Tag Archives: corporate culture

Lululemon’s Kool-Aid is Tasty!

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There is an old Hindu saying that you can’t spell culture without cult. I think it was from the Thuggee cult, made popular by the third best Indiana Jones movie, Temple of Doom. Or maybe I just made it up. Whatever the case, the point is that Lululemon is pretty awesome.

HISTORICAL FACT: a few months ago I started doing Yoga, which I wrote about, and which also involves a lot of people wearing Lululemon everything…

Fast-forward to last week, when I organized a trip to Lululemon’s Store Support Centre for 15 of my students – who may or may not attend a local top 100 global business school – and it goes without saying that visiting the world’s leader in the creation of black-stretchy-pants was incredibly edutaining. Here’s a creative interpretation of how it started:

Hostess Chloe: “What have you heard about Lululemon’s corporate culture?”

Awesome Student: “It’s cultish.”

Hostess Chloe: “Yes, we hear that a lot.”

John [to himself]: “Where am I?!”

The talent that Lululemon rolled out – and the four women who spoke to our group reflected the exceptional talent within the organization – simply oozed the company’s core values, which are nicely outlined in this article’s quotable graphic, as well as right here.

Personally, I really like their “fun” value: When I die, I want to die like my grandmother who died peacefully in her sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in her car. This being said, a blogger named, I kid you not, Yoga Dork had little praise to offer for Lululemon’s latest prank, a pretty wicked April Fools joke involving their new e-commerce site.

Thing is, at least half of you who checked out the link to their values tuned out because it got a little weird. And that’s okay. Whether Lululemon hires people, designs products or sells black stretchy pants, they’re looking for fit with their culture. By the way, if you’re thirsty I have some delicious Kool-Aid for you to drink…

Going through the company’s values, our hostesses simultaneously made me feel ridiculous for wearing a suit (they were attired in, you guessed it, various shades of stretchy material), inspired by how a shared vision can motivate people in unique ways, and, most importantly, they made me very skeptical of what the company was selling (metaphirically and physically). So, I did the only thing there was to do, I went home, put on the super-comfy Lululemon pants that my special lady highly recommended I purchase and started learning more about Vancouver’s coolest company.

Sure, analysts and experts and “the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business” claim that the company’s stock is soaring because of a combination of style, values and being in possession of an outstanding, nichey product. Added JMP Securities analyst Kristine Koerber in an interview with the news agency: “It is one of the few growth stories in retail left. Who’s growing sales 55 per cent and putting up close to 30 per cent comparable same store sales?” Okay, fair enough, Lululemon will be a billion dollar company soon.

But what about all the good stuff that this humble blog values, such as corporate social responsibility and the environment? Well, as it turns out, according to cool-things-guru Don Tapscott and his blog, Wikinomics, Lululemon is a collaborative, visionary leader when it comes to CSR initiatives. Media juggernaut, the St. Catherine’s Standard, begs to differ, uncovering (two years ago) that Lululemon lied about the organic content of its clothing. Look. Global business is a dirty bus- um, you get the picture. Check out Lululemon’s site and judge for yourself. If you have an opinion, be sure to engage with their bloggers or share you ideas with one of their many store “ambassadors” and or Attraction Ninjas.

One of my students said it best: “it was amazing to see a company actually do everything that we’re taught in school about what it takes to inspire people and get the most out of them.” She’d be a great fit for the black-stretchy-pants community, by the way.

I’m not saying I’m personally ready to drink the kool-aid, but I’m not not ready, either – because it tastes really, really good. Besides, I’ve already got some wicked fitting pants, right?

- JCH

The Truth About Toronto

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Toronto: why do people love to hate it so much?

Toronto: why do people love to hate it so much?

So, I just completed a four-day business and pleasure trip to Toronto. Upon my return, I called, emailed and texted my friends and family here on the West Coast to re-connect and plan my week. At some point in every conversation a common theme emerged: “Toronto sucks!” they all said. Interesting. West Coasters, Westerners, East Coasters, Maritimers, Quebekers, and, well, everyone else not from Toronto seem to fiercely dislike Hogtown, The Big Smoke and/or Tdot. There are even other people, like the Arrogant Worms, who think so. And, based on a recent trip to the Centre of the Universe, I am certainly of the opinion that the rest of the world couldn’t be more wrong about Toronto. Not only does it not suck, but it is, in fact, a wonderful place with more going on in a day than most Canadian cities experience all year. The following collection of facts and stories, I hope, will do a little to change your mind.

Here are some general observations:

  • If you’re a professional who really, really wants to maximize your earning potential, go to Toronto, a city with a true corporate culture the the multi-national-headquarters to prove it. A recent survey by the Canadian Association of Career Educators and Employers (CACEE) found that the average Toronto salary is between $8,000 – $10,000 higher than in Vancouver. For certain, Toronto is the centre of Canada’s economic universe.
  • Their sports teams suck so much that it’s time for the rest of us to transition from “reveling in their athletic ineptitude” to “pity.” I mean, the lowly Maple Leafs have a two per cent chance of making the playoffs, the Raptors are slowly sinking from mediocre into terrible, the Blue Jays are worse than the Detroit Tigers, and the Argonauts are so bad that the city is courting NFL teams as bad as the Buffalo Bills to compensate for the Big Smoke’s football void. The whole situation is bad enough without the teams getting a whole lot of media attention because, well, more people live in the GTA than Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton combined. It’s a sad time to be a Toronto sports fan, and we should be there for them.
  • The city is actually multi-cultural, fighting back and forth with London, England for the title of “most diverse city on Earth” – I’m not saying that the rest of Canada hates diversity, but perhaps we don’t not hate it.
  • Toronto has real-city grit that places such as Vancouver concentrate in one area like the Downtown Eastside to a point where “grit” transforms into “decay” or places like Calgary and Edmonton don’t actually see because the people there believe in pickups and hummers more than they do sidewalks and public transportation (fun fact: each day in Edmonton vehicles idle for about 3,000 hours collectively). Toronto spreads around its edge so that everyone can feel a bit like a ghetto superstar.
  • This blog is about building community, and, let me tell you, from East to West and North to South, Toronto has it all; and they’re great communities, too, like Commercial Drive and Mount Pleasant combined, five times Vancity’s Chinatown and a Yaletown-meets-Kits equivalent neighbourhood that truly showcases swanky culinary goodness at its best.
  • People are really, really nice in Toronto. Seriously. Streetcar drivers gave me a guided tour from an amazing farmer’s market on the West side to my friend’s house on the East side. I gave and received a healthy amount of hugs. My friends and I learned about the chocolate-making powers of local bicycles and the hippies that use them to grind cocoa and coffee beans. And a dude named Milan ignored his very cold girlfriend to buy my friends Jim and Katie and I four veggie dogs (my first one got knocked out of my hand when Milan got very excited as I hugged him to say thank you). He also gave me two pieces of advice about Toronto: “always act drunk, because then, when you say ridiculous and embarrassing things you can always say ‘I’m drunk’” and then “nice guys don’t have a chance in Toronto!” Fair enough, Milan. Even nice guys need a little grit.
  • Toronto is also the epicentre of the emo-hipster movement, and I was lucky enough to be tolerated by these rich people in poor peoples’ clothing when as we visited a beverage establishment on Queen Street West. Something I like about Toronto is that 84% of all hipsters reside in that city; and I hope the number increases.
  • The music scene is outstanding and amazing all rolled into one. On Saturday night I was lucky enough to take in a simply inspiring concert (Melissa McClelland and Justin Routledge) in a simply inspiring place. And it was a beautiful thing that, apparently, goes on all the time when Six Shooter Records has a say in things.

So there it is. It’s time to start building community with Toronto, people. And here is a great link to a travel blog about not hating Toronto. You can hate the suburbs around Toronto if you have to, but remember that suburbs everywhere already hate themselves. This was a West Coaster’s case for why we should love Toronto, or at least think a little differently about the city so that we can hate it a little less. But that’s just my opinion. In any case, after reading this, what are three things you love about Toronto?

- JCH