We listen where it happens: Shared messages from this year’s stages — and what they mean for goals, OKRs, and execution
Everyone talks about change-readiness, decisiveness, and execution. The question is: what are leaders actually doing about the threats and opportunities coming at us? At Dobee, we regularly attend professional gatherings to understand the big picture, the megatrends, and the metadata shaping everyday life. We do it to learn faster on behalf of our customers — and to translate insight into better goal management, clearer priorities, and more engaging execution.
2025 has had a clear throughline across conferences and industries: trust and hands-on leadership, real cross-functional collaboration, culture that creates tempo, numbers that tell stories, commitment to goals — and a hunger to innovate together.
These themes echoed from the Great Place To Work awards and Strategidagen Handlekraft, via Power of Sharing and Arendalsuka, to Oslo Business Forum: The Big Shift.
Same core, different stages
Across the all of these stages, several common messages kept returning. We want to share the core insights we brought with us after this eventful year:
- Trust-based leadership and close leadership
Findings from the European Workforce Study (Tron Kleivane) confirm gaps between intention and practice. Hands-on, close leadership and clear accountability work - From “cooperate” to true “collaborate”
Working together around shared goals beats silo thinking every time (Espen Rostrup Nakstad). It demands commitment — across functions, levels, and value chains. - Numbers that tell stories
NAV’s Ulf Andersen paired demographic facts with optimism: we need to reduce absenteeism, include more people, and stay in work a little longer. Data must become action. - Ambition + commitment
Thorir Hergeirsson showed what a culture of commitment can achieve: “Each of us is a drop — together we’re a river.” - Action now
Strategidagen highlighted concrete stories from OBOS, Widerøe/Spenn!, Avinor, Sjømat Norge and more: when alarm bells ring, strategy must be translated into prioritized goals and actions — not new slide decks. - Open innovation and partnerships
Norway lags Europe in leveraging open innovation. Startups + established companies = speed, if we work together smarter. - Pride in practice
The GPTW honorary awards inspired: Håvard Kvarme (Aker Solutions, Stord), Kenneth Brendjord, and Maiken Furre showed why inclusion and collaboration create lasting impact. - Human-centered leadership
At OBF we were reminded:
❤️🔥 Marcus Buckingham — Love is the most powerful force in business.
🤹 April Rinne — Use the FLUX mindset to find opportunities in uncertainty.
🔮 Pippa Malmgren — Big issues require better imagination.
🕖 Aksel Lund Svindal — Trust your team, share all the good data — and don’t forget the seven-o’clock dinner.
💪 Diana Kander — Never goal alone! Who can help?
Why this matters now
The pace of change won’t slow down. What will distinguish tomorrow’s winners is the ability to translate strategy into movement—week by week. Culture = speed: visibility, feedback, and recognition create momentum and keep focus through change.
✨ From a Dobee standpoint: It feels right to embrace uncertainty, boost imagination, turn opportunities into clear Objectives and Key Results, trust your team, use numbers to tell stories, and bring real love to how we make change happen.
