employers need to be one step ahead and
ensure they discover negative facts about
potential candidates before they recruit them.
The sheer volume of information available
online these days creates its own challenges.
For example, online information can easily be
manipulated: how do you know if something
is correct or not? Also, when the supply of
potential candidates who appear to meet your
criteria is so large, how do you choose between
them? When recruiting senior executives,
having too much choice can work against you.
Does executive search have a future?
Because social media networks have made
identifying candidates so much easier, employers
can concentrate instead on separating the
wheat from the chaff during the selection
process. To judge whether a person is right for a
role means looking not just at traditional merits
like competence and experience, but also at
factors such as personality, motivation, health
and economic background.
The selection process in executive search
is increasingly sophisticated, and includes
everything from in-depth interviews,
personality and problem-solving tests, through
individual due diligence investigations and
health check-ups, to deep and comprehensive
reference interviews. So we believe the value
we add to the recruitment process is no longer
identifying a long-list of competent candidates,
but thoroughly evaluating candidates in order
to help clients make the best possible choice.
As any senior manager knows, search is a
time-consuming process, and engaging with
candidates is critical to ensuring that the
investment of time, energy and money yields
results. In our experience, people only get
involved when they are genuinely interested
in the opportunity. Therefore, to establish
whether a candidate is genuinely interested in
a position, and to help to build that interest,
the headhunter needs to nurture a professional
and personal relationship with the candidate –
something that is very hard to replicate online.
We constantly push ourselves to improve the
way we work in order to be the most trusted
adviser and deliver excellent service to our
clients. New online media help us as well as
clients to make good recruitment decisions,
but, ironically, they also make the need for a
trusted adviser more important than ever.
------------------------------------------------------
Åsa Idlund, Manager of Development and
Operations, Alumni Nordic; Christoffer Lindblad,
Executive Search Manager, Alumni Nordic