Hi everyone. Today we are exploring the building blocks of one of the world's most beloved brands, LEGO.

And I'm here with Nils Christianen who's led LEGO since 2017.

And we are going to learn about their remarkable business model and what makes this company so special.

So warm welcome Nilson.

Thank you very much.

So, I was on I was on the train last weekend down from the Norwegian mountains and I happened to sit next to this lady

And I was preparing for this for this podcast and I asked her, "Hey, what would you what do you want to ask the CEO of Lego?"

And then she went completely silent and she said, "If you meet the CEO of Lego, you have to thank him for having made my 16-year-old son interested in engineering."

Fantastic. So on behalf of her and millions of others, you know, thank you for what you have done.

It's incredible.

So let's just start at the top.

What does it really mean to inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow because that's what you say you're doing.

Yeah, it of course takes the outset in children and we believe that children are our role models in the way they do the creative way they attack the world and we know that we actually provide something that helps children acquire some of the skills they need to live in society more basic skills that what we actually teach children in school and I think what we learned over the years that's very applicable to children but it's applicable to all of us.

Why do they love building things?

Yeah, I guess it's about this in it's about the creativity I think that's built into us people.

I think everything from when we back 5,000 years ago we were making a hammer out of stone where this desire and drive to create things.

I think this is what legal bricks provide.

I learned a new expression today when I walked around in your factory.

Clutch power. Yes.

The way that bricks kind of fit together, there must be something very satisfactory with the clutch power.

How important is the parents influence?

I mean we were brought up with bricks just in what way does it go in generations?

Yeah, it is important for the kids part, it's less important for the adult part because we do sell to all consumers today. But for kids, adults are typically the best ambassador to bring the first legal brick set in. We know that building together adult and kid is very developing and very exciting actually for both parties. So obviously, following that, there is a big advantage in the countries where, I mean, I guess you and I being Scandinavians have had the pleasure of playing with Lego bricks when we were children. That's not the case everywhere, particularly in Asia, in China, in India, it wasn't necessarily like that. So in some parts, you almost have parents as a natural ambassador. In other parts, we are building the brand as we go.

And so there's a difference there, but it's super important. It's interesting when you said the lady you were sitting next to, I am probably one of the CEOs who gets most emails and letters from kids and parents.

Just within the last 24 hours, I've had three thanking me for what we do, reminding them of what they did as kids and telling me how that has been fantastic for their children or grandchildren, and it's super rewarding.

What does a brand What does a Lego brand mean? What does it encompass?

Yeah, I mean it encompasses our values in a sense.

So there's a lot of creativity, there's imagination, there's kind of this, yeah, I consider it a medium with which you can impress everything you want to do or express yourself in a different way, or it's almost like something, it's like writing in a sense, you can use the Lego bricks for what you want to do and the creation you make is your creation.

It's not a Lego creation in that sense.

So I think it allows for that and the brand encompasses all that.

How many Lego bricks are there in the world now?

Oh, that's a good question.

Somewhere I think between 500 billion and a thousand billion.

It's a big number.

Yeah, it's a big number.

And the fun thing is when you get a new set, you kind of add on what you already have.

So you have this kind of, you know, in a way it's a flywheel or kind of a platform.

Yeah, exactly.

It is a platform.

I consider Lego bricks actually being the ultimate platform or the ultimate modular system, and I mean every company talking about how can we platformize things to make those more efficient.

They always use the Lego bricks as the example for that.

So I think that that sits very deeply in our roots, of course, that everything we do better be optimized from a modularity point of view.

Yeah. Now kids change the way they spend their time. Just how does this digital addiction impact your business?

It's I mean it makes it harder to stay relevant because at the end of the day we are actually we consider ourselves competing for children's time.

Yeah.

More than just competing as a toy. And you're right. I mean children actually in many countries around the globe they spend more time on school. They spend time on after school whenever they're off that they're typically on a tablet or a computer and so so it's it's it's just a harder game to stay relevant on that. We know then when kids really get into it they get super excited. We know parents like it and we know all the important development criteria. You have to use your brain and your hand in a coordinated way to build that these methorical skills to build the right connections in the brain earlier on. We know that and I think we are we're just a prime tool for doing that.

So, uh, do you think something has changed with children's fantasy and imagination?

So far? Not not a lot. Which is a positive I think and and I also think we have to we have to also have to say that being on digital screens is not bad. It just cannot be the only thing you do. We typically see if you do do what you said before, you take this big bin of Lego bricks, you throw them on the on the floor, kids will build like you and I would build back then. It's not that different, which I think is quite encouraging.

Yeah. But you also interact via the digital world.

Yeah.

With your legal products, right?

Yeah.

What kind of things do you do?

Yeah. It's if you think about competing for time, you want to be relevant. You cannot kind of be a Lego brand and then say we are only in the physical world because that that's over. So you want to be where kids are and where where consumers are. So we have we have games, we have we have a Lego play social media platforms, we have a lot of IP partners where we also work very heavily into digital because kids want that.

But they expect of course and representation in digital of the LEGO brand that is authentic to what it is.

And that's our challenge to make sure we show up the right way with the right values no matter whether it's in digital or or physical.

In your own product development. How do you foster creativity?

That brings a smile to my face all the time because we are a super creative company. And if there's something if you get the opportunity to walk alongside the department we have of Lego designers. I mean

How many people do you have?

We have I think we have around 600 designers.

Oh wow. And how do they how do they how do they go about figuring out what to make?

Yeah, I mean very different approaches because you would have everything from designers or trained designers to architects to engineers, all kinds of people. It's almost like it's I mean a Lego designer that's something you really want to be and you are really willing to lean into that and people work for years to to to get to that skill and if you're Lego designer you work in this town. So you work in this place in the middle of Jutland in Denmark because we have liquid designers nowhere else.

Because this town is billand.

In the middle middle of Denmark. And how many citizens have you got?

Probably 10,000 in the town and 6,000 people working for us.

No, but the point is just we have we have the designers together. So you really create this super creative atmosphere where they can work up along each other where we can support them in the best possible way. I mean they have access every day to every single Lego brick that exists in every single color. They have all kinds of systems supporting and they have this very creative environment that that allows them to to to be creative.

How do you how do you create that environment? What does it take?

I mean there's a there's a physical building part to that that needs to be need needs to be exciting and that's an area we're actually even moving further on. But it's that also the freedom you give them. So you if you get the right type of people and you allow them to be creative in what they do. So we don't control them much. We I mean

It's a play it's a proper playground.

It is every two weeks they have a day where they can do exactly what they want to outside any program. We do get have to get products out the door, but we need to allow them to all the time have their ideas come up and come out and so it's it's quite an exciting area to be in and it's it's yeah it is very creative and there's a lot of very creative people in the company and

Where do where do good ideas come from generally in life?

I mean they can come from many many places but I think they get inspired by by their own passions or their own type of building technique. Yeah. Can also be inspired by us looking into what are the trends in the world. I mean Formula 1, we have a strategic partnership with Formula 1. Yes, we've been in vehicles, but now suddenly that opens up a world for some designers or animals for for kids if you know you're into that. You can you can be a creative around a theme, but you can also be openly creative. And the flowers we see on the table, I mean, that's an open creation. The first time I saw that, I wasn't even certain whether that would be a good idea or not. But but that just came out of a designer. They tried it out and we said, "Okay, let's try it and if it works, we'll do more and if it doesn't, we would we would stop this in this case."

Yeah. What I can say is that check out the floral creations you had here cuz I'm thinking about putting some in my office instead of flowers.

It's very cool.

Um now you personally are involved and you are approving products and so on. this how how does how does this whole process work?

Yeah, it's because it's interesting when you talk I mean you and maybe I start with saying every year we change 50% of our product line.

Yeah. And that's how many that's how many hundreds.

That's that would be around 400 now or 450 products that have to come every year.

Yeah.

And not many companies change their product range every two years.

No.

No. So you can say we we're no better at any point in time than the creativity we are coming out with right now. So we talked about the creative side and kind of some of the things we do to to allow them to be super creative but the creative process if you look at it from the idea to the product is also quite structured. So we have we call them P meetings. So we have a series of P meetings throughout the year where we bring a lot of people together trying to figure out how does how do the ideas we have and the and the concepts we have how do this play up against what are the trends in the world? What's is it Formula Formula 1 that's attractive? Is it Star Wars this year that's coming out with a new movie? What is it that would really drive attention? Is it Pokémon? Is it Super Mario? What are the things that are hot IPs or will be hot IPs one or two years out?

Do you check with kids?

We check with kids. We check a lot with kids. We check with adults. And then of course we have given the strength of the brand, we have very strong cooperations with a lot of brands and IPs out there. And that gives us also the privilege of having insights into what is coming. So if you know what the movie slates are that will be there in the next year or two, you have a much better chance of hitting hitting right on your prioritization.

Are there some models you keep forever? Do you have some evergreens?

Yes.

Yes. What are they?

I take a an example would be Titanic. So we have the Titanic. You build that from several thousand bricks. You build everything in there and you close it down so only you know what's inside. It's kind of this size.

So it's a it's a big set.

More than a meter.

Yeah. And that's something that that I mean that's that's an evergreen that will stay for a long long time. I won't say it would ever not ever go out, but it's not something that goes in and out in a year or two as most products would do.

What's kind of the most complicated set you have? How many pieces?

10,000 pieces.

10,000.

Yeah.

Wow. You said the Star Wars city or something.

Yeah, it would be a huge No, it would be a Star Wars Millennium Falcon would be a big one. The Colosum would be a big one. The Eiffel Tower is a very big one. Titanic is a big one. So that that would be the as you say like a meter or a meter and a half high or really big constructions with a lot of bricks in them.

In the old days more boys than girls were into Lego. Now that you have managed to change that a bit.

Yeah. Now we've been very focused on being a brand for everybody. So both for for both genders of of kids but also growing into teens and into adults. But you're right, we are much more balanced between boys and girls today.

Moving on to ownership and culture. So, uh, LEGO is a family-owned company. How does that impact the way you work?

Yeah. Right. We've been familyowned for for 90 93 years. Same family, first generation.

Yeah.

Uh, it um uh it gives us an opportunity to take decisions with a slightly longer perspective. So we can carry through some investment programs and we can also sometimes carry through uh smaller smaller blips or hiccups in a quarter. So I mean if you want to be very creative, you want to take some chances and not everything pays out and you shouldn't panic if that happens. You need to be able to stand through that. I think I think we've had good examples of uh of doing that and we we are using that by actually also having quite quite a long perspective in some of our plans.

Yeah. because we can sign up we can sign up with an owner family um for the longer term on some of those things. I think that's been the biggest uh biggest advantage.

Yeah. You did go through a period though where you which was a bit more rocky. What happened then?

No, I think the um I mean we talked about the creative side. You can imagine with so many creative people running around you can create a lot of complexity in very short term if you're not if you if you're not careful. And I think we've had periods where where the complexity had grown too much and and that of course makes it more difficult to execute in the right way and and to control all things. So that's one of the things that we are that we all the time or it also takes a lot of my focus balancing between being creative but also being very structured with an operating model that allows us to execute these many billions of of of bricks that we need to get out and that all of these sets every year all these launches that they hit just right and do that that actually is a balance between the two things and if that gets out of balance that typically creates problem for us.

Yeah. How many years did you have problems for?

We had in the around year 2000 I think there was a period of five or six or seven years around 16 17 it was kind of a two year a 2-year period where we lost momentum before we came we came back.

And now you have really come back with a vengeance right so you've been growing close to 15% for the last few years.

Yeah, that's a very very high growth rate in a pretty flat industry, right?

Yes, exactly.

How how what do you think is the fastest a company could grow?

Yeah.

Uh in a in a kind of sensible way.

Yeah.

Well, it's it's a super good question because that's kind of that's kind of the upper limit your question asking there is there a limit to how fast it makes sense to grow. On the other side, there's also a lower limit in the sense that in a business like ours, it's really a momentum business. If we can grow at a decent pace, we can afford to make all the forward-looking investments that will drive that that again. I actually once made a had a consultant come in making more of an analytical exercise on what projects the growth. The best projector of high growth is that we grew fast the year before.

Right. Right.

Which is interesting in the sense that momentum yields momentum. So,

Well, we're talking about Formula 1, Schumacher said that, uh, you know, for the perfect machine, uh, speed is a unifying force or something along those lines.

But there's something to that and I'm aware that actually puts that I'm I'm eager to have the growth being at a good pace,

But of course, I'm nervous if that growth gets to the point that gets too high. So, probably the 15 you mentioned should it's probably at the limit that I think a company like ours can sustain for the long term. And and remember we I mean we built all our products ourselves. So so it's not like we can just source something more from somebody. It means factories. It means distribution centers. It means a setup that's that's quite quite big and growing faster than that. I think

What's the risk what's the risk to growing faster? Where where does the risk come in?

I think it comes from complexity growing too fast or us not being able to deliver the capacity to follow because you you need to build quite some square meters in in manufacturing every year to sustain the 15% and everything that goes with it and and it's it's it's hard maybe you can do it in a single year but not year after year I think.

What are the challenges to scaling the culture?

Um I think what we're learning is that um that uh I mean we sit in billon together here we sit in our liquor on campus. We have a lot of employees here and we have many who have been here for 20, 30, 40 years. So recruiting into this area, we could take a thousand people tomorrow and I would feel pretty certain that very fast they would get into the culture. Now what we've also done is we created hubs in parts of the world where we wanted to put on new capabilities. An example is in Copenhagen. So we started out open an office and got between three and 400 digital experts into an office like that. that takes a little bit longer because you cannot mix them up with with culture carriers that we have. So that takes a much stronger effort to do that. Similarly, when we start a factory in Vietnam, just green field and we start by recruiting that and we have a lot of we actually have a lot of emphasis on how do we do that? How do we bring people in who carries the culture and how can we be very precise on that? But it's an it's an ongoing focus.

Uh to make sure that that happens because having a strong culture is only really valuable if you have it throughout. If you only have it in pockets then I'm not sure it's so valuable.

How do you deal with failure?

Um I mean when you are as creative as we are we are creating failures. Um if you call it failure I try not to call it failure in the sense because there's there's a

What do you call it? failure it

I don't have a good name for that but we try very hard to not kind of um make the failure thing a very negative thing so so we uh we call it a AAR so the afteraction review where we try to take the learnings out so uh so it's the kind of a failure you don't want to repeat the failure and at least you want to get out of the failure with a learning.

Yeah no you never want to repeat mistakes because there's so many to take from.

Exactly and and it doesn't make I mean that's what hurts if you see the same mistake happening twice. We actually had an example of this this year. That's when it really hurts and that's when you uh you look deeper. But

So what do you call it? After action.

After action review.

Okay. How does that how does that work? So it's an actual debrief, right?

Yeah. It's a it's it's a strong debrief that that along a fixed model have to come out with what are the learnings we're taking and where do we apply those learnings. So

How does what does a model look like? um for this

Uh modeling I mean we basically there's there is a uh there's around a certain project there's a a list of people you need to have in this review you have to describe what happened and you have to be very specific on why why did we end up in this situation what's the learning we take out of that so we can apply that uh across I mean sometimes out of what is a failure you can actually tweak some things or do something slightly differently or adjust and you can bring it back on or out of that you close it totally down and you conclude I'm never going to do that again and you go ahead to do something else.

And that's what and and the and it's it's really about not going on too long before before that happens and then you're really learning from it to not.

How often do you do this a ars?

Oh I would think there's probably one in the company every day.

Uh but on big and small so I mean the big ones hopefully not that often but uh but I mean there will be there will be significant things that we will learn from at least four times a year at a certain scale that would would also yeah be at my attention.

What are some of the things you have learned uh let's say last over the last year?

Oh, that's that's there's many um uh I mean many different things. We have those on products. Uh we have been it's typically things that will go on for a while. So we I mean we've been launching new themes back in the days of augmented reality. So uh two or three or four years back we we launched a new set called Hidden Sight and it was it was quite fancy. You had a you had your mobile phone, you could uh you could have this building and suddenly you could bring it alive with ghosts that were flying and you can make things around that. It was complicated. We never really managed to bring that to big success. Not because necessarily the idea was not good but we we were not successful with that and we had to sit down and say what are the elements here that were were wrong or we didn't do right and and is there also any positive learning we can take out of that or if you take sustainability we have been um we were testing 600 materials to find materials that had less uh less CO2 less fertile fuel and were more more more mixed and uh and at one point we actually proved that uh our pet so uh so um recycled PET from PET bottles and so could could be used into Lego bricks and could partly or could fulfill some of the very strong tolerances and the requirements we had. Now getting towards the actually doing it, we figured out it did not lower CO2. It brought a lot of other problems uh with it uh and uh and there were too many compromises on the quality of the brick or the sound of the brick or whatever. So we decided not to do it. Um that was uh that was considered I mean I had to deal with a lot of journalists around explaining why was that the right decision to do but I think we came out of it stronger and in a better situation today because we actually we yeah we do it we d bring it all the way to the finish line although we decided not to do it at the end.

Yeah. No I I can see why you need to spend time on sustainability but on the other hand you know uh your plastic is kind of the one of the few plastic things that we don't throw away.

Are you right? It's it's a durable uh kind of pleasure.

Yes. I And for that I actually think we are the we're one of the best uses of plastic. Yeah. You can think of for that reason. You you can have a brick for for 40 years. Uh and and it it keep it keeps getting in in in in play. You give it to your grandchildren or your children and it brings on and one of the requirements on our side is that we ensure this backward compatibility. So you can buy a set tomorrow and you can bring it together with the set your grandparents bought and has probably been in the bathtub or outside in the sun and whatever. And the clutch power you talked about it still works.

So that I think is a fantastic use. That's a narrative we're trying to uh to get out there. But it's not always that easy when you're in the big world of communication around plastic.

How are you trying to reformulate the plastic to make it more environmentally friendly?

Yeah, I mean we're doing two things. I think the starting point is really making sure people understand the durability of the Lego plastic. That being said, there are two things that's in focus. One is that we would like to make it from more and more sustainable and recycled materials to the extent that is possible. And secondly, we would like to make sure that it doesn't end up in waste. Now it doesn't today, but with the billions we talked about before of bricks out there. If there are people that wants to give the brick bags, the bricks back, it should not go to waste or in the garbage bin, then we would want to make sure we provide a system to bring that back. And we are having takeback solutions in in quite a few markets today. But I think that's important. It's not a big deal because as you said, people don't want to do that. But but I don't want a situation where somebody wants to and we cannot uh we cannot do it. Now the third thing is really that if you are into durable plastic and you want to run the argument that you just put forward uh in in your question then don't have single-use plastic around. So we have had a big undertaking to make sure that as a company externally and internally we got rid of single-use plastic.

Because otherwise the durable plastic story is not a strong one.

So now your bricks come in paper bags.

Yes.

Now you were one of the first companies to tie bonuses to emissions. How does this work?

Um, it's uh, as you know with bonuses, it's like you would like to incentivize an organization on what's good, what we want to, but you also would like to keep it as controllable as possible. It's not I mean you and I don't like a bonus that we cannot influence obviously. So I think that's been the bigger the bigger uh the bigger problem here. So we focused in on mainly scope one and two. So uh things that are in the company's own control and and we we checked on things that also had or measure on things that also matters from employees point of view. Are are you choosing your company car to be an electric vehicle or not? What choices are we also making internally? So most of the bonus at this point in time are on those kind of things. Now we have an ambition to very soon move to a broader.

Uh and basically say listen if the overall ambition for the world is to get CO2 down then uh that's also what we as employees would need to to be successful with.

Now let's um travel from Bon to uh to Asia. Um how important is China for LEGO's future?

It's uh I mean if you have a basic mission of getting to every child in the world or getting to as many children in the world as possible then China and India for that sake are very important markets. So so it's important it's probably more important purpose and missionwise than it is in pure commercials if you look at it today. Uh and that's part to some of what we touched on before that we are building a brand we are creating uh distribution and retail uh reach uh while uh while we also starting manufacturing uh so so there's a lot of investments in into China to make that happen so it it is important and we are quite successful uh in China right now and we've been added for the last 15 years I would say uh significantly but if your question went on to say how important is India then I would say then we're probably 10 years back on that journey and we have to start to do all these things. We're building a brand in a country that was not used to playing with Lego bricks.

How do you how do you do that? So, here I am. I'm Danish. I have some bricks and here we go to India. Where do you start? How do you how do you start?

I can tell you what we did in China.

Okay.

Uh we uh we started out probably not unlike many companies, but we did focus on the bigger metropolitan areas. So, it's like Beijing, it's Shanghai, maybe Hao, some of the bigger places in China. and really uh at the same time started in more traditional brand campaign type thing. Uh a and then we opened retail stores. So we actually have quite a few retail stores in China that only only has the Lego brand in them because this opportunity.

Uh to get into a store and get into the Lego universe and see that has been a very important way and it does better than a than a branding campaign for that sake. So you have to I think invest along several dimensions at the same time.

And that's maybe an area where it's good to be familyowned because that uh I mean it would be nicer if you could invest in brand building today and retail stores tomorrow and then product portfolio the day after but you kind of do have to do it all for that to gel and actually work out. So um so that's what we've done in China and and then we have kind of taken it from the bigger cities now to tier two to tier three to tier four cities and that model have we've replicated throughout.

China that.

How many how many Legoland parks have you got now around the world?

No we have 11.

In China.

Nope. No totally.

We have one in China.

And we opened it actually a month ago in Shanghai. Uh we're building another one in China. Uh but but we have 11 globally.

Yeah. And how are they doing? I mean they're doing well and uh and it's a it's a way for us of course for us to to give a different Lego experience than than than building than you get into to the Lego world.

But uh but it's not you you cannot have a Lego land park in every small town. So in that sense it becomes a little bit different and something you you typically have to travel for.

And then and then you got more than a thousand stores.

We have more than a thousand stores 500 of those in China. So so in that sense it's been back to your your question. How do you build brands? Stores have been very important in in in the process of building a brand.

What uh on the digital transformation just uh AI, how do you benefit from that?

Yeah, I guess I'll just be honest to say AI is something we talk a lot about. It's still early days in really reaping benefits. We we actually think about AI in in two different ways where on the one side it's kind of where can we make something more transformational and if you look at our business transformational is around I mean can we use it to foster creativity or to at least help our designers to spend even more of their time on creativity. I think that's something I can you imagine an app that immediately uh build me a Lego castle and it will give you a proposal for how to do that and the building instruction or whatever. Now that's probably a little bit out but could could we have ways of using our technology to make designers more effective.

We can code like everybody else. So the the many software engineers we have they can code faster. Those are things where you can say here you get a real a real big increase. The other one is really day-to-day productivity for all of us. And uh and I think we are we're probably like many other companies in that that I believe over time we need to see productivity coming from that.

And we're trying to figure out how do we do that in the in the broader scale by investing behind behind some of this. We've been we've been we've been quite focused on protecting our our data and our information that that we don't have models out there trained on legal on on legal models or legal specific data. So in that sense we've been uh we've been trying to make sure we were well in control of the kind of security and the IP and trademark things around that before we are now venturing into the things I talked about.

Moving on to uh your leadership. How would you describe your leadership style?

I guess I'm somewhere and maybe that's like that's a good mix of I'm I'm somewhere on two sides. I'm an engineer by training. So I uh I mean I used to in invent stuff of technical nature. So I I I have kind of the creative side to me and and the and the uh I can get really excited about that, but I also have this kind of that it is not worth anything unless it really gets to fruition in a way and gets executed and and there's processes behind and that. So I'm a little bit of uh of both sides. I I I like to I like to allow people the space to both be creative but also to make their own make their own decisions. So, so as a leader I try to I try to be quite clear on the on the guard rails or the overall direction of what is we are trying to achieve.

Uh in total so that there is a certain I mean if there's good clarity on the overall direction then more people or more leaders within the organization would feel comfortable making their own decision because they know what we're trying to achieve and I believe in that decision power if it's there uh and and I think it's only really there if the frames are clear I.

Why why is micromanagement so bad?

I guess the I guess when it's bad I think it's that you use one brain instead of many.

Um and uh but uh but of course if you just and that's my point if you just open up and say okay I I empower everybody to do whatever they they want to then I can guarantee you an organization like this can run in a million different directions because we have so many creative people. So it's kind of this how do you steer creativity? How do you steer also decision making from many in the direction that you're trying to achieve by having a very similar um line on where you are? So I think I think the or will see me as very involved in strategic clarity and uh and what we do very involved in making sure that the operating model in the areas where we cannot go in many different directions is super super clear and that we actually execute along it. while over here on the creative side I mean every Friday they can do whatever they want or I mean there's just different things different ways of doing that and balancing that.

I see that a lot as my role and I try to provide that for the.

So we are we are the same age right so we are 59 do you think Neil's age 30 would have recognized what you talk about now or.

No no.

I I don't think so I think you I mean.

So what could you talk talk about that development?

Leadership I mean if you go back if I look back at my career, I just have had the privilege of being in in different areas. I was um I was running a a smaller company back around uh it was probably around 1999 20201.

We became the first company in the world to launch a Bluetooth product.

Netcom netcom because we had worked with Erikson back then on some wireless technology. It failed back to our discussion before and upon that failure we sat down and figure out why and Erikson actually went ahead from that failure and defined the Bluetooth protocol and said listen this is open for everybody and then it was a race. We were the first ones. So all of the if you think back some of the mobile phones that had a a headset that was without a wire, I can almost guarantee that you that was the likelihood was very high at least that we did that. And so I was really on the creative side and saw that. But I also learned from that journey of growing a company this fast. I mean it was from it was from a billion Danish kronel to three and a half billion Danish krono in in in one or two or three years and created some of the problems on the executional side of making it making it happen and making it sustainable and and and that that became difficult for the long term to keep that position because it happened so fast and there was a lot of competition and coming out of that then I've had a long period uh with the I mean at that point in time the biggest industrial company in this country called Danfos where it was um much more down to really understanding where how would you manufacture the right way. Every single percentage of productivity you could get out was a competitive advantage on that and making sure how a very complex or organization around the world got very excellent in execution around that stuff.

And then my privilege is here I sit at the Lego group and we are a beautiful combination of those two things. What's the best leadership advice you ever got?

I'm not sure I got it as an advice, but I but I made a choice at one point to go work for Netcom actually because I saw I saw a a CEO there that that became my my boss.

That was quite different from myself. I mean I'm analytical. I've been a consultant early in my time. So I'm an engineer. I went to business school. So quite classical in many of those sense. And he had this personal leadership capability. he could create this pioneer sense around something and and and engage people and it was quite different and we were in many ways not alike in that but I learned a lot from him and.

If you were to boil down what it was he had what was it?

I think it was around how to lead people in a direction without being necessarily the the most uh without knowing the substance the deepest. So, he was not a technical person, but he knew how to excite technical people and and allow them this space to do that and and still create this uh this feeling of of of being together. That's uh it's it's very hard to boil it down to exactly what it is, but I tell you, I I I learned a lot in the three years I had with him.

How do you make sure that you prioritize the most important things?

Of course, it's got to be the most what I think are the most important things. So in that sense uh that could be right or wrong but I think there's a process of getting to that and and be clear about that those things cannot be uh 20 things they have to be fewer. I um I spend a lot of time with my team on making it's typically a four-year plan. Uh and that four-year plan is quite detailed and we are super aligned and we continue until we are aligned in a way that it's quite easy to to uh to communicate these priorities that allows in our situation a very good situation over those four years to actually execute up against that.

Why why four years? Normally I would have thought three or five.

Yeah, we started out with three and if you do it three, it feels like you're in it all the time. If you do five, it feels like the fifth year is so far out, you don't know what happens. So, I don't know that four is much better. But it turned out that four works pretty well for us. It also is like, you know, our product development cycle. I mean, in a couple of months, we will approve the 2027 product portfolio.

So, it's a 2-year horizon and four years is allows us two roles if you want uh within within a a period. Um, so 4 years works well for us, but I think it has to be long enough that you can start initiatives and start to see some of the results. It needs to be short enough that it's not just a long-term vision. Our long-term vision goes to 2032 or even 2039 where our most active owner turns 60 years old. So we think about the brand, how should the brand look in 2039? How do we make sure it is as strong as today? That's why we need to get in digital stronger and stuff. So, so we have different horizons, but the four-year horizon is a pretty is a pretty well thought through, very u also operationalized horizon, and that's probably why it shouldn't be too long.

Um, how do you prioritize your time? Have you got any particular tricks?

Yeah, I am uh uh I often get told I have the most structured calendar in this country in that sense that we plan very far ahead. So, I'm super structured from a creative point of view, a creative company point of view. So uh so all meetings for 26 they sit we know exactly in what cadence we have we have mod meetings I um honestly Nikolai I don't do this very often I spend most of my time here I don't go a lot to conferences I don't uh.

No which is why we're honored to.

No that was not why I'm saying it it's just like I know I know you stay it's um it's so I I am I'm very hard on prioritizing what to do I'm also internally very hard at prioritizing what meetings I'm in.

In that sense. And and.

How do you choose them?

Um yeah, I I I guess I choose them from from everything it takes to create this surrounding we just talked about whether the strategy is clear or or I um I I mean if there's an area that doesn't move or you know sometimes in an organization there can be churn that maybe there are departments that are not exactly the the same opinion of needs to happen and it can just cycle in circles sometimes that needs to be brought up.

And kind of clarity created for one or the other things. I try to spot those when they're there and be part of that, but I try to let my team and their teams run with everything where I don't need to be in.

How important is speed?

It is important. Uh it's um I think it's quite important, but it's kind of um sometimes we say it makes sense to go slow to go fast. So speed should not be misunderstood in the way that you shouldn't plan right or you you cannot build some structure behind it. Uh but sometimes you just have to move fast but sometimes in order for us to be far four years from now maybe we should be very very clear on what we what we need to do. One of my learnings and experiences over something if you just jump into it and you just run if 6 months later you sit with something that doesn't really move then you haven't accomplished.

A lot. So, so it's not single mindly speed, but but of course speed is important. The world is moving really fast. So,

I read this book last weekend and um uh it talks about the research where they figured out the difference between the people who stand still on the moving walkways and the people who walk.

And the people who walk.

Yeah.

On the moving walkways.

So, if you stand still, you expect your average lifetime to be 74 years. If you walk, you think it's going to be 81. If you walk, you are generally happier and you're actually wealthier and you have more sex.

It's interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah. I'm I'm just happy that I think I always walk there.

No, that's uh.

It's written by the new dean at the Norwegian School of Economics.

But you know, it's also true that you can have some I mean you can have the best ideas in the world.

If you don't get them executed with some speed.

They may not be worth anything. Which is also why this, you know, your your strategy, you can you can keep you can keep honing your strategy until it's 100%. But sometimes it's better that you execute something that is 80% right with with rigidously than you wait too long and you try to optimize the last percentage.

What's the key to execution power?

Uh I I think it's a lot of it is clarity and then and then uh I think just uh can you say steadfast the way you even as a CEO when it's not interesting you keep asking to it and you keep making sure that we're staying at it. Um and uh you probably be surprised that uh that a company like us that are very creative we are quite we quite focused on getting productivity out every year. We call it partner for productivity. is a global program and we crunch out significant significant productivity and Danish croner every year and uh and uh I think everybody by now knows that productivity is what's paying for all the super exciting things we can do over and above.

And without this not that and that is uh that's difficult and that's something that uh I mean I think that that that you're very clear and you stay on I think that's important for the um uh for the um execution part. The other one is of course the clarity. I mean we have an operating model in the factory that you've had an opportunity to see to see today. I can tell you we have we have six factories right now around the globe. They look exactly the same. They operate exactly the same. So you can take an operator from here and bring the person to Czech Republic or Vietnam and they can work there tomorrow. And that kind of rigidity in I think that gives you executional power as well that there is very little doubt about what to do or there's very little freedom to change that process.

Uh tomorrow and that that's what we have on this side of the picture.

What about simplicity? How important is it to make things simple?

I mean I have this you know maybe.

Because you simplified things quite a bit when you took over here.

It's a it's it's a little have an anecdote from when I started you know when um I mean I was also super humble coming into the Lego company this brand and how can you how can you do that and I came in and I I I think before arriving here this is now almost 8 years ago and uh before arriving here I thought I had ideas to what would it be and what should change and a month into being here I stood in the town hall and I literally talked about us having too many meetings too many people in the meetings too uh too many meetings before there was a decision I mean things that you would say ah is that now the most important thing a new CEO can bring to a company but I think it was just super super important for us and I I'm I'm pushing this now that we um I mean normally a leadership team would be sitting and they would have a lot of things on their agenda they would meet every month in dayong meetings and stuff like that and we've changed that we've kind of created subgroups of even I leadership team that we delegate we have now what we call commercial triangle it's the it's the chief commercial officer the chief operating officer and the chief marketing officer there together they are we've delegated to them to make all the decisions to make the the wheel go every day on that and only if they totally disagree or they don't know what to do they can escalate that goes down on all levels it actually means that we as a leadership team we meet one hour or one and a half hour every month and then four times a year for 3 days that's it. The rest is being done in smaller teams and that has gone to the next level and they have they have also delegated in that sense. Now of course it means that you need to keep each other informed. It also means that they have to be pretty clear on overall what are we trying to move up against? But if you can simplify that and have many or have fewer people involved in everything and more clarity around it, then you you just gain speed.

And you gain decision power throughout and uh at the end of the day, you have more satisfied uh employees that spend more of the time delivering value and less time just uh negotiating with ourselves.

Many companies lose speed and become slower and lazier, which is why a lot of companies don't uh survive in the long term. How do you avoid LIGO uh becoming lazy and complacent?

I think we had a little bit of a wakeup call in in in 201617 because I think it was exactly some of what some of what happened. So I think this uh the constant the constant push on productivity and um and uh and and the push on relevance. I think those are the two things I would mention that we we focus on. we need to stay relevant.

Uh and uh if we need to change things or do things to stay relevant then we'll do it and then we'll keep making sure that just because we are successful and make a lot of money it's actually a big danger because you can easily get yeah get complacent or getting too efficient in all your processes and having too many people involved in everything and that's something we need to actively fight because with with values like we have of being caring and collaborative uh on a lot of stuff I mean why would I not invite another 10 people into the meetings So they also know about it and it's uh and then they feel good about that. That's um that's not what we want and uh and what so I think as a leadership team we constantly need to work that there is just an inertia that want to make that happen and we need to stay out of that.

Do you think it's a danger in uh Scandinavia where everything has to be uh you know consensus driven anchored everywhere uh everybody should feel included you're a rich company.

Yes. I think it's a bigger danger. I do. I do. I think this is exactly a bigger thing.

Yeah. Now, how do you um how do you relax?

I uh I've started to play golf and and I thought that would be relaxing, but it's not when I'm out there. But it's different.

Because you're too competitive.

Yeah, I'm too competitive when I'm there. Yeah. Which is annoying. I I've always relaxed a lot. I, you know, working uh uh working as a CEO, you know, we all put in many hours and uh and I've I've typically spend a lot of my free time with my family at my kids. So, I did not have a lot of uh other things. I I I don't jump on a bicycle uh Saturday morning and then I return at uh mid-after afternoon. I just don't do that. So, so I I am I'm pretty good at uh relaxing. I want to be outside now. Uh and now playing golf. I'm with my family. So I'm you can say it's it's boring but I I don't have three sports that I pull pull off at those. I I practice but only only to keep fit.

Do you read what do you read?

Um yeah I like reading stuff like uh yeah Ken Flet or Danish Life Davis. I I like things that are a good story that that is also realistic in a way that gets me thinking differently.

Now I put a big bucket of uh Lego bricks in front of you. What would you build?

There there's a high likelihood I would build a vehicle of some kind uh a car or a fantasy uh thing or a combination of a car and airplane or whatever. But I think that would be it cuz you like to move and you like speed.

Yeah. And I like vehicles. I like cars. So.

Um last question. We got lots of um young listeners. What's the best advice you can give them?

Uh now I think if you if you think over time the way as um the way we develop as people I believe is by getting a challenge that's exactly big enough that it we need to develop but that's not bigger than we uh that we won't we won't fail so miserably that we lose uh confidence. So, so I so I think for that sense it's around following following the interest or passions and and uh and and trying to trying to look for the next exciting opportunity or challenge within that and trying it out and and learning from that. Uh you know I think we are I think we're better versions of of ourselves if we work with something that we are fundamentally interested in.

Uh doing that you tend to perform better. You may be offered the the next challenge you can go on that. I think I think that's uh that's the um that's the way to go and and and really um if we are also putting on now more like of career lens too how do you uh what would you do then I would say make sure you try you try different things it's not a it's not a race in that sense I think few few people that end up being CEOs just had a straight line there I mean there are opportunities on the way that if you grab uh they would be interesting and it's never a straight line in that sense. It wasn't for me. I didn't plan it. Uh but I uh I I jumped on some things that I thought was super interesting that fitted what I needed to do. And I think that uh so that's what that's what I would do. Being a little bit more relaxed on the career planning, but being uh being more focused on what what is exciting and then I think it will come.

Now you mentioned uh um being a better version of yourself. I think Lego has made uh millions of people better versions of themselves.

So, just to go back to the lady on the train from the beginning, you know, big thanks and uh what a what a fantastically interesting conversation. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

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