Organic Reinvention in action. Episode 1: Respect

At Kitchen8, we have spent over a decade helping clients to find growth and to make a positive impact by rethinking their brands, categories and businesses creatively, sustainably and from within.

We call this Organic Reinvention, because we believe that the biggest growth is unlocked from within an organisation, leveraging talent and assets imaginatively to answer twenty-first Century needs.

The world has increasingly come around and a growing number of firms, large and small, seem to share our way of thinking. Have you noticed how many forward-thinking business leaders and entrepreneurs are now using words that begin with RE??

Now more than ever, we all need to rethink, reframe, reimagine, repurpose, regenerate… There’s a RE-volution out there. And we couldn’t be more excited about it!

Today we would like to reflect on the word RESPECT, from the Latin verb respicere ‘look back at, regard’, as respect for customers is at the very essence of authentic and successful business today.

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Many think pieces have been written recently about Patagonia, the outdoor equipment company. But we at the Kitchen wish to take a different tack from many of the others you may have seen.

Patagonia was founded in 1973 by Yvon Chouinard. It has since grown into a major international brand worth $3 billion.?

As the entire world knows by now, in September, the founder decided to step back from the company. But instead of selling his valuable stake, or passing it to an heir, he chose to hand it all to a charitable foundation.?

This would enable the company, famed for its profound ethical and eco-conscious principles, to continue to be run as it always has been. And all the profits would now be exclusively devoted to environmental causes.?

This incredible news dominated all the coverage of Chouinard’s decision.?

But to us at Kitchen8, the news of this final gift seemed to eclipse a less-celebrated, yet more impressive feat: that the company reached such a scale at all.?

Because this isn’t the first groundbreaking move by Patagonia. In fact, its history is full of unusual actions.?

Among the most famous: inventing a totally recyclable new form of neoprene, patenting the design, and offering that patent for free to its competitors in an effort to raise environmental standards.?

Or offering a service at its stores to take back worn out items and repair them, rather than simply sending the materials to landfill.?

Why is this significant? These high-minded moves - among the dozens of similar ones made by the brand - were not just green signalling. They were real commitments. But, just as importantly, the business impact of them was huge.?

Patagonia represented something profound in the minds of people who bought its products - people who love the outdoors because they want to spend money getting out there. Patagonia was a company that cared about the natural world, in the same way that they did. This was the foundation for its huge growth.?

This sounds like a simple connection. Why not show common cause with your customers by making statements such as this? But when we reflect on the way that most businesses are run, this example is actually rare.?

Do most of us feel that the companies we deal with genuinely share our values and are working to advance them in a sincere way?

It’s easy to talk the talk, but walking the walk - and generating huge growth at the same time - is far rarer.?

Brave companies make sacrifices to show genuine common cause with their customers. Patagonia did this in a profound way - millions of people intrinsically understood this, and this paved the way for the company to grow as it did.?

We salute Yvon Chouinard, but not just for giving the company away. We salute him for showing how to build to that point with real purpose.