From time to time it is good to reflect on our values as a business, not
least because in today’s VUCA world, values are increasingly important in
guiding our behaviour, our decisions and the way we operate and interact with
others. This is why as a company we celebrate the ‘unsung heroes’ who epitomise
the very best of our values and why we include reference to values in our
personal development plans.
The sustainable success we are after as a company is underpinned by a fundamental set of values that foster trust, both inside and outside the company. They help us to embrace a corporate mission, the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, which is rooted in a deeper purpose than the simple ‘here and now’ successes under which many parts of the economy operate.
These values are universal and are the glue that holds us all together. They allow us to operate without the excessive controls which would stifle innovation and growth. They are the oxygen that makes the organisation blossom.
I have often said that one of the most important contributions we can make is to ensure our core values are even stronger when we pass the baton to future generations. With Unilever growing and with new employees continuously entering the company, it is a timely moment to remind ourselves of what we need to do – individually and collectively – to live up to our values and do indeed pass them on stronger.
There are four values we highlight especially: Integrity, Responsibility, Respect and Pioneering. I want to focus on what is probably the most important: INTEGRITY.
Integrity is one of the most looked-up words. Most people know it is important but they are not always sure what it means. Broadly defined, integrity is “the firm adherence to a code of values”.
In our own values statement, we describe it as follows:
Integrity creates our reputation, so we never compromise on it. It defines how we behave, wherever we are. It guides us to do the right thing for the long-term success of Unilever.
We often say that our friends have a high degree of integrity if they live up to their word, if we can trust them and depend on them in times of need. True friends often care more about others than themselves. They are honest and sincere in the way they behave.
A company’s reputation depends ultimately on the integrity of its people. Integrity is the basis for trust, which in turn generates prosperity. Unilever’s market capitalisation might be close to €100 billion, yet its asset value is only about €30 billion. The difference is often referred to as goodwill, but you could equally call it reputation. It is the most important asset a company has to protect. It’s also the most ‘at risk’ when trust is violated.
Yet it happens every day. The recent Edelman Trust Barometer shows that
trust in business remains very low, only slightly ahead of trust in politicians. This is not surprising given that we read almost every day of scandals, from the use of horsemeat in the food chain to the manipulation of bank base rates, from collapsing textile factories to excessive compensation, from a simple lack of respect for the world’s resources to the rigging of markets.
The distrust this generates is increasingly costly to business. Low-trust organisations tend to be highly bureaucratic and political. Time and energy are wasted second-guessing colleagues or on excessive processes. High-trust organisations, on the other hand, tend to be collaborative, innovative, creative and effective. With trust things get done faster and at lower cost.
The USLP would not be possible without this trust, including the trust in our brands to help solve some of the world’s major challenges, the trust of our partners to work with us and trust in the way we operate across the entire value chain.
Just in the way that we measure our own integrity – or the integrity of our friends – by the way in which we live our stated values and keep our word, so the same is true for the company.
Integrity is impossible without transparency and as we all know transparency is impossible without simplicity (this is why we will never stop pushing this).
The good news is that the world is rapidly becoming more transparent thanks to digitisation and the data revolution. It means we are all being held to an even higher level of account, not just by our colleagues but by the citizens of the world. Everything is far more visible now. There is nowhere left to hide.
For this reason, integrity also becomes a competitive advantage and a key part of our sustainable growth strategy. We are present in some very challenging countries, where operating within an ethical / compliance framework is not always easy. It’s vital that in all markets we live up to the highest standards and hold each other accountable.
This is the responsibility of each and every one of us. Our Code guides us on how to follow the same rules everywhere. The way we work and behave in challenging conditions is what differentiates us from others and is ultimately what defines us as a company.
It starts at the top: we expect every leader to be a visible example of living and breathing the Code.
Like any family, we have a set of values we expect people to live by. We help our fellow employees and partners, provide training and education and learn from experience, but if anyone deliberately breaches our Code, then we should have a zero tolerance with serious consequences for that person because the whole company is being put at risk.
Our expectations extend to everyone: employees, partners, suppliers. All are expected to live by the Code, without exception. And even though we operate in some very different environments – from remote rural communities to complex metropolitan areas – all with different issues, our commitment to the Code remains the same, everywhere.
Yet we continue to see examples in the company where trust is violated and people put their own interests first. For instance:
By violating our conflict of interest policy, for example through special relationships with suppliers or personal businesses closely linked to our company or by requiring others to support activities for personal benefit;
By not creating an inclusive workplace, eg by bullying, harassment, favouritism or other forms of discrimination;
By taking company property and stealing products or materials, generating false invoices, or submitting falsified T&E records.
We will have none of this.
In all these cases the individual not only puts their job on the line and undermines their own reputation, but they put their fellow employees and the whole the company at risk. That is why we cannot tolerate it.
To help stamp out this behaviour it is vital that anyone who sees a violation is encouraged to come forward. That is why we maintain a very strict policy of non-retaliation against employees who do so.
We can all be proud of the progress we have made in building Unilever’s reputation as a company committed to a responsible business model. We have been able to do this while achieving continuous top- and bottom-line growth, so there is no need to compromise here, which makes it even more powerful. Increasingly, others are starting to follow us, which is important in building the movements that can generate truly transformative changes, benefiting the wider world and future generations.
But it all starts with us and it all comes down to integrity. Thanks for setting the right standards and for demanding this from others. It is key to a winning culture.
As always, I would love to hear your own thoughts and experiences on how we can do even better.
The sustainable success we are after as a company is underpinned by a fundamental set of values that foster trust, both inside and outside the company. They help us to embrace a corporate mission, the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, which is rooted in a deeper purpose than the simple ‘here and now’ successes under which many parts of the economy operate.
These values are universal and are the glue that holds us all together. They allow us to operate without the excessive controls which would stifle innovation and growth. They are the oxygen that makes the organisation blossom.
I have often said that one of the most important contributions we can make is to ensure our core values are even stronger when we pass the baton to future generations. With Unilever growing and with new employees continuously entering the company, it is a timely moment to remind ourselves of what we need to do – individually and collectively – to live up to our values and do indeed pass them on stronger.
There are four values we highlight especially: Integrity, Responsibility, Respect and Pioneering. I want to focus on what is probably the most important: INTEGRITY.
Integrity is one of the most looked-up words. Most people know it is important but they are not always sure what it means. Broadly defined, integrity is “the firm adherence to a code of values”.
In our own values statement, we describe it as follows:
Integrity creates our reputation, so we never compromise on it. It defines how we behave, wherever we are. It guides us to do the right thing for the long-term success of Unilever.
We often say that our friends have a high degree of integrity if they live up to their word, if we can trust them and depend on them in times of need. True friends often care more about others than themselves. They are honest and sincere in the way they behave.
A company’s reputation depends ultimately on the integrity of its people. Integrity is the basis for trust, which in turn generates prosperity. Unilever’s market capitalisation might be close to €100 billion, yet its asset value is only about €30 billion. The difference is often referred to as goodwill, but you could equally call it reputation. It is the most important asset a company has to protect. It’s also the most ‘at risk’ when trust is violated.
Yet it happens every day. The recent Edelman Trust Barometer shows that
trust in business remains very low, only slightly ahead of trust in politicians. This is not surprising given that we read almost every day of scandals, from the use of horsemeat in the food chain to the manipulation of bank base rates, from collapsing textile factories to excessive compensation, from a simple lack of respect for the world’s resources to the rigging of markets.
The distrust this generates is increasingly costly to business. Low-trust organisations tend to be highly bureaucratic and political. Time and energy are wasted second-guessing colleagues or on excessive processes. High-trust organisations, on the other hand, tend to be collaborative, innovative, creative and effective. With trust things get done faster and at lower cost.
The USLP would not be possible without this trust, including the trust in our brands to help solve some of the world’s major challenges, the trust of our partners to work with us and trust in the way we operate across the entire value chain.
Just in the way that we measure our own integrity – or the integrity of our friends – by the way in which we live our stated values and keep our word, so the same is true for the company.
Integrity is impossible without transparency and as we all know transparency is impossible without simplicity (this is why we will never stop pushing this).
The good news is that the world is rapidly becoming more transparent thanks to digitisation and the data revolution. It means we are all being held to an even higher level of account, not just by our colleagues but by the citizens of the world. Everything is far more visible now. There is nowhere left to hide.
For this reason, integrity also becomes a competitive advantage and a key part of our sustainable growth strategy. We are present in some very challenging countries, where operating within an ethical / compliance framework is not always easy. It’s vital that in all markets we live up to the highest standards and hold each other accountable.
This is the responsibility of each and every one of us. Our Code guides us on how to follow the same rules everywhere. The way we work and behave in challenging conditions is what differentiates us from others and is ultimately what defines us as a company.
It starts at the top: we expect every leader to be a visible example of living and breathing the Code.
Like any family, we have a set of values we expect people to live by. We help our fellow employees and partners, provide training and education and learn from experience, but if anyone deliberately breaches our Code, then we should have a zero tolerance with serious consequences for that person because the whole company is being put at risk.
Our expectations extend to everyone: employees, partners, suppliers. All are expected to live by the Code, without exception. And even though we operate in some very different environments – from remote rural communities to complex metropolitan areas – all with different issues, our commitment to the Code remains the same, everywhere.
Yet we continue to see examples in the company where trust is violated and people put their own interests first. For instance:
By violating our conflict of interest policy, for example through special relationships with suppliers or personal businesses closely linked to our company or by requiring others to support activities for personal benefit;
By not creating an inclusive workplace, eg by bullying, harassment, favouritism or other forms of discrimination;
By taking company property and stealing products or materials, generating false invoices, or submitting falsified T&E records.
We will have none of this.
In all these cases the individual not only puts their job on the line and undermines their own reputation, but they put their fellow employees and the whole the company at risk. That is why we cannot tolerate it.
To help stamp out this behaviour it is vital that anyone who sees a violation is encouraged to come forward. That is why we maintain a very strict policy of non-retaliation against employees who do so.
We can all be proud of the progress we have made in building Unilever’s reputation as a company committed to a responsible business model. We have been able to do this while achieving continuous top- and bottom-line growth, so there is no need to compromise here, which makes it even more powerful. Increasingly, others are starting to follow us, which is important in building the movements that can generate truly transformative changes, benefiting the wider world and future generations.
But it all starts with us and it all comes down to integrity. Thanks for setting the right standards and for demanding this from others. It is key to a winning culture.
As always, I would love to hear your own thoughts and experiences on how we can do even better.
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