Asaf Mizrahi
Professor Spear
Business communications
December 4th 2017
Patagonia: An Earth-Friendly Brand
“Let My People Go Surfing,” tells the story of how Yvon
Chouinard went from being a young rock climber to being worth over
1 billion dollars. Yvon Chouinard is the founder and owner of
Patagonia, and he got there with such unorthodox philosophies. The beginning of Patagonia clothing company started out much more modestly. Chouinard began his business by designing, manufacturing, and distributing rock-climbing equipment in the late 1950’s. At the heart of Patagonia’s unique philosophies on how they run their business, lies Chouinard’s stubborn devotion to combat the ecological crisis. His love and obsession for the upkeep of this planet …show more content…
As a result, he stopped making the pitons, and started making and selling chocks, which were friendlier to the rocks. His main focus was to simply develop Patagonia and use it to create solutions to the environmental crisis. Eventually, his company went from a small rock-climbing equipment business to the mega giant that Patagonia is today.
One of the most interesting aspects of Patagonia is their philosophy on human resource. In Chouinard’s initial small rockclimbing business, he would only hire actual rock climbers to design and produce the equipment that the company was going to sell. The idea here is that there was no difference between the people who made the products, and the people who used the products. This created a shared interest in product quality between the employees and the customers. Of course, this did not transfer over so easily to
Patagonia because it is a much bigger and more complicated business operation. Nonetheless, it was able to work. The first clothing designed by Patagonia was rugby gear, which was also worn by the climbers. Although Patagonia has a large number of employees, this culture of outdoor-gear oriented employees stands with the …show more content…
I cannot imagine a company trying to create a product that is the best of its kind, being staffed by people who don’t passionately care about the product” (Page 157).
The management structure and culture is another aspect of
Patagonia that makes it truly unique. It is the farthest thing from a man in Louis Vuitton suit barking orders at a bunch of robots in cheaper suits. Mangers in Patagonia display characteristics that are unique to Patagonia and really effects how the business runs. These characteristics and managerial behaviors align with some of the communications skills that we talked about in class. It was important for Chouinard to have a more spirited and less systematic team of managers and division heads. The lower-level staff is allowed to question something that they might think is a bad decision; in fact, it is seemingly encouraged. Managers are there to ‘pump up’ the employees into buying into what they’re designing and producing. As a result, the employees work very hard to create top quality products.
This culture starts from the pirited nature of management. It stems form equal say, Positive reinforcement, and not barking systematic
Professor Spear
Business communications
December 4th 2017
Patagonia: An Earth-Friendly Brand
“Let My People Go Surfing,” tells the story of how Yvon
Chouinard went from being a young rock climber to being worth over
1 billion dollars. Yvon Chouinard is the founder and owner of
Patagonia, and he got there with such unorthodox philosophies. The beginning of Patagonia clothing company started out much more modestly. Chouinard began his business by designing, manufacturing, and distributing rock-climbing equipment in the late 1950’s. At the heart of Patagonia’s unique philosophies on how they run their business, lies Chouinard’s stubborn devotion to combat the ecological crisis. His love and obsession for the upkeep of this planet …show more content…
As a result, he stopped making the pitons, and started making and selling chocks, which were friendlier to the rocks. His main focus was to simply develop Patagonia and use it to create solutions to the environmental crisis. Eventually, his company went from a small rock-climbing equipment business to the mega giant that Patagonia is today.
One of the most interesting aspects of Patagonia is their philosophy on human resource. In Chouinard’s initial small rockclimbing business, he would only hire actual rock climbers to design and produce the equipment that the company was going to sell. The idea here is that there was no difference between the people who made the products, and the people who used the products. This created a shared interest in product quality between the employees and the customers. Of course, this did not transfer over so easily to
Patagonia because it is a much bigger and more complicated business operation. Nonetheless, it was able to work. The first clothing designed by Patagonia was rugby gear, which was also worn by the climbers. Although Patagonia has a large number of employees, this culture of outdoor-gear oriented employees stands with the …show more content…
I cannot imagine a company trying to create a product that is the best of its kind, being staffed by people who don’t passionately care about the product” (Page 157).
The management structure and culture is another aspect of
Patagonia that makes it truly unique. It is the farthest thing from a man in Louis Vuitton suit barking orders at a bunch of robots in cheaper suits. Mangers in Patagonia display characteristics that are unique to Patagonia and really effects how the business runs. These characteristics and managerial behaviors align with some of the communications skills that we talked about in class. It was important for Chouinard to have a more spirited and less systematic team of managers and division heads. The lower-level staff is allowed to question something that they might think is a bad decision; in fact, it is seemingly encouraged. Managers are there to ‘pump up’ the employees into buying into what they’re designing and producing. As a result, the employees work very hard to create top quality products.
This culture starts from the pirited nature of management. It stems form equal say, Positive reinforcement, and not barking systematic