Sounds like they have something going for them. The company I work for isn’t Nordic but it is run much the same way. We work in virtual offices and have a wide latitude to take responsibility for ourselves. There are rules of course but we schedule our own flights and make our own reservations and we are responsible for our contribution to the team. We also schedule our own training which is all paid for and we are expected to have a minimum number of hours a year on site and web based a year.
No one is looking over our shoulders and micromanagement is nonexistent. It was strange at first getting used to the idea of not being told what to do and actually having a choice. I’d always been independent minded and sometimes my forward thinking and willingness to make decisions did not always sit well with the bureaucrats I worked for but I always judged things by results and no one could ever question my results. This is the best company I’ve ever worked for and though there are gripes that can be made about anything having the sense of freedom and independence I have is invaluable.
Maybe we should try that with government workers- har har!
Individual freedom and individual responsibility goes hand in hand.
One of the most admired Swedish managers ever, Jan Carlzon - former president and CEO of Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) - once said something like this:
“A person not entrusted with freedom will never act in a responsible way and a human being not expected to behave responsibly will, likewise, never act like a free individual”.