How redefining boundaries drives performance, w/former Unilever CEO Paul Polman
Masters of Scale
WaitWhat
4.6 • 4.4K Ratings
🗓️ 7 December 2021
⏱️ 37 minutes
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Summary
When Paul Polman joined Unilever as CEO in 2009, the consumer goods company – home to 400-plus brands including Dove soap, Ben & Jerry’s, and Vaseline – had been stagnated with years of lackluster performance. His famous turnaround of the company centered around his ability to redraw the boundaries of Unilever’s mission to emphasize sustainability and long-term growth. He’s a perfect example of why every leader should consistently reexamine the boundaries that limit their business – and be prepared to redraw them as you grow. By redrawing boundaries, you can reinvigorate your team with a new sense of power. As Polman says, “You cannot change people's behaviors if you only work on the purpose – and don’t change the boundaries around it that drive people's behavior.”
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, it's Bob Safian. You've been hearing me as the host of rapid response in this feed for a few years now, |
| 0:07.8 | with short newsy interviews alongside the deeper dives of Masters of Scale. Well, I'm excited to share that rapid response is expanding into its own feed. |
| 0:17.0 | We'll be putting out shows twice a week, focusing on the urgent issues that business leaders are dealing with in real time. |
| 0:24.7 | So search for rapid response in your podcast player |
| 0:28.0 | and subscribe to make sure you get all our episodes. |
| 0:31.2 | I'll see you on the other side. |
| 0:34.0 | Eric is the first officially impaired person that climbed all seven summits. |
| 0:41.0 | He called me, he said, I got merit on the Shera Plateau, and I want to go back and climb Mount Kilimanjaro again. |
| 0:51.0 | So I said, great idea, I'm'm game but then we said why don't we take a blind person from all parts of the world? |
| 1:00.0 | So we took a blind Japanese person. |
| 1:02.6 | We took the first blind person from Africa to climb the mountain. |
| 1:06.4 | Americans an Austrian aid to the top. |
| 1:09.6 | Helen Keller said the worst thing is not being blind the worst thing is having eyes and not being able to see and |
| 1:20.3 | unfortunately we live in a world still where too many people have eyes and don't see. |
| 1:25.0 | That's Paul Pullman, former CEO of Unilever. |
| 1:32.0 | Paul himself is not blind, |
| 1:34.0 | but in 2005 he was the chair of the international arm |
| 1:38.0 | of Helen Keller's alma mater, |
| 1:39.0 | the Perkin School for the Blind. |
| 1:41.0 | And that climb he's telling us about is when he scaled Mount Kilimanjaro with |
| 1:46.0 | Eric Weinmayer, the adventurer, athlete, and first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest. |
| 1:52.3 | They reached the top with six other blind climbers. |
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