Global Leadership Lessons from Unilever's Kees Kruythoff
Kees Kruythoff described himself as
a bit arrogant when he first applied to work at Unilever in the 1990s. He had a
vision of where he wanted to go in his career and was forthright in sharing
those aspirations with his interviewers. "I told them I wanted to work four
years in marketing, then two years in sales and then I would go abroad and work
in places like China, South Africa, Indonesia or Brazil," Kruythoff said
during a recent Wharton Leadership Lecture. "'I will tell [them] what I
want from this company,' I told myself when I went in there. I was naïve, I
admit."
The Unilever executives, though,
liked what they saw in Kruythoff and hired him in February 1993. "Six
years later, I arrived in South Africa" to lead Unilever there, he noted.
"You have to know what you want. When you are clear to an organization,
the organization can work in a better way to help you reach that goal."
Kruythoff was appointed president of
Unilever's North American cluster in September 2011. Based in the United
States, the job gives him responsibility for what he believes is his company's
most important market and the challenges that come with it. "People like
to talk about China or India or Brazil," said Kruythoff, a native of the
Netherlands, the birthplace of Unilever's foods divisions. "But when you
grow up in Europe, you always hear of the American Dream and what that
represents.
"This is America, a place where
we need to push the boundaries," he added. "The intellectual capital
in this country is like no other. The Googles and the Amazons and the Apples,
they are all here. So that is where I want to be for my company."
Kruythoff said that his enthusiasm
for his job has always been what has propelled him. There is really no
substitute for that, he noted, and, in reality, enthusiasm should be the
primary reason anyone should work for an organization. "When you join a
business, the most important part is to ask yourself how you can improve the
values of the company," Kruythoff stated. A new employee should have a
sense of excitement, he added, and make sure that he or she is a good fit with
the company. "Wherever you go, if it feels like the place where you want
to be, then in all likelihood it is."
Enthusiasm makes progress possible,
Kruythoff said, and leaders must build that excitement and fire among their
employees. Not every decision is a winner, but when employees are optimistic
about the future of the firm, that atmosphere will help move the company in the
right overall direction.
From Raw Oils to a Worldwide
Footprint
Kruythoff went all the way back to
the founding of Unilever to offer an example of what he finds admirable about
the firm. Unilever is actually two century-old companies -- one that sold soap
and the other, margarine -- that merged in 1929 not because they were in the
same business, but because both firms were dependent on the same raw products,
certain oils.
The British arm of Unilever focused
on hygiene, he said. It was not just a business for its founders, but a
mission. The company started making soaps and other cleansing products.
"It was about quality, though, not just a brand. It was about making sure
that the company was having a positive effect on society."
In the meantime, the Dutch ancestor
of the company wanted to come up with a good, healthy alternative to butter.
The roots of their effort dated back to Napoleon, whose troops were using up a
big part of the budget with expensive bread and butter. The Dutch company
discovered that a product made from edible oils -- margarine -- would not only
be more nutritious, but also cheaper to make.
What the two companies discovered,
though, was that they were bidding against each other for the raw oils needed
for their products, which were similar and, at the time, not all that well-used
by other businesses. The head-to-head competition was driving the price of
production up for each of them. "The [two companies] ended up merging in
1929, right at the [start of the] Great Depression," Kruythoff said.
"But they knew they had good products and started marketing them around
the world."
Unilever, he added, is now a company
that still emphasizes hygiene and food products. And while it may have a $50.9
billion market cap today, it still has aspirations to become large enough to
touch all seven billion people in the world. "We are proud that we touch
maybe two billion people every day," Kruythoff said. "This is one of
the most exciting times to be in a company like ours, to be all around the
world and to be looking for growth even now."
This is Kruythoff's fourth global
posting for Unilever, and at each one, he has learned distinctive lessons about
leadership. When he arrived in South Africa, Nelson Mandela was nearing the end
of his presidency. At the time, there was still a tendency to doubt that
democracy was going to be sustainable in the country. Kruythoff described the
atmosphere at a political rally he attended in Johannesburg. "There were
100,000 people there, and Mandela was starting to transfer power to his
successor, [Thabo] Mbeke," Kruythoff recalled. "You could just feel
how [Mandela's] leadership had made a difference, how the transformation
happened. It was with patience and dedication."
Next Kruythoff took a position in
China, "where everything was booming." The Chinese were just starting
to think like Americans, who always want the next generation to have it better
than they did, he noted. The leadership in China, Kruythoff added, used those
values as a model and put good intentions ahead of greed, getting the people to
follow.
After that, he went to Brazil,
"which was another culture shock." There, Kruythoff noticed that
people's work and lives revolved around community and family. He learned that
leaders have to be conscious of all the people around them, and to figure out
how to integrate them into the progress of the company.
One of the more eye-opening moments
Kruythoff has had working in his current post was when the son of Jerry
Greenfield, one of the founders of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, which Unilever
now owns, was arrested in an Occupy Wall Street protest. Greenfield and
co-founder Ben Cohen both actively supported the Occupy movement, creating a
potentially uncomfortable situation for the ice cream brand's parent company.
"But when you think of Ben and Jerry's as a brand, you think of it not
only as the best ice cream, but also one that at the same time delivers a
social mission," Kruythoff noted. "Jerry was so proud to keep social
values with the product. How do you look at that as a leader? Well, in fact, it
sends a good message of how we run a business."
On the Ben and Jerry's website,
there is a page with a cartoon cow holding a sign reading, "Occupy"
and a statement expressing solidarity with the protestors below with the
headline, "To Those Who Occupy: We Stand With You." The company's decision
not to interfere with Cohen and Greenfield's efforts "is why people can
feel comfortable with the leadership at Unilever," Kruythoff said.
"You have to give your people room, especially those with innovative
ideas. They will develop that important enthusiasm, and everyone will grow as a
result."
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2979
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