Yvon Chouinard's Leadership of Patagonia
I recently wrote an essay evaluating and critiquing the transformative aspects of Yvon Chouinard's leadership of Patagonia, a multi-million dollar outdoor lifestyle company. You can read it below.
Overview
Yvon Chouinard founded his company in 1957, operating his blacksmith shop out of an old chicken coop is his parent’s backyard in Burbank, California. What started as a 19-year-old setting out to build strong carabiners and pitons for his personal rock climbing hobby has grown into a multi-national benefit corporation with annual revenues exceeding $575 Million in 2013 (Voight). A self-described reluctant businessman, Chouinard has found a way to reconcile his love of outdoor sports with his entrepreneurial spirit through his company: Patagonia. He views his company as the vehicle through which he can “do something good and… demonstrate that corporations can lead examined lives.” (Stevenson).
While Patagonia began as a rock climb accessories company, it’s grown into an outdoor lifestyle company with extensive market reach. Creating quality products are something Chouinard always kept in the forefront of the business because, “if a tool failed, it could kill someone, and since we were our own best customers, there was a good chance it would be us!” (Chouinard, 24). This commitment to excellence has been distinctive for Patagonia and something that has created a certain panache with its customers. Chouinard embodies this confidence and, even at the age of 76, continues to feed his desire to innovate and invent better gear than he can buy in the marketplace (Welch).
The core commitment of Chouinard through the work of Patagonia is a responsibility to the environment. This was demonstrated early in the history of the company when Chouinard realized that traditional rock climbing pitons were scarring the faces of pristine rock formations. He decided to create a better piton that would leave less impact on the environment. This was an early demonstration of what has evolved into a full-fledged philosophy of why Patagonia exists as a business: “to work on changing the way governments and corporations ignore our environmental crisis” (Chouinard, 190). This economic crisis, for Chouinard and Patagonia, is rooted in the collective values of our corporate economic system: choosing “the primacy of expansion and short-term profit” over the issues of “quality, sustainability, environmental and human health, and successful communities.” (Chouinard, 72). This is the system which Patagonia is engaged in changing, through the influence of their distinct corporate culture: a culture that believes the environment is in crisis.
Patagonia has now created 8 philosophies that help the corporation live out it’s environmental credo throughout every level of their business: Product Design, Production, Distribution, Image, Financial, Human Resource, Management, and Environmental. Chouinard recorded these philosophies in his book Let My People Go Surfing, and now the company takes small groups of new employees on a week-long camping excursion where he teaches the core philosophies of the company to his workforce (Chouinard, 75).
The mission statement of Patagonia is “make the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis” (Patagonia Mission Statement). Not only has Chouinard helped working out this mission statement practically through their 8 guiding philosophies, but he also practices it with his company’s bottom line. Chouinard has committed Patagonia to 1% for the Planet: a resolution that gives back 1% of all sales to environmental projects through the 1% For The Planet alliance.
The culture that Chouinard has created is founded upon his personal disdain for being told what to do (Comen). As a result, Chouinard practices his “MBA style” of management: “Managing by Absence” (Chouinard, 58). Throughout his working life at Patagonia, Chouinard would often leave the company in the hands of others for months at a time while he traveled the world testing Patagonia’s gear. As a result of this “hands off” style of leadership, Chouinard purposefully tried “to hire people who are really self-motivated and good at what they do,” and then “just leave them alone” (Chouinard, 59). While putting a lot of effort into passing on the guiding mission and philosophies of Patagonia to new employees, Chouinard hires the best people that he can and allows them to make the decisions. Eleven years into running the company, Chouinard left the company in the hands of two of his close friends and took a 6-month road trip to South America. Chouinard has always found regular ways to get away and to continue enjoying his love for the outdoors while building his business.
Evaluation and Critique
Yvon Chouinard has built Patagonia to be a company that other companies can model their business practices after. Their commitment to environmental stewardship, the health of their employees, and sustainable business practices has distinguished them as an eco-friendly company that has lead the way for other companies to develop more “green” business practices. Patagonia is an excellent case study of the “triple bottom line” of people (social), the planet (environmental), and profit (economic) leading to sustainability for an organization. Patagonia continues to grow and slowly increase their profitability every year while continuing to sustain their core mission and philosophies.
There are two primary critiques that I would bring against Chouinard: a critique of his “MBA” style of management and Patagonia’s niche market as a luxury item for the wealthy. In the former, one could see Yvon’s “Managing by Absence” leadership style, coupled with his disdain for authority, as an abdication of responsibility more than a “leadership style”. A leadership style is something one actively engages in and really can not be defined as fundamentally abdicating one’s responsibilities to another. The only way that Patagonia has succeeded over the years, from a business standpoint, is by Yvon having excellent colleagues around him who could take responsibility for running the company while Yvon pursued other adventures.
The second critique is one rooted in the marketing scheme and price point for Patagonia products. While Patagonia’s brand is rooted in the “dirtbag” outdoor lifestyle of Chouinard, and while it hires brand ambassadors who perpetuate that same “dirtbag” outdoor lifestyle, they primarily sell their products to the upper-middle class. Their design, retail cost, and marketing practices all align with that outcome. Most “dirtbags” simply wouldn’t be able to pay $400 for a new jacket. Thinking in terms of global sustainability, the average worker who assembles that Patagonia jacket would not be able to afford to purchase that jacket. For all of their admirable commitments to the environment, their end product is simply too expensive for global use. A person making $34,000 a year or more is a part of the global 1% of wealthiest people (Censky). Patagonia gives 1% of all their sales to ecological causes (1% For the Planet). Ironically, one needs to actually be a part of the wealthiest 1% on the Planet in order to even afford their products.
Reflection
Patagonia is an excellent example of how perpetuating idealism from a specific perspective can lead to thoroughly misleading conclusions when you continue to only look at the problem from one’s specific perspective. Yvon Chouinard has figured out a way to make wholly sustainable, eco-friendly, quality clothing and outdoor lifestyle products for the wealthiest 1% of people on the planet. However, he has failed at creating a wholly sustainable, eco-friendly, quality clothing and outdoor lifestyle products for consumption by the other 99% of the world.
In my own life, this is an excellent lesson for Christian ministry and practice. We can often get caught up in our single-minded perspective and not recognize our own lack of perspective. We can “gain the world”, but “lose our soul” in the process. As I am looking for solutions that work for me personally, I often fail to think of “does this solution work for others?” and I never ask the question, “Does this solution work for the underserved?” Rather than leading with questions that benefit my own interests, I ought to lead with questions that seek to serve the community as a whole.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
180° South. Magnolia Home Entertainment, 2010. Film.
Barton, Robin. "At the Peak of His Ethical Powers." The Guardian. February 25, 2007. Accessed April 11, 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/feb/25/ethicalliving.theobserver
Censky, Annalyn. "Half the World's Richest 1% Live in the United States." CNNMoney. January 4, 2012. Accessed April 11, 2015. http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/04/news/economy/world_richest/.
Chouinard, Yvon. Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman. New York: Penguin Press, 2005.
Stevenson, Seth. "Patagonia's Founder Is America's Most Unlikely Business Guru." Wall Street Journal. April 26, 2012. Accessed April 11, 2015. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1000142405270230351340457735222146598662.
"Patagonia’s Mission Statement." Patagonia Company Information: Our Reason for Being. Accessed April 11, 2015. https://www.patagonia.com/us/patagonia.go?assetid=2047.
Welch, Liz. "The Way I Work: Yvon Chouinard, Patagonia." Inc.com. March 12, 2013. Accessed April 11, 2015. http://www.inc.com/magazine/201303/liz-welch/the way-i-work-yvon-chouinard-patagonia.html
Voight, Joan. "Patagonia Is Taking On a Provocative 'Anti-Growth' Position." AdWeek. September 29, 2013. Accessed April 11, 2015. http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/patagonia-taking-provocative-anti-growth-position-152782.