Thoughts from UC Berkeley talk by John Anderson, Levi Strauss CEO, “A New Way of Thinking About Companies, Society and Sustainability”

I recently returned from a visit to my alma mater, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. Along with meeting with some of the wonderful people at the Center for Responsible Business, I got a chance to relive some of what makes Haas so extraordinary.  I attended a talk by Levi Strauss CEO, John Anderson entitled “Levi Strauss & Co.: A New Way of Thinking About Companies, Society, and Sustainability.”

Anderson started by going through the greatest hits of Levi’s social responsibility performance and commitment to profits through principles.  He mentioned

• Keeping employees on after the damage of CA Earthquake of 1906
• Integrating factories in the South long before any other manufacturers
• Developing a comprehensive strategy to support employees with HIV/AIDS long before any other brands
• Setting up the Red Tab foundation to support current and retired workers
• All the way to the current matching grants for the victims of the earthquake in Haiti

While all of these achievements are laudable, Anderson stressed what makes Levi Strauss a socially responsible company is the consistency of these actions.  He talked about the trust that Levi Strauss has built with its customers as an authentic brand.  He was candid about how Levi Strauss had to trade of that trust when Levi Strauss lost their grasp of what products the consumer wanted.  He says that Levi’s values bought them the time to figure out what consumers want and deliver on that. 

Overall, there were no groundbreaking insights or ideas that came out of Anderson’s speech.  It was more of going over what we already know about Levi Strauss but that is not necessarily a bad thing.  In fact, I think that it is a good thing.  It means that (with this audience at least) Levis is doing an effective job communicating their CSR and sustainability goals.  I think the goal of Anderson’s speech was more to inspire MBA’s and show that Levi’s program has top level executive commitment.  I wonder what else they could have done with this platform.

What do you think?  If a company is already doing a good job telling their story, how should they push the envelope in communicating?