09.The important mentors who made my Epileptic Journey possible. (Article 5 of the history of my epilepsy.)

Gösta Wiking

GW I first met in Spirella, where he appeared as a consultant before Berts different entrance. As a matter of curiosity I was a student friend in the evening high school with GW’s younger brother, whose spouse was friends with my spouse. With GW, I had very little contact then, and I mainly heard about him, when Bert later joined Perstorp reporting to GW as a manager.

Only when my Bonnier years suddenly ended so I happened GW, for a contact mediated by Bert, when he acted as the board responsible for a unit that strategically should be registered as a limited company and be disposed of. This project I ran in a discreet manner as miscellaneous manager during two years. Then we had a number of contacts, but not so many as they might have thought in the current unit, and here I got a first glimpse of GW. Then I worked three years in the Analytical and Biotec Division responsible for personnel and administration with Bert as CEO and GWs Chairman of the Board and got to experience their different directions with GW as the overall organizational visionary setting the demands and with Bert as president and down to earth market strategist. There were high ceilings and I have seen kindle discussions guided by the intensive acquisition pressure of those days which GW forwarded from the main board.

After three years, in the beginning of 1988, my neuroses and an offer from Perstorp (initiated by GW) happened to coalesce, and I moved for five years to Valencia in Spain, where Perstorp bought a laminate factory that was part of the Surface material Division. During these years, both when GW was a division manager and later became CEO of Perstorp AB, we had at a limited number of occasions intensive contact. GW released no grips, and informal occasions were temporally contingent. However, seen from my well being point of view, I felt comfortable with his formal style, which conveyed the support, I needed to handle difficult situations in a group with many repressed desires and opinions.

Even during my last five active years in Perstorp when I first worked for a division chief, who from neurotic point of view was at least my peer, I had a sense of security in the leadership that Bert and GW mediated by divisional and Group level, which enabled me to maintain my effectiveness, albeit at the cost of that I burned myself out. GW had assimilated and represented a highly developed system of philosophy on how leadership and management would be developed and implemented. The ORientation, PLAnning and PROgramming process which biannually was initiated from The Group Board meant a lot to how we conducted the work and for the security and development that it created. Although GW was very choosy with his latent emotional resources, I experienced a supportive leadership on his part. I tried to express it in a humorous and satirical couplet to him at an early stage. It should be valid yet. A taster:

Democratic, educated and gentle indeed

Sure, you know what is required to lead

Convertible bonds and other fringes

Threatened by Feldt, who taxes as he binges

Synergies, profit and strategic Grand Slam

Sure, you know what is required of a good No. 1

Like Wallenberg, PG and this kind of men

Our Lord has made you, but he’ll take you again.