If Norway were a business - what would the management have to do now?

In The country that became too rich, Martin Bech Holte describes how Norway has gradually lost momentum, not because we lack resources, but because they are used incorrectly. The interesting question for us who manage businesses is not whether the analysis is completely precise, but what we can learn from the pattern - and do differently.

Learning for business management

The core of the book is simple and unpleasant: Abundance removes pressure. When the pain threshold is never reached, the priorities are not met. In businesses, it often looks like this: Capital is allocated based on history and internal impact, not effect. Budgets grow, while output per employee falls. More initiatives are started than finished. "We have plenty of time" becomes a guiding principle. The result is rarely a crisis, but stagnation – such as at the national level.

Solution for businesses

Businesses that break this pattern do some fundamental things differently. They introduce artificial scarcity even when the account is full, and do not allow everything that is possible to live. They move resources based on effect, not intent. They manage by productivity and outcome rather than activity and headcount. And they adjust incentives so that long-term value creation is rewarded more than volume and visibility.

Here, AI can be a tool, but only when used correctly. Not as an individual productivity tool, but as support for better prioritization, more objective resource allocation and earlier warnings about what is actually not working. 88% of organizations will use AI in at least one function by 2025, according to McKinsey. Nevertheless, the gains are often not realized, because the technology is not built into the core processes.

The experiences from the study Generative AI for Business at BI have made one thing clear to me: AI transformation is about governance, not licences. IBM reports $4.5 billion in annual productivity gains from end-to-end process automation, not individual tools. In sales, this means, among other things, real-time analysis of deals, automated lead scoring, more precise pricing and forecasting that can actually be used for management. But this must be led from the top. AI is not an IT project, it is a core competence.

First 90 days – a practical start

If this were operationalized, I would start with a thorough review of where the money goes, what is rewarded in incentives, and whether the measurements say anything about real value creation. Then, resource allocation, KPIs and decision models must be designed for effect, not activity. Only in the last phase is it about consistent implementation, also when it means stopping initiatives that do not deliver.

The point is not to become more efficient.
The point is to restore discipline before it is imposed.

Norway did not become weaker because we lacked resources.
Businesses often fail for the same reason.