2 - Birth (And Life) of Ideas

Summary

In this chapter, we trace the journey from Tove Jansson's creations to a global art- based brand and growing business ecosystem. Moomin business is based on the conviction that taking care of people and showing respect and deference to them is crucial for retaining a resilient organization. This is not coincidental. The way Moomin operates today is based on the legacy of Tove Jansson and those around her.

It is impossible to pin down exactly when the Moomins were first conceived. And why should that matter anyway? The Moomin story goes on – or stories, in the plural. Stories develop and they change form. New stories are created, and old ones fade away. There are many versions of what happened when the Moomins began to travel the world. All storytellers tell their own version in a certain light and from a particular position.

Time plays a role in every story. The linear time structure of stories with a beginning, middle, and end draws from classic Aristotelian ideas. These can be used for retrospection and to draw on the past to make sense of the present and future.

Critical organization scholar David M. Boje alerts us to fluidity in the way different pasts and futures come together in temporal sensemaking of an emergent present. Boje argues that seemingly coherent narratives that are built on retrospective sensemaking serve to control and regulate. There are always alternative stories that we choose not to tell or let be told.

As human beings, we tend to impose a form of chronological order to happenings and events, and forge connections between them. We attempt to see stories unfold in, and over, time. We search for and discover plots that we find appealing. We do this although we know that life is complicated and messy, and not very ordered. It is often only with the benefit of hindsight that the plot emerges and the story finds its intended meaning.

Our narrative of Moomin involves many important characters – and we are not thinking about the Moomins themselves, but real people who have contributed to their success. We cannot pretend to do justice to all of them. We inescapably valorize some and downplay others.