Let My People Go Surfing

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.

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.

The best managers are never at their desks yet can be easily found and

The best managers are never at their desks yet can be easily found and approached by everyone reporting to them.

SEAL team soldiers have a leader but are really self-managed as they have all bought into the mission, know what their individual job is, and know the others’ jobs as well. If the leader is disabled, any of the others can take over.

When you look to hire management, it’s important to know the difference between a manager and a true leader.

Leaders take risks, have long-term vision, create the strategic plans, and instigate change.

The best leadership is by example.

I’ve found that whenever we have had a top manager or CEO leave the company, there is no chaos. In fact, the work continues as if they were still there. It’s not that they were doing nothing but that the system is pretty much self-regulating.

Maybe a few people take advantage of our flextime policy, but none of our best employees would want to work in a company that didn’t have that trust.

groups sized between four and seven were most successful at problem solving,

it’s hard to find one person who can do everything well. For example, the “shoot from the hip turnaround artist” you hire to downsize your company may not be the CEO you need to run things after the company has been stabilized. And the person in charge of creating a new retail store usually has a different set of skills from the manager of a store that’s been open and operating. The first needs to be expedient and creative, the second more nurturing.

The longevity of a CEO’s career is directly proportional to his or her problem-solving skills and ability to adapt and grow with the job.