Recap from Nordic Business Forum Day 2

I participated in the Nordic Business Forum 2026 in Messukeskus. I've never participated before, so this was quite an interesting experience. According to the organisers, there were more than 8500 participants which would make it the biggest business meeting event in the Europe. (Not sure how the comparison works, I've attended Slush and WebSummit which are both bigger, but maybe they are not considered business events.)

Paul Polman, ex-CEO of Unilever, was talking about the 17 UN Sustainability Goals and how they could still be considered good business. As an interesting factoid, lifetime of publicly listed companies has shortened from 67 years (1920) to about 17 years (2020). Most of the time companies and countries are concentrating on treating the symptoms and not addressing the underlying issues. But as the human race, we spend more money in those than actually fixing those would take. He claimed that we are living the Age of Polycrisis and that the cost of not acting is currently bigger than not acting. He's checklist for how to be Net Positive:

1. Take total responsibility
2. Be science based
3. Embed in strategy
4. Stay consistent
5. Deep collaboration 

Alison Wood Brooks gave an interesting talk about communication. Conversation is a coordination game. She started off by acting as the conductor and making different parts of the audience hum different tones. Nice and memorable way to take the stage. My take away from the presentation was that people way too often overestimate understanding in communication. The conflict is big. In some research, more than 80% of people who communicated a message estimated that it was correctly received, but only about 40% of the receivers actually did understand. That's why it is really important to align and built the understanding. She presented the CALM framework:

• Confirm understanding
• Admit uncertainty
• Learn
• Make it human 

In the conversation, use open questions and a lot of follow-up questions. They keep the conversation going. Different question words score differently on the axis of how likable they are and how much information you can get with those. With Why-questions you can get a lot of information, but they often sound like accusations. How-questions are more neutral, but you don't get as much information with them. In this comparison, What-questions were seen as the top choice. And nicely enough, almost any question can be rephrased as a What-question.

What to avoid in conversation: don't boomerask. What this means, don't ask a question and when the other one replies, you immediately bring the conversation back to you. That way you really don't signal that you care about the other person's answer. By asking follow-up questions you can signal that you listen and care about the answers.

Then I listened to a few lightning talks. One about incentives. Main take away: options are a great instrument. If you are not using those in your company, you should. They are based on the company growth. If the people together make the company grow, they should be able to share the benefits too. And if the company doesn't grow, the options do not cost the company anything. Tip about bonuses was that instead of connecting them with the current numbers (that is often the case), the speaker adviced on connecting them with succes of some bigger things and projects that push the company forward.

Lightning talk about merges and acquisitions claimed that in most cases one-off M&A cases are not very great in short to mid-term. Usually within three years from the acquisition  they are still negative. But usually 10 years more positive. Instead of on-offs, companies that do a lot of acquisitions and have a proven blueprint for those are often successful. Because they are professionals and do not hesitate. The integration strategy should be done well in advance. And conversations started already during the negotiations. Culture and other, sometimes difficult topics should be discussed and when the two companies become one, it should be a mutual learning: how can we collaborate together in an efficient way. 

Patty McCord, former chief talent officer from Netflix, had a really entertaining talk. Some main take aways:

• Hire adults. 
• Give them freedom and responsibility
• Let them make decisions as long as they keep what's best for the company in their minds
• Give them a lot of context
• Results matter. This was true before, when the pandemic hit, and it is true now at the age of AI
• A-players are those who get the stuff done. 
• Give immediate (positive) feedback in the moment
• Think 6 months into the future. Think where you and the company want to be. Think of making a movie out of it. What are people doing in it and how?
• Kind of same, but think what goodness looks like. Then work backwards from it. 

The last keynote was from Oprah Winfrey. Her message was that through the more than 35k interviews she has done, everybody seeks validation. Every person is asking after the interview "Did you hear me? Did you see me? Did what I said had a meaning for you?" This is quite powerful conversational tip. She calls it the law of attention. In conversations you should seek alignment. Try to understand the intent behind people's actions. She stressed also the importance of internal alignment. What you say, what you do and what you are should all be aligned. Concentrate on how you make other people feel. Everybody should feel valued.

 

I think many of those communication tips align with what I have heard before from many successful and respected leaders. The golden rule applies. Treat everybody well regardless of who they are. And do things well even when nobody is looking.