Daniel Lubetzky

Our intern Brian Lutter created this phenomenal ad for KIND Bars:

Here are some more things he created.

What do you think?

Driving up to Jerusalem with one of my mentors and Board members, Ian
Fisher, we discussed the importance we put in self-analysis and self-
criticism, and the essential need for objective constructive criticism
from others, both re. personal management and strategic substance.

Being a CEO in charge of taking ultimate decisions and guiding your
team, it is very valuable to find team members you trust to give you
earnest feedback re. your internal management. Board members, peers,
and mentors are also invaluable sources of feedback.

But the most important source for keeping grounded is the internal,
constant analysis of your own actions, behavior, ideas and failures -
not to chastise yourself but to help you improve. A self-imposed
methodical and introspective daily examination of the day – through
prayer, meditation, writing, or structured thinking – is healthy.

Precisely when you are succeeding the most, that is when self-
criticism is most vital to keep you grounded.

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[I am often asked for career advice by students and friends searching
for what to do with their careers, so I will start sharing thoughts as
the below for those interested - you may find the advice is worth as much as you paid for it]

The obvious advantage of choosing as your job something that you are
passionate about and gives meaning to your life is that you are never
bored, that you get a lot of fulfillment, and that you derive that
very meaning.

A lot of my friends that chose a more traditional path after law
school some times complain about the long hours, lack of fulfillment,
and lack of ‘meaning.’

But there is also a less noticed corollary to each of the above.

Living your mission can be addictive and dangerous because it turns
your job into an obsession and you into a workaholic. It is hard for
you to find as much enjoyment in a lot of otherwise rewarding social
activities when you derive so much fulfillment from advancing your
mission. And so your responsibility as a social entrepreneur is to
force yourself to have some non-work space with your friends and
family – and with yourself, lest the fire of your passion burn you out.

The positive corollary to the negative of having a job that doesn’t
give you as much fulfillment is that you can complement your work with
after-hours hobbies and social activities that will give you
fulfillment.

I personally feel very lucky to be able to truly (and not as a
gimmicky marketing fad) combine social and business objectives, which
is unfortunately not as frequently done. I would not change my path
for anything else – what I do with PeaceWorks and OneVoice is what I
would choose to do if I could choose anything in life.

But no one path is superior. As you evaluate your professional path,
it is optimal – indeed important – that you find something you can
ENJOY doing. It would be a shame if you are otherwise miserable at
work, and it is likely to make you perform badly.

But beyond the minimum requirement for your job that it be something you enjoy and care about, finding ‘meaning’ withing your vocation or through outside pursuits is a very personal decision.

Bob Tedeschi of the New York Times today wrote in his e-commerce column about the difficult balancing act that manufacturers like PeaceWorks have to make in the online world, when selling to consumers without undermining their retail sales channel.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/13/technology/13ecom.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin 

The basic rule and the basic opportunity in this space are as follows:

* RULE: as a manufacturer, what you shouldn’t do is take undue advantage of your marketing control, and ensure that you do not give undue advantage to your online channel at the detriment of your retailers; the clear example is that if the brick-and-mortar segment is selling your product for X, you shouldn’t just under-cut them with a lower price;

* OPPORTUNITY: online connections provide you an opportunity to make the pie bigger, rather than just divide it; there is a lot of value that can be created through creative programs where you are not just competing on price.

For example, KIND Snacks developed an ADVANTAGE program (http://kindsnacks.com/frequent-kind.html) for consumers where we will not give them a lower price than at the stores – the price will be the same – but besides the comfort of automated home delivery, we also reward them through a real partnership that benefits both of us: we send them free samples of new products we are developing, and we ask them to give us feedback on them; we send them free promotional materials like t-shirts, and they wear them and help us promote KIND.  We are also working to build a real NETWORK for the KIND COMMUNITY – so that the motto “Be KIND to your body, your tastebuds, and to the world” is true in all senses.

Be KIND to your body stands for eating healthy wholesome foods.

Be KIND to your tastebuds stands for eating TASTY food – you don’t have to sacrifice one for the other, as we have shown with KIND Fruit + Nut bars.

Be KIND to the world today means that by buying KIND bars, you are supporting our work with the award-winning cutting edge PeaceWorks Foundation, which launched and guides the OneVoice Movement and the Who Am I Film Project.  But we also want it to mean that being KIND TO THE WORLD should connect to the way we all live our lives, and we want the KIND COMMUNITY to embody this motto in their daily lives, so we are working with our family of consumers to develop fun but meaningful ways to establish a new model along these lines…

A business entity that explicitly and practically sets out to not just make money but also achieve some positive societal impact.

Archane tax systems have forced upon our minds and our legal structures the assumption that an entity has to either have profit-making as a goal OR be dedicated to benefiting society.   While there are many cases where positive social impact cannot be engineered or organized in a self-sustaining market-driven business model and requires a purely non-profit structure, this is not necessarily the case.  There are many positive ways to impact both the bottom line and the world at large.  Indeed, it is sometimes optimal to be able to help advance societal goals in a sustainable way that relies on market mechanisms to advance social goals also.

PeaceWorks is the first example I dabbled in to try to prove this concept.

There are many other companies (preceding and succeeding PeaceWorks) that are similarly structured.

Doing something out of ‘self-interest’ but defining self-interest in a
broad enough and sufficiently long-term &/or sufficiently
consequential way that bears in mind societal impact.

Example: working to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not
‘altruistic’ at all. It is based on the imperative to prevent a
tragic world for our offspring. It is based on the recognition that
if the conflict doesn’t get resolved, it will impact all of OUR lives
- and that if WE don’t take steps to end it – nobody will do it for us.
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