Patagonia's Vincent Stanley on creating a purpose-driven work culture

Vincent Stanley: We were never really a conventional company. For all of us who are trying to do something different. We have to show how it's different and how it's better. Then what's being done and why it's worth the trouble.

I use the word cultural confidence. You can't plan for it. You can’t instill it. You have to, in some ways, cultivate it like a farmer. You know, you plant the seeds and see what comes up, let certain things go fallow and do some more planting and work over time. Having employees who can bring their best values to work is the best guarantee of that. That I think is what has kept us culturally alive.

Damon Klotz: Hello and welcome back to the Culture First podcast. I am your host Damon Klotz and today I'm going to take you behind the scenes on one of the most iconic Culture First organizations on the entire planet. It was Black Friday in 2011 when Patagonia ran a now famous full page ad in the New York Times telling customers, do not buy this jacket. It was a bold move from a company that had since gone on to make even bigger waves because in 2022, their founder made Earth Patagonia's only shareholder. Patagonia is a masterclass in how to create a purpose led company. They've integrated sustainability not only into every layer of their operations, but also their employee values and ownership structure. Now, not every company can be Patagonia, but every company can benefit from embedding sustainability. www. patagonia. com Earlier this year, Culture Amp actually released research that shows a clear link between sustainability and employee engagement. This research showed that if you set sustainability targets, it actually boosts engagement. But, the increase is 8 times greater when employees perceive that the commitment to sustainability is actually genuine. So what does it mean to take genuine action on sustainability rather than just be, you know, paying it lip service?

Well, in this episode, you're going to be hearing real tangible examples about how they've done this at Patagonia. Culture Amp as a company has also been on their own sustainability journey, trying to follow in the pioneering footsteps of Patagonia. Earlier this year, we actually joined the UN backed science based targeted initiative on climate change, something that Patagonia has long championed for. We're also both long time B Corps, pursuing the shared goal of business as a force for good in the world. So if that's Patagonia, then who is my guest? Well, my guest today is Vincent Stanley.

He's been there since basically the beginning of the company, and he serves as their director of philosophy. He's also an author because he's the co author of the book, The Responsible Company with Patagonia's founder, Yvon Chouinard. He's also an educator. He's a resident fellow at the Yale Center for Business and Environment. And in this episode, Vincent sat down with us to provide you with a behind the scenes look at Patagonia as truly an iconic culture first company. So if you want to learn the difference between being sustainable and being responsible, well, let's head on over to my conversation with Vincent Stanley. So today on the Culture First podcast, I'm talking with Vincent Stanley. Vincent, thank you so much for joining me.

Vincent Stanley: Well, thanks for having me.

Damon Klotz: Vincent, this interview means a lot to me and the entire team here at CultureAmp. I'm in a very fortunate position where I get more emails and DMs about guests who want to be on this show than I actually have capacity to record with. And I share this not because it's about me or about this show, but I genuinely believe there is an appetite for great storytelling about our experience at work. And. I want to start by telling you why this was in a very immediate yes, to reply to your team. And they said, would you like to spend some time with Vincent? Because it was an immediate yes, because, Culture Amp CEO, Didier Elzinga, whenever he was asked, who is the dream customer that CultureAmp has not worked with yet? Who is the one that, you know, really embodies this idea of putting culture first? He always answered Patagonia in his eyes. Patagonia was the company that proved that by putting culture first, by focusing on your employees, that's how you actually can achieve business success. And obviously Patagonia has gone even beyond that, not just focusing on your employees, but also the planet. So I am proud to start this interview by saying that Patagonia has actually gone on to become a customer, which now means I need to find a new dream customer to go speak with. But I wanted to share all that by saying thank you for your work and thank you for partnering with us. And I'm excited to have this conversation.

Vincent Stanley: Alright, well thank you. Happy to be here.

Damon Klotz: So for anyone who doesn't know you or your work, Vincent, you have been at the forefront of redefining what it really means to be a responsible and purpose driven company. You're the Director of Philosophy at Patagonia, a company that is globally renowned for its high quality outdoor apparel and unwavering commitment to environmental and societal responsibility. You have been with Patagonia since its earliest days in 1973 and have been able to shape its culture in a, you know, the unique culture in many ways and the way that values really show up. So I'm really excited to dive into that. you're also an author and I'm going to speak a little bit about the way Patagonia has documented your culture. But, I do want to say that I have Patagonia stuff with me, but it's just the baggy shorts. I've never recorded a podcast in shorts, so I thought I would show them as opposed to wear them.

Vincent Stanley: I'm wearing a Patagonia shirt, doesn't look like it, looks like a, an LL Bean lumberjack shirt, but it's actually a Patagonia, so yeah.

Damon Klotz: We’re good brand ambassadors. That's why I've also got my little Culture Amp coffee cup here. So, you know, Always being good brand stewards. the question that I like to ask, at the start of every interview, when I interview someone is around how they describe what they do for work to a curious 10 year old who maybe stumbles upon you and says, excuse me, sir, what do you do for work? So how do you explain your job?

Vincent Stanley: I'm a systems architect. Oh, what does that mean? I'm not a systems architect. I, as you mentioned, I was one of the company's original employees. And, for a long time, I was a sales manager and\ did other roles in the company. I'm vocationally a writer. Which I'd be happy to tell any 10 year old. And, then for the last, 10 years, when I gave up, operational responsibilities, I've been, teaching, company history and values to employees because, we're now explicitly stating that we're in business to save the home planet.We're strong advocates of doing the right thing by employees, customers, nature, and at the same time, honoring our financial commitments. And I also teach graduate students,primarily at Yale, between the business and the environmental and the divinity schools. And I spend a lot of time as an advocate for the B Corp movement. Now, I don't know, that would be hard to explain to a 10 year old why you need to have a B Corp movement, but that's what I do. Yeah,

Damon Klotz: Culture Amp is also a very proud B Corp certified company. And yes, I feel like it's a hard enough thing to explain to adults, let alone a 10 year old, but it's important work.

Vincent Stanley: It's companies who want to do the right thing. That would be a 10 year old could get that. Yeah.

Damon Klotz: So I feel like there's a little bit of a similarity between your experience at Patagonia and mine in terms of, I was also an early employee at CultureAmp and in many ways have been in storytelling roles. And my role on this podcast is to be a storyteller. So I wanted to maybe just double click on that for a second. Why do you think? It's important to have storytellers as part of a company, especially mission driven companies.

Vincent Stanley: I think it's key, partly because we're so assaulted every day by commercial messages.and also as the language that we hear so much of the time is, is not authentic.and by that, I mean, it sounds right,but it's not very specific or the intention behind it is to.obscure as much as it is to reveal. And I think if you're trying to do business in a different way, it's absolutely critical to get the story across. And to get the story across, you have to tell it as stories. You have to be specific. People respond, um, to specific messages. They wake up and they say, okay, I'm, I don't have to fall asleep now or, or withhold my, my full attention because I, I don't feel like I'm being bullshitted. I feel like somebody is telling me something from person to person. I can tell you one thing that illustrated for me that, A couple of things in the company's history that really illustrated to me this need and how people respond to it. And one, it's interesting for us because we came out of mountain climbing. And mountain climbing stories are among the best. Mountain climbing and sailing stories because they usually involve people. abject danger. has its natural arc. You go on the climb and then you, you come back down.So when I started with the Mountain Climbing Equipment Company and read all of these wonderful writers, it was easy to talk about what we were doing at the climbing company and with the same voice.The second thing I think that would be a big illustration for us is when we, one of the first big moves we made away from, we were never really a conventional company, but we were conventional in terms of the way we sourced our, our goods. And we made a discovery in the1980s that conventional cotton, which we had thought of as a kind of benign natural fiber, was loaded with very harmful chemicals, not to the wearer, but to the soil it was grown in and to the farm workers who worked with it. And we made, we committed to make a change entirely to organic cotton from conventional cotton. And it was a very difficult move because when we bought the cotton from farmers, we disconnected from the, from the global supply chain. So the farmers had no relationship to the spinners,Turn the fiber into yarn, no relationship to the mills, turn that yarn into fabric. Andwe really, I mean, it was tough. And our, our employees started to revolt. And they said, listen, you know, I got to do everything I did last season for the business. I've got to be designing the new products and doing the new colors and the specs and show it to the big customers. And by the way, I have to raise my prices 5. 5. and find everything I make and find an entire new infrastructure for making cotton why are we the martyrs?And our answer to this, because we also, the more we knew about growing of conventional cotton, the organophosphates used to prepare the plants were basically chemically the same as nerve gases that were developed for World War II. So we ended up taking employees 40 at a time to the Central Valley, and you could smell those organophosphates when you opened the door to the bus. if you dug your hand in the soil, you knew that there was no life there. It takes earthworms five years to come back. And at the end of the day, we'd go to an organic farm. At the end on the bus ride home or afterwards, people would be saying, you know, I know this, this is a pain. It's no, it's no easier to deal with this, but the company is doing the right thing and we're going to help make it happen. And so it wasn't just the storytelling. It was the the tangible evidence, the specific, you know, you can talk about, oh, 24 percent of Agricultural chemicals are used on cultivating cotton, which is 8 percent of taratana. You can do that all day long and people say, well, everybody's doing it. But, you know, when you smell it, when you haven't even opened the windows to the bus, that's something that becomes not just a story, but it's a story realized as an experience. So I think that that's absolutely critical for all of us who are trying to do something different. We have to explain, we have to show how it's different and how it's better. Then what's being done and why it's worth the trouble. Cause usually when you do things that are not expected, that people are not used to doing, there is a learning curve.

Damon Klotz: It's a very, obviously to ask a storyteller a question about storytelling, I expected a story and I think it was, it was a really,was a powerful way to kind of also, especially in this very distributed way of work that many organizations, you know, trying to grapple with connecting back to the core of who you are, what you stand for, the products that, that, that you make and actually getting employees, more, You know, kind of deeply connected to what you do is, is so important. And it's incredible to think about all the stories that, you know, you probably accumulated when you started, you know, more like 50 years ago as a, you know, packing and unpacking boxes to now sort of still being at the company as a director of philosophy. I would love to maybe up front, get your definition of like, what you, how would you define a culture first company? We have our own definition here, a culture, and we talk a lot about it, but from your perspective and from Patagonia's perspective, what does culture first mean to you?

Vincent Stanley: I'm not sure if we put culture first, but culture is absolutely essential to what we do. And again, I think if you're a purpose driven company, you are generally doing business in a different way if it's genuine. I mean, sort of business cultures traditionally for this 50 year period in which shareholder primacy was the rule, a lot of businesses motivated their employees through fear.And fear is effectiveIf you want people not to do things, but it's not not effective if you want them to actually do positive things. Because the people turn off their conscience, they turn off their imagination, they turn off their creativity.So a culture in which people feel that they can bring their full values, their personal values to work and to express them at work and to build on that. motivates employees. I mean, I've just seen it time and again that when we give something that people want to do, if they were paid or not, they get it done at a speed that always astonishes me. It's, I almost, I've been using the metaphor the last couple of weeks, partly because I'm living in rural Maine this summer, of barn raising. And I don't know if that's done in Australia, but It was traditional in, in rural communities in the United States, if someone needed a barn, the whole community would get together and, instead of having yourself and five, and a contractor and five people, you'd have 30 or 40 people working in concert side by side to raise the barn in three or four days. And that's what I've seen with a lot of environmental projects, with projects that expand. that express the moral imagination in some way, connect it to what our employees actually believe. So if you don't,that's one side of it. There's another side of it from the traditional business point of view. I think it was Peter Drucker, but maybe he just, maybe it's just sort of assigned to him, said, culture eats strategy for breakfast. And it's true. You know, because you, you can sit down and decree your, your three key metrics for the year and your projects and all that, and it can fall on deaf ears unless it actually connects to the inner purpose of the employees and actually connects with the intrinsic, Purpose of the company.

Damon Klotz: I definitely want to touch on the how of work at Patagonia because I think that is a really, important, sort of differentiator in terms of, like, being really intentional about it, but maybe before we go into the how of, like, how work gets done at Patagonia, I thought maybe it would be useful for the audience to also know the difference What is the difference between a sustainable organization and a responsible organization? I know sustainability has been a word that's been used a lot as, you know, like sustainable practices, but, you know, Patagonia said, no, we want to be a responsible company. So what is the difference between the two?

Vincent Stanley: I think we were hesitant to use the, the word sustainable because we feel that for most of our practices, they're not sustainable, what we do in a good way reduces the environmental harm we do. Some of the social practices are positive, but, but environmentally, we're just, we're still taking from the earth more than we're giving back. And, and to describe the work we do as, as sustainable, or for most companies to talk about sustainability,not necessarily greenwashing, but, But it's problematic in that it can, you can start to believe that you're doing more, more than you really are. We chose the word responsible because we felt that any company can be responsible. We don't know how to be sustainable yet, Anybody can be responsible, which is simply to understand, to thoroughly investigate the impacts that you have in your business and to change what you can and not to lose sight of what needs to be changed.there's a wonderful quote we use twice in, uh, the future of the responsible company and the first edition, the responsible company from a Heisler leader in British Columbia named Gerald Amos, which is, It says the most important right we have is the right to be responsible. And I love that quote because it takes the onus off the word responsibility. It's not like a burden. What it is, is in some ways, it's a, it is a right. it encompasses our sense of agency.And if human beings are in a situation where you can't be responsible because no one is going to allow you to be, or you feel that you can't be responsible, it's a degrading way to live. It's a really hard way to live, and it's a very hard way to run a cooperative business, a cooperative enterprise of which business is. There's one type.There's another word,that's been bandied about, and in good ways, in solid ways, by my friend, John Fullerton, Capital Institute, in regenerative activities. And the idea of regenerative, I think, encompasses this notion that you're actually going to give back as much as you take.And when I thought about it, I thought, you know, if A truly sustainable activity has to be regenerative. I was talking to a neighbor of mine is Elliot Coleman, who is one of the godfathers of organic farming in the States. And, um, he was arguing that his farm is regenerative. He was arguing with me. He says, you don't like the word sustainable. My farm is sustainable. I said, Elliot, yes, you're right. Because what you're doing is you're putting back into the soil more than you're taking from it. but it's sustainable because it's a regenerative activity.

Damon Klotz: What I love about how intentional you are about the use of language there is that for probably many organizations, they might see Patagonia and they go, well, we can't do that. Like, you know, we don't have those philosophies. We don't stand for that. Like, there's no way we could put the money, you know, like reinvest the money like they do. But when you say the responsible part, Every organization that chooses to exist that, you know, is created for a reason does have the ability to be responsible, which I think is why, yeah, like, there was probably another version of Patagonia where it was so unattainable for any other company. They're like, well, only Patagonia could do that. So I love the intentional use of language because it makes it approachable. And I feel like. The use of language is something that's obviously been very consistent in how you've approached your work. I heard a story that, you know, many years ago, you would sort of sit around in a circle of colleagues and talk about how do we want to do business? What do we stand for getting really clear on how do we want to grow? And so many organizations never make it past the, what do we do? And you were spending a lot of time focusing on how you do it. And then you put down those philosophies on paper, which would eventually become the book, Let My People Go Surfing. So I'd love to maybe go back to that time when that sort of book was written. And what was the initial business reaction to that? Was there people like, what are you doing? Don't tell people these things. We're trying to have control over employees. Like, what was that initial reaction?

Vincent Stanley: I, I think the reaction was different partly because Yvon was the one who spurred everybody into these conversations. So he owned the company, he was the founder, he was well respected, and I think that people were really happy to chime in and, and, and those classes grew out of a time when we were growing very rapidly in sales. But had kind of lost our way in terms of how we were growing. And I think there would have been a potential at some point that we could have become a fairly conventional company. We would have been sold, but that's pretty much the convention in the outdoor industry. And, but those classes, We would get all the accountants together or everybody in the accounting department, everybody in HR in their session.at that time I was sales manager. So everybody in my department and we would sit outside in a circle and hash out, how do we believe in doing business? So it wasn't just, just the how it was also, it was also a little bit of the why.And the response was, was great. And we wrote those, you know, we wrote them up and they were sort of on Xerox paper for 15 years until they appeared and let my people go surfing. And we've, we've adapted them, but I think it's been absolutely critical for the company to have So much written down. I was with the company for 20 years before we had any of our values written down, and I know that they came up for question a lot of the time,but for the past 30 years, we've had it in writing. People can consult it. We have discussions. I teach classes around it. And, I would encourage any company to explore in a similar fashion, how it wants to do business and all these different,

Damon Klotz: I think that connects to another way that I've heard you describe the importance of defining your culture, but also your strengths and weaknesses as a company. And it's very clear that there is a documentation and storytelling muscle that Patagonia has that has helped with this. But, I saw you give a talk and you were talking about, yes, we need to define our culture, who we are, what we stand for, our strengths, what are the things that we are uniquely good at, but also acknowledge your weaknesses. How have you seen that play out throughout your time? Thank you.

Vincent Stanley: well, we've done a lot of that, and I think we've been as sort of a self critical as a culture, from the beginning, and that can create its own problems. because you, if you're, if you're self critical, you want to, you want to get to the next step, which is what are you going to do about it? I think it's important to understand your weaknesses and important to understand your strengths. I think there's another step there, which is important eventually to create the business model. The business model has to support the values. In other words, it can't be just a compromise between, okay, we're going to do well in this way and we're going to do good in this way. They, our business strengths and your, business development plan has to come out of those values.and it can take a while to do that. I don't think Patagonia was aligned. I think for us, our activities were some of the things we did, we did make money and some of the things we did were good, especially, you know, giving, giving back. Money to environmental causes. But I think for the last 10 or 15 years, because the culture has matured.and people are more confident. We've developed a level of cultural confidence that now I don't think we'd do business very well if we violated those values. I think the innovations that have developed that are creating our, the business for the future come out of our purpose.

Damon Klotz: I think it's a really useful message for companies who have maybe, you know, especially when you look at how fast companies can grow, you know, they get created, maybe they are in the right moment at the right time. And they kind of go, oh hang on, who are we four years down the track? We've got, you know, This much funding and this many people. And we didn't document these things. And I think that was when I was doing research for this interview. I love that you were like, you know, there was always stories like we didn't get this right from day one. We were just a mountain climbing accessories company. And then eventually, you know, we had to learn who the Patagonia was that we really wanted to be and lean into that. And, you know, through that documentation, like you said, there was the let my people go surfing book. There was the responsible company. And then the latest edition that, you know, the future of the responsible company, which has been. A joy to flick through. And as I was, sort of seeing the way that you sort of spoke about this book as well, 11 years ago, you gave a talk at Google where you said the main question that you were trying to answer with this book was how did Patagonia's culture survive over the years from a small company to a large one? So I'd love to maybe hear your current thoughts on how you think it has survived.

Vincent Stanley: My comments would be the same as they were then.But with continuing amazement, I mean, we're, we're more than twice the size we were in 2011 we've also been through more tests because we've gone through COVID. We were shut down for, I don't know how many months, but close to two years, to have our headquarters closed.and some large percent of employees now were never on the campus before COVID. So we've had a hybrid working program of three days a week in the office since then. I do think that what, I use the word cultural confidence I, still think that that's just an extraordinary benefit that comes over can't plan for You instill it You have to, in some ways, cultivate it like a farmer.You know, you plant the seeds and see what comes up and, then, let certain things go fallow and do some more planting and, try to make it productive and, work over time. Again, having employees who can bring their best values to work best guarantee of that, and not all, of It's the best values that the employee feels that correspond to the values that the company expresses. But that's a large Venn diagram,a large area in the Venn diagram. that I think is, is what has kept us culturally alive.

Damon Klotz: That's a great segue into, I guess, the feedback culture that kind of exists at Patagonia. And you know, why I encourage people to kind of like try and find like a physical copy of this book and have a look is you do have this incredible checklist at the end of this book and you break down your responsibilities of like, you've got these, these elements of responsibilities, which is to shareholders and owners, to employees, to customers, to community and to nature. And honestly, I think it's probably the most fun, thorough and descriptive list of this type that I've encountered where a company has publicly put down what they want to be sort of responsible for. And I wanted to double click on the element of responsibilities to your employees. Obviously, given what Coltrane software does, it was really heartening to see that one of your commitments was a commitment to feedback and you had a checklist which was said, gather feedback. Analyze it and share it back with employees. And after chatting with our team, it's also become really clear that the way Patagonia wants to really create a culture of feedback is it's also about the human, the person, as well as the professional. How do we grow great people? And not just great roles. So can you tell me about the feedback culture at Patagonia?

Vincent Stanley: Yeah. You know, in a way, I think it hasn't been a strength. I think it's been great informally because a lot of people Go bike riding together, they go climbing together and, they come up with, ideas that, you're bringing your full humanity with you on a bike ride and you'd come up with work ideas and you share that, you bring that into being that part. The company has always been very healthy about, I think, internal communication and, really genuinely soliciting feedback and then encouraging,you go back down a little bit. And there's this amazing principle called subsidiarity, which I really love, which means that you push down to the lowest possible level and everybody who's be affected by a decision Should also be consulted. That's the important thing I think about feedback. It's not just that the companies solicit the opinions of the employees, it's also to fully engage their insights into how their work might change, and it's just a temptation because businesses are so structured on a top down basis, traditionally, it's very hard to, to make room for them.

Damon Klotz: And I think that's how, how a company matures over time is that, you know, you sometimes move from these informal practices of like, Oh, well we actually have a really great way of people spending time together or they give really good informal feedback. But then you actually go, well, if this is a muscle that's important to us, if we actually want to be able to sort of, you know, You know, have a more structured process to these things so we can take action and really understand, we leaving value on the table by not having some real strong processes around these things? And it feels like that's the journey that Patagonia is on at the moment. And we're really excited to keep working with you about that. But this is not a show about CultureAmp and plugging how our companies are using our software. I did want to speak about maybe, and we've spoken a little bit about the way that the business world maybe perceives how things should be done versus standing up for, you know, how you want to achieve something and operating responsibly with that intention. I'm assuming has maybe caused issues over the years where someone's maybe come in and said, well, we can make money more doing it this way, but someone else's maybe been there longer as like, no, but we stand for this. So I imagine there's been lots of hard conversations about the how of work. Is there any insight about how you've navigated that healthy tension about standing up for something that's bigger than just the bottom line?

Vincent Stanley: Of the things that earlier on in the company, I'd say in the nineties and the two thousands, we had a hard time absorbing managers who came in from other companies. And you know, what would happen is we would grow and we'd take on a new system of some kind, you know, inventory management or. Retail management. And, we would have to hire somebody who had experience with that. It would be from a larger company. And, our employees would get depressed because they weren't promoted into that position. And the people who would come in would be terrified, because they had no idea how to apply their skills in a culture like Patagonia. So they would try to, the ones who would try to remake the culture in their own image were the ones that it was like an organ transplant in a body that was rejected. they would be honored. And six months to a year. We had that problem. And I think for several years, we had kind of weak top management. We always had strong ownership from the Chouinards and we had strong middle managers. And I think that that was critical to keeping those qualities alive because the middle managers Could listen up and they could listen down and they weren't afraid to say,this isn't working. We need, we need to change this or this isn't right. This isn't consistent with our values. And then you could have that conversation and you could,you could resolve. But the worst thing is not to have those conversations,which just slows the whole company down, it mires the company.

Damon Klotz: That is a beautiful connection point to actually my guest question, uh, which is, so last week I had the chance to interview Seth Godin as part of this new set of episodes that we're producing, and he's a big fan of Patagonia and he's like, you know, good friends with, Rose, the former, um, CEO there. And I said, Seth, surely there's a question that you would have about how Patagonia is working right now. So his question for you was, How do you know what to say no to?

Vincent Stanley: I think that's one of the hardest questions for us.we say yes to a lot of things and I, I think periodically we end up doing too many things too broadly. I would rather have that tendency as a company problem than the other way around.but one of the things we're doing now is just to really emphasize a few projects that are absolutely key to the company. And to communicate that. We're doing a much better job of internal communication than we haven't in a long time.but how we decide what to say no to, I think, was very important. Some things are easy to say no to. It's a poor quality product that somebody is trying to introduce.it's a violation of our principle of stakeholder capitalism that this is, not going to work.be in line with the principles of the company. But once all those things are in alignment, it is hard to say no to what you feel are opportunities. and especially when you're a growing company. some extent, periods of high growth are more dangerous to a company's core values than slumps are. it's hard, but I think we've gotten better at that.

Damon Klotz: Yeah, it all comes down to the communication. Like, you know, why are you saying yes to this thing? And if you say yes to this, what does it mean? Like, what is the no on the other side of that? What is the thing that you will not do in order to do this? and actually just being honest about those. Implications and, yeah, you know, that goes back to your values and what you stand for and how you make decisions. And as long as those things are clearly communicated and employees see this as a consistent way decisions are made as opposed to, well, why are we saying no to that? We've always said yes to things like that. Why is it, you know, removing the personal aspect of it to more of what are the operating principles of who we are as a company.

Vincent Stanley: Yeah. you know, we have a line of saying, when we're talking about the future, what are the things that we want to make sure we want to keep doing? And what are the things we'd like to no longer do? And I think that's a good way to approach it.

Damon Klotz: So we are now in my little segment here of bringing in previous episodes, which is something that I do from time to time. and one of the most, I guess, famous wearers of a Patagonia vest. And don't worry, I'm not going to be talking about all of the finance people and the whole story around that. I've seen you give interviews around the amount of inbound requests from tech companies who wanted Patagonia vests. we are not going to go down that path. I want to go down the path of. Activism. I've interviewed DeRay McKesson before, who is a very famous activist and famously wore a blue Patagonia vest. And you know, when I interviewed him, he was wearing that same vest and activism is something that's also core to the heart of Patagonia. You've been very vocal about, you know, social and environmental issues, you know, from taking out gigantic, ads in the newspapers, telling people not to buy your products. So how do you navigate the potential risks of taking strong stances and the way that activism could show up in the company in terms of the types of people that you attract? And I ask this because I've actually asked this question of the Culture Amp CEO, Didier, this show as part of the episode with Didier, where I said, you know, how would you respond if an employee was arrested for, you know, being an activist and things like that? So, yeah, can you share some stories about activism at Patagonia?

Vincent Stanley: Sure. I think the first story I'd share is that we pay the bail for employees who were arrested and for acts of civil disobedience, but only if they've had training in nonviolent practices. which we also offer.we've been giving 1 percent of sales to grassroots environmental organizations for 35 years more. I think during the Trump administration, we had always been a company that supported activists, and in some ways we became an activist company. There was a lot of pressure on a lot of conventional corporations to take stands on issues. and, you know, people would come to us and they'd ask, okay, what's your position on immigration? And we would say, listen, we really. know our stuff about environmental causes and projects. We have deep relationships with NGOs all around the world. We have a lot of experience in, in communicating, and in, motivating people to act. our opinion about immigration, we have them, but. It's no more informed than your local taxi cab driver. So, I think that when companies take an activist stance, it's great if it's in relation to what they do. I mean, we produce outdoor clothing for people who are going to engage in activities that test themselves in the, in the outdoors. And so, when we defend the natural world, or we talk about protecting the natural world, that's very close to the very nature of the business. so, I, the other thing I think that's kind of key to that more companies should think about, Is that people are so fed up with having kind of transactional relationships with brands, right? Which is you get persuaded to buy something and then you buy something and then they want you to buy something else. I think connecting to customers on the basis of of values in a time when we really need to create a lot of environmental social change. It's going to be a bigger area for us over the next 10 or 15 years than something that we back away from.we have a platform called,ActionWorks, which actually is a means to link customers with a particular cause they care about in a particular place. And I think that that, that connection is important.is really strong. Our retail stores are really, and the amazing amount of energy you have in those stores when we have, outside speakers come in from environmental groups, as well as sport groups, and connecting the environmental issues to the local community. So, and we'll also have local food, local beer or wine if it's made there. So I think it's in some ways the lifeblood of the company. But I would advise people not to, tack it on. It has to be related to the products you make or the services you offer.

Damon Klotz: Which I think is why, like, Patagonia's commitment to community and to, like, a much broader customer than just, like, a customer is not someone who buys a product, but a customer is anyone who interacts with the Patagonia ecosystem and the providers you work with. And yet, even little things like running, like, there is a Patagonia store about, you know, Two kilometers that way in, in Melbourne where I live. And you know, like how you bring people together in that space has to be unique to the causes and, to the environment. Which that store sort of sits, which like, I think a lot of the things we're speaking about here is also being able to look a little bit longer horizon. And I know you did mention that, The pandemic and COVID did, you know, obviously cause quite a bit of disruption and change to Patagonia. And maybe when economic times do become tighter, when there is this uncertainty that we're operating with, you know, it makes sense that leaders want to narrow their focus down to the next two months, three months, quarter, half year. Because it's what they can control. It does maybe sometimes push you away from that longer term path of helping to save the planet or doing something that's bigger than yourself. So can you share anything about maybe like how has Patagonia adapted to some of the short term pressures that we've all been facing, over the last few years versus, you know, Looking at that longer term goal,

Vincent Stanley: I think actually we've been, we've been doing a good job of that, of, responding, not perfect, but I think we have the capacity to respond to short term, pressures or to be nimble to respond to, you know, it wasn't just COVID, it was also the interruption in the supply chain. And so we couldn't get goods in for months and months, then they all came in at once, it's hundreds of creates traditional business problems of supply and demand. But I think it's almost a time when you want to double down on what's important to the company because you do not want to lose your way, while you're paying attention to those, those short term goals. And when you talk about culture first, I think this is absolutely the time you want to bring in, the wisdom of, your employees and their ability to be more nimble than you can often direct from the top. So,

Damon Klotz: I want to, before we get to my sort of closing question, which is around some, some of the things that you've sort of really learned over the years of building culture and telling stories about culture, I do want to maybe go into a specific moment in time, just because I feel like it was so unique in the business world and, so you might know the moment in time that I'm talking about, but it has been, Obviously, one year since sort of this book came out, but nearly two years since Patagonia made that huge announcement that sort of sent shockwaves around the world about how the company was going to be structured moving forward and the Patagonia Purpose Trust. Obviously, you know, the, the New York Times article by David Gillis about it was really fascinating and, the comment section, people should go look at, you know, just the amount of people like, thank God there's a company that stands for something else. So can you just tell me what was it like to sort of be in that room when that was announced? What was the feeling from the employees?

Vincent Stanley: Well, there was a tremendous excitement about that. I was actually not in the room. I wasn't there that day. We also invited a lot of former employees to the event, and I think everybody just felt an awful lot of collective pride about what the company had done. And I think, you earlier, In 2018, we had changed the mission statement from build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis. A very, very strong mission statement, I think, but we condensed that to we're in business to save our home planet. And I think we did that for two reasons. One was, we felt that the climate crisis was getting worse and that And more invisible in some ways now, I think it's come more to the fore. But also we had gotten into the food business in a small way. And so we, we had the sense of, yes, we can pursue regenerative activities when we make a new product that solves a problem in the food system or in agriculture. So for those two reasons, that's the, Origin of coming up with a new mission statement. But I think when we came up with a new structure, we created a structure that was very much in line. With the mission statement and also, you know, set us on a path for the future as the owner's transition, away from the business and, and some of us old timers. So it was a great moment. What's interesting to me is it hasn't changed the way the company has been run because we have the same board, we have the same management, and I think we're, one of the things I'm also proud of is, I think when you change structure. It can be a time when you lose connection to your values because you rely on the structure. And I can explain that by saying that in the conventional world, people might say, Oh, Patagonia is devoted to giving money, all of its shareholder profits, to environmental causes, so what it should do is kind of hollow out the business and pursue the kinds of practices, stop, offering the social benefits, stop it. Thank you. Doing the environmental precautions and give the business a big boost so you can give away more profits. And I think that there's a deep understanding in the company that no, you don't do that. Because as an enterprise, we still owe to the stakeholders. We still owe to the employees and the customers. And in addition to the natural world, we also to human communities to be a responsible player. So I offer that as a caution. I mean, I've had a lot of conversation with people about different kinds of business structures like co ops, which I think are great. But they don't answer everything and you're concentrating on culture. I think culture is a kind of antidote to the excitement that people get over a particular structure or ideology that can not pan out in some way.

Damon Klotz: I think what also was so important about that announcement and, I guess what the future of Patagonia, like, you know, how it's going to play out is clearly what you have done today has worked in order to sort of actually have an intentional company that thinks about its culture, thinks about the role that it should play to be responsible. So it was not changing. It's magic that made it work so far. It was also about how far can we take this? Where can we go? And like, how does this money actually make that real difference? Which I think was a refreshing change from maybe some of the other multi billion dollar companies and the way that founders really think about their lasting impact, which is maybe more without, you know, naming too many names, but maybe more about ego and where their name, what they own and things like that versus the actual impact.

Vincent Stanley: Yeah. And, and I think this, it's interesting, this structure. I think other companies can adopt it. It's not an uncommon structure in Europe. The purpose trust is a little bit, but a lot of businesses are owned by foundations. But, you know, my, my sense about the use of business, what's a business good for, that if you look at the three major players in society, government and civil society, like NGOs and business, business is the one that is the most self-sustaining. you know, we made friends with an agronomist who had been working for 50 years to save the, the Great Plains in the United States, which once had topsoil several meters deep. and now it's down to a few, a few inches, like most places in the world. And he started telling us about this perennial wheatgrass he had developed 20 years earlier that he called Kernza, that planted roots very deep into the ground, disturbed the microbes and the, and the fungi that actually create new soil. You can build soil much faster than nature can on its own, and then you can also draw the carbon down. And he told us about this and we said, oh, that's great. He says, where can we buy some? Oh, you can't buy Kernza. And we said, why not? And he said, well, I can't get any farmer to plant it. Why not? no farmer will plant what they can't sell.and so we teamed with a brewery in Portland, Oregon to use Kernza as an ingredient. And we got the first hundred hectares of, of Kernza planted and, now we're, we're still making beer with Kernza in it. And we also use it in grains. That's something business can do that NGOs and government can't do very easily. So there's no reason that a business has to, as its central purpose, to make money. And my experience, most businesses aren't started that way. People start businesses because they, they love something or their parents did something. And, they know that activity and they love it and they want to do it. It's, it's very rare. they're only in America, I think there are 3, 700. Publicly traded companies and, maybe most of those companies concentrate on what companies that they're going to buy and sell or, or how they're going to financialize the assets that they have, in order to get a greater gain than they can producing things. But business has a real function in simply meeting human needs. And aside from. The money it needs to pay the bills and return a profit for the growth of the company. You don't have to have rapacious business.

Damon Klotz: I've Absolutely loved being able to deep dive into the world of Patagonia, your time there, your story, like I said, there were so many similarities around, just sort of when I was learning more about your work and your role and how you approached it and the importance of education and telling stories and bringing new employees on that journey and knowing what you stand for and communicating it and, so many lessons, I think, just for, you know, for company leaders, for HR leaders, for anyone who wants to be at a mission driven company, but actually wants to know how to actualize it, how to make it real for employees, how to just not go from words on a website to something that actually feels real. So do you have any parting words of wisdom from your time at trying to make this real for people?

Vincent Stanley: It's hard because it's, often depends on the, on the business, but I wouldn't underestimate the difficulty of trying to do business in a way that meets social and environmental needs. but I think it's a, in a way it's a calling and I think it's a lot more fun.than conventional businesses. And, with the B Corp movement, which is very active in Australia, I think you can find allies. increasingly, you can find people who are on the same path. So if that's your inclination to be an entrepreneur or to be an entrepreneur within the company you work for, I think it's worthwhile and very necessary.

Damon Klotz: Oh, yes. We only have one planet and we, we do need to do what we can to save it. And like you said, Rightly or wrongly, the company, the business entity is one of the most powerful structures we have in the world and we all have a choice of, you know, do we want to be a responsible company or not? So, I want to thank you for your work. I want to thank you for your writing, for your documentation, for your storytelling. You know, the world's a better place because of Patagonia and people like you. So, Vincent, thank you so much for joining me on the show today.

Vincent Stanley: Thank you, Damone. And thanks for what you're doing and all the best.