#60 How Courageous Companies Thrive by Improving Lives with Former Unilever CEO Paul Polman

What this episode is about

Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever, advocates for businesses to operate sustainably and equitably, emphasizing that companies should profit by addressing societal issues rather than contributing to them. He argues that the current business models, while effective in reducing poverty, have led to significant environmental challenges and inequities, urging a shift toward a more responsible approach to production and consumption.

Key takeaways

• Profit should be the lifeblood of a business, not its heartbeat; sustainability is the new bottom line.
• Ignoring planetary health costs us trillions annually—investing in sustainability is not just ethical, but economically savvy.
• Think of profit as the oxygen for your business; it sustains life but shouldn’t be the sole reason to exist.
• Real progress happens when businesses pivot from shareholder supremacy to positive impact—otherwise, they risk becoming obsolete.
• The cost of inaction is far greater than the cost of sustainable practices—consider it an insurance policy for the future.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Lynn Tomman (Host) · 10 min speaking
• Paul Polman (Guest) · 23 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Unilever, Net Positive
2. 5:00 – 10:00: Net Positive
3. 10:00 – 15:00: Unilever, Dove, Net Positive

Notable quotes from "#60 How Courageous Companies Thrive by Improving Lives with Former Unilever CEO Paul Polman"

• And Columbia Lynn tomman hi everyone it's Lynn tomman welcome to another episode today I'm delighted to be with Paul pman he's the former CEO of Unilever which is one of the…

  about Paul Polman · at 0:21

• Regretfully has cost us 1718 trillion dollar in spending by governments in Europe and the us crystalina from the IMF estimates that we've lost about 26 27 trillion in GDP that…

  about IMF · at 4:26

• Is one an important notion for this book itself and the leadership that we need to create this book net positive is as much about leadership transformation as it is about…

  about Net Positive · at 6:03

• The substance of the dove brand is enhancing self-esteem women self-esteem so the brand is really working on the inside that globally only 4% of women feel happy actually in…

  about Dove · at 16:59

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Paul Polman — Person · Main guest · 2 mentions
  Former Unilever CEO interviewed about 'net positive' leadership, stakeholder capitalism, and business responsibility for social and environmental impact.

Books & papers

• Net Positive — Book · Primary recommendation · 3 mentions · first at 0:53
  Paul Polman's book is discussed as a guide for leadership and organizational transformation towards sustainability.

Companies & orgs

• Unilever — Company · Business focus · 3 mentions · first at 0:31
  Unilever is discussed as a case study for sustainable and equitable business practices under Paul Polman's leadership.
  Paul pman he's the former CEO of Unilever which is one of the largest companies in the world Unilever has over 300 Brands including Dove so Ben and Jerry's ice cream and suve…
• IMF — Company · Referenced expert · 2 mentions
  The IMF is referenced for its estimates on the economic impact of COVID-19.

Products & tech

• Dove — Product · Case study · 1 mention · first at 11:44
  Dove is highlighted as an example of a brand with a strong purpose, focusing on women's self-esteem.

Places & events

• G7 — Event · Setting · 2 mentions
  The G7 is mentioned as a context for launching initiatives related to sustainability and industry transformation.
  We launched this initiative when France was hosting the G7.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 welcome to the three takeaways podcast which features short memorable conversations with the world's best thinkers Business Leaders writers politicians scientists and other newsmakers each episode ends with the three key takeaways that person has learned over their lives and their careers and now your host and board member of schools at Harvard Princeton and Columbia Lynn tomman hi everyone it's Lynn tomman welcome to another episode today I'm delighted to be with Paul pman he's the former CEO of Unilever which is one of the largest companies in the world Unilever has over 300 Brands including Dove so Ben and Jerry's ice cream and suve shampoos and over two and a half billion people per year use Unilever products Paul has helped redefine what being a good company and a good leader means I'm excited to find out he is the author of net positive welcome Paul and thanks so much for our conversation today well

1:02 thank you Lynn for having me look forward to it Paul you strongly believe in businesses operating in a sustainable and Equitable way can you tell us about that yeah I actually believe that the role of businesses to address the issues in society so business should profit from addressing the world's problems not creating the world's problems what we have at the moment is a very precarious situation if you want to where our business model that we have exercised until now has served as well lifting enormous amounts of people out of poverty but increasingly it's also showing its shortcomings with the stress that we're having on the planetary boundaries uh climate change obviously being the most important one was frankly leaving too many people behind and cord has been a stark warning of that it's a direct result of our linear consumption model the destruction of biodiversity that we get these sotic diseases Co

2:00 actually is not a surprise we've had SAR saika Ebola Asian flu but this is a particularly nasty one but it is really a reflection of an unsustainable way of production and consumption if you want to and the private sector being such an important part of the global economy 65 70% of the global GDP 80% of the job creation 90% of the financing it really has to Bent its curve if you want to change its Motors operas if we want to create this more Equitable and inclusive World which is really what I've always fought for for me Colin Meyer says it well that the purpose of business is to profitably address the issues of people and Planet if you want to and we have plenty of these issues to address so turning it around it's actually probably one of the biggest business opportunities we're sitting on which makes it so exciting Paul I love your comment about profit through purpose as opposed to profit with a side of purpose

3:01 can you elaborate on that well it's very simple if I may make it simple for the audiences profit is a little bit like your white blood cells you need them to live but you don't live for them and it's the same with profit of course a company needs profit we have that tension and we need to be sure that we can generate enough funds to do more of what we're doing especially if that is a good thing but it cannot be the only reason that motivates employees that gives you a beacon of where you need to go when to decisions need to be made there's more to life than that and increasingly we have discovered that we need to define the role of business well beyond the narrow definition of shareholder Primacy first of all it hasn't really given us much to be proud of the more we run these businesses for the short term the more we actually run them into the ground or created a lot of these issues by this regarding the

3:54 negative externalities so a business to be successful has to redefine profit to also include not only the return on financial Capital but also social and environmental and increasingly what we see is that companies that do that that are able to internalize that are actually more resilient more robust and ultimately actually more profitable as well and that L part is important even for the doubters that are there we've come to the point that we find ourselves where the cost of not acting is actually higher than the cost of acting co regretfully has cost us 1718 trillion dollar in spending by governments in Europe and the us crystalina from the IMF estimates that we've lost about 26 27 trillion in GDP that cost just to save lives and livelihoods alone there's no light at the end of the tunnel yet is significantly more than what it would cost us to avoid these issues in the first place implementing things like the

4:53 sustainable development goals which are these famous 17 goals that have been signed by 193 countries in July 2015 at the UN and have as objective to irreversibly eradicate poverty and do that in a more sustainable and Equitable way would only cost us three to5 trillion dollar a year and it would avoid a lot of the issues that we're now willing to pay for you take goal number 16 which is peace and Justice which deals with corruption conflict prevention Wars Etc we're currently spending 8 to 10% of our Global GDP just on that alone that's twice as much as what it would cost us to implement the all the sustainable development goals and the same you find in all the other areas of the goals climate change is costing us already significantly more than what it would take us to implement all these goals so I've always turned this around and said this is the best opportunity that you can have as a

5:45 business and also to guarantee that you have a long-term successful business at the same time as you did at unil lever you believe that business needs to start thinking about its impact on the wider world can you can you explain what that means well the impact of the wider world is one an important notion for this book itself and the leadership that we need to create this book net positive is as much about leadership transformation as it is about organizational and systems transformation but frankly you cannot get to the organizational and systems transformation if you don't have the leadership transformation and the most important decision you have to make is to take responsibility of your total impact in the world good or bad and that is really where it starts if you neglect parts of your operations many of the companies still too many may I say Outsource their value chain for example

6:40 and also think that they can Outsource their responsibilities that doesn't work anymore so just making commitments on climate like the bulk of companies do that make commitments just on scope one and scope two what is under your own control but not where the real effects of your carbon emission are in your value chain for example was unever that would be deforestation in the production of food if you don't take responsibility for that I don't think you're running a serious business model and increasingly Society is holding you accountable for that so it means first and foremost taking responsibility of your total handprint in society not just your footprint if I may call it that way and your handprint as you think about it Paul is from the creation of a product deep in the supply chain to the end of a product's life it is the whole cycle and this actually goes beyond that I think responsible companies not only have to

7:38 ensure that they have a positive impact in all they do across their total impact on society but they also have to be part of the broader Transformations that are needed businesses cannot be successful in societies that fail so they have a direct interest to ensure that systems function and they're being stressed right now for various reasons I also think that business cannot be a bystander in a system that gives them life in the first place to get that license to operate their permission to be there they have to also be part of these broader Transformations that are needed so it goes beyond your Direct Value chain if you want to for example just to give a very simple example if as a business you see dignity and respect or human rights being violated or what we saw in the US in Charlottesville or the Dreadful day in January 6 at the capital and you stay quiet then you become implicit bit by bit just by

8:37 staying silent you move the boundaries of what is acceptable and bid by bid we undermine these values on which humanity is based and by doing so we actually put at risk Humanity itself it's very difficult to perhaps understand that but it is really what is happening we've seen 70 80 countries during Co actually reduce it in their ranking on democracy where populists or xenophobic or nationalist politicians have abused these situations to suppress a human Freedom or dignity and respect or Equity these basic values and business as an opportunity but also a moral obligation to speak up and interestingly even in the US most of the citizens of this world expect businesses to speak up obviously it has to be relevant has to be related to your business it has to be supported by your broad constituents but more and more businesses should speak up and not only speak up then they should put their word where their Mouse is in a

9:35 country where you believe in democracy which will be a separate debate than this podcast so I deliberately choose the word where you believe in democracy it is based on one person one vote and that vote cannot be translated by votes of the wallet it has to be votes of the people so when you have $3.5 billion dollar in money in politics when so much is spent on your PEC when you have citizens united which could be unlimited spending you really have to ask yourself a question tough question do you want to participate with that as a company because it might benefit you short term or are you really undermining the functioning of democracy for which you would pay a much bigger price long term these are these tougher challenges that I think businesses need to discuss at boardroom level how do you think about people as CEO of Unilever how did you think about all the different people touched by

10:31 Unilever well that's why I was there I wasn't there for myself nor was I there for many of the other stakeholders although we want to optimize the return to the stakeholder to all the stakeholders over time because they all contribute but our ultimate reason for being was to help the people that can't help themselves Lord lever invented the company at the end of the 19th century in Victorian Britain because the issues of hygiene were so severe that only one out of two babies would survive year one so he created bar soaps because he wanted to make hygiene common place his main interest was to ensure that less people were dying the reason now that we have our products has not changed the issues might have changed it might have moved to different parts of the weth but we are ultimately there to address these wealth's problems so that was really the driver for un to ultimately have that stronger purpose in each of Our Brands

11:26 consistency as a company but trans at that into each of Our Brands so a Baro like life boy for example was there to help a child reach the age of five 4 million children still die of infectious diseases like pneumonia diarrhea that can be solved with simple handwashing as you know a brand like Dove was there to help women get self-esteem in a world where many women don't feel confident enough to participate at equal levels as men or speak up or be present that's what you address so addressing these worldly issues is what you are about why you have these products and you need to keep that Center in your reason for being the fact that we need a competitive price or that people need the functionality of products are really hygienic factors increasingly people want to buy products that they can associate themselves with that fight for the same causes as they believe and that stand for things that they stand for and

12:21 it's that higher order that we call purpose something bigger than yourself passion is for yourself but purpose is to lock something bigger than yourself and if you can get it into your Brands you'll be well off not surprisingly in unver these Brands and I mentioned some that had a stronger purpose were also growing faster and were being more profitable so purpose Pace this is not philanthropy can you talk about how that approach to Value to purpose informs a brand like Dove soap first of all what we did in un as we made this transformation to a more purposeful company we started obviously with our own purpose you cannot have a sustainable company or a purposeful company if your own people are not sustainable or purposeful then we use that Collective effort to define the company purpose very much going back into the history of the company but also looking forward into what the world needs this is where we made the

13:19 commitment to make sustainable living common place to improve the health and well-being of a billion people to make all of our sourcing sustainable and these things per permeate to the brands that you're selling then we set audacious goals which I think is part of a net positive company most companies play not to lose you have to really play to win most people set targets that they know are already achievable or that they know are not enough when it comes to climate change or planetary boundaries or human rights or slave labor in your value chain you have to set absolute targets anytime you don't set that you nearly give permission for your own children to find themselves in that situation so once you set these targets you stretch your thinking then you work on the boundaries because people's behaviors are not influenced as much by what they know or think it is right but by the boundaries that are put upon them

14:12 so how do you create an environment that is more long-term focused in Unilever we stopped quarterly reporting we stopped giving guidance we changed our compensation system quite revolutionary to give people space to breathe but move these boundaries and then you obviously have to embed it not only in the company itself with accountability and transparency but you have to get it then in the individual Brands where it especially comes to life what we did in unver was put it in the brand key we started with any of our brands that Prime objective being its ultimate purpose now we had undoubtedly targets around that in terms of market share or growth of the business or profitability but it was profit through purpose it is so easy to produce profit for the next four or five years some companies have become very skilled at it they've become so skilled that they link it very strongly to executive compensation who

15:09 then walk away with tons of money in four or five years the company is ruined the CEO is gone the base is reset and the game starts over again one of the main reasons why the length of a publicly traded company in the US has dropped from 67 years when I was born to 17 years now so it is tough to play the game of the long term it is tough to play a multistakeholder game it is tough to make these tradeoffs but ultimately a brand is robust if you can first take care of your core stakeholders and understand that by doing that the shareholders are better off as well and in univa with our 300% shareholder return over 10 years was operating consistently on a 19% return on invested capital I don't think we have disappointed any of our long-term shareholders but we've certainly worked hard to get the short-term speculators out and they shouldn't be called shareholders in the first place the word

16:02 holder has a slightly different connotation than what we're currently exercising but one it's difficult to think of a purpose of a brand but as soon as the brand has it and you see it it's so obvious like so many things so it's hard work and it's hard work to deal with these dichotomies and these trade-offs so that's why ultimately it bows down to leadership actually and how do you get the people that are strong enough in its conviction in their purpose in their reason for being that they can overcome some of these hurdles including the cynics and Skeptics along the way or the shorter term pressures and the real test in this case is what they do in the dark so to speak that makes them shine in the light can you tell us a little more about what you did with one of your Brands as an example Dove you created one of the most Innovative marketing campaigns but it was really about the substance the key

16:57 purpose of the brand the substance of the dove brand is enhancing self-esteem women self-esteem so the brand is really working on the inside that globally only 4% of women feel happy actually in the skins that they're in partly it's a function of how we promote and advertise women very biased very sexist and most of these photos I always say to people never fall in love with a woman you see in the magazine because she doesn't exist we've worked them over with computers 10 times over but all of that adds up to make women feel uncom comfortable to the extent that they are not willing to raise their hands in class and draw attention to themselves or participate in sports activities because they feel uncomfortable so the whole premise of Dove is women self-esteem and so we made commitments just advertising is actually the least important to us but commitments to use real women to deeply work on the insights of the inner beauty

17:52 and to produce programs around that that support that one of the bigger programs is a commitment to have 100 million women women reached at puberty age and when they start getting their periods if I may say in schools to really work on their self-esteem and these school programs are now global they're not branded or any of that they're really meant there to build that selfesteem but it is a program that duve puts out there now the insights that they get because they're involved with these deep societal issues it's enormous and it needs to be adapted by country how you EXP press that in India it might be that you start to address these social barriers that are there of the cast systems in other countries it might be religious barriers that discriminate women for men and it's an infinite opportunity from two perspectives first of all sadly enough there are only six countries in the world where women have

18:49 the same rights as men and my native the Netherlands is not included in that either nor is the US in Switzerland my wife needs my permission to open a bank account so it's an enormous opportunity and secondly it's an enormous economic cost McKenzie estimates that if we would just give the same access to education land rights financing to women as we would do to Men We Could unlock the global economy by over 20 trillion in the US only 5% of the private Equity funding goes to women and if you're a black woman completely forget it if you just call a spade to Spade is less than 1% so the job for dove is to change that frame and that social Consciousness and to address that issue and the more we address that issue the better we do more than 50% of the world's population are women and I think they're pretty much behind the ca that we're fighting here so it's a tremendous opportunity and that's why the brand has been doing well

19:46 interestingly these Brands were growing faster really and they were more profitable as well and it doesn't surprise me can you tell us about the fashion PCT which you helped to create so one of the things I wanted to do coming out of unver I felt that CEOs are held to a very high standard sometimes higher than they can deliver the many issues they cannot do alone what I saw in un where we were able to do a lot of things because of our size and scale and operating in 190 countries and all the things but there were some things we couldn't do if I would start an initiative my main competitor would not join or there is a trust thing oh well you do it for business it must be in their own interest or I didn't have the depth of knowledge or time because there's such a complexity of all these issues in the world and yet we are held to these high standards to address issues like deforestation or human

20:35 rights in the value chain or Plastics in the oceans so what I did was create a neutral platform which we call Imagine where we bring together a critical mass of CEOs by industry sector across the value chain there two things that happened there collectively the CEOs become more courageous and we can address issues if we build that trust across the Val value chain that otherwise are not solved in silos for example you can move all the cars in the world to green cars absolutely chains and make them carbon neutral but some people have to invest a lot other people get the benefit but if you all work together it's a few Pennies on the end product how do you get to these levels so we looked at the most impactful Industries towards the sustainable development goals the ones that actually cause the most damage the energy industry the fossil industry goes by itself and there's a lot of attention

21:32 against that but fashion is actually the second most destructive industry uh tremendous pressure on the planetary boundaries was on biodiversity was unsustainable cotton human rights in the value chain are just a few examples Plastics in the oceans a lot of it comes from close so we looked at Fashion food tourist and travel and now private Equity to see if we can Galvanize the changes at speed and scale that is needed with fashion were fortunate enough with the help of FR HRI Pino who runs the caring company with Brands like Gucci and others to put together about 80 of the best companies across the value chain in fashion we've met a few times more on Zoom lately but we were fortunate enough in the beginning to meet in person because we have a critical mass of companies across the value chain we're getting into deeper issues like how do we implement the Paris agreements and be carbon neutral

22:27 by 2050 how do we get out of single-use plastic how do we move the whole industry to regenerative cotton and projects come out very quickly already join buying of energy green energy no company individually has the scale join buying you might get the scale to transform these industries agreeing different standards to get out of plastics jointly supporting innovators to find Alternatives what we also find is because we have a critical mass Civil Society gets interested so they want to be part of this chains effort governments start to listen so they didn't want to be part in fact we launched this initiative when France was hosting the G7 and president macron was asking me how could we make this a very effective G7 the year before the G7 was held in Canada and your former president wasn't quite behaving like a president and it ended up being a disaster unfortunately may I say and he wanted to

23:20 be sure that the G7 was more productive and I suggested to him work on tipping points so he said why don't you help me do this so we created in different industry sectors opportunities to create tipping points and one of them is fashion and so that is where we're focused on and it's fun to do I don't report or belong to any company I created this neutral platform where I can help these CEO set the standards higher or since I have been CEO and know what that pressures are we can honestly address some of these issues and if the trust is high I'm convinced that we can solve them and this is what we're working on it's a five-year commitment from each of these CEOs but I already kep the sense that most of them want to participate well beyond that and the real premise at the end sorry about that Lynn is that ultimately we should not compete on the future of humanity and there are many things that we would be

24:09 better off cooperating on and now you might say I expect governments to do that I agree with that but it's very difficult right now at the governmental level that is more polarized multilateralism isn't quite working the way we designed it so whilst business has benefited for decades from responsible government now it's a responsible thing for business to fill that void and to help drisk the political process and as you mentioned earlier business has tremendous power oh absolutely but it has to be moral power it cannot be economic power you cannot change this by Bo Authority if you want to this has to be done in partnership with civil society and governments to be sure that we actually serve the people that we need to serve and not end up even more so making a small subgroup often the shareholders the beneficiaries of all of this so it takes more than just using our skill but there is no

25:08 question that the technology disruptions which have been tremendous will come from business the resources the funding the people the creativity so we absolutely need that of all these sustainable development goals 85% of those absolutely require business to take a leading role for us to get there does your view on business having a positive impact on people and on the planet and everything they touch mean that Business Leaders need to be good people well I think first and foremost and that's a good question a good leader is a good human being what we have seen during Co that the leaders that excelled because there's an enormous level of uncertainty and angst and stress in the system we've seen mental health issues go up we've seen businesses Panic we've seen the supply chains being disrupted I don't NV CEO I mean this is a change at the scale of the Industrial Revolution and the speed of the technological

26:03 Revolution but what we have broadly seen is that the leaders that have done well with their businesses with their organizations are leaders that have a high level of empathy Humanity humility that are system leaders Purpose Driven work in Partnership think multigenerational those are the Hallmarks I deliberately use the word courage in the book courageous leaders because courage comes from the friends word Cur which means heart so these are leaders that work as much with the heart as with the brain to some extent you might argue that we've taken Humanity out of business by distilling everything to spreadsheets and numbers and day trading and Win Loose so bringing that Humanity back and these leaders that fit that description broadly have been doing better but we're short of them there's no question that the crisis that we're currently facing in the end of the day is not a crisis of biodiversity loss or

27:00 climate change or food security it's a crisis of greed of apathy of selfishness and that is a bigger issue that has crept into society than the fundamental issues that we need to change which frankly are easier to do in my opinion but it needs this leadership and this courageous leadership to get there who do you admire who are the courageous leaders well I admire a lot of people because the world doesn't function with all the people making it possible on the ground but it's easy to give you an answer that it's the Martin Luther Kings or the Nelson mandelas or the Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King or all those people they've been tremendous examples moral examples of moral leadership in the history of mankind but interestingly I get more of my strength and admiration from people that are on the ground the doctors who fought Ebola and went right away to West Africa when they knew they were risking their lives

27:53 the medical community who helped and ried together when this terrible Co crisis struck I run a foundation in East Africa for the Blind and we have 26,000 blind children in school to unlock their Literacy for Life often a very forgotten group but the people that work with them the blind the de blind the teachers who spend 24 hours sometimes wisd them and dedicate their lives to these people these are the real leaders the farmers who often live in absolute poverty in this world in many of the countries hanging on a threat of subsidy to stay alive and yet they work day and night to to feed us and to ensure that we have better lives these are the ultimate leaders because these are the ultimate expressions of leadership which to me is to put yourself to the service of others knowing that by doing so you're better off yourself as well and that's the ultimate the moment you understand that it is better to give than to receive and

28:47 the interesting thing is that many people think greet is good but ultimately generosity wins so leadership ultimately is about that what mistakes Paul do you see is making well it depends on what we are talking about but I think right now the biggest mistake that the company can make is denial we see that a lot where companies say that well these issues there are not my issues or I'm doing something often marginal so I'm not part of the problem it's the politicians or it's that so not owning a problem is a big mistake in my opinion we have that responsibility to own many of these issues that are directly or indirectly related to our businesses Wan thing to do it alone it's the easier way out to say I don't have to deal with other people because they might tell me something it's unpleasant to hear or they might force me into doing something I'm not sure I'm ready to do or I expose myself and don't have

29:40 the power that I have when I'm CEO alone so that's why we talk about courage it takes courage to set targets that you know are needed not targets that you can just achieve it sets courage to works with anybody other than people in your organization it takes courage to transform these business models that nobody else has done done before you and the mistake that people make is first of all not owning it and secondly not being able or willing to work in these broader Transformations that often require these Partnerships and that's probably where we also see not surprisingly the biggest opportunities and then the last thing I would say is you have to make this totally inclusive it is just amazing to see how creative and purpose-- driven and passionate the young people are in this world half the world is below 30 years old and they're going to be 100% tomorrow according to my calculations but they're often not included in things

30:34 companies have big hierarchies and so the mistake is to not involve even in your own organizations especially the young to drive these changes that we've been talking about during this podcast hul before I ask you for the three takeaways you'd like to leave the audience with is there anything else you'd like to mention that you haven't already talked about no I think we've covered most of it I just like to stress even once more that it starts with the individual if you believe it then I think you've overcome a big hurdle already yeah if you believe you can you can if you believe you can't you already have the answer and the three takeaways you'd like to leave the audience with today the three takeaways go directly to the book again it's an enormous opportunity we've talked a lot about the issues out there but we've also talked about what we can do so it's an enormous opportunity for companies to embrace

31:25 this the ones that do will have a very profitable future we've seen that with the Teslas or the orats which are some of the Pioneers in their industry or Beyond Burger or some of the other ones tremendous value will be created as well the ones that don't will be very quickly relegated to the graveyard of dinosaurs as I said the second message is it starts with you it starts with leadership we've talked about courage we've talked about taking responsibility of your total handprint in society this is as much a personal transformation which we always have to work on the most difficult thing is not to learn the new things difficult as it may be but also to unlearn the old things and that probably would be the second and having that courage what comes with that leadership or that Purpose Driven to stand up when it's wrong to speak out when it's needed so that is the second message and then the third message is

32:16 really don't take it all on your shoulders someone very wisely said once that the issues of that magnitude cannot be solved at the level that they are created you need to create these transformative Partnerships you need to be part of something as an organization that is bigger than your narrower self-interest and form these broader Partnerships with civil society with industry partners with governments at times to drive these changes and it's important as my third message to embrace these Partnerships it's hard work but it's rewarding thank you Paul for your leadership and your approach to owning all of a business's impact on people and our planet and thank you for spreading the word this has been terrific no thank you Lynn for the opportunity and for what you're doing and above all be safe if you enjoy today's episode and would like to receive the show notes or get new Fresh weekly episodes be sure to

33:13 sign up for our newsletter at 3 takeaway.com or follow us on Instagram Twitter and Facebook note that 3 takeaway.com is with the number three three is not spelled out see you soon at three takeaways tocom

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "#60 How Courageous Companies Thrive by Improving Lives with Former Unilever CEO Paul Polman"?

Lynn Tomman (Host), Paul Polman (Guest).

What is "#60 How Courageous Companies Thrive by Improving Lives with Former Unilever CEO Paul Polman" about?

Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever, advocates for businesses to operate sustainably and equitably, emphasizing that companies should profit by addressing societal issues rather than contributing to them. He argues that the current business models, while effective in reducing poverty, have led to significant environmental challenges and inequities, urging a shift toward a more responsible…

What is mentioned in this 3 Takeaways episode?

6 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Paul Polman, Unilever, Dove, Net Positive, G7, IMF. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "#60 How Courageous Companies Thrive by Improving Lives with Former Unilever CEO Paul Polman"?

The episode runs 34 min; the transcript is about 6,046 words in 37 timestamped sections.

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