The courses obviously help to improve the general level of customer service in the stores, but they are designed with the employees squarely in mind. "[Other cosmetics companies] train for a sale," Anita says. "We train for knowledge." And, indeed, the courses have the desired effect. They are so popular with employees that the school can't keep up with the demand.
Anita brings the same attitude to every aspect of The Body Shop's educational system, even to something as basic as the company newsletter. Aside from the format, it has almost nothing in common with other examples of the genre. For one thing, it reads like an underground newspaper. More space is devoted to the company's campaigns to save the rain forest and ban ozone-depleting chemicals than, say, the opening of a new branch or the dropping of an old product. Even the latter, moreover, are handled with humor and flair. The design is dramatic, the graphics arresting. Sprinkled throughout are quotes, bits of poetry, environmental facts, and anthropological anecdotes.
Once again, the difference is Anita. She may be the only chief executive of a $100-million business who actually invests time and energy in the company newsletter. Her brother is part of the team that puts it out, operating from a Macintosh outside her office. She herself suggests articles, checks copy, chooses illustrations, and changes design. The point is not lost on people in The Body Shop. This is not some throwaway. This is a direct line of communication from the leader to the rest of the organization, and she is telling people about all the things that make the business interesting and exciting for her.
Anita, for her part, is almost obsessive about finding new ways to get across what she calls "that real sense of excitement." To her, an empty space is an opportunity to create an atmosphere, deliver a message, make a point. Wherever you go in the company, the walls are hung with photographs, blown-up quotes, charts, and illustrations. Waiting rooms and cafeterias are lined with informational displays. The sides of the warehouse and the corridors of the factories blossom with words and images and dazzling displays of Third World art.
She uses her trips abroad the same way. When she gets back, she will burst into a managers' meeting and regale the participants with tales of her adventures. She will tap into the company grapevine, planting "rumors" (as she puts it) with the "gossips." "I mean that in a positive sense," she says. "It's actually a good way to get the word out." Meanwhile, she will work on her next video and next slide show, through which she will deliver the news to the organization worldwide.
The effect on the company is electric, though not necessarily because the news itself is so riveting. What's riveting is Anita. She is, quite consciously, creating a role model. She wants each and every employee to feel the same excitement she feels. You can learn in business, she is telling them, you can grow, you can be somebody. But to do that, you have to care. "I want them to understand that this is no dress rehearsal," she says. "You've got one life, so just lead it. And try to be remarkable."
And it works. The message gets through, and it gets through for one reason alone: Anita believes it. She is not the least bit cynical about business. Shrewd? Yes. Calculating? In a sense. Manipulative? Often. But cynicism is simply not in her repertoire. She is passionate in her belief that education matters, customer service matters, even newsletters matter -- they all matter. There is no hidden agenda here. Anita really doesn't regard these as tools for boosting sales and enhancing profits. She is saying that, to have a successful company, these things have to matter in their own right.
More to the point, she has been able to imbue her organization with the same attitude, and the effects are apparent in the shops. Employees understand why it's important to keep a shop clean, to display products well, to treat customers courteously -- in short, to take care of all the little details a retailer must get right to be successful. The point is not that these details affect sales or profits, but that they affect customers, and customer service matters for its own sake. Once again, the company is humanized, to the benefit of everyone involved.
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A Banner of Values
Creating a global community
On a cold night in January, a ragtag group of environmentalists gathers outside the Brazilian embassy in London. There are about 20 of them, the usual suspects, from such organizations as Friends of the Earth and Survival International. They have come to draw attention to the plight of the Yanomami Indians, a Stone Age tribe that is being wiped out by diseases brought to its remote Brazilian habitat by miners looking for gold. At the moment, however, there is not much attention to be drawn. Aside from an occasional passing taxi, the only people around are the protesters. Among them is Anita Roddick, founder and managing director of The Body Shop International.
She is there, moreover, in her official capacity. Recently her company has engaged in a worldwide campaign that has drawn much attention to the plight of all the inhabitants of the Amazon rain forest. The Body Shop and its franchisees have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to their defense. It has mobilized employees for petition drives and fund-raising campaigns, carried out through the stores and on company time. It has produced window displays, posters, T-shirts, brochures, and videotapes to educate people about the issues. It has brought 250 employees to London for a major demonstration at this very embassy -- not on a dark night, but in broad daylight, with a television crew broadcasting the event live, via satellite, to Brazil. It has even printed appeals on the side of its delivery trucks, reading: "The Indians are the custodians of the rainforest. The rainforests are the lungs of the world. If they die, we all die. The Body Shop says immediate urgent action is needed."
