A series of unfortunate events

Our series of unfortunate events this morning couldn’t have been better said by anyone other than Tyler. “So the morning started off on a not-so-good note. Let's start with waking up...usually the girls next-door wake us up when the showers are open, but that didn't happen. Luckily, we'd already waken up out of habit but our alarms didn't seem to go off…dodged a bullet there. Moving on to breakfast when everyone was all settled and grabbing a quick bite to eat, I decided to add what I thought was a hard boiled egg to my breakfast. Well...it definitely was not a HARD boiled egg but a soft-boiled egg. Next thing I knew the egg was all over the table, my suit, and my tie...just great. So we all rushed to do what we could to fix the mess and the girls came in clutch...gotta love em! After we got that issue resolved we all went to meet up for our private bus that was supposed to take us to the company...turns out that it was running 15 minutes late. So we decided to go sit in our room for a bit and then we all remembered Nick and Alex. We were supposed to wake them up! Immediately we started knocking on their door and telling them they had to get ready quick. On the bright side they had fifteen minutes because the bus was late, but we still felt terrible because we forget about them. As they both got ready we all started to talk about how the day wasn’t looking too good so far and that's when Joe's hand just started bleeding because they were so dry. Then we all started thinking about what could happen next. However, we decided to stay optimistic and the rest of the day went like this...” We decided our theme song of the day was going to be “Good Day”.

Then, we finally got on the bus to go to AutoAdapt. When we arrived we had such a warm welcome from Anna-karin and Hakan Sandberg. They immediately took us to have fika...a coffee break that is very popular in Sweden. People will take a fika break in the middle of the afternoon as well. Then Anna-karin, the HR manager, gave us a presentation about how AutoAdapt recruits their employees, develops and retains them. It was very clear that they are very cost conscious and don’t want to waste money, time, and energy into people just to fire them or let them go. It is very different than in the United States! She explained how difficult it is to get hired because they want to find the perfect candidate for the position; not only do technical skills play a role in that decision, but also soft skills. Anna-karin explained that for one position there could be up to 700 applicants for one position! AutoAdapt values diversity in their workplace—within their company of 150 people there are over 14 languages spoken. They operate in 57 countries! It was interesting to learn that a person who gets fired from their position is given a certain time period, anywhere’s from six months to a year notice. The notice time is based on how long they’ve been with the company. And when people are first hired they have a six-month “trial” period to make sure they’re the right person for the position. It was also very interesting to learn that for their interview process they use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) that I learned about in my management class.

Afterwards, CEO Hakan gave us a tour of their facility. They had a showroom, offices, factory/production area, a crash testing center, changing facilities that include a sauna that are mandated by the government to be on site for employees to be able to shower and change, a pinball machine, and a workout room with boxing bags, speed bag, ping pong table, cardio equipment, and weights. When Hakan was touring us through the factory area he said that they have a three-day delivery time, which is very impressive given the fact that they don’t have any inventory sitting around. It’s either raw materials or a finished product being shipped out. After the tour we had a delicious lunch—chicken and potatoes (yum!).

Then, Hakan gave a presentation to us about how to create a business plan. He said that his business plan is 20 binders, but he has a condensed version of seven pages that he shared with us. One main goal that Bruno (the company we visited in Oconomowoc before we left for Sweden, its partner company) and AutoAdapt have in common is to do branding and establish a family looking brand. A great quote that Hakan kept saying was, “don’t react, be proactive.” This was very important to him because he wasn’t going to wait around for a problem to arise; he is a proactive person and wants to fix small things before it becomes something bigger.

One of the most amazing things about Hakan is his how much of a people person he is; he is such a genuinely caring person. Hakan told us that he knew everyone that works in his company and could tell us employees’ spouses and pets names—that’s amazing compared to how little interaction CEO’s in the U.S. have with everyone (including the factory workers) in the company. He then explained the “product flower”, which basically meant that the product you’re selling may be the same, but everything else around it (the petals) are what differentiate AutoAdapt from its competitors. Finding out what customers think is most important and then bringing that to the table for them to see is how the product flower works. I thought Hakan and Anna-karin did a wonderful job and were so welcoming to us.

CEO, Hakan

We had a group dinner at Linne Terrassen, which had some historical value to our surprise. According to our waitress, the King used to live across the street and would go there frequently because it was full of women who he liked to pay. I had a really good cold cut salmon and then for dessert we went to TinTin and had a tiramisu—it was delicious! So the day that didn’t start out so great had a good ending…dessert!