Inspiring news & a great example of what a few people can accomplish w/ dedication. https://t.co/ErHTKrTbjF cc: @RobertKennedyJr #Futaleufu In creating new products, Patagonia doesn’t chase fashion or trends. They pay attention to their core customers and focus purely on solving theirproblems and making themsomething useful that will not just look good today, but will look good 10 years from now.

In the version of the book I read, the historic account ends in the mid 2000s, and transitions to a section titled, “Philosophies.” Still other issues loomed. The general interest in outdoor sports and adventure was exploding in the U.S. and overseas, and we were riding the growth. We expanded internationally, opening retail stores in Chamonix and Tokyo. At the beginning of the nineties, we added another 100 employees, and projected continued annual growth of 40 percent, a rate we'd been experiencing for the past several years. But we made some classic mistakes. We failed to provide the proper training for the new company leaders, and the strain of managing a company with eight autonomous product divisions and three channels of distribution exceeded management's skills. We never developed the mechanisms to encourage them to work together in ways that kept the overall business objectives in sight.Breaking the rules and making my own system work are the creative part of management that is particularly satisfying for me. But I don’t jump into things without doing my homework.” (45) Yvon’s first priority is always to create and play by his own set of rules. And this has clearly worked out well for him.

With diligence and care given to the perfection of each product, it would seem counter-intuitive that Patagonia would also be a company obsessed with their rate of growth. Yvon even explicitly juxtaposes their 18-month product design timetables with the rapid turnover of “fast-fashion” brands that release new products weekly. It’s a more holistic approach to evaluating potential hires that arises from the company’s unwavering and ironclad commitment to its mission. And it’s a reminder to every organization that they are hiring human beings, not skill sets or eve experience. 2. Don’t just tolerate work flexibility — embrace it A few years earlier, in 1968, several friends (including Doug Tompkins, founder of The North Face) and I had taken a six-month road trip to the tip of South America, surfing the west coast of the Americas down to Lima, Peru, skiing volcanoes in Chile, and climbing 11,073-foot Fitz Roy, in Argentina's Patagonia. To most people, especially then, Patagonia was a name like Timbuktu or Shangri-La—far off, interesting, not quite on the map. It seemed like just the right idea for our clothing. To reinforce the tie to the real Patagonia, in 1973 we created a logo with a stormy sky, jagged peaks based on the Fitz Roy skyline, and a blue Southern Ocean. In the early 1970s, as an offshoot of Chouinard Equipment, came a clothing line. It’s this line that ultimately became what we now know to be Patagonia. Patagonia’s first official store opened in 1973, in Ventura, CA.Kami thought for a while and then said, "I think that's bullshit. If you're really serious about giving money away, you'd sell the company for a hundred million or so, keep a couple million for yourselves, and put the rest in a foundation. That way you could invest the principal and give away six or eight million dollars every year. And, if you sold to the right buyer, they would probably continue your tithing program because it's good advertising." Even if he or she isn’t aware of it, every individual spends an entire lifetime creating and evolving a personal image that others perceive.” The company runs a cafeteria that provides healthy, organic food, and most employee bathrooms house showers to accommodate lunchtime runners, volleyball players or surfers. By creating something that scratches your own itch, it may very well do the same for others. It’s rare that we are ever completely unique. 😉 And so, in arriving at this realization, Yvon committed to developing a business philosophy of his own. He accepted whathe was going to be professionally, but he wasn’t going to let that determine howhe was going to live his life. That was still up to him.

Our own company had exceeded its resources and limitations; we had become dependent, like the world's economy, on growth we could not sustain. We were forced to rethink our priorities and institute new practices. First step: I took a dozen of my top managers to Argentina, to the windswept mountains of Patagonia, for a walkabout. In the course of roaming around those wildlands, we asked ourselves, once again, why we were in business and what kind of business we wanted to build. Make the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis. PhilosophiesBranding is telling people who we are. Promotion is selling people on our product. Our promotional efforts begin with the product.

Yvon has always been an outdoors person. He’s a surfer, climber, fly fisher and all his friends were too. He focused on “scratching his own (and his friend’s) itch.” I'VE BEEN A BUSINESSMAN for almost 50 years. It's as difficult for me to say those words as it is for someone to admit to being an alcoholic or a lawyer.The company has made its explicit mission to be a steward of the planet — “there’s no business,” Dean said, “if there’s no planet” — and Dean’s explicit mission is to be a steward to the Patagonia culture. In the original version, Chouinard loosely described Patagonia’s approach toward employees and benefits, with limited detail to investment and cost. In the updated version, however, the outdoorsman-turned-business leader focuses more on why the company takes on many of the benefits discussed lately, starting with the retailer’s mission: “to use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.” In hindsight, we made all the classic mistakes of a growing company — not training managers, consolidation of channels and products and keeping business objectives in sight. Ten years after its original publication, Patagonia’s founder, Yvon Chouinard, has revised and expanded his beloved book Let My People Go Surfing—”the philosophical manual for the employees of Patagonia.”