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Rethinking Business at Unilever
All indicators point to the fact that Unilever's aligning of human and financial resources with the larger needs of humanity has had a transformative, positive impact on its organization. Unique insight from Tex Gunning, president of Unilever, and his managers regarding volunteering in the tsunami relief effort in Sri Lanka and with an ashram in India gives an inside look into the benefits to business and the world when business partners with the global community in a positive way.
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Primary Sources
Unilever -written by Kathy Hazelton
"You cannot force human beings in a sustainable manner to adjust themselves to the tyranny of organizational logic, you can only let the organization adjust itself to the universal needs of all human beings. They want to live meaningful lives... and they want to be part of an organization that helps them contribute to something that is far bigger than they could ever be on their own."
These words of Tex Gunning, President of Unilever Bestfoods Asia, are borne of experience, not ivory-tower philosophizing. Since 1997, Gunning has committed groups of senior managers to experiences and causes that take them well beyond the boundaries of what has traditionally been considered the interest of business.
There are indications, however, that aligning Unilever's human and financial resources with the larger needs of humanity has had a transformative, positive impact on the organization. Comments from those returning from two recent experiences in Sri Lanka and India provide some insight into why and how this has happened.
Tsunami Relief Effort
Following the tsunami in the Indian Ocean in late December 2004, Gunning and over two hundred Unilever managers from seventeen Asian countries flew to Sri Lanka. Driving along the coast, they saw the endless wreckage of homes, boats, trains, and cleared land in this country where over 40,000 had died and hundreds of thousands had lost livelihoods and homes.
The Unilever group set out to help clean up an area of destroyed shops and two destroyed schools, one where 80 children and four teachers had been killed. They also aided people in a relief tent camp and numerous individual families.
As Gunning wrote later to those who had shared the experience with him, "while we slogged in the unbearable heat and humidity, building new community centres, school buildings, kitchens, and more, we were at the same time, and more importantly, connecting with the people. Holding hands, we looked into pained eyes, we listened to the most horrific personal stories of lost loved ones and lost livelihoods, and we witnessed the unbelievable physical devastation.
"We shed tears of pain, hope, and love. We shed even more tears when we realized that by simply sharing our spirit with them we were making an incredible difference not only to their lives but also to ours. It continues to surprise me what care and service for others can do to help me discover my own love and how it humanizes us all."
Speaking of their first tentative interactions with the Sri Lankans, he wrote "Most local people were bystanders, watching without any spark in their eyes and without the energy to give a helping hand in their own recovery. But when we started sharing stories... , when we listened deeply to their fears and hopes... , we suddenly connected. And when we sang songs and danced with the children of the communities, we knew that there was hope for a better future." Pondering the source of the profound experience he had there, Tex wrote, "I still cannot find words to express why it was so unbelievable, but I know it had to do with a groundswell of love, spirit, and feeling connected to something bigger than myself."
Those participating in another experience sponsored by Gunning shared similar sentiments.
Service at the Sewa Ashram, Nacela, India
For some time, groups of managers of Unilever India have been doing "rural stints" to connect with communities and consumers. Recently, the foods business unit chose to do its stint at the Sewa Ashram ("House of Service") in Nacela, India. This is a community that shelters what one manager calls a "sea of humanity" that would otherwise be left to die on the streets of a variety of life-threatening maladies and conditions, including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and drug addiction.
The ashram is run by a Dutch national named Ton Snellaert, a former hard-core drug addict himself for 17 years, now helping people that others had given up on. Working with Snellaert are a group of selfless volunteers most of whom Snellaert (known as "Ton Baba" to the residents) had helped nurse back to health.
One manager, an Indian national, initially reacted with aversion when he entered the ashram and encountered the "wheezing and coughing sacks of bones barely recognizable as human beings." Shortly afterwards, on meeting the humble Ton Baba who greeted him with the palms-together gesture of namaskar, this manager was "hit in the face" with the realization that "here was a man from a foreign country serving the people in need of my nation, shouldering a 'burden' that I, as a part of the society and nation called India had put on the streets." After four weeks serving the people of the ashram and sharing their meals, prayers, and music-filled evening gatherings, this manager reflected on wonders he had seen, like the young man without a hand learning to write with his foot. Later, back at his job, he reflected on the experience: "This place has made me hold my breath in awe." He described his experience as the "best education in faith that someone could have ever given me."
What Motivates Gunning?
What led Gunning to organize these experiences for his top 200 executives, melding business with community responsibilities? Is he a savvy businessman sending managers to research new markets and doing a little pro bono work on the side? A shoeless guru mystic who somehow took a wrong turn and ended up at the top of one of the world's largest corporations?
Neither. Gunning is a successful businessman who has followed instincts and insights that tell him that the professional and the personal need to be in harmony, that people want to live in service and care for others, that they want the freedom and space to be creative, and that enabling these things to happen rewards the organization that facilitates them. Incorporating these practices in a company of Unilever's breadth and depth, Gunning feels, makes growth a certainty. It also makes life and work a whole lot more meaningful.
Gunning instituted his unusual management practices following a transformative moment in his career. "I was 45 years old and unfortunately had to eliminate the jobs of 800 people in a small city in the south of the Netherlands. Prior to that, in Australia, I had had to let 250 people go. These moves were part of a necessary restructuring, but left me feeling empty. I felt that what I was doing was going nowhere. I felt I must either leave industry altogether or find a way to do something positive. If I was going to stay, I wanted to have fun. I wanted to grow a business and I wanted to help my business become a true community."
Although he had been brought into Unilever Netherlands (Van den Bergh) to implement a restructuring and layoffs, Gunning convinced his senior managers to join him in a campaign to grow the business instead. They made a pact to stay together until they had, in fact, grown the business. This was contrary to common business practice of moving people from division to division every two or three years.
"Whilst we had to focus on the hardnosed strategic agenda," says Tex, "we started to build a high sense of community into all corners of the business. And the more we emphasized community building, the more we saw 'miracles' happening. We started to grow, we started to develop great advertising that was winning all kinds of awards and we became incredibly productive."
Business Benefits
Does good luck or good karma account for Unilever's success?
Tex Gunning is confident that community building and community service are good business, for a number of reasons:
First, people want and need to be part of an effort or organization with a "meaningful spirit" - a spirit that comes from care and service for others, deep sharing, and a sense of belonging and interconnectedness. As one of Gunning's managers, Farman Nizar puts it, "a company's mission must shift away from marketing products for a specific need to rendering tangible or intangible services to change people's lives and make a difference to them, symbolizing genuine corporate responsibility. We, and our businesses, must begin to live by our conscience." Or, as Gunning puts it, if a company defines itself only in an economic way, it will have little resonance with employees and customers. In Unilever's case, the cause is to bring hygiene, nutrition, and health to the world. "Our purpose is to add vitality to life and make this world a better place with our behavior and our brands. We believe we can be more effective serving our purpose, and be socially relevant, when we have the financial wherewithal. "Profit and shareholder value is part of our lives, but so is social responsibility".
For a company that makes cars, the meaningful cause may be to deliver transport to people everywhere so that all people, even in remote areas, can get to the doctor. Or it may be to implement an environmental agenda. "Companies must redefine themselves in a humanistic manner or end up in the death cycle of restructuring and cost cutting," Gunning is convinced. "If you define yourself only in an economic way, your business is not sustainable."
When people have a cause that has real meaning, they can be inspired to a virtually unconditional level of commitment. In Sri Lanka, Gunning explains, as people shared stories and listened to each other's fears and hopes, a sense of community grew. And with that sense of community came "sudden energy, willpower and strength. In a day, we removed tsunami debris that could not be removed for two months; in two days we built new community centres, school classes, kitchens, shops, and toilets." That kind of commitment and productivity carries over to the workplace. "People will self-organize and do whatever it takes" to reach a goal if they are part of a community focused on a cause with real meaning."
When colleagues serve others side by side, they learn to listen better and put their egos aside more readily. This transfers to the workplace with powerful results. Rebuilding a school in Sri Lanka where 60 children have just died or cleaning up sick people in the ashram, individuals can't help but drop their masks. "Somehow it humanizes all of us," says Tex. "And one of our problems as workers, especially as we advance in positions of leadership, is that our egos get bigger and bigger, we suppress our human sides, and we don't listen to people - employees, customers, and others - whose needs and opinions should shape our business agenda. Face to face with great need, a person is compelled to listen deeply to the one in need.
The organization that operates as a community becomes more creative. When people have seen each other's humanity, a deep level of respect for each person and his or her point of view comes into the organization. It becomes possible to discuss business challenges and opportunities on a much deeper level than before. New processes emerge which allow what Tex calls the "genius in the collective" to come forth and produce solutions to business questions that would otherwise be unimaginable.
"After we started our community building experiences," says Tex, "we would go through a week-long market research or strategic review processes with 30 to 40 people in the room. We would sift through an incredible amount of data and in small and large groups we would discuss and debate, engage in deep listening and experience periods of creative tension. By Friday, we would end up with answers that were much richer than any one of us could have come up with on our own.
At Unilever Bestfoods Asia, all the makings of a highly effective organization are emerging. The business which began as a "start-up" is growing year after year. Tex has no doubt that businesses will move in the direction that Unilever has taken - defining their missions in humanistic terms, serving others, and building community. "You become smarter together. You become more productive. You become more creative. You create space for proper tradeoffs, space to live out who you are as an organization. The debate is very quickly shifting. People realize that a meaningless company is an unsustainable company." And the cost? "Yes, there is a cost to taking people away from work to build community and serve others," says Tex. But do you know what it costs if people are unmotivated?"
* * * * *
Conventional wisdom is to run a business for its shareholders and, if there is anything left over, perhaps to write a check to a charity. What Tex Gunning has done at Unilever Bestfoods Asia has transformed that paradigm to focus on a triple bottom line - profits, people, and the planet.
 
Left: Ton Baba escorts a destitute boy to the Sewa ashram
Right: Ton Baba and residents at the Sewa ashram gate
Further Reading
Acknowledgements
Writer: Kathy Hazelton
© 2005 World Benefit Productions, All Rights Reserved
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