"Welcome to Norway!"
This is a phrase I often heard as I started to do business in Norway. At first, I didn’t quite understand the saying, perhaps taking it too literally.
“Yes, I’m here, and thanks, I do feel welcome”, I would think to myself.
Over time I would come to understand that these three simple words best captured the Norwegian experience for a foreigner like myself. For us, things are just a little different here.
“Let’s go jump in that freezing cold fjord!”
—Welcome to Norway!
“It’s Friday so we must make tacos!”
—Welcome to Norway!
“A popular Norwegian TV station once broadcast an entire eight-hour train ride. It was watched by millions of Norwegians”.
—Welcome to Norway!
Yes, Norwegians are unique, proud, and incredibly special. The country has a rich history that includes many periods of hard times well before the good times the modern Norwegian enjoys today. This history has shaped the way Norwegian society operates. If you were to look at just about any world report on the status of the various countries, it would appear that despite some peculiar ways of doing things, everything is working very well in Norway.
The country is incredibly strong, financially, and even emotionally! Norway was in fact recently voted the happiest country in the world, even though absolutely no one ever smiles here. That might due to the one thing I’ve personally learned about happiness during my time in Norway: here happiness is more about being content, not overly happy or excited, just content. You’re content with your job, it provides a good living. You’re content with your government, they take good care of the people and can be trusted. You’re content with the bus showing up on time, as it does pretty much every time. Things in Norway just work well, and the people are generally very satisfied with life here. It’s almost as if each person in the entire country, in becoming equal to everyone else, has entered into a super high functioning homogeneous blob. A very good-looking blob of course. This is Scandinavia after all.
One could go on and on about all the positives of life in Norway. But this book isn’t an attempt to try to sell you on the country. Chances are if you’re reading this you’re already here. Either you’re a foreigner adapting to the Scandinavian lifestyle, or you’re a Norwegian yourself, curious to get a sneak peek at how outsiders perceive you. Thankfully, you’re both in the right place.
This book is instead a collection of stories and observations I’ve made over the years working with Norwegians. My hope is that through them, we can better understand each other and be more successful in business. Experience however has shown me that when it comes to working with Norwegians, this is not always so easy. So let this book serve as a guide from the point of view of my experience.
That experience started with my first visit to Norway, a trip that was both a mix of business and pleasure. When my feet first hit the ground here I felt something new. There was a calmness in the air together with the sometimes brutally cold weather. There was a different motion, a different flow to the city and the people that occupy it. And, like well-designed Scandinavian furniture, it was intoxicating to look at. I couldn’t get enough of it really.
That first night I was incredibly lucky to have a friendly Norwegian host me for a home-cooked dinner. This was something that was fairly common in the business cultures I came from – a new business contact comes to your city for the first time so naturally you want them to feel welcome. At the time I didn’t know just how rare such an invitation is in Norway, but I could tell that the way I was treated was special. Thank you, Stina, for being both an amazing and not-so-typical Norwegian.
However, in typical Norwegian style, that night went on for a long time: very, very late into the night. Lots of great food but even more drinks – this was my first experience with the aggressive Norwegian drinking culture. Before I knew it, the sun was rising, and I was stumbling home the best I could. I threw myself on the couch and fired off a text message to my boss back in America. I was incredibly excited (drunk) about the culture and business opportunities I saw in Norway:
“Hey, we should expand our business to Norway. I want to work on it”.
Shortly after that, he replied:
“Sure, go for it.”
My boss didn’t always make the best, most well-thought-out decisions, but you had to love him for his belief in his team. This is classic American risk-taking mixed with unwavering Silicon Valley optimism at its best. With that, I was already on my way to working in Norway. I knew absolutely nothing about the culture or business industries. I didn’t speak Norwegian. I had for the most part no business contacts here. I did have some distant Norwegian heritage on my mother’s side – that should be enough right? What could go wrong? Well, this wouldn’t be a very good story if everything didn’t in fact go wrong.
By all measures, I should have been successful in Norway, at least as successful as I was in America. There I was working with a leading and globally recognized Venture Fund. I had the prestigious title of “Partner” and had the ability to invest millions of dollars into businesses of my choosing. Let’s just say it wasn’t exactly digging a deep hole in the hot sun type of work. More like, “Yes, I’d like to upgrade to business class”, and “Please, pass me the champagne” type of work.
However, my initial attempts at working with Norwegians was less about those champagne and caviar dreams—more about cold lunches and failing rather spectacularly. I butted heads with Norwegian businesses, the entire value chains from the smallest startups to the largest national institutions. And they butted back, standing their ground rather firmly.
So what happened?
For an outsider like myself, Scandinavian culture seems very approachable, inclusive even. The roots of the culture are planted clearly in equality, transparency and trust. One might assume from the outset that it would be easy to integrate quickly and easily here. However, like most significant cultures, it’s incredibly nuanced. Much like an onion – with a lot of layers. Many of the layers of the Scandinavian culture are highly admirable and only a few of them just plain stink.
It’s not the Norwegians’ fault – I don’t think they realize how they are sometimes as cold as the weather. They probably don’t know how much they at times challenge a foreigner’s patience. And we foreigners often take our time to truly understand and respect this culture, or any new culture. As a result, there’s a lot of misalignment of experiences and expectations between both parties. That makes for much stepping on toes in the great dance that is working with Norwegians.
You’ll learn about the missteps I personally made throughout this book. But despite my own failings, as I tried to work with Norwegians something happened. Like others before me, I fell in love with the country. It’s not easy to love this country, you have to work hard for it. You have to struggle sometimes to be worthy of the great honor of having Norway love you back. This struggle is actually the Norwegian way.
The American way is significantly different. So many of my own challenges in Norway can be chalked up to simply being “too American”. Too loud in the meeting room. Too aggressive in the deal-making. Way too optimistic in the setting of expectations. All of these are typically advantages in other business cultures but they serve as roadblocks when you work with Norwegians. To find success here as a foreigner you need to better understand how this society operates.
So I would recommend you do as I have done. Grab a shot of the local Norwegian booze, Aquavit; put on your finest wool sweater, and double your tax liability by jumping into this beautiful country. Norway is opening up to you in its own unique way. Now more than ever, the country actually needs skilled international workers.
That’s because you could say that the entire country is trying to pivot into new business and entrepreneurship. This is necessary as the price of oil continues to drop and there’s a national need to strengthen business competence. However this is not something Norwegians will be able to do on their own. For proof one simply needs to look at other hubs of business innovation around the world, such as Silicon Valley, London, Singapore, and others. Those hubs are not built exclusively by locals but instead benefit significantly from international diversity. A few examples of modern American companies built by first- or second-generation immigrants are Apple, Tesla, Google, Yahoo, Intel, and Kraft Foods.
For foreigners and Norwegians to be more successful in business together, we’re going to need to reduce some of the friction between our cultures. This book is my contribution to that goal. Through increased collaboration and a better understanding of our differences, I believe this to be possible.
The book is organized into several sections. It’s not meant to be a concrete “dos and don’ts” guide or a heavy academic article on the intricacies of Norwegian business. You won’t find any help on Norwegian business tax laws or market research reports, for example. You will, however, learn about the Norwegian values that drive business and social life. You’ll receive a first-hand account of what it’s actually like to work in Norway. And through reading about my own failures here, learn how to actually work with Norwegians.
My experience is of course unique, and your experience may be different. As a fair warning, you may find some stereotypes and generalizations used throughout the book. Oh, and since I’m American I’m prone to exaggerate things as well in addition to excessive personal bragging. The reality is that your Norwegian experience is what you make it. May this book serve as a guide to help you along the way. Because despite our differences, if we can better understand each other almost anything is possible. Except maybe good weather in Oslo.
—Welcome to Norway!
