Melker Schörling, one of the founders of ASSA ABLOY, passed away on 8 December 2023 at age 76. Through his ownership and active engagement as member of the board between 1994-2008 his role in the Group’s success has been instrumental.

We published an interview with Melker Schörling in the book “The history of ASSA ABLOY” that came out in 2014 when ASSA ABLOY celebrated its 20th anniversary.

We would like to share it again here as a tribute to Melker Schörling.

In memoriam: Melker Schörling

“Don’t expect too much in advance; things never turn out quite as planned”

You could say that you kick-started ASSA’s journey when you took up residence in a corner of the factory with the smell of oil in your clothes and dissatisfied customers on the phone who tried to make themselves heard over the noise from the machinery. As the first operational CEO in 1988, what were your thoughts about the future back then?

It may not be suitable for printing, but I probably thought how the heck would we ever bring order to the chaos in the factory and make the customers happy? I learned a lot about making locks over the next six months and then Hans Johansson, who was CEO of Hillerstorp at the time, turned up and wanted to buy our hinge production unit. He did his best to convince me for a whole day, while I interviewed him about his knowledge of manufacturing. We went through the factory and he pointed to one insanity after the other and suggested improvements; you could say that I got a free lesson. The next day I told him, “Nope, no, you can’t buy any hinges. But you can be our CEO here!” And credit where credit is due, Hans Johansson did amazing things and managed to turn ASSA into a profit-making organization. My time there is dear to my heart; still today I enjoy taking the car past Eskilstuna and looking around. I get a real kick out of experiencing memories in light of what the Group is today.

You found a great solution, thanks to a great CEO. Finding talented CEOs has become something of your personal theme in your own entrepreneurship and at ASSA ABLOY. Tell us what makes a good CEO, with ASSA ABLOY in mind.

First, I’d like to say that my role at ASSA ABLOY was a bit unique from the beginning. Chairman Georg Ehrnrooth wanted someone who was close to him and who was familiar with the Swedish environment, so I became Vice Chairman. This gave me a fairly active position in the governance of the Group, together with Georg and Carl-Henric Svanberg. Of course, a good CEO will have a good resumé; in other words, relevant knowledge and experience. Direct experience of locks and doors may not be necessary, but industrial and international experience, as well as skills from running large and complex organizations with more or less complete value chains from raw material to customer are mandatory.

That description sounds as though it was lifted from any management book at all. What’s your trick?

The resumé and experience are not enough in themselves. It has to be “a good guy,” as I sometimes like to say. A person can compensate for a less than stellar resumé with personal characteristics. But you can’t compensate for personality deficiencies with a good resumé. I have to have a gut feeling that the person is right for the job.

Your main co-owner Gustaf Douglas expresses himself in much the same way, and it really doesn’t sound very defining for such an important position. Why is it so hard to be more specific?

Of course, we’ve always had a rigorous selection process with recruiting professionals that may go on for months. But in the moment of truth, it is still gut feelings that determine whether someone is right for the job. I admit that I find it difficult to put into words, but it’s about understanding a person’s ethics, if I may use such an old-fashioned concept. I just need to feel confident that the person has the desire and the power to provide others with energy for many, many years to come and to tell the truth. Always. Beyond good basic skills, it’s about energy and telling the truth. Otherwise, it won’t work.

What does the concept “truth” mean for ASSA ABLOY from an owner’s perspective?

Enterprises can have different values and different emphases on what is important within the culture at different stages. It’s easy to forget that ASSA ABLOY, given its size and the industry, is a very young company. What we have built up and achieved may have taken others 100 years or more. From that perspective, truth is a concept that has guided us in the construction and development of reporting systems and relationships between people from different cultures, as well as economic and legal systems. When you build from the foundation up, and do so quickly, the margins for erroneous decisions are much narrower. In the search for solutions to our problems, we want to define the situation as it really is as quickly as possible. That’s why we continue to emphasize the truth. It lays a foundation of trust, allowing us to make decisions much faster.

And what do you mean by energy?

That’s what is commonly meant when you say that someone has drive. In my opinion, it’s hard to imagine a job that is more difficult and more stimulating than being the CEO of a major company. In one sense, you have to know everything: you have to be a salesperson, and know distribution, production, engineering, technology, innovation, law, economics, and finance. Not the details, but you have to be able to ask the experts the right questions at all times. But the real key is the ability to lead people, to infuse them with the energy they need to go the extra mile every day. Such leadership skill involves never being depressed or discouraged when things don’t go your way. Because then your employees will also lose their drive. You really have to show, day in and day out, that we can do this; as the CEO, you have to believe in what you do and that most problems have solutions.

Would you have wanted to be CEO of ASSA ABLOY?

I’m really not sure I could have pulled it off!

When you became a major shareholder in ASSA ABLOY at the time of the merger in 1994, what were your personal expectations and thoughts about the future? Was “biggest in the world” on your map?

It may sound presumptuous to say so, now that we know how things turned out, that … of course, I saw the potential that we could become the world leader. After all, I had been CEO of Securitas, where I initiated an international expansion strategy through acquisitions and gained an understanding of just how far a company can go. The circumstances surrounding the lock industry were extremely suitable for expansion through acquisitions.

While this strategy may be the downfall of many companies, if we could just stick together as a Group with shared values, continual learning, and appropriate incentives for shareholding, it could work. As it turned out, the strategy worked better than anyone ever could have imagined at the time, because we had such a fantastic return on our streamlining initiatives in production. That provided the cash flow to strengthen our finances so we could grow with stability and at reasonably low risk.

Have you ever considered selling your shares in ASSA ABLOY?

No, never..

There is so much to do! It is clear that technical solutions based on digital technology have much to offer anything related to door opening for a long time to come. ASSA ABLOY has already assumed leadership there. But we won’t bind ourselves up through strict planning for the future. Our competitive strength also lies in our ability to respond to the uncertainty of the future with speed and agility. What was it she said … Kristina from Duvemåla … “Don’t expect too much in advance; things never turn out quite as planned.”