Customer Reviews

Raising the Bar: Integrity and Passion in Life and Business: The Story of Clif Bar & Co.

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I love Clif Bars, especially the "carrot cake" flavor! When I saw this book by the CEO and founder of the company, I picked it up right away. It is always insightful to read about people who founded or run companies and get an inside look at how they built the organization and what they value. Where most business books focus on financials, strategy and how to be successful in their market, it is rarer to find a company that has been very successful financially while still placing their values as a higher priority than the profit-at-all-costs culture that plagues many organizations.

The book describes in detail the founding of the company, from the almost storybook beginnings in his moms kitchen. What started as a desire to create a "sports bar" that didn't taste like dirt, has turned into a quality and well known brand. While these types of rags to riches stories may be sounding familiar, this path is actually quite different. Gary describes his passions for biking, travel and climbing, and how he has learned to value the environment and focus his company on sustainable growth. When his competitors were becoming part of large conglomerates with the resources to outspend and out market his brand, he resisted the lure of millions to sell the company and chose to remain private.

I found myself marking pages, pondering quotes, and admiring the spirit and values that Gary brought to the organization. He describes the difference between the "red path" and the "white path". Developed through an analogy of taking roads less traveled, and traveling light on his numerous bike trips in Europe, he discovers that the real joy is in the journey not the destination. Those who take the "white path" play it safe, and make the kinds of business decisions that accountants love. Those who take the "red path" stay true to their values, and must sometimes take risks others would fear to do in order to ensure the vision is upheld.

For those who enjoy business strategy, the book contains plenty. The steps to business sustainability and the values of hiring the right people and creating the right culture for employees are outlined and described. Also, like Howard Shultz and a few others, Gary chooses to be honest about his doubts, his mistakes, and his fears. In this way, the book is more inspiring than the typical academic and controlled business planning tools most consultants and business leaders use to replace passion and leadership.

I recommend this book highly. If you feel there is something missing in your company, and the workplace has become an unending and unsatisfying grind, then prepare to be inspired and encouraged. It is refreshing to know that there are still business leaders who understand that life is more than their balance sheet. A great example of a company willing to give back to the community and try to make the world a better place. A company and a leader who not only believe their employees have inherent value as human beings, but treat them as such.

Most any athlete has had a Clif Bar. What makes them different from Balance bars, MetRx bars and Balance bars? And how is the company any different? This is the story behind the company.

The book can be divided into three major themes. First is the historical component of the company - the creation, fall and rebirth of Clif bar. It's told first person from the founder's view from the trenches, and you join him in the trials and tribulations of an entepreneur.

The second theme covers the values of the company. It talks about concepts like mapping the road less traveled, and living your values as a company. It's this section that really makes you hungry for a Clif Bar. :-) It also demonstrates how both the passion and neglect of a leader is reflected in the company. In this section you'll learn the values that drove Clif Bar to remain private.

Lastly is a "How To" manual. This drives at, "I know Gary pulled it off, but what does it mean to me?" The advice here is on creating companies with similar values to Gary's. How does one minimize their ecological footprint? How does one go organic? How does one operate in a sustainable manner? What are the signs of a productive and energizing workplace?

The three themes combine to make an enjoyable story of overcoming obstacles, taking the road less traveled, and creating a company filled with passion.

wow. gary erickson makes me want to put down my cigarette, rum and coke, move back to b.c. and get outside, start moving and get passionate about life again.

it is so unbelievably inspiring to see someone so real and honest and vulnerable ring true in a story. work hard, play hard and live and work with honesty, passion and integrity seems to override the usual company mottos of profit, profit, profit. i didn't even feel like it was a business book. usually they're all rat race this, rat race that - abandon your families, friends, social life for the bottom line - so it was so refreshing to read that companies like this do exist.

pick it up. i've never even eaten a clif bar, my mom just bought me this book for christmas and i'm all like, i'm so going to be a loyal clif/luna bar devotee because of the story behind it.

so buy it, read it. definitely.

This is a fascinating book about the creation of Clif Bar and the business philosophy of its co-founder Gary Erickson. It's a good story, but at times it seems too good to be true. While reading it, I wasn't fully convinced that there wasn't some authorial bias, so I did some Google-based research on the Internet. This confirmed many of the assertions in the book, so I believe Erikson to be the genuine article -- someone committed to building a great company and sticking to his idealistic principles for sustaining his employees, customers, and suppliers as well as sustaining his community and the planet.

It seems that the best way to build a principled company is to keep it privately owned with no intention of ever going public. In fact, Erickson has talked to people like Mo Siegel of Celestial Seasonings, Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry's and Gary Hirshberg of Stoneyfield Farms and comes to the conclusion that nothing less than 100% ownership is acceptable. As he puts it, "I didn't want to become a slave to Wall Street--I'm an entrepreneur who cherishes freedom."

Earlier in Clif Bar's history, Erickson touted his 50/50 partnership with Lisa Thomas, but as he points out in the book, 50% ownership can lead to a stalemate when important decisions have to be made. He hardly mentions his former partner after the first chapter, which describes the point in 2000 when he walked out on a deal to sell the company for $120million. It appears that this was the significant emotional event that drove his effort to build Clif Bar into a great company and to leave it behind as his legacy. As his wife Kit puts it, Clif Bar is the way Erikson expresses himself in the world. This statement seems fully borne out by the rest of the book.

He starts the history of Clif Bar with a personal story of going on a 100 mile bike ride that turned unexpectedly into a 175 mile ride. This was what he calls the first epiphany bike ride and was sustained by only 6 power bars and a banana. As the story goes, it was when he found that he couldn't force down the 6th bar that he decided to make his own. This was the epiphany. It's celebrated every year by a company-sponsored bike event that follows the same route.

Such epiphanies occur frequently, but we're not many of us built like Erickson, so we don't tend to turn our ideas into such a formidable reality as he has done.

One disappointment is that -- after the initial drama of not quite selling the company -- the book mostly skirts the misgivings and failures on the way to building Clif Bar into what it is now. It would have been interesting to learn more about the decisions -- and particularly the failures -- that occurred on the way to building a radical corporate culture at Clif Bar that's in sharp contrast to the competitive, winner-takes-all, bottom-line culture of most of corporate America.

However, there are many good reasons to read this book. It's full of great stories and metaphors. His management ideas are workable, and he's created one of the best mission statements I've seen. This is given in the form of five "aspirations:" Sustaining Our Brands; Sustaining Our Business; Sustaining Our People; Sustaining Our Community; Sustaining Our Planet. He elaborates these in a very creative way. Each aspiration is illustrated and supported by an image of a Clif Bar wrapper, with the "Nutrition Facts" and "Ingredients" replaced by a list of accomplishments achieved during one year of business. These show that the mission of Clif Bar is not an empty one.

The aspirations condense Clif Bar's mission and values down to just seven words, thus satisfying one criterion for a good mission statement. Erikson clearly lived and promulgated these values for some years before formalizing them and writing them down on paper. He also works continuously to meet the company's aspirations. It seems obvious to measure and assess a company based on the achievement of its mission, but that's not what most companies do. Employees may get a poster to pin up in their cubes, but usually there's little evidence that the leaders of the company are acting in accordance with the corporate values and the annual report generally pays only lip service to values other than the shareholder value and the financial results.

At the end of the book, Erikson sums up his achievements at Clif Bar by saying that Clif Bar's business model is like a jazz score, and that the people of Clif Bar are like jazz musicians. "The core is jazz: the freedom to improvise in the creation of beautiful things, products, and people." This is a nice idea and an appropriate metaphor for the whole book, a tale about the raising of Clif Bar improvised around the stories of his life.

The book is an entertaining -- and at some points dazzling -- composition, but it is also important as a model. Erikson does something valuable by giving us one more book that shows how to build a successful, socially responsible company. This adds to a growing number of such books including Joy at Work (Dennis Bakke), The Living Company (Arie De Geus), and Saving the Corporate Soul (David Batstone).

Raising the bar is a great read, but most of all it's important for its ideas and the example it provides. Erikson is an inspiring model for others. He doesn't believe that taking care of people is just a way to make them work harder. As Erikson puts it, "We believe that if we provide meaningful work as well as something beyond work, people will do their jobs well and lead healthier, more balanced lives."

Fortunately, Erikson's is not an isolated example, and more and more people are practicing the belief that stewardship and sustainability is more important than maximizing shareholder profit. If you're working to start a sustainable, socially responsible, learning organization, this is essential reading. If not, at least read the book and spread the word about Clif Bar -- it's a great product and behind it lies a great story.

Graham Lawes

This book is great. I run businesses for a living, and have long looked up to Role Models in ethical business like Ben Cohen and others, for a long time I've looked up to the practices of Gary and Clif Bar as well.

I was introduced to them years back when I realized that PowerBars taste like crap.

This book is great for so many aspects of waht I'm into...see how this sizes up for you.

As a cyclist and traveller, I really loved the stories on the road and the unique methods of travelling to so many places, opening himself up to a modicom of risk, enough to truly learn and experience, something I truly beleive in. So that component was great.

The business component was very descriptive and specific about creating a strong example of a socially conscious, sustainable, profitable business, that remained private, and enriching to employees. The notions of servicing a natural demand rather than an engineered demand stand in glaring contrast to the sermons or Sergio Zyman and other renouned marketing gurus, but the efficiency and decreased capital instensity can't be denied.

The human component was honest and welcome as well, but not dwelled on for too long.

I found countless references to other books and subjects I was also into which really reinforced this fit of this book with my interest in ethical business, lifestyle and interests in general.

If I had a single critique of teh book it would be too many mentions of the buyout he walked away from. Which certainly was a lot of money to refuse, but the references were a little too abundant. If that's my biggest beef, like a McDonald's hamburger--that's not much beef at all.

This book took no time to read, was layden with referecnes and analogies of life & business in terms of jazz, riding and travel. So if this is your thing, click that little button that says add to your shopping cart and hop on board, this is a great book for the health conscious, those interested in slow food, ethical business, athletes, or grampa's in cardigans.

If you're jaded and cynical of what corporations are or on business in general. Realize that media deliver salacious stories of bad deeds, and dishonesty--they perpetuate fear. Read this book to balance out your head, and gain a hope that there are those who stand up for what they beleive in, make a difference and make a good living doing it.

So stop reading my review and read Gary's book.

I loved the story of Gary Erickson's journeys, both in his career and in his personal life, and found myself rooting for him and for Clif Bar at each step of the way. The book is a delight to read, as well as an inspiration. It shows that the little guy can win, and preserve his integrity at the same time. This is the first business book I've found myself really looking forward to reading, both for its content and for its excellent production values: the design is stunning and greatly enriches the reading experience.

Interesting and fun read. Many important life and business lessons tied together. As a cyclist, skiier, and small business founder and owner, I can relate to many of the adventures and lessons of life and business woven neatly together in this book.

Having more than once been saved from serious bonking on long bike rides by Cranberry Apple Cherry Clif bars, I ordered this book eagerly and with enthusiasm. The first part of the book outlines Gary Erickson's story from his original trigger for tastier energy food after downing 6 Power Bars on a 175 mile bike ride in 1990 ("epiphany ride") to the year 2000 when he was faced with a very lucrative proposal to sell the company to a corporate food giant. The story of these ten years is told with a simplicity and optimism that people who live the outdoor life seem to naturally exhibit. And if you like metaphors, golly, this book is replete with mountain passes compared to business strategies, winding and less traveled roads compared to the less traveled road in business, etc. While these attempts at zen-like pronouncements were often awkward and forced, you can view these as integral to the Clif Bar appeal. What prevented me from providing a higher rating was due to the latter half which consisted largely of tiresome iterations of themes already discussed earlier in the book. Overall, is the book worth reading? Yes, but mostly for the first half; feel free to skim through the latter half.

"Raising the Bar" is a great read! It's a fascinating bio about Gary Erickson and the journey he took in creating Clif Bar. I bought this book because I'm thinking about starting a business in convenience/health food sector. I found his adventures and thoughts to be very interesting. He also talks about independently-owned businesses and shares his views and opinions on them.

However, don't expect any concrete business development tips or lessons. This book is just about Erickson's life experiences and the lessons he learned along the way. Nevertheless, I found "Raising the Bar" to be an inspiring and worthwhile read for any young entrepreneur!

If you're ardently concerned about what you eat - and like Clif bars, this book is for you. I've eaten Clif bars for years and recently felt led to revaluate my health/energy bars. I emailed queries to several health/energy bar manufacturers concerning various ingredients (i.e., non-GMO and organic).

I was disappointed - all except my email to Clif Bar. At about the same time, I came across this book on Amazon, while shopping for 'priced right' Clif bars. I purchased the book. I read the book in its entirety in two days - some 343 pages. The book made for a very interesting read.

My conclusions: "Clif Bar & Co." is a solely owned company that listens to a different drummer. Rather than profit margins being 'Job 1' for corporate stockholders, quality of product and employee relations are paramount. Refreshing!

Since 2003, all Clif bars have been certified organic. I also learned that Clif bars have irregular shapes by design.

I'm encouraged by Clif Bar & Company's dedication to healthful and quality products. As a result of reading this book, I'm now enjoying more Clif bars - without any questions lurking in the back of my mind as to what I'm consuming.

I'm essentially a low fat, low sodium vegan, who goes to considerable lengths to avoid all genetically modified foods {GMO}. My favorite flavors are Chocolate Chip and Oatmeal Raisin Walnut.

Buy the book - you won't regret it.