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You have spoken a lot about the culture and values of Unilever. Did you have to change the culture when you became CEO?
When a company doesn’t do so well you tend to get an internally-focused culture. The question is: how do you turn that around to become a consumer- and customer-focused culture? Sometimes big companies become bureaucratic and slow, so how do you create a bias-for-action culture? When a company doesn’t grow, people become more concerned about themselves than others, so how do you create a culture where there is a passion for people? If you haven’t won for 10 years, how do you start to create a winning culture? To change these elements and to change our mindset was a big task.
Can you give some practical examples of how you did this?
The fi rst thing we had to do was get the growth agenda back, so we said we wanted
to double our business. We worked on compensation and fi rmly linked performance reviews to results. At the beginning we had too many people in the top right-hand quadrant of exceeding leadership and exceeding business results, at a time when the business was not performing. Everybody thought: “It’s not me that’s the problem.” We had to bring that number back to 20%, place people in a performance curve, and focus the compensation plan on long- term goals.
We instituted 30-day action plans for things that were not working, to create a bias for action. We also stepped up our investments. Back in 2008-9, when many companies were being cautious and laying off staff, we invested in
UNILEVER by numbers
FOCUS 6
IT systems, research and development, and stepped up new launches in new markets. Instead of selling brands, which we had been doing for 10 years, we made acquisitions. We made it clear that the company had a strategy.
90% of Unilever’s growth is driven by
emerging markets.
14 Unilever brands
have
sales exceeding €1bn (US$1.38bn), making up
54% of its business. 4.3%
growth in underlying
sales achieved by Unilever in 2013.
Was there anything there that you felt should not change?
It’s important to separate culture and values. Culture changes, but values remain the same: if Lord Lever [who founded the business in 1885] came to this company today, he’d fi nd the same ideals as when he built it. We spend a lot of time making sure that our pioneering work is carried out globally with integrity and respect, while always ensuring the communities we work in are as successful as our own.
I have been blessed to work for three of the great consumer goods companies and their beliefs are basically the same. But they had never been written down at Unilever. There was a sense that: “people will know the values, because they are in the company’s DNA”. You can’t rely on that. How will people we recruit in the Far East know what we stand for? So we took the time to take a good look at our principles and consulted widely inside the company, and I spoke to a lot of retirees to understand what made the company tick. We then captured the beliefs on paper and began to celebrate those people who embody them. Now every year we have a big event to celebrate unsung heroes and make our values come alive.
© 2014 KPMG LLP, a UK limited liability partnership, is a subsidiary of KPMG Europe LLP and a member fi rm of the KPMG network of independent member fi rms affi liated with KPMG International Cooperative, a Swiss entity. All rights reserved.
UNILEVER
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