Why Integrity Has To Start At The Top

The year 1983 was marked by two important personal lessons in integrity. The first had to do with a car. As a young entrepreneur, I was trying to make ends meet wherever I could. I got rid of my Mercedes and replaced it with a used Volkswagen station wagon. The station wagon would’ve been the perfect vehicle for what I needed, but it soon became apparent I had been sold a lemon. Exhaust fumes were coming up into the car. I either had to always drive with the windows down—not ideal in Calgary winters—or suffer a terrible headache. I realized I had to get rid of the car. So, I sold it. And I said nothing about the exhaust fumes to the man who bought it. A week or two later the man called me. He said I’d known about the problem when I sold him the car, but I hadn’t told him and had let him buy it anyway. He said I wasn’t a very good person. It hurt me, but he was right. I didn’t take the car back or refund him his money. Part of this was because I was in survival mode with my business. But, part of it was because I justified my actions— somebody had done it to me (the person from who I’d originally bought the car), so I turned around and did it to somebody else. After the man on the phone told me I wasn’t a very good person, I decided I never again wanted to be in a position where someone could say that about me or call my integrity into question.

I became committed to doing and completing everything that came out of my mouth. I wanted people to count on me. If I said I would do something, I had to do it, do it on time, and do it in a quality manner. If something went wrong, either I could blame other people for the problem, or I could take responsibility for it. Only when I took responsibility would I have the means to fix the problem. Looking at the past, I saw that my youth was a regimented life of eight swimming practices a week for seventeen years. When I quit swimming, I remember saying to myself, “I am never showing up on time, anywhere, for the rest of my life.” For instance, I would tell people I would come to dinner at 7:00 p.m. or meet someone at 10:00 a.m., but I had no internal commitment to do what I had agreed to. I was always late. About three years later I noticed no one was calling me and my friends had all but disappeared. I had learned that I was out of integrity, no one could count on me, and consequently, people stopped asking me to make plans. When I got clear that I was responsible, I also knew I could take action. I talked to all my former friends, apologized, and said I understood I had messed up and upset them. I then asked what I could do to put myself back in integrity. The answers were mostly muted, so I just committed to showing up on time. It took me three years to re-establish my reputation as someone who could be counted on. 

Fast forward to today and the company that I founded with these principles of integrity at the forefront. In my mind, without integrity, lululemon was nothing.

?One of my reasons for writing Little Black Stretchy Pants is my deep commitment to the employees who built lululemon and contributed to the creation of an extraordinary and unique company and culture. It’s important that they understand how directors in a public company are often unable to see, and unfortunately, are almost never interested in the reasons these employees came to the company in the first place. The future I want to create is a company with integrity at the top. A company where public quarterly analyst meetings are truthful and the CEO can answer questions without fear of short- term ramifications. A company where leaders create leaders. A company with a diverse board that appreciates both fixed and growth mindsets. A company where Vancouver athletes drive brand, product, and innovation. My dream of lululemon being the world’s number one technical apparel company led by people development is very attainable. The bar for what is great has been reset to a level of mediocrity, but we can raise it once again. Good is the enemy of great.