Positive Power of Principled Profit
Volume 4, Number 2—November, 2006

Positive Power Spotlight: Thomson-Shore

Book printing is an industry that has some outstanding companies, but also a fair number of sharks. Employee-owned Thomson-Shore has consistently put out messages that show they look at the big picture, not just in their marketing communications, but also in the way they do business.

From one of their newsletters, an article on Management by Principle:

"To have an organization that sustains improvement people have to operate within a framework of trust. Trust is built from the sense of equity or balanced treatment for all in terms of rewards, impartiality in treatment and justice without discrimination."

Thomson-Shore also claims to be the very first printer to sign up for the Green Press Initiative, which encourages printers and publishers to use recycled papers, and even earlier, to be the first to carry a 100% post-consumer recycled paper. In 2003, the company set a goal of using 100% recycled paper for a quarter of its annual volume by 2006. That goal was surpassed a year ahead of schedule, and as of September 30, the percentage was up to 34.8--which means out of the hundreds of thousands of pages they process every month, more than a third did not require cutting any trees.

All the rhetoric in the world won't matter, though, unless the reality holds up. Every printer will print a batch of unusable books once in a while; the question is, what do they do to make it right? Thomson-Shore's service ethic seems impeccable. In all my years of monitoring the book industry and being in regular communication with several thousand publishers, I heard of a number of cases where the company did a cheerful make-good that exceeded the customer's expectations. And I can't remember hearing about a single unresolved complaint. Yes, there are other companies that also have an excellent track record, and if you're ordering book printing, you definitely want such a company.

Another Recommended Book: "The Power of Nice" by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval

One of the key principles of my award-winning book "Principled Profit: Marketing that Puts People First" is the idea that successful businesses actively cultivate positive relationships with all stakeholders (employees, customers, vendors, community residents, etc.).

The Power of Nice focuses just on that aspect, and shows how the authors have used this principle to grow their business--often beating out other firms for substantial contracts just because of that attitude.

Sometimes, it's a simple matter of passing out flowers or chocolates, even when you don't feel like being nice. The authors recommend, for instance, "If you're burning with envy over someone else's promotion, send her flowers. If your sister just purchases a palatial country home, make her dinner at your apartment. Why? You ask. When you start acting from a place of abundance, you'll start to feel that sense of abundance. Once you start to experience that richness, you won't worry so much about what the Joneses have."

The book looks at victories through being nice ranging from employee issues--the authors cite Daniel Goleman's research that happy employees add directly to the bottom line--to marketing (including the story of how they were hired to create the famous Aflak duck) and even to elections, citing a race where the positive candidate won in spite of a fiercely negative campaign against her (or perhaps because of it, as this month's elections can provide several similar examples).

To end, one more quote from the book:

"We frequently neglect the surest and quickest route to self-respect--behaving in a way that makes you respect yourself. If you act with integrity, compassion, and class, you might not need to spend hours on a therapist's couch...you will know, in your core, that you are a valuable and worthwhile person who can change the world, one nice action at a time."

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