The Climbing As A Whole

While Our Managers Debated What Steps To Take To Address The Sales And Cash-flow Crisis, I Began To Lead Week-long Employee Seminars In What We Called Philosophies. We'd Take A Busload At A Time To Places Like Yosemite Or The Marin Headlands Above San Francisco, Camp Out, And Gather Under The Trees To Talk. The Goal Was To Teach Every Employee In The Company Our Business And Environmental Ethics And Values.

Going Back To A Simpler Life Based On Living By Sufficiency Rather Than Excess Is Not A Step Backward.

Who Are Businesses Really Responsible To? Their Customers? Shareholders? Employees? We Would Argue That It’s None Of The Above. Fundamentally, Businesses Are Responsible To Their Resource Base. Without A Healthy Environment There Are No Shareholders, No Employees, No Customers And No Business.

You Can Solo-climb Everest Without Using Oxygen Or You Can Pay Guides And Sherpas To Carry Your Loads, Put Ladders Across Crevasses, Lay In 6,000 Feet Of Fixed Ropes, And Have One Sherpa Pulling You And Another Pushing You. ... The Goal Of Climbing Big, Dangerous Mountains Should Be To Attain Some Sort Of Spiritual And Personal Growth, But This Won't Happen If You Compromise Away The Entire Process.

The More You Know, The Less You Need.