Paul Polman Quotes

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Paul Polman

Profession : Businessman

Birth : July 11, 1956

I grew up in a small town in the Netherlands which, for years, had been a center of textile production.

Paul Polman

As CEO of Unilever, my personal mission is to galvanize our company to be an effective force for good.

Paul Polman

If the short-term decisions you make damage the long term, you should resist those. But there are many short-term decisions that you need to make to be a successful manager.

Paul Polman

There are some basic human needs that are the same. Everybody wants to succeed.

Paul Polman

I don't subscribe to, 'Here are the top ten tips to successful leadership,' or, 'How to learn leadership in ten minutes.' A leader is someone who gives positive energy to others which then results in a better change than would have happened. I think everyone is a leader.

Paul Polman

The basic skills of leaders are always the same: be driven by a deeper purpose, be a human being, have a passion for what you do, and it's also about hard work and ethics.

Paul Polman

There is still too much pressure on short-termism in terms of the drivers of success.

Paul Polman

I say to a lot of people you have to measure success in terms of progress, not in terms of end state.

Paul Polman

Too many companies are running their business into the ground, I would argue, by being myopically short-term focused on the shareholder.

Paul Polman

I do not work for the shareholder, to be honest. I work for the customer.

Paul Polman

You can put yourself to the purpose of others, and in doing so, you can be better off.

Paul Polman

I see business as an ecosystem.

Paul Polman

I am very confident about the Modi government.

Paul Polman

It's easy to be a short-term hero. It is very easy for me to get tremendous results very short term, get that translated into compensation, and be off sailing in the Bahamas. But the goal for this company - and it's very difficult to do - the goal is to follow a four- or five-year process.

Paul Polman

Too often, we are being programmed by the environment around us to behave differently. But I think a true leader is an authentic person who feels good about who he is.

Paul Polman

I don't have a problem crying when I need to cry.

Paul Polman

Often people ask me what my job is, and I say, honestly, it is to make others successful, and the more you do that, the more you will see that you create prosperity.

Paul Polman

There are billions of people in the world who deserve the better quality of life that products such as soap, shampoo, and clean drinking water can provide.

Paul Polman

Why would you invest in a company which is out of synch with the needs of society, that does not take its social compliance in its supply chain seriously, that does not think about the costs of externalities or of its negative impacts on society?

Paul Polman