What is unreasonable business?
In 2001 a group of a dozen of wide eyed bushy tailed employees of upstart lululemon athletica sat in a living room and declared that Nike would become their main competitor. Although at face value this may not seem surprising, it quickly becomes unreasonable when you learn that at the time the company had one retail store and less than $1 million in sales as compared to Nike’s top line of $9.5 Billion at the time. Not even a blip on their radar in 2002, lululemon became in Nike’s mind their principal competitor in women’s apparel by 2007. In only five years lululemon grew from that one store in Vancouver to a 70 store chain with sales of $270 million and one mega NASDAQ IPO.
Amongst other projects, portions of the wealth created by lululemon has been committed to enhancing communities globally from donations to the arts to the creation of Imagine 1 Day, a society committed to educating all children in Ethiopia.
The Group of Founders at lululemon are unreasonable people. And they were led by Chip Wilson, who is self-proclaimed unreasonable. Chip doesn’t think like most people. And what I learned from working side by side with him for eight years is that attitude and personal responsibility are fundamental keys to success. Having audacious goals and being completely unreasonable with your expectations of yourself should be normal activity.
Yet for most people, it is complaining, blaming, passive aggressiveness, and self-defeat that are the normal way of being. Breaking through this mediocrity may seem difficult, and it is. Then again, unreasonableness wasn’t built in a day.
Having graduated from lululemon, I make it my personal mission to change the way business operates. The world is changing and at the forefront of this change are entrepreneurs who put the creation of societal values at the forefront of their business agenda – above profit. The definition of business is changing. Old school is maximizing profit for shareholders at any and all cost. New skool is adding value to our communities whilst making profit. At no point in new skool business are personal values sacrificed in order to make profit. Profit is a result of adding long term value to our communities.
Institute B was formed to bring unreasonableness to the business world. Our legacy will be to have influenced corporations globally to think and act like new skool businesses.
At institute B we are purveyors of unreasonable business. This is the new business norm. Join us on this journey.