98: Benevolent leadership, purpose and fitting in with Sanjani Shah, the Global Head of PR, Body Shop

The Elephant in the Room

Shownotes:

The angst associated with the imposter syndrome is something that a lot of us have felt or continue to feel at various points of our life.

This angst is different to the fear that comes with not being a ‘culture fit’. For decades organisations have weaponised ‘culture fit’ to exclude those who do not conform to the dominant cultural norms in a workplace. The global majority, the neurodiverse, people with disabilities or those on the margins tend to be punished for being different.

So much of the challenge across the world is because we like people to fit neatly into boxes. That we expect people to fit in with the our stereotypes, to conform to the dominant culture or workplace norms. Who is or can be Indian/American or British; or who is the ideal team member? Do they comply with our expectation of how they should look, dress, behave….? The good thing is that increasingly people resist being boxed. But, this is not an easy road to take….

I recently spoke with Sanjani Shah, the Global Head of PR at The Body Shop about identity, fitting in, her learnings from her career journey and personal purpose. In her own words, she spent her early career trying to fit in and was called a ‘coconut’ (brown on the outside and white on the inside) by friends and family. Accepting who she is and that she is good(great) has taken some unlearning.

In the episode we also spoke about what ‘Purpose’ means at the Body shop and how it translates and is embedded in how the organisation communicates. We also spoke about…

👉🏾 Speaking up, having a personal purpose, benevolent leadership, collaboration as the new paradigm

👉🏾 How The Body Shop continues to build on the legacy of Dame Anita Roddick

👉🏾 Authentic communications, greenwashing/sustainability washing?

👉🏾 The role of networks, mentors, sponsors for women and other disadvantaged groups?

👉🏾 Role models and reading lists

We ended talking about hindsight and doing things differently……

If you would like to listen more, head to the podcast….

Memorable Passages from the podcast

👉🏾 Yeah, good morning or good afternoon in India. Such a pleasure to be on the podcast.

👉🏾 So I'm Kenyan Indian, living in London. I'm one half of a dink, that's a "double income no kids" and one quarter of a pack of siblings. And I think, you know, if I just talk, if I say where I am now, I used to be FOMO and Covid has changed me to JOMO. So in my earlier years, always out very social.

And now I think since Covid, I've just become a lot more happy to be in my own company and don't feel like I have to be everywhere doing everything. So it's a little bit about me and because this podcast is about leadership, I wanted to talk a little bit about my career and some of the roles that I've done and some of my highlights.

👉🏾I would say that my first actual job was with the International Red Cross in Kenya and it was helping reunite families that were separated by the genocide in Rwanda. It was the most fulfilling role I've ever had. And it's the role that stays in my heart and, and that was a role I did before I even went to university, it was in my gap year and it was just amazing. I actually learned a lot about leadership then. Another highlight I would say in my career is working with MasterCard in France and I worked on their World Cup sponsorships. It was all-around events and sponsorships and I got to go to all the World Cup games in '98 in France, and I met Pelé so that was a really amazing point of my career. I've then worked with two of the largest PR agencies Edelman and Weber Shandwick based out of London and based out of Singapore. Now I'm working with one of the world's largest beauty brands and one of my favourite brands and I love my job. It has so many highlights, but it's really taken me far and wide. Perhaps the favourite part of my job is kind of visiting our farmers. So I've, you know, done media trips and taken journalists far and wide to, you know, meet our farmers in Rwanda who grow our Moringa or to the women's cooperatives in Morocco or to plastic ragpickers in India.

👉🏾 So I just wanted to share that just as a little bit of flavour about myself, but also kind of what my work history has been about.

👉🏾 I know, when I got the job, it was a real pinch me moment. Cause, when you admire a brand so much and then you get to work for it, it's pretty amazing, I have to say. You know, people have asked me this question and I've thought about it and exactly that, you know, when you've been here and there and lived in lots of different places, you kind of tend to take on the identity of different places as well.

👉🏾 I would actually say, and you know, don't mean to sound like a cliche, but I do feel like I'm a global citizen. And actually, now I'm actively trying to lose the idea of having a strong identity. I'm actually very happy with not having a strong identity because I think having a strong identity, you end up putting yourself in a box by trying to give yourself an identity and an identity gives you a set of definitions that I think end up limiting you, and actually you are so much more than an identity. So I'm actively trying to lose the idea of identity.

👉🏾 Or even constraints of upbringing or constraints of race or culture or religion, you know? Yeah.

👉🏾 Yeah, I would say that one of my earliest learnings is, to stop trying to fit in. I think it's in the, it's in the words of Oscar Wilde, "be yourself, everyone else is taken." And I think it is really kind of dawned on me now that I bring a really unique set of things to wherever I work, to the Body Shop, and that's why I'm hired. But I spent a lot of my earlier career trying to fit in, trying to wear it, like, actually become more white if I can say that. There’s a running joke in my family that, I'm a coconut, but it was because I was trying to fit in and now I'm trying to really unlearn all of that, trying to fit in.

👉🏾 I'm shaking off the uniform and I'm really trying to stay true to myself and stay confident in it. And what I would say is, there's a few, so that's one of the biggest things I've learned, you know, don't try and be someone else, be yourself and be grounded in that. I've always considered myself to be a confident person and ready to speak up. But when the George Floyd incident happened, I realised, actually I was not speaking up. I was seeing micro aggressions or I was seeing injustices happen and I was not speaking up even in the workplace because of that whole trying to fit in and not putting my head up above the parapet and it's all fear-based, isn't it? If I stand out for the wrong reasons, I might get fired, that kind of thing. But I feel, you know, in, at the Body Shop there were a lot of conversations, that opened up after the whole George Floyd incident. And I think that was quite a pivotal moment in history, in my history anyway, in that it suddenly opened the doors for a lot of people to speak openly about something without the worry about recrimination.

👉🏾 So as one of the people of colour, you know, I was consulted for, a lot of various kinda networks and things, and I would talk about some of the things I'd observed at the Body Shop and I remember this conversation and she was in senior leadership and she said to me, "Sanjani why have you never said this before?"

And I said, well, actually it's really difficult, especially if you're in a predominantly Caucasian environment to speak up and it didn't feel like a safe place. I think, it shocked her that I didn't speak up, but I was like, well, because you're coming from that space of privilege where you've always been able to say what you want and it's so different.

👉🏾 But that, that was really stark for me and I think now, I use my voice a lot more. And, I'll do it as nicely as possible, but I don't worry about the consequences and I think that's just, gained me a lot of respect. But I also feel a lot of responsibility being in my position, you know, in a large organisation, but also in a PR world, which in the UK is predominantly Caucasian. So I feel like there's a lot of responsibility on my shoulders, and if I don't use my voice, I'm kind of mistreating that responsibility. So yeah, those would be my kind of two biggest lessons.

👉🏾 I mean, a lot of it comes over time. When you're in your early career, there's a lot of fear. Although I see a new in like incoming people, younger people are quite fearless. I mean, if I compare myself to what, you know, when I was at that age, they're quite fearless and they kind of stand for what they want. But I would say that just, you are hired for your differences. You are hired for your uniqueness. Like be yourself. As I said, be yourself, everyone is taken. So I'm spending a lot of time unlearning, what I've learned and thankfully I'm much wiser now and, and I would say I fully embrace my Indianness and the different perspective it gives me. So I'm really a lot more comfortable in being relaxed now, not having that stiff British upper lip, being so proper, which is what I've, which I tried to do and actually quite frankly isn't me or wasn't me. And for example, I've been told by quite a few of my managers that I'm a good negotiator and that's a real strength and I actually fully attribute that to my Indianness and my inherent kind of haggling nature, and my boss now, she's like, "well, you've got an advantage over all of us in this, you know?" and I'm like, "yeah, I do." So it's kind of drawing on the strengths that you have been given through kinda various experiences or, you know, through your childhood.

👉🏾 It's definitely a fancy buzzword that's going around in the corporate world, I would say and the notion of everyone has an individual purpose actually used to really stress me out because I was like, I don't know what my purpose is. What is my purpose? and that kinda, oh, I'm not enough because I don't have a purpose and it seemed like everyone else had a purpose. But what I would say is having a purpose is important because without it, you kind of go through life, at the whims of what's happening outside. So, if you don't have a purpose, you can be at the whims of what's happening on social media or what's happening on news and I think purpose just really helps centre you. And I'm still figuring it out, but I would say that my purpose is to become a benevolent leader and I'm hoping that, if by leading by example, I hope to serve and make a difference in people's lives. Again, I don't want it to sound like a cliche, but I've always had a certain type of management style or a certain type of manager. It's only recently that I had a very different manager and she really kind of embodies benevolence, and what I realised in me, I mean, if I look at me two years ago versus now, I really flourished under that kind of leadership. It helped me grow and it's really helped me become, you know, find my true self and I'm so grateful for it and the way I work and my outlook to work has changed so much so. I feel like that's really what I now want to give to other people.

👉🏾 Yeah, and I've definitely been on both sides of the coin as a leader myself. But you know, if someone isn't a good leader, can really knock the confidence out of you and it can take you back quite a few years. So yeah, I feel like my purpose is to really help people flourish.

👉🏾 So I would say, that the Body Shop believes in change making beauty, the Body Shop is about change making beauty, and it's not about an idealised version of beauty. So you know, the Body Shop stands to fight for a fairer and more beautiful world, but it's also about natural beauty and the focus is really about what's inside. And I, two years ago, did a campaign with a Body Shop on self-love and it's really about helping people look at beauty through the lens of self-love. I mean, self-love is where it all begins. When you have that insight, that self-love insight, you can make changes on the outside.

👉🏾 And I would say as a comms function, you asked, you know, how, how do we embed it? I would say the, for me and for the team, the filter is that every piece of communication should uplift people rather than create fear which the beauty industry does quite a lot. So, for example, we recently, it was last year we launched a new range, we have a bestselling range called 'drops of youth' and we felt that it really didn't embody what a Body Shop stands for, what our values are. And as a business, we made the decision to change the name of that range and actually. It was quite a big decision because it's our number one skincare range around the world, so any kind of change like that in a business is usually you'd say, do not do it because you know,

👉🏾 Yeah, don't break what's broken. But chance is it was already broken because 'Drops of Youth' is already instilling fear and is idolising youth, and it's like completely against what we talk about. So we did a whole campaign and we've changed the name and for us, it was an anti, anti-ageing, you know, we're not here to try and get people to look younger, it's about helping people age gracefully. I'm working on a campaign now which is about kind of really not, or debunking the myth of perfect skin. So we're using models that absolutely don't have perfect skin, but are able to tell their stories.

👉🏾 So as a coms department or the personal filter I use is this piece of coms uplifting or not? And I feel like it's, it makes it very simple then. Yeah. And actually that thing of is, is what I'm saying, uplifting or not. It's a way I filter my comms at work. But also I've started using it outside of work. So you know, if I'm talking, if I'm saying something to someone, I always try and use that filter, if I'm saying this, is it uplifting? And if it's not, do I need to say it? Yeah, I mean, I would hundred percent say I haven't perfected it by any means, but it's something I'm trying to more mindful of.

👉🏾 We are, we are, and especially when it comes to things like our families or our friends, we slip into, cause I think at work, you have a level of, you know there are some rules at work and that there are, like brand guidelines, et cetera, which kinda keep you in check. But when you step outside of that world and into your personal world with family and friends, you often kind of drop into unconsciousness, so like a simple filter like this, it for me, I'm definitely not embodying it right now, but at least it's an intention.

👉🏾 Yes and I think what you're saying is so potent for us that a lot of companies are kind of jumping onto the bandwagon of sustainability or campaigning, et cetera, but the Body Shop had that in its very DNA from the very beginning. So actually, it makes my job and the whole comms team's job really easy because everything is authentic and even when we kind of, we work with influencers or if we work with celebrities, the feedback we get from the agents is that, I think nowadays, people are being really careful which brands they work for. But whenever the Body Shop is mentioned, there's like no questions. It's like, yes.

👉🏾 So I think that authenticity carries a lot and what I would say is that the Body Shop really does continue to be a force for good. So one of the things, one of Anita's biggest legacies was our stance against animal testing. I think that's, you know, when you ask someone what do you know about the Body Shop's is the number one thing that comes up. We were the first Cosmetics company to campaign against animal testing in cosmetics in 1989 and we're now taking that further and we're now set to become the first global beauty brand to have a hundred percent of its product formulations vegan by the end of this year. So we are working with the vegan society, they certify us, they have very stringent certifications. So by the end of this year, we're set to be a hundred percent vegan with all our formulations.

👉🏾 So we feel that, we're taking that legacy against animal testing and we're growing and building it. Another thing that Anita started and I think she was a little bit ahead of her time, was refills. So you could come in store and you could bring your bottle of shower gel and you could get it refilled. This scheme kind of stopped for a while because I think, like I said, it was a bit ahead of our time, consumers were just not ready for it. But also a lot of Health and Safety regulations kind of emerged and just made it very difficult. But it, something was very much still in our hearts and two years ago, we relaunched our refill skin scheme with the underlying thinking that why waste a container when you can refill it? So how it works is really simple, we have refill stations in a lot of our stores, we have 822 refill stations around the world, and we've got a range of 12 of our best selling shampoos, conditioners, shower gels, and hand washes. You have an aluminium bottle that can be reused over a hundred times and you can come in once you've finished it, you come in and it gets refilled so it's great. We've saved over 20 tons of plastic from going to waste from this and so far 350,000 people have used our refill scheme, so we're just looking to make that bigger. So again, we're just continuing the legacy of Anita.

👉🏾 And then I would say, in terms of force for good, Anita also kind of really pioneered a program called the Community Fair Trade Program, which is the Body Shops Bespoke Fair Trade Program. And back in the day when she launched it, it was called Trade Not Aid. And the philosophy was, rather than giving people donations and philanthropy, you teach them a skill. You trade with them, you buy them so that they have a long-term income, but also it helps their self-esteem and the benefits of trade versus aid are multiple. So that program is still going really strong, and we continue to invest in it: like from handcrafted shea butter in Ghana, to recycled paper bags from Nepal to our plastic packaging coming from India, the program goes from strength to strength. I would say in terms of, you know, Anita was known for doing things very differently and one of the things, and like my favourite thing to launch at the Body Shop was our community fair trade plastic.

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