So I've

been really, really looking forward to a chance to sit down with you. Your name and your writings, as I said in our conversation before this interview, have come up in a lot of the conversations that I have on organizational culture. Of course, in a Swedish context, especially, and how organizations in the public sector approach the practices around corporate values. But before we dive into all of that, which we really will make sure to take the time for, I wanted to ask you a little bit about your personal story. What led you to become fascinated with leadership and management?

Well, I don't know. You have to do something and how organizations are functioning, how people are active in working life, what organizations that we are so dependent on, what they accomplish, they are important issues. So, of course, from a social societal point of view, these are important topics. Then it's also something that you can be quite intellectually interested in, what goes on here, why are organizations functioning in the rather peculiar way they often are? So I think that a lot of mysteries in organizations and management and leadership, and that is intellectually challenging to try to unpack this and solve some of the mysteries, or at least for some interesting light on them. I think you've

gained a little bit of a reputation of being somebody who likes to provoke and to kind of stir up the pot a little bit and be perhaps somewhat of a devil's advocate in some situation. So, where does that drive come

from? It may be a bit of a personality disorder. Sometimes, if I call you talk about counter-dependent people that are eager to be autonomous and not necessarily adapt too much to authorities and to social conventions. But apart from that, I think it is very important then to think through issues without necessarily being part of a mainstream or too sensitive to the views of others, or if we tend to think and act and be motivated by imitating others. I mean, that's probably the most common motive. Others are doing this, therefore, I should do the same. So that is a common weakness. It's also a strength to some extent. I mean, we are social animals. We are very dependent on the flock, but sometimes it takes up a hand and then we do a lot of things that you would not do if you were careful in the more independent thinking through issues. So I think it is important to have deviating voices, not for the sake of deviation of provocation as such, but in order to encourage mind stretch. We know from social psychology, rather peculiar view is being expressed by a number of people, then an additional person then asked to state his opinion or express his values. They tend to very much follow what others have kind of expressed. And that sometimes lead to a lot of peculiar group developments and collective orientations in organizations in life that is important to resist. So I don't think that coming up with counter arguments and encourage mind stretch, it's extremely important, but not so many people do that because you're being popular, you're being wrong, perhaps being then expelled from the good society and so on. So, so to be easy if you're more senior, if you're an academic, if you have a reputation for these perhaps.