Featuring Rolf Lundgren and Ulf Lindberg
History of Requisite Organization in Sweden
There are a number of persons who, by themselves, have found Elliott's works and tried to apply the concepts. There are also companies belonging to international groups using RO concepts. But here are two people who stand out in particular: Rolf Lundgren and Ulf Lindberg.
Rolf Lundgren
Rolf is a psychologist and began his career at MGruppen as a recruitment consultant. After some time he became disenchanted with traditional selection instruments. In 1987 he came into contact with Leif Carlstedt of the Swedish defense research authority, who had developed an interest in RO. Leif introduced Rolf to Niels Busch-Jensen, a psychologist with the Danish defense forces. After meeting Rolf, Niels wrote a letter of recommendation to Gillian Stamp. This led to Rolf receiving CPA-training under the tutelage of Niels.
Before competing his CPA, Rolf moved to management consultants Svennerstal & Partners in 1989. S&P had a customer base consisting of many large Swedish corporations. Hakan Svennerstal and eventually two other consultants were also trained as CPA practitioners. S&P carried out management audits in several of their large client companies, involving 100-150 managers. They also worked with the Swedish defense forces and carried out CPAs among the most senior officers.
Some years later Rolf and one of his colleagues joined Impact, another management consultancy focused on change management and implementation. Impact had previously carried out internal training based on general systems theory and Stafford Beer's viable systems model and sent consultants to external courses based on systemic theory. After Rolf joined, several internal seminars on RO were held, one of them led by Gillian Stamp. Two consultants began their CPA practitioner training and one completed. At Impact, CPA became a major service, also used as a lever to introduce RO-based thinking at clients. Several organizational audits were carried out, using RO as theory base.
In 1995 Rolf left to work as an independent consultant. Some months afterwards most other consultants also left and maintained their personal networks, working with each other. One major leadership program involving 250 managers was designed using RO principles. Under the leadership of Rolf some colleagues took part in BIOSS CPA practitioners conferences. Rolf also maintained contact with Warren Kinston, formerly with BIOSS and his partner Verity Goiten and arranged for meetings and seminars with other colleagues. After a period at PWC/IBM Consulting, Rolf is now in charge of strategic HR Issues at the Swedish Road Authority, using RO framework for strategic assessment.
Early 2006 Bioss Scandinavia was formed, reuniting many of those who have worked with Bioss concepts over the years in both Sweden and Denmark. Paul Holmstrom is the first director of the institute. The purpose of the institute is to spread knowledge through seminars and conferences, train new practitioners and to serve as a marketing platform.
Ulf Lindberg
Ulf Lindberg was on the management team of the North American daughter of a Swedish Company. Amid turbulence he was recommended by a consultant to listen to Elliott Jaques to understand the roots of the problem. He and Robert Rutili attended a seminar and had a personal workshop with Elliott. Ulf moved back to Sweden and set up the Enhancer Consulting in 1988 to work with RO-related issues, together with Robert. Elliott was part owner in Enhancer and honorary member of the board. Ulf arranged for several visits of Elliott to Sweden, the first time in 1998, when an open seminar was held. Enhancer has carried out management audits in over 100 companies, from small startups to very large.
