Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman--Including 10 More Years of Business Unusual: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman - Including 10 More Years of Business as Usual

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Update: giving this three stars only because I believe it was written as a kind of manifesto from the founder to the employees of Patagonia.

In the book, to his credit, Chouinard does discuss some of the inherent inconsistencies in his philosophy and his company’s business model. These friends, by the way, were some of the greatest climbers of the day—Tom Frost, Royal Robbins, and many more.I've found the cure for depression is action, and action is the basis for the environmental philosophy at Patagonia. The company adheres to this statement and survives the crisis, going on to outgrow the growing pains it experienced during its rapid growth and mature into a sustainable business. In general, I strongly recommend the book to anyone running a business, leading a team or with an entrepreneurial inclination. Its management philosophy is that people work better in smaller groups and that good leaders instigate change.

Chouinard tells the story of how the succes of his company Patagonia has forced him to invent a whole and balanced way of doing business. After we had pondered our responsibilities and financial liabilities, one day it dawned on me that I was a businessman and would probably be one for a long time. The place in the lower forty-eight states that is farthest away from a road or habitation is at the headwaters of the Snake River in Wyoming, and it’s still only twenty-five miles. It is no secret that my admiration of Starbucks as an employer is growing, but its strengths tie tightly to corporate values, hyperlocal community investment and healthcare-benefits availability. After high school, Chouinard becomes an itinerant climber, supporting himself by selling steel pitons for climbing he smithies himself.

This book is an example of exactly that, it’s a complete reflection and distillation of his philosophies on life and business.

His pitons are more expensive than the ones most climbers use, but their hardness makes them removable, meaning that climbers can avoid permanently littering the rock with their gear. Unlike most recruiters,” Dean explained in an article on LinkedIn, “we read bottom up instead of top down . While not impossible to overcome, that connectedness was clearly an advantage and a great source of fulfillment (and confidence) for Yvon. Armed with Yvon’s responsible business blueprint, a whole generation of social entrepreneurs, CSR professionals and environmentally conscious businesses struck out into the great less-known of corporate responsibility to try and make the world a better place within the confines of a capitalist economy. In fact, I take pride that I received more questions, LinkedIn messages and tweets during the last 12 months than in the prior couple of years, because it’s my goal to spur dialogue and debate that consider both employee benefits and how they help HR leaders attract and retain employees.Some of the content is a bit dated (published in 2005) but the general message continues to ring true. The new tax plan may provide some opportunities for HR leaders to think creatively about how to attract employees with benefits that could include helping graduate students who can’t afford the new taxes that the government will levy on the value of free educations.

This premise has led the company to one of the best employee-attraction ratios around: for every open position, Patagonia averages 900 applications. I became enamored with the Patagonia founder’s HR policies and employee benefits when he initially published the book. Chouinard shows the extent to which he shaped Patagonia to the contours of his own interests and beliefs.No cotton was grown this way before World War II, when many of the chemicals now used in agriculture were first developed as nerve gases for warfare. I liked how he described how each time they made a change to better the environment, it actually saved them money. Chouinard never wanted to be a businessman, he didn't really care that much about making money; he simply needed to make a little cash so he could go climbing. If you haven’t yet, you can get your copy of Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman, at B Corp Certified Better World Books.