Ducks in a Row: Culture- Envisioned and Enabled
by Miki Saxon
Tony Hsieh has a dream to fix the world’s cities one by one, starting with Las Vegas, and he believes it can be accomplished via culture, just as it is at Zappos.
Two Q&A responses in the interview caught my eye, because they get to the crux of great culture.
Q. What is Zappos’ greatest threat?
HSIEH. Probably ourselves. The fundamental premise behind Zappos is culture. The belief is that if we get the culture right then most of the other stuff like doing great service, building a long-term, enduring brand or business will just be a natural byproduct of that. Most companies, as they get bigger, the culture goes downhill. Not only do we want to prevent that, but we actually want it to scale and get stronger and stronger which, generally, I think has never been done before. That is a challenge. The only way we have been able to think of to achieve that is if every employee views living in and inspiring the culture as part of their job description.
Great cultures are envisioned in the broadest strokes from the top—Hsieh wanted a happy place to work—with the visionary enabling people at all levels to contribute to and protect the resulting culture.
Q. If you are not there to do that, will there be someone there to do that?
HSIEH. It kind of goes back to it is everyone’s job to protect our values and to grow the culture. I guess we don’t really have an explicit succession plan. But I can also tell you that the only compensation I’m getting from Amazon is $36,000 a year with no chance of bonuses or stock options or anything. So, in theory, I could walk away at any moment but I haven’t. In a weird way, that only gives me more leverage over Amazon, because they know the only thing keeping me at Zappos is my happiness, and what makes me happy is us being run independently and maintaining our culture.
The bolding is mine and every boss at every level should commit it to memory.
The concept of leaving if not happy is applicable to every person who works no matter the size of their paycheck.
Not everyone can walk on the spur of the moment, but if they aren’t happy eventually they will walk.
Flickr image credit: Brian Nicklaus
