Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2006
The Business of Personality
The New Yorker magazine, in its recent “style” issue, has a cartoon featuring a castaway. Standing alone under the sole palm tree on a small sandy island is a man stranded in the middle of nowhere. An opened box next to him is marked, “L.L. Bean.” Head to toe, he is covered in cold weather attire, including down vest and hat with ear flaps. The picture bears no caption. Is the joke that at least he looks good, outfitted in high-quality clothing? One could wish the box held something more key to his survival. But he looks content, uncomplaining.
L.L. Bean, founder of the company bearing his name, would have appreciated the wordless nature of that cartoon. He came to believe that his name’s imprint could represent both a philosophy of what’s important in life and its requisite gear. For a contemporary parallel, think Martha Stewart. When L.L. founded his business in 1912, his brilliance as an entrepreneur was that he connected with, and went on to outfit, a part of the American psyche.
L.L. and his company’s steady, upward climb are documented in this book by Bean’s grandson Leon Gorman. Gorman joined the family business as a young man in 1960. Upon the death of his grandfather in 1967, he was promoted to president. He retired in 2001. His book suggests a particular perspective, documenting how a business prospered, grew and endured. Gorman personalizes its history and numbers by focusing on the challenges he and the company experienced, including changing times and technology, sales strategies, managerial angst and globalization. Interspersed throughout are the comments of Gorman’s colleagues at Bean’s over the years, adding valuable variety and insight.
While Gorman addresses the issue of his grandfather’s continuing influence, he does not seem to regard that power as completely positive, despite the subtitle and the book’s tribute in its dedication, “To all the great L.L. Bean people, past and present, who helped make the icon.” Rather, Gorman seems to also be considering its downside. Over Gorman’s tenure, the company made weighty decisions about how to change yet remain true to L.L.’s roots. His lasting influence could be both a burden and a blessing, a limit or a license. Asking what L.L. would have done paid homage but posed hurdles. L.L., who originally pitched products to men who loved to hunt and fish as much as he did, may now be, as Gorman suggests, spinning in his grave.
But L.L. Bean as a company has had remarkable resilience by being able to reinterpret itself. In that New Yorker cartoon, the box unpacked on the island could as easily have been addressed to a female customer as a male. What once was macho styling now seems more unisex. There’s equal opportunity: men can be as fashion conscious as women; women can dress as functionally as men. These days a relatively diverse group of customers of both sexes includes outdoors enthusiasts, preppies, and “casual Friday” office workers.
It’s hard to imagine L.L., the symbol, still at the heart of the company’s success. Yes, his values of quality and customer service and satisfaction remain core, and his identification with Maine and the great outdoors still resonates. But L.L. has his limits with today’s customers and culture. Even though Gorman’s title suggests L.L’s icon status is the story he’s telling, it doesn’t seem to be. What makes the book interesting, and the company successful, is that both transcend what could have been a narrow niche.