If you followed the TeQfloLife blog by now you might be aware that culture is something we value highly and is quite different from the ordinary corporate world.

 One of our core values is “Competence at hand”. Meaning, when opportunities emerge, we need to stand ready with ambitious and skilled resources, in-house through sub contractors and partnerships.. 

So even though we are a small startup/scale-up thanks to a great network we can serve customers accordingly.

Recently we had a chat with one of our wonderful partners. Anne-lie Almqvist founder and CEO of Andpeople a company specialized in strategic consulting, analytics and professional development in digital transformation. 

What does it mean for a co-worker at TeQflo having not only colleagues at the same employer but also friends at partners? We talked about this and we also discussed digital transformation and digitalization in general, enjoy!

The unique thing with Andpeople is that they work with it from group management to blue collar establishing a mind set and securing business and competence. It shouldn’t be hard to be in a digital transformation when you have all the possibilities to do it smart with people and technology.

Thanks for taking the time to have a chat, so I thought we start out by a brief introduction of you, who is Anne-lie Almqvist?

Thank you, it’s my pleasure! Well I’m a woman with a passion for tech, skills in people and change, my background is in tech, economics and behavioral science. It is so inspiring to look at things from a larger perspective, connecting complex and not so obvious things and then zoom in on the business at hand and improve and develop.

I’ve always worked with change processes with a focus on simplifying complexity during my career, getting momentum has been my foremost task no matter what function I had as an employee.

OK, so what changes and challenges do you see businesses facing in the near future?

Well, a broader answer to your question is that, we as a society including businesses, people, Sweden as a country, governmental functions, the academy, we’re all facing the challenge of digitalization. In order to survive in the future, we need to adjust and adapt with digital transformation, some people still believe that digitalization is a choice, it’s not, you have to change, or you won’t make it in the future.

Could you give a specific example of challenges you see right now?

 If we start with the broader perspective there’s the foundational factors, like the fact that not everyone in Sweden is connected to fiber believe it or not, it’s a basic infrastructural problem needed to be addressed. Also the perspective of inclusion when we have 600.000 citizens not using the Internet and generations new to the digital age. 

We have a shortage of highly competent workers, in Sweden we will have a shortage of about 760.000 people in order to stay competitive globally.

How do we educate and attract these people? It’s a question of diversity, not only of ethnicity but of skills and perspectives and how we move a lot of people into new roles in a secure way so they see personal development and not fear of loosing a job

So every young person out there should become a programmer?

 No, of course programming will become an even more attractive skill, but I think the most important thing is your mindset, regardless if you get a degree in behavioral science, medicine or physics, you need to think digital, every industry will be digital. But the key lies in the combination of knowledge. You can develop algorithms but need to understand human behaviors and you can work with people but need to understand how technology can do things for humans. The most important thing is continued learning.

OK, that makes sense, but how about the slightly older people then, how can they learn and evolve?

To start with, we need to accept the fact of everlasting change and need of evolvement, so an open mind is number one. One thing we sometimes do with our customers is working with young mentors. Combining people in the age of 17-25 years old that gets to mentor members of the board, the CEO, etc. This is a great way of combining new competence with experience and create together for the future. Leaders find it easier to lead this generation at work and the young mentors get a really good insight in the work life before they enter it. We need to understand that inclusion is key to be able to be open minded. 

But what’s the solution then?

In order to face these challenges and Sweden being a small country, I think we need to be even stronger in the collaboration between, private and public sector and the academy. I see many positive effects coming out of cooperation like this.

We need to ask ourselves what function do we fill in a globalized ever-changing environment?

We have to create new value over and over again in shorter cycles than before. We need to be in constant change and innovate in a sustainable way and then we also need to think about what we should stop doing. We still don’t have more time on our hands and the sustainability in people and environment is essential. That is why we need to develop new ways of running our daily business to get innovation next to that in a structured way. We also need new methods to work with strategies in shorter cycles in order to adapt and be more proactive so we can stay competitive. I think it is quite interesting that we still talk about our ideas being rolled out globally and very little if somebody else around the globe roll something into my market.

And you actually help businesses figure out what part to play? What’s the most common challenges you help companies with?

Well, yes you could say that. But we are their long-term partner in developing their business because change is the new normal status.

First off, what we want to do is play down digitalization or make it less dramatic I should say, show the leaders and employees that it’s not threat that some might think. When employees hear about digitalization the most common reaction is that they’re going to lose their job, but that’s not true, we want to eliminate the insecurities surrounding the subject and secure job opportunities by working both with the managerial level and the blue collar level so fear won’t be a show-stopper for development. But of course, we spend a lot of time on the managerial level now creating secure leaders moving from managing a complicated environment into managing a very unsecure complex environment and finding new methods and scenarios for their business. It is a challenge to realize that the business model is more important than the product they have built their company around. We need to do the home work on the behavioral aspects before we choose the right technical solutions.

Another common challenge is implementing the digital transformation, in order to really change everyone needs to be onboard, not just management. That is why we want all employees to understand the world so they can participate in developing the business. It is very interesting that we are a part of a network society in our spare time but if we are not in a managerial position, we are assumed not to have competence to contribute with in these topics. Very few companies have employees that refuse personal development and a chance to take on more responsibility if the understand the bigger picture.

How do you get everyone aboard?

That’s often the tricky part and in the end to succeed it comes down to leadership and digital leadership. But there is also a “co-workingship”, that plays a big part of succeeding. More so than technology.  You’ll be surprised how many employees there is with motivation and ideas that could help the business moving forward.

Your role as a leader is to allow these ideas to flourish, create an atmosphere where everyone feels comfortable bringing new ideas to the table.

They often have tons of digital ideas in their private life’s and that doesn’t stop because they enter the company building but we are trained historically that certain roles have that in their job descriptions and others don’t. 

We work with methods for managers, helping them to engage their teams, lead teams of teams, make every employee engaged, give them responsibilities and to be a part of the context.

What skill or competence do you see as most important for businesses taking on the future?

As a leader I would say endurance. It’s a challenge, you need to live with constant change, to do that you need stamina. Get comfortable with letting go of control, being comfortable with not knowing everything, understand that innovation most likely won’t be made up in the board room, instead allow your co-workers to become super heroes and release the power and lift them up.

As a co-worker but also management you need to be curious, more than just on your own business, instead on your industry, the world and attach a constant learning mindset to that curiosity. Take responsibility for your own learning and development but of course with support from your company. 

Being great at solving complexed problems is also very important, we are very good at solving complicated things, but need to get better at complexity.

Good advice, I think. So, partnerships then, where do they fit into the future, like the one between TeQflo and Andpeople?

Partnerships has been an important strategy for businesses in the past and will become even more important moving ahead. The global complex business setting demands for us to move faster, be more adaptive. To solve this a partnership is a great way to pick up pace and have access to the right people and skills at the right time.

What do you think is key elements for a partnership to function at its best?

You need to find a company that first and foremost share the same values as your team. It’s OK if we’re different and have different core values but they need to able to be combined. So, we create a slightly different shared value platform to stand on together. By doing this we have a foundation and mutual understanding of our work together, meaning we know our mutual goals and what value we will create for our customers.

Also, being great a different things and being aware of that fact, that by joining forces we will take it to the next level.

Understanding each other’s cultures is also one major factor. 

And for an individual co-worker, does a partnership have any impact on you?

Yes, and I think it’s a positive impact. You’ll get the chance to evolve and work with different people. 

Thank you so much Anne-lie and I’m looking forward to many collaborative projects between TeQflo and Andpeople!

Thank you, me to!

If you like to know more, visit the Andpeople website.

Or if your curious working with us at TeQflo, check out the open positions.