[00:00:00] Becky Willan: From Given this is pursing the podcast that lifts the lid on how to run a truly purpose driven business. I'm Becky Willan. I'm with the help of leaders from some of the world's most recognized brands. I'll be demystifying this often misunderstood topic into clear, actionable advice you can use in your own business.

This week I'm joined by Jenny Whitehorn. Customer experience director at the Body Shop. During her 30-year career, she helped the iconic beauty brand rediscover its purpose and make it something that everyone in the company could get behind. Through this conversation, you'll learn to help your people connect to your purpose on a deeply personal level.

Make it easy for people to know about, understand, and act on your purpose and keep the momentum going, Celebrating successes and learning from failures. Before I speak with, Let's take a quick look back at her career to learn how she became a leading authority on purpose.

[00:01:00] Jenny Whitehorn: Even when I was at university, my dissertation was about the delivery of health services A across the UK to different groups. And so there's always this, you know, how can we make the world a better place? I would consider myself to be an activist. Love to make social change wherever I can. She

[00:01:18] Becky Willan: always knew that she wanted to work for a business that had a purpose at its core.

But when Jenny left University and started an MBA, she quickly realized that she wanted to pursue her career through real-world experience, not theory and qualifications to enter the body shop.

[00:01:33] Jenny Whitehorn: It changed everything. It changed the path that my life took completely and how I have conducted myself and the things that I've managed to do in work and in.

[00:01:43] Becky Willan: Jenny quit her MBA and took a marketing job at the Body Shop on her very first day. She was standing on the shop floor in Knightsbridge, getting to know the products when the door

[00:01:52] Jenny Whitehorn: opened. Dam Anita Rodick, Anita at the time came in and I thought, That's Anita Rodick, that's the owner of our business. And she just walked in through the door and then I knew it was her because she looked in a cupboard and I thought, Customers, don't come in and open a cupboard that's underneath the, um, the product.

[00:02:08] Becky Willan: Jenny went over to introduce herself to the pioneering entre. She

[00:02:12] Jenny Whitehorn: just fired lots of questions at me and you know, Who are you and you've just joined and what are you doing? And she loved being on the shop floor. She would talk to customers and she was like this fireball of energy. I'd only been there for a day, I'd only been there for a few hours and I was sort of dumbstruck in a way, but she just made me feel welcome.

And she said, you know, challenge yourself and everybody's important. And I remember going home that that night thinking this is gonna be amazing this. This is where I should be.

[00:02:44] Becky Willan: Over the past 32 years with the Body Shop, Denny has been involved in numerous projects and recently one of the most important was redefining the company's purpose and bringing it to life.

One element of that work was running a purpose-driven leadership program

[00:02:58] Jenny Whitehorn: where we were going out and helping people find their purpose and how. Related to what they brought inside the company so that your role became more meaningful.

[00:03:10] Becky Willan: For Jenny, the project reinforced the importance of purpose in business.

[00:03:15] Jenny Whitehorn: What you realize is actually that suddenly this buzzword is fundamental to everyone's choices that they make, and that where something relates to and is more informative to your purpose or your business purpose. It's super powerful. It's like a superpower in many ways, and when it resonates, people kind of move heaven and earth to do something if they need to get it done.

[00:03:43] Becky Willan: Jenny, welcome to the show. Thank you, Becky. So, uh, you are responsible for launching the Body Shop's new Purpose into the business. Why was it so important to create the time, space, and processes for people to connect their values and purpose to the new company Purpose?

[00:04:01] Jenny Whitehorn: So myself and several all my colleagues across various departments within the business were responsible for that.

And what was key at the beginning of developing and launching our purpose? So first of all, was to very much establish the detail of what was behind our purpose with everybody. So, Our purpose is we exist to fight for a fair and more beautiful world. And just as a sentence, it, it does mean something, but it was about getting underneath that and making it relevant and to come to life with all of the different countries around the world that we operate in.

So over 80 different countries and with all the employees in those countries. So we brainstormed. Hugely about how we were going to launch this, and then how we were gonna make it relevant to each and every individual. And the role that I played within that, particularly at the time, our role was about customer experience, director of customer experience, was how do we bring this to life for our employees in order for this to actually reach our customers?

As well and through a number of different initiatives, so making it very visible around the business, taking a stance from the leadership that our executive leadership team and all of their direct reports were able to take that to their departments, run face to face road shows, and actually explore what that means, not just from a.

Business level and a, you know, business perspective, but actually through to what does it mean for each and every individual. And so the exercise really was through a leadership program that reached all of our markets and our store managers and our executive leadership group all the way through the offices was to.

Start to explore what people's purpose was. And that was what made the biggest difference. That we linked those two things together at a time when we could pretty much deliver that face-to-face. And we, we continued to do it virtually, um, over the last couple of years as well. And tell

[00:05:52] Becky Willan: me a bit more about sort of why you think that connection between company purpose and personal purpose was so powerful.

[00:06:01] Jenny Whitehorn: It is very powerful and I think it helped. Almost every individual that I came across and I rolled this out to, you know, a vast number of people within our organization is it brought their work and their life together in a way that we sort of taught work life balance. But it made a much deeper connection between what you were doing on a day-to-day basis.

And it became, a tool to bring your role to life and become more entrepreneurial. To allow us to think individually, whether you are in sourcing or you are in a store, how you relate to that on a day-to-day basis. So we developed a set of cultural values around that, which was around things like putting the customer first, which many organizations would want to do, but we brought that to life to make sure that it.

It was authentic for everybody within the business. And people shared that. And, you know, it became a talking point across the business from colleague to colleague about their purpose and trying to establish that, but also relating it to our business purpose with lots of detail underneath that.

But personally, people, you know, found great strength in that actually, as they developed their purpose. I certainly. ,

[00:07:11] Becky Willan: and you've touched on this already, but I think one of the centerpieces of this work was a, was a two day experience that was geared towards helping people at the Body Shop to find that personal connection.

So identifying their purpose and then being able to link that to the company's purpose. So could you tell us a bit more about how that experience worked?

[00:07:31] Jenny Whitehorn: Yes. So this was a huge venture for us and one of the first. Large scale interventions across our organization for a couple of years from a people perspective in a learning and development environment that was the same program at all levels of the business.

We didn't change it at all for any area or country or part of the organization. So two days we partnered with an amazing. Agency, some of whom had backgrounds in psychology, and we just wanted to almost explode what our purpose meant for everybody. So the two days are very much involved in how your brain works and, and how you begin to learn more about yourself, develop your purpose.

So we did this through several different modules within it. So one is about developing a powerful relationship. Um, which is key to any business. We looked at things like our signature strengths and one of the most interesting exercises within it was bringing along our collage or our sort of life story a little bit, the things that are meaningful to us in our world.

And that was, you know, socially, emotionally, and business-wise. It was really interesting for people to share. That about themselves with each other, um, to whatever level you felt comfortable. And then how that began to relate to what does that mean for your role and what does that mean for how you deal with your day-to-day business?

And also how it interlinks with others. So it developed these amazing relationships within our organization.

[00:09:02] Becky Willan: Yeah, I'm sure. And how many people, um, in total were part of the program?

[00:09:07] Jenny Whitehorn: Well over a thousand, if not, if not more than that.

[00:09:11] Becky Willan: Yeah. You know that is such, a huge undertaking for a business of your size.

So I think one of, the questions that I had was, how did you convince your leadership team to make that level of investment?

[00:09:24] Jenny Whitehorn: Yeah, so it came from the work on our purpose where we were developing the purpose, which was a very cross-functional group of people. And what we realized, including our leadership group and our CEO, was that we needed a program like this.

We needed to sort of unlock our organization and make this meaningful for everybody in a personal way, not just through written communication and through, you know, launching what might. deemed previously as missions or objectives or OKRs and you know, this was something that was gonna be fundamental and be the platform and basis for everything.

So getting the final sign-off for the budget always was difficult making, you know, realizing how much that was gonna cost the whole business, but, but worth it because when we started to measure it, we were seeing much better results. As a result of it, To be honest, it wasn't that difficult because it grew out of our leadership journey, so probably a bit easier than perhaps the journey for other organizations where this is being brought to a leadership team.

It very much came from that original work on what is the, a body shop's purpose. ,

[00:10:31] Becky Willan: when you were thinking about designing that program, to what extent did the people who were part of those sessions already understand why purpose was such an important thing for the Body Shop? Not just in terms of your heritage, which I think most people will recognize, but actually in terms of protecting the business and driving growth for the future.

How much education or making the case around purposes of business philosophy did you have to do as part of that program? ,

[00:10:59] Jenny Whitehorn: it was a very important part of the program to almost reset the direction that we really wanted to fly into, and the territory of the body shop, you know, being not just a beauty brand, but being a brand that fights for a fair and more beautiful world.

So the words in themselves were fundamental to our growth. So there weren't any doubters really in any of that. I think it was just as people started to. The results and the behavior change, and the change in the way that we were working, were the proof points. So with the data, the behaviors, the conversations, and the evolution of projects that brought it to life actually,

[00:11:39] Becky Willan: Great. I wanna come back to lots of that stuff actually. But, um, just to close out this section from a more practical perspective, how did you make sure that people who were part of this experience were able on leaving the experience and taking that back to their day-to-day jobs? How quickly then did you see positive change follow as a result?

[00:11:59] Jenny Whitehorn: everybody left with an amazing document plus the work that they brought. And I think because it was so personal, it wasn't something that they either put in their office, in the store, or their desk if they were in the office or it was something that was life and was real. And very quickly the conversation changed.

We saw it quickly in the offices that we developed as sort of, a language around it. So things like, you know, signature strength and your impact plan. And we kept. Pretty simple that there are a couple of things you can do in your day-to-day that shift from the way that you did it before, the way you, think and your behavior, and what difference you see.

So we talked about thinking behaviors and success and that very simple model, I suppose, or way of thinking and working resonated, and it was really simple...

[00:12:51] Becky Willan: Brilliant. I love the idea of a sort of personal impact plan coming from this sort of program. Can you tell me more about the thing that people were writing into their impact plans?

[00:13:04] Jenny Whitehorn: Depending on the sort of role that you were doing, particularly within the leadership team, It was about, you know, how do I understand more about the team that I'm working with? How do I get to know them on a deeper level and understand what their purpose is, what's important to them in life, and what is it in each of their roles?

That they can do. So it formed part of your one-to-ones with your, with your peers, with your team, and within teams. And then customers would begin to see we, you know, we shifted alongside this, We shifted our customer proposition to make sure that the way that we were talking about in behaviors filtered through to our customers.

Yeah. We revised our customer service plan to be something that was called, we call it Body and Soul. Mind. Body and Soul, which is about your induction and then the service program. And it filtered through to that as well. So, Building relationships with customers, getting to know your customer in a much more in-depth way.

And then also exploring decision making in various roles around the business. You know, does this work with our purpose? Deciding that for a fair and more beautiful world? Then things like, you know, air freight, Do we ever air freight something? Then that's gotta stop. Do you know? So all of those bigger decisions around businesses that things might cost us more money, but we are gonna move into those spheres, whether it was in product development, innovation, people.

[00:14:20] Becky Willan: I think you've touched on some really important things there. Cause, in our experience, leadership teams can get excited about their strategic opportunities from a new purpose. But people elsewhere in the business need much more tangible evidence that it's about more than words on a page. So were there any sort of real signature actions or, or big commitments that help to build belief?

[00:14:41] Jenny Whitehorn: Particularly for our store-based teams who perhaps hadn't had the same focus and certainly hadn't had the same budget spent on their personal development, and to leave your store for two days in your team, which was interesting for, they leave their stores for me for different things at conferences and so on.

But to be given this injection to raise the importance of our store managers to share in. Operation with everybody. And it was so interesting because I think many of our office-based teams who were sometimes part of that understood more about what that means, to run a store and to have that direct contact with our customers and that value about the customer first, whether that's yours.

Teams internally that your customers or indeed our customers across all of our countries, resonated with everybody. We're a storytelling business, and the stories that came from that were amazing, and the store managers were proud when they could start to see the results. . Yeah. Yeah.

[00:15:34] Becky Willan: And I'm, I'm sure we had a, a conversation a while ago where you talked about actually some of those changes in recruitment or what colleagues working in stores were being able to do in terms of how they were expressing themselves and being encouraged to show themselves their tattoos. Yeah. Having less restriction in terms of uniform and what they were being asked to wear to work, for example.

Is that sort of part of what you're talking about?

[00:16:03] Jenny Whitehorn: Yeah, all of the expressions. So some different things changed for those teams. So we sort of scrap the whole idea of a uniform that you bring your best self to work and your best self is that that person that's living to their purpose come as you are, express yourself through who you are.

If we've got the right people wanting to work for the organization, then the person that's at home and the person that's at work is the same. So you've

[00:16:25] Becky Willan: touched on seeing the impact and seeing the change, and I think one of the things that people working in purpose, um, are challenged with is how do you measure the impact of purpose and programs that exist to connect purpose to business performance, essentially.

So it would be brilliant just to hear a bit about how you measured that, where you saw an uplift, and how quickly that happened...

[00:16:49] Jenny Whitehorn: So it's a really interesting topic to be able to quantify with proof points about why either the purpose or a program can begin to evolve and, and change your business. So there were several things we put in place.

So, first of all, it has a positive impact on our business performance. And so we began to see that, you know, in some of our stores, the like-for-like sales were increasing. Some of the other stores may be where the team hadn't been through that or hadn't participated in CSAT scores. So customer satisfaction scores were another measure of engagement by the team.

So we do have Glint and we could see that. Just touching base with team members. People were potentially happier, they were more engaged, and they were enjoying their job more. But then the glimpse score reflected that as well. And when we started looking at things like year-end reviews and talent development, those people, were we moving that talent through the business?

Um, and we saw that as a positive move as well. And then recruiting. So we were able to recruit more talent just because we were looking at individuals who. Come in through the door for, an interview or come to, to come to work with us, that had a positive impact on the people that was suddenly much more interested in the body shop as a purpose-led business.

Um, not just because it was the buzzword and it's the thing to do, but because we were living that. And you know, if you ask most people within the organization, there's also another platform. If something isn't working as well, we can say, Well, what, how do we, you know, how does this relate to our purpose?

What else can we do? So the other things fall out of it, you know, our objectives, the way we measure those objectives, and the sorts of targets we set ourselves, but allowing for a bit more. a bit more risk and allowing for a little bit more local decision making and less of the, Oh, I have to keep asking permission for that is try things and test them and much more of an open, I suppose that comes back to trust, that we trust you to be in the position that you're in and therefore you have a little bit more autonomy.

[00:18:50] Becky Willan: Yeah. Yeah. And I think sort of creating a culture of empowerment rather than control feels like such, an essential part of creating a purpose-driven business. But I guess with that, there's a really practical challenge about how you capture and share and learn from things that are happening around the business.

You know, the things that were brilliant and successful, as well as the things that didn't work out. So, How did you navigate that challenge? Were there any kind of processes or structures or, Or was it much more informal in terms of the way that the whole business took on those learning? ,

[00:19:21] Jenny Whitehorn: Um, I would say much more informal, but through regular business check-ins.

So all of our business reviews and monthly reviews and all that kind of stuff, that, that was always related back to what was it that we did differently to what we did before that's causing this improvement in whichever measure we were looking at. Um, and then as we started to roll out certainly the purpose-driven leadership program from country to country, then.

The GMs and the members of those teams would start to share that again from country to country. So the, you know, and it's interesting because culturally, obviously, countries are different, but interestingly, people are often the same. It boils down to the same type of desire for improvement. You know, whether it was in Australia or whether it was in North America or Europe.

So I think it was very much more of an informal basis as people were talking about purpose and sharing what they were doing, but formally through our business measure...

[00:20:14] Becky Willan: Yeah. Yeah. And I think those sorts of informal rituals and habits are the things that shape culture, but I think that they are the things that are harder to control.

So I just, I wondered, you know, if any particular ways helped you ensure that purposes of conversation showed up in the places and moments that do shape culture? You know, like the team meetings and the water cooler moments, are not just the big set pieces, like the sort of the retail season or the sort of the monthly review.

[00:20:44] Jenny Whitehorn: So there are, there are several things I think in the last couple of really meaningful years. Lots of guest speakers from different businesses in different areas, whether that be, certain things like well-being from managing your sleep to financial wellbeing, economic well-being, personal wellbeing, health, and well-being.

So this really kind of, we used like a lotus flower to show you there are all these different pillars. And awarding things like, um, we did a kindness day, which was a day for you to go and explore something. Be kind to yourself. We work hard. This is an additional day's holiday where you take the day for yourself.

Um, and then something key for very many women. You know, having a menopause policy, some really interesting initiatives like that.

[00:21:30] Becky Willan: Brilliant, thank you. And then the last thing I wanted to ask you about in this section was just how you made it easy for employees to talk to customers about purpose because I do think that's something that a lot of organizations are quite nervous about.

And I know as a director of customer experience at the time, that was a big focus for you. So can you tell me a bit more? Sort of how you made it easy for particular sorts of colleagues working in the stores to make purpose a topic of conversation and enhance the experience that you were offering to customers.

[00:22:04] Jenny Whitehorn: So the first thing that we were clear about was that we wanted to embed this in our business before we started talking to customers about this because we wanted the proof points that we are who we say we are, that we are fighting for a fair at a more beautiful world. So in the beginning it was really through the leaders in the stores and their teams and the business.

So, That was the most important thing, to begin with. And then as we were developing that conversation with customers, it was the stories around the products, our community trade program, and the work we do with all of those organizations around the world, and bringing that to the fore, not just the product benefit of why you were buying something.

Then the stores being empowered to. Have a local initiative and campaign that would, that would talk to that. So all the different stores around the world could come up with a sort of, what we would call almost like a local, a local campaign that was something relevant to the community, whether that was supporting some of the homeless charities and you know, across the world there's so many different needs from whether it was from India to Australia to America.

There's something relevant on a local basis, which you could have a great big global activity, but when it's local and it's to your town and city, that becomes so much more empowering. And then we started saying to them, you know, it's something that you could share with our customers. You know, if, if you are striking up that conversation with the customer and you're talking to them individually, then tell them a little bit about your purpose.

You know, why you and some of the team's purposes were amazing and. Made that conversation more at a deeper level of, you know, why that customer's come in today. It's not just to purchase mascara or a, a body butter, but something that they chose to come into our business because of the work that we do and the work we've done over the last 40-plus years and will continue to do that's more, more meaningful.

[00:23:48] Becky Willan: So to summarize, three key actions you can take to help everyone in your business connect with your purpose. One, give your people the time, space, and tools to think about their purpose, to align it to the overall company purpose. It sounds simple, but it's not a conversation that happens in most businesses.

Two, get your leaders to act as role models, ensuring that they're part of the program and can talk authentically about their purpose as well as the company. Purpose. Three, build Believe in your new purpose by showing tangible examples of how it lives in the organization. Remember, the things that you stop doing are often more powerful than new initiatives or checks.

If you'd like more practical advice on building a purpose-driven business with brilliant insight from people like Jenny, download the Insiders Guide to purpose@givenagency.com slash insiders guide.