It's All Good....Until It Isn't

The company Lululemon looked unstoppable.  Stores opened regularly and became profitable in short order. Their consumers were loyal, almost cult-like loyal. Wall Street loved them.  Other than being pricey, what was there not to like about Lulelemon?.  

And then, their then CEO and Chairman, Dennis Wilson made one slip of the tongue and then Lululemon went from sweet to bitter.  You can look up the disparaging comment he made about his customers whose thighs were larger. This was in the context of why their new set of yoga pants were too sheer (turned out to be a manufacturing problem, not a consumer size problem...duh).  One slip of the tongue and it can all fall apart.  Wilson is out of the company now, the company that he co-founded. 

As the famous Hill Street Blues quote said, "Let's be careful out there."  We are on the front lines all the time in our companies. We have to think and act like mature leaders as one slip can be the beginning of a long and hard fall.