Growing A Business – Paul Hawken (1)

That was their description, not mine. I remember it well because we were starting Smith & Hawken and pondering the very questions this chapter addresses when that company — let’s call it the Rainbow Sky Company — consulted with me on their new corporate charter.

After years of what seemed to be an enlightened corporate policy, management was putting the final touches on a new charter that would be even better. It was an inch thick, one of the most complicated corporate charters I have ever read. Each “benefit” that an employee received, whether stock ownership or profit sharing, was given or vested in such a complex manner that no employee (or the lawyers, I’ll bet) could readily understand or remember it on one reading.

There were many provisos and hurdles — for ex- ample, stock ownership had to be relinquished on a somewhat punitive basis if a person chose to leave the company. The new charter wasn’t fair, generous, or “hu- manistic.” It was simply a new way of being patrimonious. No rules, charters, precepts, tenets, or corporate hoo- haw will make you or anyone else a better person. Either you are a good company to work for or you are not; you are either good to your employees or you are not; you either share with others or you do not.

No amount of puffery can hide the facts. So if you are going to have a profit-sharing program in your company, be sure you want to share. A company that shares profits should also be willing to share responsibility, authority, praise, credit, and a good joke. Money is never a substitute for esteem, pride, and dignity, Growing a Business and profit sharing without a sense of sharing is nothing but piecework.

Nearly everyone harbors a secret dream of starting or owning a business. And in fact almost 100,000 businesses start in Canada every year. Many of these businesses fail. But enough succeed so that small businesses are now adding thousands of jobs to our economy at the same time that many major compa- nies are actually losing jobs. Small business has never been healthier. In Growing a Business Paul Hawken writes about some of the more successful enterprises in North America, such as Patagonia, Harrowsmith magazine, University National Bank of Palo Alto, California, and his own company, Smith & Hawken, the premier gar- den and horticultural catalog company.

Rather than offering profiles of corporate successes, however, Hawken has written an unconventional description of the hidden qualities that allow small businesses not only to compete in the marketplace, but to thrive and prosper. Hawken says that the successful business is an expression of an individual person. The most success- ful business, your idea for a business, will grow from something that is deep within you, something that can’t be stolen by anyone because it is so uniquely yours that anyone else who tried to execute your idea would fail.

Hawken dispels the myth of the risk-taking entrepreneur. The purpose of business, he points out, is not to take risks but rather to get something done. Here is some more of Paul Hawken’s uncommon wisdom: Ideas “Good [business] ideas… do not look very good at first or even second glance, but don’t worry if your business idea sounds weird, crazy, or obscure.

Like a puppy, many good ideas are awkward, helpless, and unimpressive.” (continued on back flap) ■ H ■ ■ ^ ■ I ■ ■ I ■ m w ML W ■ j^a ^H ROWII Also by Paul Hawken the magic of findhorn the next economy seven tomorrows (coauthor, with James Ogilvy and Peter Schwartz) Paul Hawken COLLINQ V^ PUBLISHERS \^J First published in Canada 1987 by Collins Publishers 100 Lesmill Road, Don Mills, Ontario © 1987 by Paul Hawken All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any way or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher.

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Hawken, Paul. Growing a business ISBN 0-00-217903-2 l.New business enterprises. 2. Small business — Management. I. Title. HD62.5.H39 1987 658.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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