Big B



    
        I nicknamed him Big B; he was my older brother. We 
   were total opposites and drove each other crazy, but we 
   also shared much, creating an unbreakable bond between us. 
   We both know what it was like to believe that nothing we 
   did, no matter how hard we tried, felt like it was good 
   enough. Everyone who knew Big B adored him. He had a huge 
   heart and believed in everyone else's goodness - except 
   his own.
        Big B tutored hundreds of kids who had been labeled 
   by society as stupid, lazy, undisciplined or mentally 
   challenged. My brother saw within them an ability to make 
   a difference. He himself had a learning disability; it 
   was his secret. Together he and his students knew what 
   it felt like to be different in a world that had yet 
   to understand.
        In the last year of Big B's life he had another 
   challenge to face, his absolute refusal to believe he 
   was worthy of love. Big B was a beacon of light to all 
   he touched and everybody knew it - everybody but him.
        I was determined to prove to him that he was 
   worthy of love. As cancer ravaged his body for the 
   sixth and last time, he finally allowed me to enter 
   his world of pain and confusion. During the last 
   weeks of his life, only 80 pounds remained of his 
   once 190-pound frame. His eyelids would not close, he 
   was too weak to blink and his voice was a whisper. 
   All I could do was hold him in my arms and love him. 
   All he could do was accept it.
        Big B was pampered around the clock and he came 
   to love that. When he was too weak to talk, he would 
   tap his fingers to motion me to hold his hand. My 
   brother finally knew how to ask for and receive love! 
   Decades of fights, misunderstandings and the 
   helplessness of each feeling the other was unreachable 
   had vanished. In the end, he totally surrendered to 
   the wisdom of a higher power to help him understand 
   the strange concept of self-love.
        During one of our last conversations he secretly 
   whispered to me, "I really am loved, aren't I?" It 
   was the missing piece to his life's puzzle. He finally 
   realized that he had the right to be loved.

     A wise old gentleman retired and purchased a modest home near a
junior high school. He spent the first few weeks of his retirement in 
peace and contentment . . . then a new school year began. The very 
next afternoon three young boys, full of youthful, after-school 
enthusiasm, came down his street, beating merrily on every trash 
can they encountered. The crashing percussion continued day after day,
until finally the wise old man decided it was time to take some action.
    The next afternoon, he walked out to meet the young percussionists
as they banged their way down the street. Stopping them, he said, 
"You kids are a lot of fun. I like to see you express your exuberance 
like that. Used to do the same thing when I was your age. Will you do 
me a favor? I'll give you each a dollar if you'll promise to come 
around every day and do your thing."
    The kids were elated and continued to do a bang-up job on the trash
cans. After a few days, the old-timer greeted the kids again, but this 
time he had a sad smile on his face. "This recession's really putting 
a big dent in my income," he told them. "From now on, I'll only be able 
to pay you 50 cents to beat on the cans." The noisemakers were 
obviously displeased, but they did accept his offer and continued their
afternoon ruckus.
    A few days later, the wily retiree approached them again as they
crummed their way down the street. "Look," he said, "I haven't received 
my Social Security check yet, so I'm not going to be able to give you 
more than 25 cents. Will that be okay?"
    "A lousy quarter?" the drum leader exclaimed. "If you think we're
going to waste our time, beating these cans around for a quarter, 
you're nuts! No way mister. We quit!" 
And the old man enjoyed peace and serenity for the rest of his days.

      
          "Where's Jamie?" screamed my cousin Lee Ann. "Oh 
     my God, where is Jamie?" I thought, as we were standing 
     in the pool at my parents' house. The question about my 
     five-year-old son's momentary disappearance sent shock 
     waves through my body.
          The entire pool has a safety ledge around the 
     inside of it and gently slopes to a deep end of only 
     four feet. It was very common for us to let the younger 
     children splash their afternoons away in Grandma's 
     pool while we stood beside them and got totally soaked 
     with their enthusiasm and the water.
          On that scary afternoon when Lee Ann yelled, it 
     seems that Jamie had been walking near the safety 
     ledge and slid down into the deeper part. We had 
     taken our eyes off him for only a split second, and 
     then he was gone! I quickly spotted him and reached 
     down to pull him up.
          As I yanked him up, he came out kicking and 
     screaming, crying and fearful, and yelling that he 
     wanted to get out. My guilt wanted to take him out 
     and grant him his wish, but my fatherly instincts 
     told me to stay in the pool with him. Both of us 
     were shaking as I talked to him and reassured him 
     that water can be scary and we must respect it. I 
     held him close as we gently walked around the pool. 
     After a couple of minutes he said he wasn't afraid 
     anymore and he started to splash around again.
          I was feeling guilty and sorry for myself for 
     being such a bad father. "Good fathers don't let 
     their sons almost drown," I was telling myself. Just 
     at the height of my personal pity party, Lee Ann 
     walked by and said, "You are a terrific dad and I 
     really admire the way you handled that. He will never 
     be afraid of the water again!"
          Lee Ann saved two lives that day. She saved my 
     son's life when she yelled "Where's Jamie!" and she 
     saved my life, as a father! She took me from pity 
     to pride with her nurturing comment. It's amazing 
     what can happen when you look at yourself through 
     someone else's eyes.
 

    
        As I was driving home from work one day, I stopped 
   to watch a local Little League baseball game that was 
   being played in a park near my home. As I sat down behind 
   the bench on the first-baseline, I asked one of the boys 
   what the score was.
        "We're behind 14 to nothing," he answered with a smile.
        "Really," I said. "I have to say you don't look very 
   discouraged."
        "Discouraged?" the boy asked with a puzzled look on 
   his face. "Why should we be discouraged? We haven't been 
   up to bat yet."
   

    
        By the end of 1992, Tom's of Maine had entered 
   successfully into new markets up and down the West 
   Coast, from Seattle to San Diego, increased our 
   share of old markets, and produced strong balance 
   sheets across the board. In the meantime, we had 
   introduced company-wide retirement savings and 
   profit-sharing plans, childcare benefits, and 
   parental leave - all with a company doubling in 
   sales size every three 
   years. Our clear sense of identity and purpose had 
   helped us flourish financially.
        We ended up having an expensive problem with our 
   deodorant. Eager to improve our Honeysuckle Deodorant, 
   we added lichen to the existing coriander, both of 
   which are natural antimicrobials, thus doubling the 
   deodorant's odor-eating power. Because of our corporate 
   goal of decreasing our dependence on petroleum, we replaced 
   a petroleum derivative in the deodorant (propylene glycol) 
   with a vegetable-based glycerin. After a favorable response 
   in tests among an in-house group, we put the new reformulation 
   on the shelves.
        Within two months the first complaints began, then 
   increased exponentially over the next several weeks. 
   Scores of angry customers were on the telephone to tell 
   us that their deodorant was conking out halfway through 
   the day. A quick series of consumer tests confirmed that 
   half of our customers were pleased and half definitely 
   were not. We went back to the lab and increased the amount 
   of the lichen and coriander for better deodorant 
   protection.
        But the complaints didn't stop, and the heat from 
   customers and stores soon demoralized the marketing and 
   sales departments. We finally decided to put effectiveness 
   before our principle of decreasing petroleum and replaced 
   the glycerin with the propylene glycol. We sent samples to 
   200 of our angriest customers, and they loved it. Marketing 
   and sales recommended a complete recall of the weak deodorant. 
   To justify their decision, they pointed to our mission, 
   which stated the company's aim "to serve our customers by 
   providing safe, effective, innovative natural products of high 
   quality." By that measure, the deodorant with the addition 
   of the petroleum ingredient - the most effective product 
   we had ever made - did not make the grade either.
        A product recall would cost $400,000 - a significant 
   bite, to say the least, in our anticipated profits for the 
   year. We had a genuine moral dilemma - profits versus values. 
   I pointed out that our mission was not a one-sided document; 
   it also calls on the company to respect the stockholders and 
   all other financially interested parties. (I was not unaware 
   of the irony - here was the values-oriented CEO reminding 
   his marketing and sales department of the bottom line!) If 
   we were to admit failure, we'd have to rein in plans in the 
   works to crank up our successful ventures. My managers agreed 
   to slow down growth and reduce marketing investments that 
   were already in the works, in order to assure a respectable 
   profit for the year. It was a more cautious approach that 
   placed profit goals before growth-rate goals, but it still 
   protected the trust of customers and the aspirations of our 
   shareholders.
        I authorized the $400,000 recall and thus said good-bye 
   to 30 percent of our projected annual profits. It was a painful 
   decision to make, but our sense of identity as a corporation 
   committed to safety, effectiveness and trust as well as profits 
   showed us the way out of the crisis. Our ideals won out. Our 
   mission held up to the test of its central belief: The company 
   can be financially successful, while behaving in a socially 
   responsible and environmentally sensitive manner.
        There was one catch: What to do with the old inventory? 
   Depositing it in the dump would create a serious environmental 
   problem. Colleen Myers came up with a happy solution. A national 
   organization that worked with the homeless said it wanted the 
   product - in spite of its marginal effectiveness - as part of 
   its program to retrain people in personal hygiene habits.
        But Tom's had disappointed thousands of loyal customers. 
   We wrote to the 2,000 who had complained, explaining what had 
   happened and apologizing. We gave them a free sample of the 
   formulation; 98 percent liked it and expressed their appreciation 
   both for the new deodorant and for how the company had handled 
   itself. Someone was listening.