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Ingvar Kamprad

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24

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2019-12-30

most recent

2019-12-30

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1

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1. “Now, this is extremely important. Bear in mind your time is your most important resource. You can do so much in 10 minutes. 10 minutes once gone are gone for good. You can never have them back. 10 minutes is not just one sixth of your hourly pay. Ten minutes is a piece of yourself. Divide your life into ten minute units and sacrifice as few of them as possible in meaningless activity. Most of the job remains to be done. Let us continue to be a group of positive fanatics who stubbornly and persistently refuse to accept the impossible, the negative. A glorious future.”

   2019-12-30 · Founders · #104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “Doesn't really have much formal education and did not have much financial position or rank when he started. Only those who are asleep make no mistakes. There's that quote against. Making mistakes is the privilege of the active. It's a very unique way of thinking about it, right? The fear of making mistakes is the root of bureaucracy and the enemy of development. It is always the mediocre people who are negative, who spend their time proving that they were not wrong. The strong person is always positive and looks forward. That's why in a lot of the early episodes of Founders, I had that critics don't know shit segment. Because I think what he's right. It's the mediocre person who is negative, who spend their time proving that they were not wrong. The strong person is always positive and just moves forward. Okay, number nine, most things still mean to be done a glorious future. That is how he ends a lot of his letters.”

   2019-12-30 · Founders · #104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “Like, diminish or wither away to focus on the great opportunity. Concentration, the very word means strength. Use it in your daily work and it'll give you results. Number eight, taking responsibility as a privilege. There are people at all levels in every type of company and community who would rather make their own decisions than hide behind those made by others. These people dare to take responsibility. The fewer such responsibility takers a company or community has, the more bureaucratic it is. Constant meeting and group discussions are often the result of unwillingness or inability on the part of the person in charge to make decisions. Go back to the famous quote by David Olgary. He says, go to all the parks in your city so you'll never get to see a statue dedicated to a committee. He's telling you that companies are run best by usually one person leading the way and making the hard decisions taking responsibility has nothing to do with education, financial position, or rank, responsibility takers are essential for progress. I love the part because think about Ingar becomes one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time. He's dyslexia.”

   2019-12-30 · Founders · #104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “Number seven, concentration is important to our success. The general who divides his resources will be defeated. For us too it is a matter of concentration, focusing on resources. We can never do everything everywhere all the same time. We must concentrate for maximum impact often with small means. Now he also, so everybody, you're probably nodding around. Yeah, that makes sense. But I love he makes the additional point that when you're forced to concentrate on one thing, then inevitably that means you have to be okay having other parts that you're not concentrating on be less beneficial. So he says concentration means that at certain vital stages we are forced to neglect otherwise important aspects. The things about if a trade-off is easy, then the trade-off is probably not important. What he's bringing to our attention here is like, yeah, you need contrary resources, but you have to understand the decision to where the conscience can be hard because other good opportunities. You've got to let the other good opportunities”

   2019-12-30 · Founders · #104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “Let me just read that part. Sorry, is doing it a different way by always asking why we were doing this or that, we can find new paths, by refusing to accept a pattern simply because it is well established, we make progress. Our protest against convention is not protest for its own sake. It is a deliberate expression of our constant search for development and improvement.”

   2019-12-30 · Founders · #104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “Is an old IKEA idea that is more relevant than ever. Time after time we have proved that we can get good results with small means or very limited resources. Wasting resources is a mortal sin. It is hardly an art to reach set targets if you do not have to count the cost. Any architect can design a desk that will cost five thousand dollars, but only the most highly skilled can design a good, functional desk that will cost one hundred dollars. Expensive solutions to any kind of problem are usually the work of mediocrity. We have no respect for solution until we know what it costs. An IKEA product without a price tag is always wrong. Before you choose a solution, look at it in relation to the cost. Only then can you fully determine its worth. Many modern buildings are more like monuments to human stupidity.”

   2019-12-30 · Founders · #104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “Things over and over again. It's bizarre. The aim of our effort to build up financial resources is to reach a good result in the long term. Profit forces us to develop products more economically, to purchase more efficiently, and to be relentlessly stubborn in cost savings on all kinds. That is our secret and that is the foundation of our success. Number four, reaching good results with small means. Four, five, and six, there's three words that can summarize this whole section I'm about to read to you. Be resourceful. It's resourceful, simplicity, and difference. Those are also great foundations to build any business on. All right, so he says.”

   2019-12-30 · Founders · #104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “Number three, profit gives us resources. So another way to think about this is profit and why it is important. To achieve our aim, we must have resources, especially in the area of finance. We do not believe in waiting for ripe plums to fall into our mouths. We believe in hard, committed work that brings results. Profit is a wonderful world. Let us start by stripping the word profit of its dramatic overtones. It is a word that politicians often use and abuse. Profits give us resources, so this is what I love about the fact that human nature just does not change. He's talking about at the time, he's writing this in 1970s, politicians are demonizing people that are successful, demonizing companies that are making profits. It's happening today. It will happen 40 years from now. Just realize that we're not coming up with unique ideas. We're just replaying over and over again and arguing about the same.”

   2019-12-30 · Founders · #104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “It says the IKEA spirit is a strong and living reality. So I'm just going to say, this is my note. Company spirit was easier to maintain when we were smaller. Plus, don't waste your life in a job you hate. Two great ideas. So he says, things were more concrete in those days. The readiness to give each other a helping hand with everything, the art of managing on small means, these like nostalgic for the early days again. The art of managing on small means, of making the best of what we had, the cost consciousness to the point of being stingy, the humbleness, the unconquerable enthusiasm, and the wonderful sense of community through thick and thin. So what does this have to do with not wasting your life and a job? Hey, he says, if you are not enthusiastic about your job, one third of your life goes to waste.”

   2019-12-30 · Founders · #104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “High quality in the bookshelf, right? Whereas in the latter in the bookshelf, it just hurts the customer by adding to the price. Quality must always be adapted to the consumer's interest in the long term. So now is this obsession with low price? It is the many whom we aim to serve. The concept of a low price with a meaning makes enormous Means it doesn't, we can't just reduce costs in our stores. It has to reduce costs in our warehouse staff, in our offices, everywhere, all other costs. He didn't say some other costs. He said all other costs. He says, our basic policy of serving the many can never be changed. The second.”

    2019-12-30 · Founders · #104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “And there's in this range under each heading, there's a bunch of subheadings. So the first one is the product range of identity. I'm going to read my note to you. Quality only where it matters to the customer. Plus, it is the entire company's responsibility to keep our costs low so we can keep our prices low and forever. This cannot change. So I'm going to just pull out some quotes here. This is an interesting idea. Quality must never be an N in itself. It must be adjusted to the consumer's needs. And at first I read that. It's like, ugh. I don't like that idea at all. And then when he explains, I was like, oh, okay, that makes sense. He says a tabletop, for example, needs a more durable surface than a shelf in a bookcase. It'd be over improving on quality at the expense of the customer's needs to make the bookcase from the same materials the tabletop. That made way more sense. In the former case, a more expensive finish offers the customer long-lasting utility because your tabletop has to be more”

    2019-12-30 · Founders · #104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “He says, she talks about the product range and philosophy. What are they describing? They also describe the rules and method that we have worked out over the years as cornerstones on the framework of ideas that have made and will continue to make IKEA a unique company. So this is his company Bible. This is saying, like, you know, chefs publish cookbooks that you can view the recipes and try them out yourselves. This is exactly what Ingvar is doing here. Number one, the product range is our identity.”

    2019-12-30 · Founders · #104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “So you're saying, what did James Dyson tell us back in the day? Difference for the sake of it. Ingvar says the same thing. We're going to do things differently. And by our aim to be simple and straightforward in ourselves and our relationship with others. Always bear in mind that freedom implies responsibility, meaning that we must demand much of ourselves.”

    2019-12-30 · Founders · #104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “But you might be interested in it. When Ingvar Compra decided to go abroad, his ambition was undeniably to give his life work the best possible chance of eternal life. There's that phrase again. Long after he passed away, he wanted the company to be able to develop and flourish. In his own words, as long as there is human housing on our earth, there will be a need for a strong and efficient IKEA. But his ambition was further than that. No one and nothing was to destroy or endanger his business vision. Were they a member of the family or market forces or politicians? Barriers were to be constructed against not only hostile assaults, but also against the danger that lies in apathy.”

    2019-12-30 · Founders · #104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “Because frankly, I don't understand it. There's pictures in the book, so Ingvar leaves Sweden because they have this crazy Crazy tax system and like inheritance laws where essentially if he died he wanted the IKEA to survive but also to be beneficial to his family and that was impossible. So he lives the last like 40 something years of his life in Switzerland. And as he's emigrating out, he creates what he calls, and the author says he's downplaying. He says it's a unique company structure. And the author's like, it may be the only company structure that exists in the world. There's pictures in the book that show part of how the company is organized. It's a series of trusts and these Venn diagrams. And I look at the picture. I'm like, there's no way I can explain this. Like just with words. You have to look at it. And even then, and it also talks about how Ingvar will only reveal the parts of the company ownership structure.”

    2019-12-30 · Founders · #104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

16. “That disappears out of the companies and works against building up reserves. And he says to build up reserves in order to take bold decisions. So this whole idea of like keeping the money within the company, something we heard from Henry Singleton, something we heard from Warren Buffett. Now we're hearing again from Ingvar. He's going to keep the money in-house. And then now Ingvar talks a little bit about this. He says it was not only a long life for IKEA, remember I started out the podcast talking about, he wants to give IKEA eternal life. That's a very explicit goal. Eternal life. That's not very common for any entrepreneurs that I've heard talk in such explicit terms. He says, it was not only a long life for Ikea I wanted to achieve, but also its independence of any one single country. Okay, so now we're getting to a weird part. I'm going to omit almost completely out of the book.”

    2019-12-30 · Founders · #104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

17. “Expanding on Ingvar's own words and his beliefs. Today, everyone has been converted to the conviction that going public would do more harm than good to Ikea in the long run. The perils of a quotation on the stock exchange are exposure to the media and demands for constantly increased profit and expansion, regardless of the business cycles of competition and vision. So you start listing all the stuff he doesn't want. He doesn't want employees to focus on what the stock price is that day. He doesn't want constant exposure to the media as a very private person. He doesn't want external demands for constantly increased profit and expansion. What if he doesn't want to do that? What if that's going to harm his business? And so then he doesn't want to compromise on his vision. In addition, Ingvar likes to point out the stock exchange is an expensive solution. Public companies like to distribute one-third of their annual profit to the shareholders.”

    2019-12-30 · Founders · #104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

18. “Spends a good amount of time talking about this. So I just want to pull out some highlights because I think it's important. It says, this is, is this a quote from him? Yeah, this is a quote from Ingvar. He says, still today, we want to grow at our own pace so that we keep up, not just with what is new, but also develop what we already have. So he doesn't want to keep growing just to grow. What if we're going too fast and we're not developing the resources we already have, right? IKEA's strategy has long been to take at least half of our resources to improve what already exists. The other half to do what it is in the future. If at a somewhat slower pace than if we had access to unlimited money, so that's what he talks about, unlimited money is essentially the public markets. He's like, we're going to grow at a more slow and deliberate pace, and we think that's going to be better for the overall company. That's something he believed. Now here's the author talking about...”

    2019-12-30 · Founders · #104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

19. “Okay, so we just heard that he considers every problem an opportunity, right? And so he realizes that a few suppliers are still blocking him in Sweden. So he's like, okay, I got to find a solution to this problem. I'm going to look outside the borders. And so Poland was just, I guess, had just stopped being communist or it's like half like it's kind of transitioning from communist to more like a market economy. So expanding into Poland turns out to be a major turning point in Ikea's history. And there's a chapter that goes in depth on this. I'm just going to pick out real short to give you like a summary of it. It says IKEA is simple and open structure of command has become a dream for people used to inaccessible state hierarchies. And young, well-educated”

    2019-12-30 · Founders · #104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

20. “So, initially, self assembled furniture is just a way for them to get less damage furniture and transport, right? And it has, so it says once it started working, it says, thus self-assembled bookcaches, chairs, beds, and other pieces successfully appeared. But it also had other effects, like beneficial effects on them. It says a design that was not just good, but also from the start adapted to machine production and thus cheap to produce with the design of that kind and the innovation of self-assembly, we could save a great deal of money in the factories and on transport, as well as keep down the price of the customer.”

    2019-12-30 · Founders · #104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

21. “Now, one of the things that IKEA is most famous for is that you pick up the furniture yourself and you take it home and you put it together yourself. So it's called self-assembled furniture. That's something that was kind of discovered by accident. And he says, perhaps if we said that that reality forced the innovation upon us, we had begun to experience a worrisome high percentage of damaged furniture and transport, broken table legs and that kind of thing”

    2019-12-30 · Founders · #104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

22. “Okay, so now this is Ingvar's philosophy on problems. This is gonna sound familiar. This is one of my favorite quotes that I've discovered by reading all these books is from Henry Kaiser, Problems are just opportunities and workloads. We see a similar echo here from Ingvar. It says, in Ikea's business philosophy, the whole matter should be inscribed as a golden rule. Regard every problem as a possibility. New problems created a dizzying chance. When we were not allowed to buy the same furniture to others were, we were forced to design our own. And that came to provide us with a style of our own, a design of our own, and from the necessity to secure our own deliveries, a chance arose that in its turn opened up a whole new world to us.”

    2019-12-30 · Founders · #104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

23. “From a very young age, he's like, I don't understand. The prices that a product moves from the factory's gates to the customer's hands, it's much more expensive. What's going on here? And so he realized, oh, you got all these people in the middle taking a little piece and adding on to it. So he wanted to eliminate that. When you do that, when you try to change, and that's the way the furniture business was in his country at the time. And so he's trying to rewrite how the industry sells things. Well, what's going to happen? Your competitors and your industry, like, what do you call them? Like organizations are going to push back. And so they do that severely to him. So he's dealing at this point. He's dealing with anger competitors and supplier boycott. So what would happen is his competitors would buy so much for buy from similar suppliers and his competitors would push put pressure on his suppliers saying, hey, if you sell to Ingvar to IKEA, we're going to yank our business from you. Now, what would happen is they've refused to sell to Ikea because IKEA at the time was much.”

    2019-12-30 · Founders · #104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

24. “So he's taking blame. He's like, listen, you know, I didn't give her the attention I needed, so focused on my business, and of course it's going to end in divorce that way. Okay, skipping ahead in the timeline. So”

    2019-12-30 · Founders · #104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source