The Soul of a Business: Managing for Profit and the Common Good

The founder of Tom's of Maine products draws on personal experience to argue that service to others and benevolence are not inconsistent with profitability and can improve profits and ensure prosperity

Managers must maximize profits while satisfying stockholders' expectations. Can these goals be achieved while following moral principles and values? Chappell, co-founder and president of Tom's of Maine (a natural-ingredients consumer-products company) and former Harvard Divinity School student, presents a thoughtful and practical study of business ethics. His report bursts with ideas from the Bible, Kant and Martin Buber (he gave copies of I and Thou to introduce numbers-oriented managers to his values-based approach to business). Adroitly developing his "middle way" of management, Chappell maintains executives can "use the two sides of all of us, the spiritual and the practical, to achieve whatever business goals you set for yourself." He explains the development of a media campaign that expressed the value of "goodness" on which Tom's is based and tackles issues from building a sense of community within the company to the obligations of citizenship in forming a new kind of business. This inspiring study neatly bridges the gap between theoretical ethics and managerial practices.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A down-east entrepreneur's slick and assured account of how he brought his company into the light, thereby showing the way for less advanced enterprises. In a narrative dense with buzzwords and bywords (``authenticity,'' ``community,'' ``cultural diversity,'' ``mission statements,'' ``social responsibility,'' etc.), Chappell recounts how he founded Tom's of Maine in 1970 with the help of his wife, Kate. At first, the Kennebunk-based concern prospered modestly by vending--originally through health-food stores--toothpaste and other personal-care products made from natural ingredients (with due care for the environment). But despite the firm's success in niche markets and subsequent acceptance by mainstream retailers, the author became vaguely discontented during the mid-1980's. In search of ease, he enrolled (at fortysomething) at the Harvard Divinity School, running the company part time; upon graduating in 1990, he returned to Tom's of Maine with a host of ideas about how to live up to the Quaker maxim of doing well by doing good. Here- -with as much piety as wit--he offers short-take briefings on how he managed to apply in a commercial setting insights gained during his protracted epiphany. On the basis of the evidence here, however, Chappell hasn't always been consistent in acting on his professed convictions: In attempting to comply with an arguably sanctimonious corporate credo, for example, he doesn't shy from reverse discrimination against other white males. Nor does he pay even lip service to the existence of putatively kindred spirits like Anita Roddick (of Body Shop fame) or the PC proprietors of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc. But Chappell understands that involvement in worthy causes can benefit a business, and he appreciates that his company must be profitable if it's to contribute to the common weal. A generally--and ironically--self-centered exercise in the economics of meaning, whose appeal seems limited largely to true believers. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In 1974 Chappell and wife Kate founded Tom's of Maine, a company that makes products using only natural ingredients. By 1981 this company, started with a $5000 loan, was registering $1.5 million in sales. Despite this success, Chappell was unhappy; he felt disconnected from the company. He enrolled in divinity school, where he decided to re-create his company in a way that would encourage respect for the individual, the community, and the environment. This is the story of that transformation. Many of the ideas presented here, like starting a newsletter or creating small work groups, have been prevalent in management literature for some time, and few companies have the conditions needed to make their success possible. While Tom's of Maine consumers might enjoy reading this account, and others might find it inspirational, only the CEO of a small company could use it to follow in Chappell's footsteps.
- Joshua Cohen, Mid-Hudson Lib. System, Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Businesspersons like Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry's Homemade, Anita Roddick of the Body Shop, and Paul Hawken, who founded Erewhon Trading Company and hosted PBS' "Growing a Business," represent a new breed of entrepreneur, blending profits and principles. All believe that it is possible to run an environmentally sensitive, socially responsible business and yet be successful. Less well known than the aforementioned, but of a similar mind, is Chappell, cofounder of Tom's of Maine, a firm that markets all-natural personal care products, with sales of $17 million. Several years ago, after successfully building his company, Chappell still felt unfulfilled and entered Harvard Divinity School. He offers here his blueprint for corporate success, with an emphasis on spiritual and ethical values. David Rouse