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VOLUME 26
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Welcome to Volume 26 of The Mark of a Leader Ezine. It is with great sorrow that we heard last week of the death of Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, environmentalist, social crusader and entrepreneur with a conscience. Anita started what I believe will be the pattern for 21st century corporations - companies who are committed not only to shareholder returns but to leaving a managed footprint on the earth and on the societies in which they operate. She called it simply "Profit with Principle". In this month's E-zine we are updating a story we published 2½ years ago about Anita, in her memory. The world needs more leaders like her. We lost a champion. Yours in leadership
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FEATURE
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QUOTABLE QUOTES Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child as it is to the caterpillar. Bradley Miller The real opportunity for success lies within the person and not the job. Zig Ziglar |
ANITA RODDICK - VIGILANTE CONSUMER
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. What do you stand for? Tough question for many people and businesses to answer. If you asked the question of the world's biggest retailers, the answers would typically be pretty predictable:
How about this one: "Profit with Principle". From those three words sprang one of the greatest retail phenomena of the 20th century. Today, the environment is all the rage in business. With fever pitched awareness on global warming and ecological sustainability, even Wal-Mart has made the environment part of their business plan. In fact, Wal-Mart has arguably gambled their future on whether they can pull off their ambitious plans for sustainability. But back in the 1970s, virtually no one was talking about these issues - or at least not on a large scale. And certainly not as part of the core of a business. 
Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, was a rebel, as a young girl and later as a businesswoman. She took off in her youth to travel the world, and her life was changed by what she saw in the cultures far from her native England. In 1976, back home, married with children and with a husband who was traveling, she needed an income. So she decided to open a business. It began humbly in a small shop beside a funeral parlor in Brighton (an ironic location for a company called The Body Shop!). But it turned into the standard-bearer for a new breed of business. The shop sold handmade products in urine sample bottles because she could not afford better packaging. Anita had also been taught re-usability by her frugal mother who had grown up in wartime. Cost-containment prompted her to ask customers to bring the bottles back for refilling, which brought repeat business and ultimately, a new conscience in retailing. If you do things well, do them better. Be daring, be first, be different, be just. |
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DID YOU KNOW? Genghis Khan started out life as a goatherd. Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, was born on a day in 1835 when Haley's Comet came into view. When he died in 1910, Haley's Comet came into view again. Leonardo Da Vinci invented scissors. |
Her products were inspired by those she had seen being used by indigenous people around the world. Unlike most "beauty" shops, she made no promises of erasing years off a woman's face. Instead, The Body Shop offered "A two-for-one sale no other cosmetic company could ever hope to match: buy a bottle of 'natural' lotion and get social justice for free". Soon, Roddick's refusal to test products on animals changed the game of corporate responsibility. Once the product of a PR department, The Body Shop's 'profit with principle' belief defined the brand and set it apart from all other retailers. Consumers with a social and environmental conscience bought Body Shop - period. 
Political Awareness and Activism must be woven into the fabric of business. To do otherwise is to be not merely an ostrich, but criminally irresponsible. Anita's passion and penchant for publicity instead of advertising built the reputation, and franchising allowed the chain to grow - fast. That's all the more remarkable because Roddick was outspokenly critical of the business world for its emphasis on wealth over job creation. She denounced as shallow and unimportant the beauty and cosmetics industry that was making her rich. |
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QUOTABLE QUOTES The ability to triumph begins with you - always. Oprah Winfrey |
In the mid-1990s, critics savaged her for alleged hypocrisy, charging that her principles- before- profits stance was just a marketing ploy. But Roddick fought back, and proved her critics wrong. She, and her business, were the real thing - something new, fresh, and meaningful in the narcissistic cosmetics industry. While chains like Wal-Mart were growing by hammering down the price of goods from their suppliers - to the point of driving them bankrupt - The Body Shop showed that consumers would pay for "fair trade" and social conscience. How prescient that turned out to be! 
Today, The Body Shop is over 2000 stores in 52 markets serving over 75 million customers. Anita sold her company to L'Oreal in 2006 and, with her husband, moved on to a life of social and political activism. They became global leaders of the "vigilante consumerism" movement, encouraging anyone who would listen to force businesses to be socially and environmentally responsible. They also fought to bring the fate of exploited third world workers to the public conscience to try to change the evolution of the global workforce. Today, as the venerable Mattel is fighting for its brand life due to lead paint issues from uncontrolled quality in Chinese factories, Roddick is once again being proven right. 
So what is the Mark of Anita Roddick as a leader?
Well, she set a benchmark for women entrepreneurs around the world. Starting with literally nothing, she built a business empire. Ironically, she did it in a business dominated by women like Mary Kay Ash and Estee Lauder - while taking a totally different stance than her competitors. She was made a "Dame" of the British Empire as a result. 
But as a woman decades ahead of her time, she showed us all that you can mix shrewd business and social conscience. Profit and Principle are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I would argue that as the 21st century evolves, a corporation's position on the environment, on sustainability, and on how it treats all of the people in its business chain, will have a direct impact on its value as a business. It will directly impact the share price. Starbucks, amongst others, is showing that consumers will pay for a quality product with a conscience, to the shareholders' benefit. It takes pioneers with a powerful vision and courage to blaze new trails. Anita Roddick was one of these. Hopefully she was a pebble that started a wave in an ocean, because all of our children will live with the outcome. 
A moment of respectful silence for Dame Anita Roddick, one of the greatest vigilante businesswomen of the 20th century. If you think you are too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito. |
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To find out more about how The Mark of a Leader will create a sensation at your next conference, please visit our website at www.themarkofaleader.com Copyright 2007 Mark of a Leader |
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