Master education

From 1996 to 1999, I was a Master of science student at Aarhus University, school of business and social sciences in Denmark and at HEC Montréal in Canada. As I got the opportunity to choose a specialization during the masters education, there was no doubt in my mind that I would choose a specialization with focus on topics such as strategy, innovation, technology, organization, culture and leadership. These are examples of topics dealt with during the education: 

Strategic thinking
Learning, for example, about adapting a company's strategy to changes in the external environment as well as internal changes. 

Business development
Developing competencies in identifying and developing new business opportunities, developing new products or services as well as innovating in other ways. 

Leadership and organizational behavior
Understanding leadership theories and practices as well as learning about ways of managing change. The ability to plan and manage project challenges

Global and cultural awareness
During my education and beyond, it has remained interesting for me to learn about challenges that companies, who work globally have. Not least I found it interesting to learn about cultural differences - including differences in values between people as well as differences between cultures that teams have. A natural and an important part of the education was, I experienced, communicating with fellow students. I recall that we had really interesting conversations about various issues that came up in the courses we studied. And, as a consequence of this, we learned a lot from each other. I recall that back then in the 1990s, most of the conversations we had took place face-to-face in university buildings. Over the years, this changed. More communication has become digital - using various kinds of social media, webinar technologies and other digital platforms. The communication with fellow students, who were thinking differently, helped me improve my written and oral communication skills. 

When I wanted to write my masters thesis, I decided to approach Nils Villemoes to get feedback from him on some ideas I had been  working on for some time - ideas related to the experience economy. Why did I choose to contact Nils Villemoes and not another person? One reason was, I recall, that during contributions Nils had made earlier in the masters education, Nils' inputs and ideas had challenged me a great deal to think creatively. I recall that Nils looked at things in completely different ways than I was used to. I felt inspired by his creative ways of thinking. Also, I recall that Nils Villemoes had a sense of humour that I liked. For example, I remember seeing Nils draw an organization pyramid upside down and and seeing every single individual as being in charge of creating value for others. Also, I understood that he saw leaders as people, who serve other other people. This thought was relatively radical for me. Why? At church I had observed priest preaching to people from an elevated place in a church. In the military I had observed officers commanding people to do things. And during large part of both high school, bachelor and masters education, I had observed educators lecturing for people at the front of the room and later controlling people at tests. Then suddenly, Nils Villemoes came along and challenged everything I knew about what management. And he laughed at much of it, I remember.

Being coached by Nils during the master thesis research and the writing process was a life changing experience for - a phenomenal period of learning and growth. During the period, I learned a lot about many life skills - including how to how to work on finding out about values of myself and others and learn about the purpose of what we do in life - including why companies / organizations are here. I also learned about how to improve my abilities to think creatively and to think about who human beings are.  Once, I recall that we had a great conversation in his home office. I remember that the idea of home office felt meaningful to me. I noticed, for example, that he could sit at different quiet places and read and write. Nils had a sense of humor, which related to me. That was an additional asset that I appreciated and helped me develop unconventional ideas and continue to rethink how we work and live our lives. Nils was able to often smile and laugh - also about himself. That helped me to somehow feel more human. And this is one of the valuable things I learned by working with Nils: That we try each day not to take ourselves so seriously. Each of us is not the center of the universe. There are things that are bigger than us, for example a purpose, love and nature. Also, humans make mistakes all the time. But if we want to, we can learn and improve.

As I was working on a project during a period of time I spent studying at HEC Montréal in Canada, I had the privilege of being coached by professor Guy Archambault. Working with Mr. Archambault, I learned more about leadership and cultural differences. Mr. Archambault also inspired me to become more interested in differences regarding how education is done and can be done. I remember, for example, that we met for breakfast one day and discussed various topics over a cup of coffee. A question, which stood out for me, as i was learning from Mr. Archambault, was the question "What is the purpose of your leadership?" As I practice leadership as well as observe and asking to leaders to better understand aspects of leadership, this is a question that remains meaningful to me.