October 23, 2008

With more than 200,000 business-to-business customers worldwide, ISS is one of the world's largest commercial providers of facility services. Headquartered in Denmark, the company has operations in 50 countries in Europe, Asia, North America, South America and Australia. Since 1996, ISS has benefited from learning and networking opportunities as a member of the IMD Corporate Learning Network.

In this latest installment of the IMD Corporate Learning Network Executive Spotlight, ISS CEO Jorgen Lindegaard discusses how learning takes place within his organization, among other topics.

What will be the greatest challenges in your industry over the next five years?

With the current financial crisis, there are obvious challenges ahead for many organizations, including ours. Fortunately for ISS, there will be demand for many of our services despite the downturn. Eighty percent of our portfolio is secure in 2009. We have been discussing the financial meltdown for some time, but it really hasn’t hit us yet. However, there could be a scale down in some of our services going forward. In addition, we will not be able to grow on acquisitions at the current rate or as in the past because of the turmoil in the markets and the cost of capital.

What are the essential skills that every great business leader must bring to an organization?

Leaders need to be able to understand all aspects of the business thoroughly, while not micro-managing. He or she must be able to work with teams and deal with organizational change as a part of daily responsibilities. Leaders need to educate their people to avoid non-performance. When people don’t perform it becomes contagious and results in non-performing teams.

In your estimation, what is the most common mistake business leaders make today?

The most common mistake I see is leaders taking decisions too late. There is the “hope scenario” that things will be better next month, next quarter or next year. Problems never go away by themselves. Leaders need to notice problems and address them immediately. If you are late, you have to make changes. Once the people involved with the problems are spotted, it is necessary to either provide these individuals with necessary education or make personnel changes.

How does learning take place within your organization?

We do lots of internal training because of our size. We try to get the most out of every dollar spent on education. The ISS University, which has been in existence since March 2001, is committed to assisting managers across the ISS Group in executing our strategy. New manager appointees are always sent to the ISS University within the first months in order to learn the “ISS Way” as soon as possible. Later there are a number of follow-up courses, and we also use the ISS University to host the so called Knowledge Forums, where people from the different lines of service meet and exchange best practice. The programs strengthen the integration of the many acquisitions and new hires into the ISS corporate culture and break down borders and cultural barriers through programs with participants from all over the world. This opens up for networking within the ISS Group where colleagues share their knowledge and best practices. We also send our top management teams to IMD for executive education. Being in Europe, IMD is a good match for us. It gives our top people the opportunity to get acquainted with IMD and develop themselves as leaders.

What are the main benefits and takeaways that your organization experiences as the result of being a part of the IMD Corporate Learning Network?

The IMD Corporate Learning Network gives us new approaches and perspectives about business. The main benefit for me is the networking opportunities that result from membership. IMD is a place to meet other CEOs from global companies, which allows me to get the word out about ISS. I am also able to learn about challenges other executives go through. This has been a good personal experience. As a CEO, my time is limited so I use this as my main source of education. I am in the process of building relationships with IMD Faculty and it is my hope that as our projects expand, we will be able to utilize IMD more and more.