Mr Green CEO Per Norman on instilling company values

Mr Green is a company that prides itself on being “a cut above” its rivals, particularly in regards to its company culture.

Below, the firm’s CEO Per Norman explains how the company tries to instil a gentleman attitude into its staff, and how that attitude helps gives the firm an edge in a fiercely competitive market.

EGR Intel: How would you describe Mr Green’s culture and values?
Per Norman (PN): We have four values and the first one is to ‘always be a gentleman’, the second is to ‘be entertaining and unexpected’, the third one is ‘the green way’ – which for us is kind of a headline for green gaming, but also the way we are doing business and how we treat employees. It’s more like an umbrella for the whole CSR part. That is the most important part. The last value is ‘a cut above the rest’, to strive to do our best and exceed expectations.

One of Mr Green’s core values to ‘always be a gentleman’

They are all different, and the gentleman part is about treating each other with respect and honesty, the entertainment value is very much how we want to be seen. We do things which are unexpected and a bit outside the box and the green way is the sustainability part of it. A cut above the rest is more like a mentality that we should exceed expectations and do our best. Some of the values are more looking at you as a person, others look at the company and what we stand for, and others tell us how to behave between ourselves but also how we should behave with customers, suppliers, the media, etc.

EGR Intel: How do you maintain your values across the different offices and brands?
PN: I think there are two parts to this, especially in this sector where you see a lot of businesses grow from small entrepreneurial companies to, in our case, a mid-sized company. That transition is by itself something which is important to monitor for how you keep up the culture.

Mr Green started 10 years ago. In the beginning everyone sat in the same room and knew what was going on and you didn’t have to have an information channel between everyone because everyone was involved. That is one challenge when you are growing and suddenly you aren’t 10 people, you’re 200+. How do you keep the culture then?

For me one key thing is to have strong values and to repeat what these values are about. Also coming back to the punchline of ‘being a gentleman’ or whatever the value is and trying to exemplify what that means for everyone in the company. I think that to have values which are strong and which you try not to change often, but exemplify, is very important.

EGR Intel: How does having so many different nationalities and cultures within one company add to the overall company culture?
PN: I think it brings a lot of value. Firstly because it is easy to think of Mr Green as a Nordic or Swedish-centric company, however, we are in 12 markets and Sweden is not our biggest market. So it is important, especially for our Swedish employees, to realise that having these cultures brings a lot of value to entering new markets and different customers in these markets have different preferences. We still need to have the local tonality in the messaging and talking to customers in each location.

EGR Intel: How do you ensure Mr Green feels like one company when you are spread geographically?
PN: We try to get together and do things locally in each location. Currently we are in Sweden and Malta and so the Swedish team is having their midsummer party next week, but we try to get the whole company together once a year to have a boot camp and everyone meets everyone, and that is typically the time when values should be discussed.

Mr Green CEO, Per Norman

Last year we started ‘The Star Programme’ which is a management training scheme where we mix managers from different locations, and they go through a three-step training programme. That is to also build the culture throughout the organisations, starting with the most important ones, i.e. middle management.

Usually the top management meet each other in different locations, but if you don‘t align with middle management, which are the ones actually taking day-to-day decisions and talking to the teams, that’s where you really should put your emphasis in training. That’s not just training methodology or company values but it’s also training to meet the other management and build relations so it’s easy to pick up the phone and solve things. I think that’s a very important part of securing the culture and the values within the organisation.

EGR Intel: How do you instil your values?
PN: You can never repeat them too often. It’s part of introduction and management training, and I want it to be part of employee reviews, to show examples of where the values have been part of important decisions you’ve made. We strongly believe that a value-driven company is important but of course there are always more things we could do to ensure everyone understands this and it’s something that helps them in their daily work.

EGR Intel: Is it possible for a business to succeed without these values?
PN: I think it’s much harder, having strong values is important for keeping people, and it’s getting much more important among millennials and recruiting expertise. Finally, company values are important when taking business decisions since they provide essential guidelines.