I just started reading a new book: "Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a reluctant Businessman" by Yvon Chouinard, The founder of Patagonia.
The book is great. The concentration of the books content is the philosophy that Yvon holds and used for the development of his company. I could talk about the book and the specifics but you should just read the book. what's most interesting to me is the idea of the philosophy and how he has put it into action.
There are a million seminars and books out there that give you the top 8 rules and the 5 most effective techniques to and achieve "X". The sad thing is most people take the seminar or read the book and then use what they learned once or twice, if at all, and then move on to the next popular thing. (I'm all for education and continuous learning, but this seems like waste of resources.) They never take the time to think about develop the foundation that they need (the beliefs, values, and ideals) so they can espouse the ideas through actions. Yvon's admitted overwhelming management technique is "management by absence". What I interpret from this is that day in and day out while he was out actually using and testing the equipment Patagonia creates he spent plenty of time thinking about and his ideas and building the foundation he needed to live and apply his philosophy in action.
The next time you read a current business or management book, or attend a seminar I challenge you to ask yourself afterward, "What foundation do I need to build to be able to apply this in action day in and day out?" Spend some time thinking about it over a few weeks before you dive into something else. Pick the three most important things that struck you as you read the book and let that be a filter that you use to view your world through. I find that this helps me build a foundation for which to apply and integrate new things into my daily behavior and actions.
Additonal information:
You can purchase the book from Amazon or you can read an excerpt of the book at Outside Magazine's website
