What’s your mission?
Stop and think for a moment about brands that you believe in. Not brands that you love or those that make amazing products at the expense of everything else, but brands that you really believe are making a remarkable product and taking an approach that’s worth believing in. Those brands are hard to find.
No matter how much we love our Apple computers, no matter how beautifully engineered the Porsche Carerra GT is, no matter how much we utterly adore the little blue box that Tiffany sells their jewelry in, they’re still not brands that inspire the utmost confidence from beginning to end. At least not in my opinion. One brand that does come to mind, though, when I stop and think about those that I really don’t mind spending money with is Patagonia.
I’ve been a fan for years - ever since I got into outdoor sports. First because of their solid products and their lifetime warranty (don’t know if they still do that). After working retail in the industry and learning more about Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia and Black Diamond, my respect for both brands only grew.
It wasn’t until a recent jaunt through the Patagonia website, however, that this caught my attention:
Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use buisness to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis. -Patagonia’s Mission Statement
It struck a chord, especially having given some thought to my previous post on companies focusing their attention on outcomes and product rather than profit. I believe this mission statement summarizes these ideals quite succinctly. Make something remarkable. Create a world that your employees and customers want to live in. Strive to inspire. How could I not feel good about this company? They make no excuses for the fact that they’re in business to make money, but they openly try to do so in the best manner that they know how.
Sure, we can fault them if we try. “Why only give 1% back?” “Why run a business that requires product to be shipped all over the world?” “Why, why, why…?” But if you’re asking those questions, you’re kinda missing my point. I’m not expecting capitalism to go away. I’m expecting it to be carried out with a conscience. And, in my mind, these guys are doing just that. Need more proof? Read about Leading the Examined Life. Or take a look at what the company is doing to make their own practices more environmentally sound.
