CEO DIALOGUE #49 - Niels B. Christiansen, LEGO Group

Yeah, I guess first, this is quite an accurate way to paint the situation at the time. The language we used was the company had stalled. I found myself at some of the first town halls talking about different things than I thought I would have. So instead of being supervisionary about where should this go, it was much more down to how do we get control of the basics, how do we figure out what really matters and what doesn't matter, and how do we simplify it? The company wasn't that big, but it had become very complex and quite slow for from this size of company. And that just dawned on me, we have to change that before we start being very ambitious and visionary on stuff.

You, again, were an external hire into this organization. What were you mindful of doing or not doing entering into this organization at that time?

Yeah, no, I think I was mindful of showing action. I talked a lot about what I call bias to action, because I felt I entered an organization that had been very successful, maybe hadn't totally understood why, and now wasn't that successful. And therefore, if you don't understand exactly what drove the success, it may be hard to say, what is it that then is lacking for the success. So I thought it was important to do less talking and do more action. and starting to show things. This was down to simple things, kind of symbolic actions, making clear to everybody that now we were doing some things. And I found myself with a very short-term focus.

Okay. Now, fast forward to today, the company has been very successful under your leadership, which has led to a number of accolades, including the 2025 Danish Leader of the Year Award. And of course, This kind of success is never just one or two things. There's strategic decisions, operational decisions, personnel decisions. Let's start with strategic decisions. If you had to pick 2 or 3 that had the most impact, what would they be?

No, I think there's one around what we call kind of the flywheel. I think it's more or less true in most companies. It's particularly true, I think, in the LEGO Group that in the commercial triangle between having the right portfolio, between activating that every year with the right push and type of marketing globally and locally, and then really working the channels to have the right access for the type of products that you have. It sounds pretty basic, but orchestrating that and making sure you excel on all 3 elements, that's our flywheel, and that flywheel had stopped. So getting back into that strategically was probably the most important. Now the problem is, you don't correct your product portfolio overnight. You don't redesign your channels overnight. You can move on how you activate, how you spend your marketing. You can actually change that a lot faster. Okay. One of the first things I did, I was in a meeting in Germany with the leadership team, and we sat down, and I just asked them, listen, I'm the new CEO, I'm trying to onboard the best I can. What could I do to help you in Germany to do? And then it was a little bit silent, and the general manager, he said, listen, if you could allow us to make decisions faster, or if you could give us a little bit more own decision power to do stuff faster here, then that would really help. It takes us too long from we ship to build on a business case and whatever, and it's too random what comes back. Okay. So what I did was just, we called them booster funds. So over and above the budget that had been negotiated, there were 7 countries that had just a bag of money. Okay. So Germany got €7 million that they could decide. It was over and above, they didn't have to ask anybody. They could decide on those. And the only thing I wanted was after, when the year had gone, I just wanted to hear what they spent them at and whether it worked or not. And it worked fantastically. And that was exactly the marketing activations. What do you do in stores? How do you get positioned? Can you jump into this short-term campaign and do stuff? Or can you be a little bit opportunistic on what you do? That decision power suddenly sat there. And that worked in a way that we really got more decision power pushed out and it became very visible to the company. So it's kind of a tactical symbolic, you can say in the big picture, small decision. But it really had a big impact.

I guess it generated momentum. And also, again, was one of these buyers for action.

Yeah. Whereas at the same time, then we decided strategically when we run that, to open stores when everybody else were closing stores and saying everything is going online. We were really investing behind the portfolio. That's been the mantra. Maybe we can talk about that.

Yes.

That operations had kind of had the upper hand. They want less complexity. It's easier to manufacture less products than many products. So we'd actually been on a curve that the product portfolio was shrinking. Now we turned that around and allowed it to grow so that we could address more audiences and more things. But there's a certain delivery time on that. So while actually having trouble, we started to invest into those 2 things, channels that will counter Intuitive or counter-trend at least, and then portfolio that wouldn't yield anything for at least 2 years. In hindsight, it was fantastic to do that. It would probably have been more difficult had this not been a privately owned company.

Right. Let's get to this product portfolio because there's 2 aspects. There's the breadth and there's having more hits than misses.

Yes. Right?

The breadth you've already commented on. Let's come back on it in a second. How did you also improve the quality of the yield, more good bets than bad bets?

Yeah, it's interesting when you come in externally as a new CEO, you are not an expert in anything. So I was quite aware that when we looked at— I've been sitting in on all those meetings where we decide on all the products ever since actually the first or the second month I was in. So when you're new, you're in, you see all these products. I mean, it's a lucky punch if you're the best one to make decisions on that.

Right.

So I was quite aware that I wouldn't be just the one to make the decisions, but I could push a lot for who was involved in making those and what kind of— now we do what we call holistic portfolio testing or planning. So we have really, really strong test and input. So we know pretty well before we make a decision whether this is a hit or not. So a database? A database today, with a lot of data behind that. Back then, we didn't have much of that. So it was actually starting to do that, and at least go the extra mile testing for the big bets. So I wouldn't say we got it all right in '18 or '19, but it gradually got better. And then I think one thing that was important was more philosophically, we went from thinking a lot about themes, so we had a LEGO City theme or a LEGO Friends theme, into thinking audiences. So what matters for a girl, 6 to 8, or what matters for a boy, 9 to 12, what matters for teens?

Okay.

And we opened up for what we said, adults welcome. So we knew we had adult fans going into LEGO products, but we never really addressed them. Kind of saying, so what would be applicable for adults? What would women like to build? I mean, botanicals is an example of actually more systematically trying to find these opportunities and try them out.

So more segmented.

Yes, more data.

More data, testing with various kinds of audiences. Also, some top-down decisions, this F1 theme. That was a little bit later.

Yeah, but that's true. That's true. Yeah. One of the things, I mean, when you're new, you come in, you do a lot of testing. One of the things that concerned me at the beginning was that kind of the relevance or the coolness wasn't high enough. I mean, I literally in the first year got the question whether, I mean, the LEGO brick was was dead, kind of whether that era was over or whatever. Okay. I was convinced it wasn't, but it was a legitimate question to ask at that point in time. I haven't gotten that question the last 7 years. So I think now it's just clear that it isn't, but we really thought about what does it take to be more relevant and cool? Where do you need to be? What are the kind of things? It was just interesting that I think Formula 1 similarly wanted to broaden up from primarily having males getting up in the morning at 3 o'clock or 4 o'clock to getting to families. Kids were starting to get interested. So it was a really interesting partnership that we could really complement each other in what was there. And it's been very successful. And we brought some authenticity and some reach also to Formula 1 that I think is quite amazing. And at the same time, we have addressed some of the audiences that I think we were not Cool enough or relevant enough with, in a way.

You've mentioned adults. Did COVID help in this respect? Or was this already clear in your head that there was more potential with adults?

It was clear in my head. We were on that journey. If COVID did— COVID actually was marginal to that. But the adult business, back to that, that was a deliberate decision to welcome adults and start looking at those passions. Today, we consider ourselves kind of a cultural brand with with serving a lot of different passions for all ages, basically. So still, I would say predominantly a kids' business when we think about what we do. We have most products for kids. We invest a lot behind kids.

It's your purpose.

Yeah, it's our— that's linked to our mission, that we really make a difference, I think, for future generations by allowing kids to come into LEGO Play and gain the skills and the development that comes. But we serve all kinds of audiences. And one of the fastest-growing audiences is actually women above 18. So it's for everybody, but of course, the products are different.

Now, also on the strategic front, you articulated 2 kinds of long-term challenges, opportunities. One of them is sustainability. Historically, of course, the brick is in plastic, which is fossil fuel-based. Tell us a little bit what you guys are working on in this respect?

Yeah. That, I think, was clear even prior to '17 when I joined, already back in '14, '15. This thing that plastic at that point in time was fossil-based, that we had to do something. We have a planet promise also with a mission around serving kids. Of course, you want to protect the planet that they will inherit. So there's been a lot of push for that. And today we do We do way more than most companies. We spend a lot of money, and we get recognized for doing a lot of stuff, doing it over and above. I don't get any extra price on the product. So consumers are, at this point in time, not willing to pay for it.

Right.

I think it means something for the brand, but it's not a commercial thing to do. We do it actually for the longer run. And I think that's also part of being— part of being family-owned. This family, I believe, are certain they will own this company also in 30, 40, and 50 years out. So of course, we need to solve for this issue.

And that involves more recycled inputs? Yes.

What we have been able to do, though, is really use materials that are partly renewable-based or partly bio-based. So we use a lot of mass balance, where it's not entirely renewable, but it's high. So last year, if you take an average LEGO brick produced by us in 2025, 52% of that is non-fossil. So we kind of passed the half mark on our journey to get to full. We will be working this issue, getting the 52 to 54 to 58. And that's a long journey.

So no silver bullet, but a lot of steady—

Yes, a lot of steady progress now. But I think we have really, we've really taken steps that few companies have done. Now, we could make more money if we hadn't. didn't have to do that. But this is really also mission, purpose. We need to find our way through here, and we do that.

But I'm also hearing, so I've known you a long time, and I know you mean this, and I know that also the family means this. I'm also hearing it's probably also not a bad idea from a protection of the brand, right? The fact that LEGO is beloved as a brand, right? And that that would not sit well with they don't care.

Exactly. So I absolutely think you're right. And that's harder to measure.

Of course,

whenever we measure, can we sell this product a little bit at a little bit higher price because it's more sustainable? Typically, we cannot. But I think it matters anyway. Then, of course, you can always say, and this is then kind of a leadership decision, how much does it matter? How quickly does it matter? How much will you spend this year on stuff that has the long range. And that's something we have a very close dialogue with the owners around, because at the end of the day, it's a judgment call. And it's a judgment call that needs to reflect also their values and aspirations. And that actually brings us far to the right, if you can say, or the spectrum of making sure we don't underdo it.

The second challenge that you've identified is digital, and the fact that kids are spending more and more time digital media, which of course is leaving them less time to operate in the physical world. So, is this a challenge, an opportunity?

No, I think it's both. I think when we looked at it like 7, 8 years ago, we started out looking at that as a challenge. Because what it did was exactly, I mean, when I got the question, I said, listen, we are maybe less competing in a toy industry, we're probably more competing for kids' time. Now I would even say for consumers' time. Now then we look at digital also in the sense, back to the relevance. We need to be where consumers are. We need to be where kids are. So it cannot be that we kind of become the thing you don't want to talk about in the schoolyard when you're there because it's only your computer game or your mobile application that's the interesting one. So we should be there in a super exciting way, but try always to link it to physical in that sense. So, you know, some of the most exciting games on consoles have been LEGO games, and we're doing it right now. We're actually spending quite a bit of money on it, but it's always with a tie into the LEGO universe. That hopefully means that at your birthday, or next Christmas, or whenever you have something, yeah, you may go for a game, but you also, if you go physically play, you go LEGO play. And I think we've seen that working really, really well. So we're not enemies of digital, we embrace digital, we will actually be participating more and more, but never forgetting, never forgetting the physical side.

I imagine that there are some revenues coming from these digital activities. Can you imagine a world where the digital revenues become more significant?

I'm an engineer, I can imagine a lot. I don't think that will happen soon. But I mean, I would never rule it out. But I also think if you look at a lot of digital-only companies, they would actually love to have a physical revenue as well.

Okay.

So the combination is a super strong one. And at the end of the day, I mean, it's also a decision. Do you participate in digital to provide good experiences, to be relevant, to have the connection, and you have more of your business side on the physical side? Or do you want the digital side to be the hard monetized You know, in our sense, we do not like digital experiences where you monetize too hard or where you put in these loops that makes kids addicted to your game. We stay away from that just from a values point of view. So that would actually say we would much rather have them super excited about the LEGO brand and what you can do, so excited that they also would like a physical set one day to play with.

Okay.

So that's how we think about it. But we will have revenue in digital, and also significant. So it's not an either/or. But we would never— I mean, the basis is physical.

Right. Now, of course, having great strategic decisions is good, but then they also need to be implemented. So let me shift to organizational decisions, because you also made a number of organizational decisions that have been contributing to the success. If you had to pick 2 or 3 of these key organizational decisions.

Yeah, I think there's probably 2 things I would say. One is One is simplifying. I mean, there was a corporate management type organization when I arrived with 30+ people in it. So I immediately took that down to 10. And over the last years, taking it down to 7. So the top team is 7 people, which really allows us to have really in-depth discussions, to get to know each other, and really get to the meat of the discussions, and then still have execution power around that. So I think I think that simplicity, that ran all the way down. So we increased the span of control, things that I think a lot of companies are looking at, just to make sure we were not overly heavy on some management levels and it became a discussion club there, but really that we had a structure on that. So I think that's been important. And then it has really been finding the right balance. I mean, what is your balance between being innovative and being too complicated? complicated or too complex. And in our case, that's typically the portfolio up against the fact it needs to be produced. So the more exciting things you want to do, the more passions you want to get to, the more consumers you want to excite, the broader portfolio you want with a lot of new fancy elements and whatever. When you get to the production side, in order to have this service level that we have to produce so close to order, to do it regionally around the world, You want as few elements and as few as possible. How do we balance this? That has been, I think, one of my key tasks as a CEO, to make sure that that balance, that may seem a little bit operational for some, is always right. And at any point in time, we lean sufficiently into innovation, but we don't forget the back end of the business so we can do that. And I've sometimes said that we are one of the companies that can be so We can be super efficient on one side, just like a big industrial company. But we can be super creative and innovative on the other side, just like a startup. And if you can combine those 2 things in a sizable company, then I think it works well.

And that starts with the way you've constructed and the way you operate your leadership team.

Yes, it absolutely does.

How so?

Yeah, it's, I think, first of all, and that goes probably for many things, I think you need to address those issues right on.

Okay.

So they need to come into the open. That is not a kind of— it's not a small war that happens in the trenches around. It's something that you talk to and you specifically— then, I mean, in our case, I felt I had to move it towards being more creative, allow more portfolio, allow more passion points. Now, then you cannot just say to manufacturing or production, go do that. You know, then it's around asking the question, I think, in a way, what does it take for us

Okay.

Be just as efficient over here, being able to deliver that. And then we are into different technologies for molding. We're into a lot of different ways of doing things where we actually made significant investments on this side to allow them to do what they needed. So suddenly, it doesn't become a win-lose situation. It becomes something that their job just changed from just producing a single element as cheaply as possible into providing this level of complexity to the organization at the lowest possible cost.

So what I'm hearing is a lot of focus on managing complexity. On one hand, you increased complexity by broadening the product portfolio, but then you're also saying— so that in a way is kind of unavoidable complexity.

That's good complexity, if you will.

And we become very good at managing that. And then we also become very good at eliminating unnecessary complexity.

Spot on. I think that's exactly it. And finding out what is what, what's valuable complexity, that you can make into business, and what is unnecessary complexity that just slows you down or adds cost to it.

Now, large organizations have been described as complexity-creating machines. How do you stay vigilant with unnecessary complexity?

It's a fantastic question. And because I agree, left alone, large organizations will just grow more and more complex until they eventually have results and die. It's kind of the mechanism.

But in part it's because we hire smart people. Smart people will have new ideas, right?

Yeah. And it's all the good things. You want collaboration, you want a lot of people in the meetings, you want all the meetings, you want to make absolutely sure, you want to have done this analysis before. I mean, there are all the good arguments for dragging out things, making it more complex. So I think it's along the line, just like if you practice, it's really good to do something every day. it doesn't really help that once a year you go out and you run a marathon.

Okay.

It's good to constantly do something. And that, I think, for an organization like ours, it is a topic all the time. I try to be a role model. So I have actually, I mean, it may sound again like small things, but they've been quite symbolic. I have cut down the number of ELT or leadership team meetings. I have made them shorter. I have been very clear on if we have an agenda, this is what we use it for. If we're done early, we stop. And I try to push that all the way down that the next levels would do the same. So you all the time question whether we need this, and you all the time have this push for simplification, push for productivity. So all the things you can do—

So it's constantly on your mind?

Constantly.

Okay.

Because I don't believe much in every 7 or 10 years you have to make a big restructuring and fire a lot of people and clean it up. It's much better if you actually can go like this, small organizational changes almost all the time in different areas so that you keep agile and you keep right. And then you keep pushing for productivity and you keep pushing for simplicity. We have actually done more strategic investments than those companies. We've funded it all from productivity drive every year.

Yeah. And in fact, you have a partner for productivity program, right? Which is Which is a drive every year to, I guess, try to extract costs.

To do the same and a little bit lower cost.

How does this work, this Partner for Productivity program?

It's— there's some element. It's interesting because if you take a company like the LEGO Group, super creative, these kind of people, I mean, there was a tendency at one point to say, okay, it's fantastic with productivity, it's just not something for a company like us. I mean, we're creative guys. But the issue is just that you need it, not only to save money, you need it to stay simple enough and agile enough that you do. So we have a program, it's led from one place, but we've made it very clear that everybody owns it. In my monthly business update with all the 150 top leaders, we address this every single month. And I've personally taken also the charge that this is very, very important. So it's one of the things we just follow up on. I mean, we never forget about it. It's always there. It's one of the key metrics that we have. What we do is we target set it. And then we are actually at a point now when we target set it at the end of the year, we take it out of people's budgets. So it's not like we wait until the end of the year and see if you actually did get your productivity. No, you start out the year having to get your productivity. Now, then there are all the tools. We have a very structured process around how we get the ideas, how we mature those through, and how we actually actually get them and what counts and what doesn't. But so it's not like you're left on your own. But it's not an optional thing to do. And I think that has changed the way we look at that. And people are super proud today that we keep keeping the machine like that. There's not a feeling that we just do this to make the bottom line look bigger for somebody. Absolutely. It is really part of us driving forward. And it allows the same organization to do some really exciting things. That, by the way, then also pays off.

As you know, I'm a leadership professor. I have to ask you a few more personal questions. But one last question on your team. You said, I reduced the number of meetings and the length of meetings. But at the same time, you also have 4 times a year, if I understand well, where you meet for a substantial amount of time.

Yes.

So it's less tactical and more— tell us how you're managing this rhythm.

So we have very short monthly, we call them performance trackers. Because that's exactly what they are. They're quite transactional. They're not intended to solve the bigger strategic issues or the bigger chunks, but they're really just getting aligned around what are— are there any tactical operational things we need to move quickly on? We do that every month. It's typically a Teams call. It may be an hour, an hour and a half. That's it. Then once a quarter, we have 3 days together. We actually had the 3 days last week. And that's where we have the agenda then. Very different. That's when we talk about the bigger topics. That's when we align on strategy. That's when we try to deal with the things— I mean, cross-functional projects are by definition super hard for any company. And I think we've learned that unless the top team is super coordinated on those and aligned and really willing to work through that, you just see a lot of churn. That's why ERP programs and so on are so so difficult for many companies because, I mean, there's actually probably a lot of fights going on and the top team doesn't really get involved or want to take it. We use those sessions to really get into the meat on stuff like that. So it works differently. And with 3 days, you can really get a little bit out of the day-to-day. Yeah. And you can allow the conversation to go on long enough. At some point in time, at hopefully the right point in time, then of course it's my role to lead us to a conclusion. And when we get to that conclusion, to really rationalize why is that, but then also to expect everybody to adhere by that, even if we had discussions on the way. I can just feel that, or see today, that by allowing that bigger discussion, really being together— now the team is also quite well-knit by now— but that actually brings more power when we get to the decision. decisions. So you can say sometimes it's going slow to go fast.

Okay.

You just don't want to go slow to go fast on everything because then the result will be going slow. But there are things where if you can get to the right type of alignment and people then really stand by it. So it's really this balance that I think any CEO has between providing the speed and decision power that's needed, but also really getting everybody sufficiently aligned That when you go out there, it moves.

An article has described you as having a healthy dose of self-confidence and self-esteem. What is a healthy dose of self-confidence and self-esteem?

Yeah, I have confidence, but I'm a very delegating leader in that sense. So I think if you asked any of my team, they would not feel micromanaged. They would actually feel, in the beginning probably, maybe even a little bit uncomfortable with the space they had. And the way I operate around that is, I feel probably confident on making the decisions. I feel pretty strongly on setting the long direction and making that extremely clear. But then I allow a lot of space within that to deliver.

So empowerment within a clear strategic frame.

Yeah. And I am probably quite strict on the strategic frame, and also the simplicity and clarity of that. But then quite open to allowing, I mean, as long as we move along that, I don't need to decide exactly how you do that. And I'm sure some of those ways of implementing maybe are slightly different in the marketing organization from the manufacturing organization. That's why we have different people there. And as long as it works, and it's well orchestrated, I don't need to decide that.

Have people sometimes tried to get you to decide this? One of the things I found as the president of IMD is people would walk into my office and and ask for my opinion. And how do you deal with this? You just tell them, why are you asking me? Or—

Yeah, no, I think it's different. Yeah, if it's on individual basis, yeah, I've tried to have this conversation around, well, what's your own opinion? Why would you do that? Or have you thought about this or whatever? If it drags out, I'll make the decision.

Okay.

On more like cross-functional work, I've been working a lot on also saying, listen, given that we are not a team that sits together every second week and deal with everything. We would rather say we do the overall, but we have the commercial triangle, for instance. So it's between marketing, sales, and manufacturing. There's a lot of things that needs on a relatively ongoing basis to happen there. Now, I or the—

This is like a board committee.

Yeah.

Committees have boards, have committees. You've created a committee within a committee.

It's delegated to them. And I said, listen, you have a lot of decision power within our plan and within what's there. If you cannot agree, I'll help. And those are the kind of the areas that I wouldn't want things to go into churn for too long. And they can't even— nothing really happened, decisions not made, they tell their organizations different things. That doesn't work. Then I'll get involved. But reality is, because they know that option is always there, they very, very rarely need it.

But probably you also hire specific kinds of people, right? One of the things that struck me is in previous interviews, I've never heard you talk about this. So let me ask, you know, recruitment is one of the key tasks of a CEO. What do you look for? How do you recruit? What are some of the non-negotiables?

Yeah, you know, I think I've learned also over time, you can find the best person in the world if you look down the CVs or the experience, and they can be extremely bright. If the personality doesn't fit this role and this culture, it is likely not working. Okay. And I made those, I consider them mis-hires, but I made those myself and learned from that. When people come to interviews with me, I'm really trying to get a feel for how would they be if they sat now in my leadership team and we had the first meeting? How would they act? What would they do? What would be the their approach to doing it. And I just need to feel good about that, that would actually work in our setting. So it's harder for me to be more precise on what— here intuition and gut feel means a bit on that element.

If I started working for you, what would be one or two things that you might say to me, look, you want to be successful with me, Do this or don't do that.

Yeah, I wouldn't want us to have to sit together every second day because you weren't taking the decisions. So I think—

So you look for that?

I look for a certain level of independence or at least belief or self-esteem enough to go ahead and do something and not being too uncertain about things because I think I need that. One of the things I look for is transparency in the way. I mean, everybody makes mistakes. I hate if people come to my office and something has gone wrong and they try to kind of explain that it went wrong or it was because of that or something. I mean, there's nothing better with me than coming and saying, listen, we screwed this one up. We should have done this. We did this for— okay. Then I can be mad like for a millisecond and then we are into what to do about it. But if I feel somebody sitting there hiding it, playing overly political, it just— I mean, that doesn't work well with me. And so I guess those would be some of the things that I would be looking for.

You mentioned this, and then immediately I'm into how do we do this. This after-action review, what do we learn from this? This is actually something you've institutionalized. Yes, yes. It's become a regular—

That's something we do. And it's really good in the sense because it is also a mechanism to dealing with mistakes without creating a situation that people get too nervous about making another mistake. You cannot be as creative as we do if you don't— we hit on things that doesn't work. I mean, it's just reality. I mean, it's not every product we do that becomes a success. But as you said in the beginning, as long as by far the most do, we are in a good place.

Right.

But it also means that when something doesn't work, it's quite important to figure out why. So we So we can avoid doing exactly that same mistake again. It also makes it a little bit easier to put on the table that, listen, we screwed this one up. Because we can take it from there, and we can figure out why.

It's been said about you that you have a remarkable ability to toggle between very strategic, 5, 10 years out, and very operational with a great command of numbers and details. Sounds like a great skill, doesn't sound easy. What's the secret sauce?

Yeah, I don't know. I guess I don't think so much about it, but it is true. I have— sometimes I get home at night and I feel like I turned my head 15 times between exactly very strategic, very operational. It's probably something along— I mean, I like— I'm an engineer, I like the strategic thinking, I like this getting things together, and I like to be able to to clearly articulate what it is we're trying to do. That I really like, it gives me energy. And then I would say on the other side, I really have seen over time that, I mean, a strategy that's not implemented isn't worth anything.

Right.

And you can be a CEO, you can go on conferences, you can make the best presentations, and it sounds fantastic. But if it doesn't happen in your organization, it doesn't really matter. So I think that's where I think I learned this a lot in my, also in my Danfoss time, that it's just very, very important that you follow it through. So that's probably more something I have learned, or I do because I know it needs to be done. I probably carry some energy through that. So, but that's, but it works for me as long as it's a combination of the two. And then I, I mean, I guess I'm just lucky. I have pretty good memory. I mean, the joke is always, they say, don't tell him the number if you're not certain, because because he will remember. And that's— so that helps, of course, that part of it.

One day, years ago, Loren Schuster, who has been your Chief People Officer for 8 years, and I think just stepped down, one day he said, Niels is the most disciplined time and agenda management CEO I've ever met. You've also commented on this in some interviews. Were you always, or is this something that you learned, or?

No, I think I learned a bit. That's also where I see myself as a role model. If I am always there, and we start, and they can assume I've always read the material, so we can be— we can go to the point and they don't have to present what was supposed to be presented.

Right.

I tell you, it goes down the entire organization. So this is one of the places that if I got up there in town halls and say, listen, we always need to be on time, and we— that would not be nearly as efficient. I am on time and I am prepared when I'm in the meeting. That efficiency and that signal is really high. So I've learned that and I've practiced it now long enough that it's becoming a habit.

To do that, generally one needs to do less.

Yeah.

Does that mean you say no a lot or you're very selective what you say yes to?

Yeah, I'm super, super selective, probably to the Probably to the extent that many journalists or conferences or so think that I always say no. I'm very conscious to spend my time on the most important things. And that's also, I think that's where the delegation part is also important. I think there's a lot of areas where I get asked, do you want to be part of this? And I typically start with a no, unless there is a super good argument for why.

Interesting. Default is no.

Default is no. Not because I'm not interested. I'm saying no to things I would really like. But I also, you know, I have a job. I could work 24/7.

Yeah.

And there would still be a pile of things I wouldn't do. So you kind of have to draw the line somewhere. And the more specific you can be on what you do, the better you can draw that line. And I decided early on that I also need I mean, I need a bit of time outside of work. And I developed this mantra a little bit for myself. I will give it all of this, and if it's not good enough, then maybe I shouldn't be the CEO. If as a CEO you get driven by your calendar, then it's a problem. You need to drive your calendar. And that's more difficult than just saying it. It's a good point. So I started to actually make sure that every week there is a bit— I call it flex. So there's a few areas in my calendar that has not been taken.

OK.

Because it's absolutely certain that something will happen next week that needs my attention that I don't know what.

Sure enough.

And if it's not, I might as well plan for that to happen so that I can devote my time for that when it happens. It always happens. And if it doesn't, then there is several other things I can do in that. So you never—

Wonderful.

But you push that a little. So you actually make your prioritization a little bit stricter. than you would have done if you thought you had a full calendar next week. And that makes— when the week is over, then you have probably ended up with a slightly better result. It's not easy, but I do that. And that's probably back to what Lawrence said. Every 3 months, I sit down with my assistants, and they know exactly by 20 different categories what I spent time on the last 3 months.

Okay.

And we look at that, and we see, does that reflect what I want to, or is there any adjustments? And that means they help me push back. So if something happens, something comes in that I say, okay, this I want to do less of, then I get it right in my face.

One of the things that you've said is in large organizations, there's often over the years something that develops into, and if I wait long enough, it will go away. And you've said, look, you've got to create a sense of inevitability. If I launch it, they got to believe that this is going to go all the way through. How did you create that sense of inevitability?

Yeah, no, it's a super good question. I have seen it a little bit also on strategy, this kind of how do you— when a leadership team comes out with a new direction or a new initiative, how do you make an organization like the idea and actually lean into it? And sometimes I call a little bit this the train at the station. If what happens in many organizations that most people are on the fence, they've heard about this many, many times, and we'll see. At least I don't want to jump on it too early. Let's see. If it happens, I will get on board. If it doesn't, then I haven't misused a lot of time. I would like to have those initiatives that when we present them, first of all, they're very clear. But they're also very committed in the sense that I would want people to believe if I say, this is what we do, it's super important for us, then this is going to happen. And that would convince a lot of employees to jump on very early. Yeah, don't bother to wait. Don't bother to— be a first mover here, because there's an advantage, because this is going to take off. If you can create that sense, then your initiatives can get off. And this is really kind of a sense almost like this train has almost left the station, you better jump on it. If you wait, it's not enough. It's not a positive to wait here. It's better to get on. That I think works really, really well if you can build as a CEO, but also as a leadership team, this feeling in the organization.

And this credibility.

Yeah. Also, you restraining yourself, because if you misuse it, if you load them with initiatives, and it's unreasonable, and they don't have the time for it, then you will lose it.

Which goes back to choose your battles.

Yes. If you choose them right, and you make them clear, and you create this ambition in the organization, then you can actually get pretty good execution.

Niels, last question. You love your job because?

I mean, I am very, very privileged. I I get to manage probably one of the most unique brands in the world in an organization of really, really capable people. So yeah, I believe myself, I have the best job in the world.

Thank you so much for making the time. And until next time.

Yeah, thank you.