Openness vs Closeness...

There is always a crucial choice – to be open or closed?

I have almost in my whole life liked to be open. Curiosity helps;-) Hmmm. When I grew up I learned that it is also a kind of scale e.g. between 0 -– 100 %. Moreover, I learnt a useful Chinese proverb: “Don’t start by giving a stranger an axe!”

Anyhow I have now started to read the new book “Open” by the Swede Johan Norberg. I really enjoy the reading! I get many more arguments, why openness is smartest. I haven’t before fully understood the power of openness!

Island cultures keep the tradition more

I noticed many years ago something for me very strange. A friend of mine had carried out a training with participants from the whole Scandinavia. One of them was from the Faroe Islands. That man was around 40 years old and had never before in his life been dancing with a woman – only with men… I was puzzled about that experience. Then I observed many more such “odd” customs regarding people from islands. Well, earlier I know that there are different cultures in different countries like, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and China… But the “dancing custom” at the Faroe Islands was so odd. I hadn’t come across something like that earlier in my life. The conclusion was obvious that islands are more isolated, so their the culture develops more slowly. Perhaps they also strive to have more security, because they aren’t so “trained” to meet and be with strangers…

After some time I was also thinking about the Swedish culture and that we are living on a peninsula. There are many Swedes, who strive to get security e.g. we didn’t early joined the EU. Norway, on the same peninsula, haven’t joined EU. However, Finland joined EU earlier than Sweden and they have the “courage” to join the Euro too – Finland is on the mainland…

Swedish culture…

I like to add more about our culture in Sweden, so you see that there are more signs of “striving for security”. Some years ago the book “A man called Ove” was published in Sweden. This man acts very much according to his customs and tradition plus order. You could see Ove as an extreme example of the Swedish culture. There was also done a movie about Ove and that movie was among the most seen ever in Sweden… The book and movie is available in English…

How come then that the Scandinavian countries have 3 % of all the export in the world, but their population is only 0,3 %? Perhaps the cause could be find in the Scandinavian countries history – thinking especially of the Vikings. The Vikings was very bold, but also smart in many ways. The Viking’s wife had a very strong position, because they were responsible, when the men were on their long journeys. The leaders were selected by the men, who they should lead. In the end of the Viking age it was conversion to Christianity, where the management is based on hierarchical principles, so step by step the Viking culture were eroded. During the years after the Viking culture has influenced the society, there has been some returns of the Viking age. Perhaps now it has a renaissance, if you think of ABBA and other artists in the music industry. Moreover, all successful startups as Spotify, Klarna, Karma, Trucaller, Northvolt, etc – they are many! Before that a lot of inventors started business as Ericson, deLaval, AGA, etc. It has happened also in retail as IKEA and H&M, where the founders were typical entrepreneurs. So perhaps there is a big change going on. It is surely supported by the global village and the internet – then the peninsula doesn’t matter…

Perhaps this change has been influenced by the fact that between 1850 – 1930 1,5 million Sweden emigrated to USA, because of failure of the crops. It was around 25 % of the population, so there are almost one “Sweden” in USA, which probably has very much influenced the culture in Sweden.

The population matters – of course…

Johan writes very interesting in his book about Tasmania. In that island the archeologists found that they hadn’t so many tools as the Aborigines in Australia. Why? The conclusion was that there weren’t enough with people – only 4000 – so some of them could be specialised and in this way both develop and maintain a specialised competence. Moreover, it wasn’t either enough people to figure out new ideas and also share them with other people. There are more examples as e.g. Innuits in the Northwest of Greenland, who were isolated during a period. Their life prosper more, when they could connect to the other parts of Greenland.

Communication is really precious!

If you are e.g. 10 people and live with no connection to other people, then it is a big difference for those, who lives in the global village… The people on this island example will get the same conditions as Tasmania.

What happens then in dictatorships? Well, with Johan’s thinking it will give less wealth for all the people (!) in that country. It was also an interesting experience from Eastern and Western Germany. When people in Eastern Germany got TV and lived closed to the Western, then they could see with their own eyes that their leaders were lying... Today dictatorship limits internet, but that isn’t so easy. Therefore, they have to invest in huge control systems. That costs money and resources, which takes away wealth from the society. In Romania during Ceausescu time around 10 % of the people were involved in control of the other 90 %...

Free trade or not?

Donald Trump don’t believe in free trade. The same for other politicians and company owners. Johan tells in a convinced way that is a bad idea. It seems attractive to don’t support free trade – instead make USA great again, but that is fake news!

In a way it is astonishingly that some people in business and also trade unions plus politicians could claim no free trade, because then no competition… Moreover, then they don’t think rational, because people and their company will have increased costs for import and also less export to other countries and then reduced incomes for people.…

Low openness is bad for business

High openness is crucial for good progress of business. Is it right? No, not fully, you need to identify what should be business secrets and where is openness OK. If you are too open, then competitors can copy your secrets, so they don’t need to spend all time and money, which you have done…

A crucial aspect with openness is to notice what happens in the society, which can influence your business. The same with technical developments. There are many companies, which have ignored new technical development, so competitors have made the company’s business obsolete. That happened to Kodak, when the electronic cameras arrived and didn’t need any films.

Even couples with openness are happier

Openness is also a good principle for couples. Many years ago I learnt from a couple therapist that openness makes a couple happier. She had a kind of role model… The couple should have of their hands connected to the partner and the other hand should be free. Unfortunately, it is common that in many couples they are holding each other too tight. Sometimes both, sometimes one of them – relying on the other one. When someone in the couple is jealous, then it is a great obstacle for openness…

So I recommend strongly to read Johan’s book!