The two most important days of your life!
“The two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why”, Mark Twain (possibly).
Who are you and why are you here?
I am reading Net Positive; how courageous companies thrive by giving more than they take written by Paul Polman and Andrew Winston. Paul Polman is the former CEO of Unilever who transformed the mission of the company to be a purpose-driven one through the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan (USLP). He is one of the founding architects of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) for the United Nations. The premise of his mission was to leave the world a better place than we found it.
And it starts with us, the collective, collection of individuals. Finding personal purpose. Paul says that when we feel that we are becoming who we really are, it gives us a sense of belonging, and life becomes infused with meaning. With purpose, a job can serve deep human needs.
That is how he led and transformed Unilever into a net positive company. The details of what he did to get his people on board are fascinating. He used the USLP as a structure to connect employees to the mission. All employees had to do a 3+1 plan. 3 business goals and 1 personal area to work on. For the organisation to progress, the individual had to progress as well. His ethos was that true fulfilment comes not only from doing what you enjoy but also from serving a bigger mission and touching the lives of others in meaningful ways.
I am only on the second chapter, and I am reading every word. It is that captivating. The chapter is ‘how much do you care’ – becoming a courageous net positive leader. It is about Paul’s journey from the time he joined Unilever. But the section in this chapter that truly surprised me was the history of “Lever Brothers” founded in 1878. Port Sunlight, a small village in northwest England was where it all started. The founding Lever brothers built a community for workers from their nearby soap factory. Before the factory was fully running, houses, a school, a health-care facility, theatre, and art houses were built!
The Lever Brothers first brands were Sunlight detergent and Lifebuoy soap, to improve health in Victorian Britain. Lord William Lever’s mission was shared prosperity and serving society. His early aim was “to make cleanliness commonplace and to lessen the work for women”. They were highly innovative for their time and progressive. It was the first company in the United Kingdom to offer pensions and a guaranteed six-day workweek. As workers left to fight in WWI, the company held their jobs open and paid the men’s wages to their families. It was highly unusual then!
Paul’s successor, Alan Jope, guaranteed jobs for months after the pandemic. He was following Lord William Lever’s footsteps.
I had to take a moment after reading this section. I was not sure if I was in awe of Unilever or Lord William Lever. Such purpose in the nineteenth century took passion, courage, and deep purpose. They say passion is about finding yourself, but purpose is about losing yourself in something bigger than you.
Paul does an exercise with his inner circle as part of his net positive journey to get to know his team through a 5-day programme. The initial exercise is to get to know each other and get each one to share their ‘personal crucible moments’. Deeply personal moments that made them who they are. He knew to become a net positive leader trust and transparency were critical. And it had to start with the CEO. Paul shared his crucible moments including how his father worked himself to death holding 2 jobs to ensure a better life for his children, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro with eight blind people from all over the world (wow), and surviving a terrifying experience during the Mumbai terrorist attack.
Paul had his team develop their own detailed personal development plan. He eventually read hundreds of these plans and gave personal responses. It helped him get to know his people better and learn what they wanted for their work and personal development.
More next week.
For now, what are your ‘personal crucible moments’ that make you who you are?
As always, you can reach me at yoga@yoganesadurai.com