12. The five elements

12.

The five elements

Let’s go back in time for a short while. Just to understand where I come from, and how (in my opinion) things work and why we act and react the way we do.

My time of learning and finding my own balance started in Japan. It became my true school of life and I learned what value means in business. My first trip to Japan was already in 1976 (19-years young). It was my start of learning and understanding culture, trade, and business behavior. If you then combine this simultaneously with my first hook into the power of how new technology can and will transform us (the first real mobile phone network of Sweden MTD) it was altogether a convincing wake up call for me. I learned what a transformation really could achieve. What power it held to change our demands. How it could change people and their behavior. It was a thrilling and awesome feeling. Back in those days I remember the most common phrase from someone calling from this new mobile phone: “Hi, I’m calling from my car”. The first Swedish mobile phone network came with Handic MTD 450. It became my first job. The company named Handic was founded by Gunnar Wennerström (then Hansa Nordic) and went through the state-owned Navigator investment over to Datatronic and Mats Gabrielsson. Handic grew within lots of different segments as high-tech products mainly from Japan, own branded as well as branded. My passion for the Japanese business culture and the ultimate balance in their behavior came in handy. At this time, in the late 70s and first half of the 80s, behavior, relations, and balance were more important in Japan than the size of the business itself. A typical meeting was a minimum of three days. Two days of building F2F-relations and balance, you had to fit in, build trust and be one of them, adding something to be a part of the family. It was about understanding their core values.

If that went well, you could continue with a last day of business talk. If you didn’t match, no feeling or connection in the first days, there wouldn’t develop anything fruitful out of that meeting, that’s for sure. I found out that a Japanese person never says NO, not meaning that he means YES, and that you never should let him lose face for any reason. This time (up to 1986 – 10 years) of traveling became my best school of a lifetime. Learning how and why we feel and react in different manners. Today, it still is one of my biggest assets. I have learned to respect and understand business value between people. I have learned communication and balance between people selling and people buying. It all fits inside the very old and classic elements: Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind. And for a Japanese philosophy the fifth: Void (sky or heaven). In business, this must be fulfilled in the right order. Earth comes first, meaning stone, square, and trust. Water, meaning to grow fruitfully and profitable. Fire represents the energy, the body, and our passion. The wind practices growth, expansion, and emotions. The fifth element void represents spirit, thought, and the possibility to create new energy. It represents our ability of thinking and how we communicate outside of the box, creativity.

This philosophy goes through the essentials: life, medicine, health, and harmony. They are all affected by these five elements. In Asia, you see these classic elements represented everywhere with colored flags. Blue symbolizes the sky and space, white symbolizes the air and wind, red symbolizes fire, green symbolizes water, and yellow symbolizes earth. I had the opportunity in 2017 to visit both Bhutan and Tibet for the first time. This trip was emotional for me and gave me the feeling of gratefulness; it also confirmed what I once learned earlier from Japan and added a new cultural twist to my Asian love and passion. I truly understand why people visit the Himalayas from all over the world – it boosts both your body and soul and I warmly recommend it to anyone. My own bucket list has many new places to explore. We all have a lot to learn from each other around the globe. Even if we’re all different, we have the same value and we represent so many different cultures – wow! When planning a new market campaign, you normally target and address a specific culture and it must be done through that specific cultural value (behavior and need) to be successful. Doing business, the American way in France is as bad as doing the French way in Sweden or vice versa. The more attachment and knowledge of the current culture, the better the result. It’s the same for us doing business in Sweden with Swedes. We have many different local cultures in Sweden and you have many different customers with different cultural values, so make your work different together with your customer. All of us are different, more or less, and that adds value.