Signal & Brus

🇸🇪 Svenska · 🇬🇧 English · 🇪🇸 Español

Meatballs, julmust and punctuality. Fika, consensus and yet another meeting. Great freedom to manage your work—but preferably after everyone has had their say. Swedish culture certainly exists. Why are we so cautious about saying so?

We can talk without hesitation about French food culture, Spanish customs and Japanese working life. When the conversation turns to Sweden, it suddenly becomes more difficult. Every description must then be surrounded by so many qualifications that nothing remains.

Calling something typical does not mean that it applies to everyone. We ought to understand that without an instruction manual.

Nine o’clock means nine

Punctuality is a simple example, also highlighted in the Swedish Institute’s description of working life in Sweden. If we have agreed on a time, that is when you arrive. My time is no more valuable than yours.

If I make ten people wait for fifteen minutes, I have used up two and a half hours of their combined time. Being late is not a charming personality trait. It means making others pay for my poor planning.

At work, then, we start the meeting at precisely nine. That we subsequently fail to make a decision is another Swedish tradition.

Everyone must be heard. Then we schedule another meeting

After many years in sales, I recognise the consensus mindset. The proposal must be discussed, anchored and checked. No one should feel overruled.

That can produce good decisions. It can also become a convenient way to avoid making them.

We schedule one meeting to discuss the issue, another to build support for it and a third to request more information. The next meeting becomes the only decision everyone can agree on.

Listening to everyone is wise. Giving everyone a veto is something else. Sometimes someone actually needs to decide.

Fika gets the job done

Then we go for fika. There, someone explains what the client really meant, a colleague suggests a solution and two departments start talking to each other.

In ten minutes, the coffee machine achieves what the steering committee failed to do in an hour. That says something about the value of fika—and something about the steering committee.

Freedom requires responsibility

One of the best parts of Swedish working life is the freedom to manage your area of responsibility. The Swedish Institute also highlights trust and independence. The boss does not need to approve every step. You are expected to think for yourself, take initiative and deliver.

That is worth defending. But anyone given authority must also use it. You cannot both demand freedom and hand the responsibility back as soon as a decision becomes uncomfortable.

Here lies our contradiction: great freedom to do the job, but sometimes an almost compulsive need for the group’s approval.

The meatballs need no defence speech

Meatballs with lingonberries, julmust, fika and shoes off in the hallway. Culture exists in everyday life, far from ceremonial speeches.

The fact that traditions have outside influences is no counterargument. The Nordic Museum’s description of Christmas shows how customs are woven together. A custom can become Swedish without every component having been invented here.

We do not need to apologise for liking what has become ours.

Without a headscarf—with the freedom to wear one

The Swedish Institute describes a largely secular everyday life with religious traditions. We celebrate Christmas and put up Advent stars without necessarily believing in God. Faith is often a private matter.

To me, it is typically Swedish for women not to wear headscarves—and to accept that others choose to wear them. The majority’s custom and the individual’s freedom can coexist. Accepting a choice does not require liking it yourself or sharing the conviction behind it.

But voluntariness is crucial. No one should be forced to wear a headscarf by her family or surroundings. The right to choose it must be accompanied by an equally obvious right to take it off.

You may believe in God, doubt or refrain from believing. Your conviction does not, however, give you the authority to decide how others should live.

Tolerance is not surrender

I want to safeguard a culture in which we keep time, take responsibility and let people decide over their own lives. That requires more than politely nodding at everything.

Coercion, threats and demands that others submit to someone’s faith must be resisted. Consideration must work both ways. We do not need to empty our own culture of meaning to show respect for someone else’s.

We can be open about what we appreciate, clear about what we require and self-critical enough to admit that not every issue needs another meeting.

The image is AI-generated.

What do you think is typically Swedish? Which customs would you like to keep—and which would we be better off letting go?