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Marilyn Tam: Making a Social and Environmental Difference at Reebok
As president of Reebok's Apparel and Retail Products Group from 1990 through 1993, Tam distinguished herself through several remarkable achievements. She helped launch Weebok, the company's children's footwear and clothing division, and she significantly enhanced the prominence and strategic approach of the Greg Norman Golf Division. But her contributions went beyond solid business practices. She began to make the company think beyond its internal profit goals, fostering an awareness that businesses can improve by engaging and growing their employees more to bring the company together and make it stronger. Tam regularly implemented initiatives such as her "Breakfasts with Marilyn," in which her assistants would gather people from different divisions ostensibly to discuss issues with Tam, but also to meet and communicate with each other.
Primary Sources
Reebok -written by Chris Johnston
Growing up in Hong Kong, Marilyn Tam knew the abject poverty she observed around her wasn't right. She was especially disturbed by watching families struggle to earn enough money to clothe and feed their children. Today, she still recalls one schoolmate, Rebecca, who wouldn't give Tam her home address so she could send a Christmas card because she was so embarrassed about the cramped, one-room apartment where she lived, even though both parents worked hard.
"I had a pretty miserable childhood, but at least I got enough to eat," Tam recalls. "Rebecca's situation just made me realize the injustice of life. I also made a resolve that I was going to make a difference in the world, and that's what drove me through my whole career to make sure that I incorporate that component into everything I do."
Once she reached adulthood and entered her corporate career in the U.S., Tam did just that. She always knew there was much more to success than making a profit. Not that she isn't effective at making companies profitable, as she has proven in executive leadership roles for a number of world-class corporations, including Aveda, Nike, May Department Stores, and Britannia Sportswear. At each company, she quickly established herself as an accomplished strategist and productive leader.
As president of Reebok's Apparel and Retail Products Group from 1990 through 1993, Tam distinguished herself through several remarkable achievements. She helped launch Weebok, the company's children's footwear and clothing division, and she significantly enhanced the prominence and strategic approach of the Greg Norman Golf Division. But her contributions went beyond solid business practices. She began to make the company think beyond its internal profit goals, fostering an awareness that businesses can improve by engaging and growing their employees more to bring the company together and make it stronger. Tam regularly implemented initiatives such as her "Breakfasts with Marilyn," in which her assistants would gather people from different divisions ostensibly to discuss issues with Tam, but also to meet and communicate with each other.
"All of a sudden, all my divisions were talking to each other," Tam enthused in a 2002 interview. "They felt like they were making a difference and being heard. Talk about morale!"
Further, corporations also need to ensure that they make a social and environmental difference outside the confines of their companies. Indeed, Tam emphasized, businesses have a responsibility to make the world a better place wherever and whenever they can.
Drawing on her own unhappy experiences of working as a child laborer assembling plastic flowers and being paid .75 cents for 100 stems or embroidering the background for needlepoint handbags for $1 a piece, Tam made a difference by implementing a program to eliminate Reebok's use of offshore child labor.
In the early '90s, she guided Reebok in reexamining its relationships with soccer ball manufacturers in Pakistan, the world's leader in making this product. The problem, she deduced, was that young fingers could do the intricate stitching more easily, so Pakistan was employing children as the main workforce for this industry. The social concerns that resulted from this practice were many and far-reaching.
"As a company, we said, 'This is not a good thing,' " Tam relates. "Soccer was getting more and more popular, and these kids probably aren't going to school. Instead, they're stitching 14-16 hours per day, and they're probably not getting enough food."
Now, it would have been simple to just walk away in protest. But Tam knew that wouldn't change anything for the Pakistanis attached to those young fingers. Instead, Tam and Reebok worked with the manufacturers to replace the children with their parents. Of course, it wasn't quite that easy. First, there were no schools for the kids to attend, so if they didn't sew soccer balls, they would end up making bricks, which is a much more painful and potentially lethal occupation. The solution was threefold: First, Reebok set up training programs for the parents so they could make the soccer balls. Second, they worked to convince the parents to allow the children to go to school, if there was one. Third, the company helped identify schools, then train the teachers.
The Pakistani manufacturers eventually realized that making these changes was a better strategy for them, because by improving the working conditions and the quality of the goods, they experienced less defects, higher productivity and faster turnaround on production, according to Tam.
"This mission became an effort that was beneficial for everybody," Tam says, "and not just for some altruistic reasons, but business-wise it was also a smart move."
While the entire project took three years and was somewhat complicated, Tam firmly believes the results were worth the time invested. "Now we have soccer balls that are made by adults who are making a regular livelihood, with kids that go to school," she says. "We also have soccer balls for the United States."
As the global marketplace changes, Tam adds, consumers must continue to educate themselves on the organizational practices of the companies whose products they buy. Again, merely protesting rings hollow if consumers patronize store chains or companies that support slave labor or other unethical or environmentally hazardous practices at offshore manufacturing centers.
"People have to take personal responsibility and say, 'How is my life condoning or supporting things that espouse not to believe in,' " Tam said. "You're the only person you can change, nobody else."
In recognition of her exemplary humanitarian work, Tam was awarded The Reebok Human Rights Award. She also served for five years on the international board of the awards, along with former President Jimmy Carter, renowned musicians Peter Gabriel and Sting, and Kerry Kennedy Cuomo of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center. To extend similar efforts outside of Reebok, Tam is the founder and Executive Director of the Us Foundation, whose mission is to facilitate global action plans and dialogue to address social, economic and environmental issues.
Tam has no intention of letting up, either, since she doesn't see a significant change occurring in her lifetime that will make everyone live in true consideration of each other without someone reminding them to do so.
"Maybe my job is to facilitate people working together in a more graceful, happy way to see the benefits of collaborating and sharing," she concludes.
Further Reading
Marilyn Tam- Aveda
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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