Leadership lessons from a furniture seller
Our politicians have much to learn from the late founder of Sweden’s best-known company.
I HAVE never met Ingvar Kamprad ( pic) but his death last week brought home how much he has touched my life.
Or rather how the company he founded – Ikea – has played a role in my family’s well-being.
My family and millions of others, that is. As Kieran Long, director of ArkDes, Sweden’s national centre for architecture and design, writes: “In his 75-year career, the Ikea founder was responsible for putting modern design into more homes than anyone in history. In doing so, he invented contemporary living.”
My first Ikea purchase were oak door knobs for my kitchen cabinets from a store in Sydney in the late 1980s.
After Ikea opened in the Klang Valley, I bought many more products: cupboards for my kitchen and bedroom, shelves for my bathroom, a computer worktable for my study and cupboards for my shoes.
Like everyone else, I was attracted to the simple and functional designs and affordable prices.
I also enjoyed the challenge of assembling Ikea’s famed flat-packed products, usually with nothing more than an Allen key.
It was the shoe cupboard that taught me that it was imperative to follow the instructions exactly to get the assembling right.
I didn’t but somehow managed to assemble the parts together. It was a bit wobbly but I could put in my shoes.
Then one evening, as I was rushing for a dinner party, I yanked the door too hard and a piece of the cupboard fell out. I don’t remember what it was but it landed on the little toe of my left foot.
Despite the pain, I put on my shoes and left for the party. My foot throbbed the whole night and by the time I got home, it was badly swollen. An
X-ray showed I had a hairline fracture.
Well, I couldn’t blame the cupboard or Ikea for my injury.
It was my fault for not respecting the assembly instructions.
The rest of the properly assembled furniture in my house has held up and is still serving the family well after more than a decade.
And for that, I salute the late, great Ingvar Kamprad who, to quote Kieran Long again, “made us all experts with an Allen key”.
His life reads almost like a fairy tale. Once upon a time – March 30, 1926, to be exact – a Swedish boy called Ingvar was born on a small farm called Elmtaryd near the village of Agunnaryd.
He was a born businessman, starting his career at six by selling matches. But unlike the tragic Little Match Girl in the Hans Christian Andersen’s tale, this Little Match Boy went to expand his goods with pencils, Christmas decorations and even fish.
At just 17, Kamprad founded Ikea, which is an acronym for his name, his farm and village, which the Swedes pronounce as “ee-kay-year” and not “i-key year”.
He further expanded his range to furniture sourced from local manufacturers and by 1955, he was designing his own products.
From there, Ikea just grew and grew and Kamprad must have lived happily ever after.
After all, by the time of his death, Ikea had become the world’s largest furniture retailer with 190,000 employees, 411 stores in 49 coun
tries, and a revenue of 36bil (RM174bil).
It’s been reported that Ikea sells a set of its Billy bookcases every 10 seconds and that one in 10 Europeans is conceived in an Ikea bed or mattress.
Harvard Business Review
A article analysed the Ikea success story and paid tribute to Kamprad’s “personal tenacity, business savvy, and leadership skills”, as well as the company’s intelligent responses to crises and opportunities through its sevenand-half decades of existence.
Kamprad founded his company on a clear mission: “To create a better everyday life for the many people” and stuck to it.
That mission was shored up by the company’s shared values of thriftiness, quality, attention to detail, and keeping costs low.
Even more awesome is how Kamprad lived by his company’s credo. He wanted to set an example and declared he would never spend on luxuries his customers couldn’t afford. He famously drove the same Volvo for 20 years and flew economy class.
According to Long, “His sole aim in the relentless amassing of cash seems to have been to fund further expansion.”
To ensure Ikea’s long-term future, Kamprad set up a complex structure of trusts and non-profit organisations to run the company, and thereby making it impossible for any individual to take control after his death, and that includes his three sons.
According to HBR, Ikea built an organisational culture that “inspired tens of thousands of women and men worldwide, irrespective of diverse national cultures: an egalitarian culture where all employees are called colleagues; where everyone is encouraged to think every day how they can improve the company and perform continuous innovation in customer service and products”.
The more I learn of Kamprad, the more I mourn his passing.
Why are there so few great leaders who do not allow great wealth to corrupt them and think only of doing good?
Kamprad was a businessman minding his own commercial empire but I definitely think his sterling qualities and management style would apply just as well to leaders who run nations.
Right now, more than ever, as our 14th General Election looms, I yearn for Kamprad-like politicians for us to elect to office.
I wish for politicians who will be visionary leaders focused on creating a better life for all Malaysians, who will truly lead by example with integrity, humility and thriftiness.
I long for leaders who will pay attention to quality, detailed planning and keep costs low when it comes to public projects because they want to protect the national coffers.
I want egalitarian leaders who do not put themselves on pedestals but see themselves as workers and will build and inspire a multiracial civil service that continuously want to improve the country.
Only then will we finally get what we deserve: a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
Aunty is amused to learn hundreds of children have been given the name Ikea and wonders if that was in honour of the beds on which they were conceived. Feedback: aunty@ thestar. com.my