What comes to mind when you step into IKEA? Workers in loud yellow and navy shirts. Colours and patterns that clash in the average home, and useless accessories that have funny curves. Not to mention a labyrinth of displays when all you want is the bits and bobs at the end.
IKEA could stand for I Kan’t Endure Another maze or Iritating Kaleidoscope of Ergonomic Accessories, but really it is the initials of its founder Ingvar Kamprad and the farm he was born in Elmtaryd and a nearby village Agurriaryd.
How do I know that? My dear hub use to manage the top floor at IKEA, Richmond, in his period of retail management. My house is full of flatpack furniture from the days when staff got a damaged box for $10 and I’ve even read most of Ingvar’s Book, Leading by Design: The IKEA Story.
Bertil Torekull, a Swedish journalist, interviews Ingvar to gain some personal depth in the book. Ingvar, a Swedish furniture retailer started selling matchboxes from his bike as a five year old, moved on to fish, Christmas decorations, seeds and ballpoint pens. He then became involved in furniture and grew IKEA into a global company with over 41,000 workers in 150 stores in 30 countries with a global turnover of $6.25 billion in goods.
Ingvar had a dalliance with past Hitler supporters and neo fascist political groups in Sweden and in this book he described it as “the greatest mistake of my life.”
The book gives you a good grasp of his philosophies and the highs and lows of business. He must be doing something right because today IKEA was booming (almost unbearably for my friend and I on our annual pilgrimage for Christmas decorations and useless bits and bobs.)
With his billions, Ingvar lives in a modest home with (you guessed it) IKEA flatpack furniture and accessories. He flies with Easy Jet, drives his 15 year old Volvo and shops around for a cheap haircut. Cheap but solid – just like his furniture.
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