Let My People Go Surfing

The entrepreneurial way is to immediately take a forward step and if that feels good, take another, if not, step back. Learn by doing, it is a faster process.

how important it is for the designer to work with the producer up front. This applies to every product. Building a house proceeds more smoothly and less expensively when the architect and contractor work out the real-world problems of a blueprint before the cement truck shows up to pour the foundation. Likewise, a rain jacket is better made when the producer understands from the start what the product needs to achieve and, conversely, when the designer understands what processes have to be followed and, finally, when everyone stays on the job and works as a team until it’s done.

That suffering taught us that taking extraordinary steps to set up the manufacturing correctly the first time is much cheaper than taking extraordinary steps down the line. If you’re committed to being the best, you’re going to have to take those extra steps at some point in production anyway. It might as well be at the start.

Anything that is built should be repairable and easily maintained.

A company’s public image can be very different from who they really are.

It’s easy to promote a game-changing product because there is no competition and there are great stories to tell. If we come out with a product that is difficult to promote, it’s probably because it’s no different than anyone else’s and we probably shouldn’t be making it.

profits happen “when you do everything else right.”

A quality presentation will always outsell “messiness.”

We believe that quality is no longer a luxury. It is sought out by the consumer, and it is expected.

only 14 percent of Americans were likely to contact a company about a problem. In Europe, the number was less than 8 percent, and in Japan only 4 percent. Correspondingly, other studies show that one-half to one-third of customers who have had problems will never purchase from that company again.

It’s easier for a company to make a profit when it’s growing at 10 percent or 15 percent a year. We have been profitable in years when we grew only a few percent by increasing the quality of our product, maximizing the efficiency of our operations, and living within our means.

In an age when change happens so quickly, any strategic plan must be updated at least every year.

A company should always be playing “what if” scenarios

We don’t want someone who can just do a job; we want the best person for the job. Yet we don’t look for “stars” seeking special treatment and perks.

For some reason, we are still not doing a good enough job of training and mentoring our own people to grow into the ever-more technical and sophisticated needs of a growing company.

Remember, work has to be fun.

Our policy has always allowed employees to work flexible hours, as long as the work gets done with no negative impacts on others.

We encourage the kids to climb and fall and scrape themselves. When they’re ready for kindergarten, their new teachers often comment that they are the most confident and polite kids in class. We used to let the kids go barefoot all the time—until we started getting complaints from their teachers that the kids refused to wear shoes to class!

It’s not the strongest species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. —Charles Darwin

The best managers are never at their desks yet can be easily found and approached by everyone reporting to them. Patagonia’s offices support these ideas.