The challenges of Swedish top-down decision-making

Milva, our steadfast protagonist of dubious management decisions, was more in control than ever and pulled her strings in the background. Her latest coup? A revolution in beverages that was more like a drainage.

Her decisions acted like additional waves in an already stormy sea during turbulence and uncertainty.

The tsunami of problems that had already built up due to the management's decision to relocate our operations to Sweden had already caused significant problems. Unrest that was either overlooked or - as I suspect - deliberately ignored at the higher levels. Because in the Swedish corporate culture, I had known over the years, everything had to be sold as a success. Milva's recent decisions seemed inappropriate in this context and downright counterproductive. They came up against a workforce already struggling with the challenges of restructuring and adapting to new ways of working. In this already tense atmosphere, their "Revolutions" are not like innovative ideas but rather like salt in the wounds of an already strained team.

The lack of empathy for our challenges on the part of the Swedish management was particularly noticeable during this phase of upheaval. It seemed as if the upper echelons were living in a bubble of detachment, insulated from the real difficulties we faced daily. Our efforts to maintain daily operations while adapting to the new structures and processes were not recognized or appreciated.

This ignorance of our working conditions and the associated challenges led to a growing divide between management and employees. It was as if two worlds were colliding - one characterized by strategic decisions and abstract goals, the other, grounded in the day-to-day reality of work, struggling with the practical implications of those decisions. This discrepancy created a working environment in which frustration and alienation grew.

First, Milva dismantled the previous range of drinks and drinking water vending machines supplied from pipes with constant chlorine content. Just imagine: Every sip of coffee, tea party, and refreshing water now felt like a swimming pool experience.

The employees were anything but enthusiastic. Protests ranged from indignant cries of "chlorine gate" to clandestine water smuggling operations.

But the management wasn't finished yet. Strictly speaking, it was never finished but was constantly churning out decisions and ideas that were developed on the office floors in Gothenburg and installed without further consultation with those affected, which was rather atypical for Sweden and, in retrospect, shows how much the company's values, which were held very high, were treated. The next ingenious idea was the creation of an employee pool. Sounds like a fun water party? Far from it! It was a staff of employees who were deployed so dynamically that you hardly knew who would be sitting at the desk next door or in maintenance this week.

New faces, new inductions, and a constant coming and going created an atmosphere reminiscent of a train station than an office. The frustration of the employees grew immeasurably and erupted in further conflicts that spread throughout the entire department, as from then on, it was a constant occurrence that inexperienced (or untrained) employees met experienced employees. The increasing impatience of the experienced employees, who now had to train new colleagues every two to three weeks, scared these newcomers off and, in some cases, caused them to flee, creating a vicious circle.

Once a place of cooperation and peaceful coexistence, our workplace turned into an arena of unrest. Every day was a new adventure in this world of chlorinated drinks and a volatile workforce. The older employees longed for the good old days when water was just water and you knew your colleagues for over a week. The new employees also longed for their old days and saw all the evil they were now confronted with in our part of the company. They could not see the bigger picture, as I had been able to do. They didn't realize that their enemy wasn't us.

My working life was increasingly becoming a bizarre labyrinth in which expectations were as veiled as fog over a Swedish morning forest. I was in a world where the game's rules and instructions were invisible. Everyday life consisted of tasks and expectations that were never clearly stated. Concrete conversations about my role or requirements? It's as rare as a sunny day in November in Sweden.

Training courses to learn the new software programs? It is a fairy tale that never became a reality, even though the Swedish side had made many promises about this during the transition. Regular feedback on my work performance? A curt "Good work" from Olsson, as illuminating as a candle in a midsummer twilight. I had long suspected that my work was no longer particularly appreciated because all the problems at our company were gradually falling on the shoulders of various people at headquarters. Opportunistic, as some of them - by no means just a Swedish attribute - this soon meant gathering storm clouds.

To make matters worse, despite years of assurances that English was the working language, some emails mutated into an incomprehensible sea of Swedish. As if someone had flipped the language switch, I searched for a translation boat in an ocean of Scandinavian words. Luckily, I had picked up some Swedish.

At the management meetings in Sweden, I felt like the last of the Mohicans. "We only speak English because of you," I heard often enough in a typically Swedish-friendly manner, a reminder that I was a foreign body in this Scandinavian world.

As if that wasn't enough, all day-to-day communication was increasingly taking place via my Swedish department heads, who were now here. Although I was supposed to hold the reins as the operating unit manager, I became a marginal figure in my own drama. Important processes? Were increasingly taking place without me or were presented to me as side notes by Olsson. If I raised my voice, I was either ignored, or it was as if I had been "accidentally" forgotten.

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