Ashish KothariMake flourishing your competitive edge

believing in your people as a driver of performance.

2 Jun 2026 · 1 min

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In this segment of his talk, Ashish Kothari emphasizes that belief in employees is a core driver of organizational performance. He spotlights Bob Chapman, CEO of Ben & Jerry’s, and his book Everybody Matters, which chronicles Chapman's people‑first approach during a massive acquisition spree—maintaining 95% employee retention across 80 acquisitions and achieving a dramatic performance turnaround. Kothari argues that lean methodologies should be employed not merely as productivity tools but as mechanisms to unlock the "human magic" within organizations, reinforcing the principle that every employee matters and should be equipped with the right tools and support.

Chapters

I think that was such a wonderful email and a beautiful story. It starts with belief in your people, you know? And to that point, I want to highlight and I want to celebrate Bob Chapman. You know, a couple of weeks ago, your work in the service sector, you know, in the retail space, Bob wrote a book called Everybody Matters. It's based on his journey as the CEO of Ben Jerry's, manufacturing, 80 acquisitions, 95% of the people in every one of the companies that they acquired required stayed the same. And the turnaround in performance was massive. And this notion also of, you know, this notion that everybody matters. We want to invest in our people. We want to give them the tools. We want to do lean, not because it's a productivity engine, but it's an engine to really tap into the human magic that is in our organizations.