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Marilyn Tam: Positive Change at Aveda
Tam's vision has impacted many facets of her approach to business, from how she treats her employees to choosing production opportunities that nurture the environment and the local community. One of her favorite examples of positive change occurred while she guided the cosmetics upstart company Aveda as CEO from 1994 through 1996. For starters, Tam built Aveda on the environmentally enlightened principle that only organic, plant-based products would serve as the ingredients to create healthy cosmetics that also incorporate aromatherapy and natural moisturizers.
Primary Sources
Aveda -written by Chris Johnston
Making a positive difference that benefits others has been Marilyn Tam's mission throughout her life and distinguished career that includes executive leadership roles at major corporations such as Aveda, Reebok and Nike. She has gone on to earn a strong reputation as a speaker, consultant, author and philanthropist. Her mantra, however, has never wavered as she has evolved as a business leader.
"I never changed from what's most meaningful to me," says Tam, who credits early negative experiences with poverty and child labor while growing up in Hong Kong as the inspiration for her desire to take a positive approach to life. "Making a big difference in the world in a positive way has been the driving force regardless of my particular job or career or position. I know my goal, so that makes decisions easier, because those things that don't serve my vision are not even a consideration."
Tam's vision has impacted many facets of her approach to business, from how she treats her employees to choosing production opportunities that nurture the environment and the local community. One of her favorite examples of positive change occurred while she guided the cosmetics upstart company Aveda as CEO from 1994 through 1996. For starters, Tam built Aveda on the environmentally enlightened principle that only organic, plant-based products would serve as the ingredients to create healthy cosmetics that also incorporate aromatherapy and natural moisturizers. At one point, while searching for a natural red dye for lipsticks and other products that would replace the need for a synthetic alternative such as the mostly reviled Red Dye #3, Aveda researchers identified a plant, Uruku, which flourished in the Amazon jungle.
Not only did this plant meet Aveda's stringent ingredients requirements, but it also served a larger, social purpose as a sustainable crop for a substantially decimated area of the Amazon. For decades, the land had been recklessly pillaged, with sizable portions of the rain forest clear cut, burned and cleared to raise cattle and for rubber tree farming. Tam realized that, because our society no longer needed as much hamburger meat or rubber, the indigenous people of the region lost two of their primary means of subsistence since they no longer could work and eat in the jungle, as well as two key revenue sources.
Rather than try to introduce a foreign plant, Aveda initiated a process of working with the people to understand how the company could use the natural materials in that region, then teach the people how to grow and harvest that crop. "We wanted to find something that they would understand and use as a product themselves to give them a sustainable livelihood," Tam explains. "It's also sustainable in terms of environment because it's harmonious with their area."
Aveda's research and development team discovered the Uruku plant when they asked what other crops grew in the region. The company's horticultural experts then trained the indigenous people in the best ways to grow the crop, which they also use for their own cosmetics and wall paint. The positive results are many, from the new form of subsistence for the people to the organic, healthy product for the consumer.
"Uruku is a natural product that indigenous people have been using for centuries for their own use, and it works," Tam says. "It also provides a way for these people who have been displaced by Western culture to gain back a livelihood within their own cultural context and not destroy any more forest, so ultimately it's very, very positive."
Essentially, Tam's philosophy of success works in multiple ways. First, successful products register on three levels: One, they must look good and furnish the customer with what they are expecting. Two, effective products do more than make a person look good; they must also reach a deeper level and make the person feel good inside because they are made from healthy, organic-based materials. Third, by doing good in the world through sound environmental and social practices, these products will also make the customer feel good philosophically, spiritually and emotionally.
Of course, the production process must be positive for the employees, and the company must be supportive of them, as well. In a successful company, Tam believes, employees are empowered with a feeling of ownership in the business, which means they are encouraged to make quality decisions if they see something along the production line that they deem substandard, for example. To remain successful, the daily operations and company environment must instill all employees with a sense of pride in their work so they fully embrace what they are doing.
Tam also accentuates the role in a successful enterprise of following and fostering the Golden Rule. By honoring others inside and outside the company and by doing business in a way that honors everyone involved, including local communities, a company can truly ensure that it will make a positive difference that benefits others.
"If we just upgrade from the Golden Rule, which is found in every religion, we'd be in great shape everywhere," Tam concludes. "Life is really very simple, because the Golden Rule is not some complex, profound proclamation that comes down from the sky. We all know it at some level. We just need to live it."
Today, Tam says, her mission and vision continue to emphasize sharing her experiences so that other companies and organizations will adopt similar enlightened strategies. Additionally, she promotes the exchange of ideas among a wide variety of corporations, institutions and individuals via international conferences such as the Universal Forum of Culture, which focused on sustainable development, cultural diversity and conditions for peace. The conference was held in Barcelona throughout a several month period from May to September in 2004.
Currently, Tam is promoting responsive enterprise as a corporate consultant, speaker and the executive director and co-founder of Us Foundation. She is also the author of How to Use What You Have to Get What You Want, and she is working on a new book about socially responsive endeavors that she hopes to have published in 2005.
"This is a process that's going to take a collective effort," she says. "It's not just one company doing it. It's going to take every company that is doing work and also every consumer demanding the same thing, because ultimately it's the consumers that rule. If we don't vote with our dollars, these improvements aren't going to happen."
Further Reading
Marilyn Tam- Reebok
Tam- How to Use What You've Got to Get What You Want
Acknowledgements
Writer: Chris Johnston
© 2004 World Benefit Productions, All Rights Reserved
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