Dame Anita Roddick, Business As Unusual
by Gerald Neo
“The old views of business as a jungle where only the vicious survive will, I hope, soon be giving way to a new view of business as a community where only the responsible will lead. If yours values are heralded and if your heart is in the right place, if your feeling are recognized and your spirit at play, I believe there will be footprints out there for all of us.” –Anita Roddick — Business As Unusual
The late a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Roddick”>Dame Anita Roddick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Roddick) is one of those few business person whom I always admired. She had built a business empire The Body Shop not just on making profit out of producing cosmetic products but also an ambassador for fair trade, environmental awareness, animal protection and respect for human rights.
Anita had always being known for her campaigning work on social and environmental causes. And through campaigning, she had caused multi-national companies like Shell and government to take remedial action on the things which they have done wrong.
In one of her books “Business As Unusual”, she mentioned the following reasons as how The Body shop maintains their identity in a business environment that usually alienates humanity in every way.
- We didn’t know how to run a conventional business. We had never read a book on economic theory and had never even heard of Milton Friedman.
- We valued and respected labour as fuzzy and cuddly, nerdy as that sounds. We understood that life was no more complicated than love and work.
- We had no money. Every original was based on reusing everything, refilling and recycling we could.
- We were naïve. We didn’t know you could tell lies. That grace has stayed with us to this day.
- We loved change. We believed everything was subject to change.
- We had a secret ingredient called euphoria. We shared an extraordinary level of optimism, and we still do.
Finally – and this was the main ingredient – we couldn’t take a moisturizer seriously!
Anita had built every business relationship on those reasons. And those reasons had also become the foundation for the values, which every employee of The Body Shop used to guide them as they worked with each other.
In the ever-changing business world, companies can only be successful if the people running it are true to their values. And usually how are they being judged on that? It’s not based on their bottom line but how they maintain their business relationship with everyone from business partners, customer, vendors and even their employees.
writes about anything from leadership managment and organizational
managment to online marketing and social media.
His twitter name is @gneo
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It is very encouraging to see a real life example of how social sites are effective and can be productive. Till now they just seemed like a lot of time for little ROI. I know I need to be more focused on how and why I participate in social sites.
I remember writing a paper on Roddick back in college and still can’t get one statement of hers out of my head:
“Any young person who finds an antidote to loneliness will have found a business that will last forever.”
Hey Dan,
Social sites are ways that we can get to know each other like networking on the ground only with the reach and the speed of the Internet.
I’m really interested in this topic of relationships that underpinned great businesses through history. If you want to write about one, please let me know.
Hi Elena,
Thank you for bringing that quote. I don’t think I’ll forget it ever either. It’s so profoundly true.
Great quote, Elena. But not many youth understand that.
Dan,
Social media or any business relationship are just like piggy bank. you need to save on a daily basis and only when it’s full, then you will get it’s full benefit. and the more you contribute, the more returns you will get.
thanks,
gerald
I am totally in agreement with these quotes, especially with No. 4, as telling the truth has always been my business mantra.
It’s what helps to create a great relationship with audiences when I speak at events throughout the world.
Anything else that comes out of your mouth will come back to bite you.
Our company is being built the same way.
“The old views of business as a jungle where only the vicious survive will, I hope, soon be giving way to a new view of business as a community where only the responsible will lead. If yours values are heralded and if your heart is in the right place, if your feeling are recognized and your spirit at play, I believe there will be footprints out there for all of us.” –Anita Roddick — Business As Unusual
The perfect quote for any business to live by.
Thanks for the good read and inspiration.
Thanks, Terry.
It’s great to hear that there are still companies which are being built as what Anita had envisioned.
All the best to your company.
Best regards,
Gerald