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.
It’s not often that I unequivocally recommend a book, but Richard Branson’s Screw Business As Usual meets all my criteria.
It’s not a do-gooder book, per se, although Branson is passionate about “doing good by doing right.”
I realize that his take on entrepreneurism will fall on deaf ears for anybody who starts a company with the prime motivation of getting rich, but even they might reconsider after reading it—Branson started Virgin so he could afford to make a difference.
And there is prime proof that doing right pays.
“Companies that consistently manage and measure their responsible business activities outperformed their FTSE 350* peers on total shareholder return in seven out of the last eight years.”
Branson believes that the right focus is your employees and your customers; take care of them and the rest will follow.
The people, stories and advice in Screw Business As Usual are about, and dedicated to, entrepreneurs, business people and anybody else who believe that there is more to work and business in the 21st century than making money.
What worked in the past isn’t going to work in the future, from top-down, command and control management to companies whose policies destroy people, resources, etc., in the name of profit.
The doing-good-by-doing-right bandwagon is picking up steam, fueled by a vocal new generation that is disgusted with business as usual and older generations (maybe not as noisy) with the same feelings who are learning to vote with their feet—as US banks so recently found out.
Business needs to recognize that if they want to keep making money they need to do it responsibly—assuming, of course, they need both workers and customers to succeed.
In other words, screw business as usual.
*FTSE 350 is the British version of the Fortune 500.
Entrepreneurs: Screw Business As Usual (book review)
I rarely read book that I unequivocally recommend, but Screw Business As Usual meets my criteria.
It’s not a do-gooder book, per se, although Branson is passionate about “doing good by doing right.”
I realize that his take on entrepreneurism will fall on deaf ears for anybody who starts a company with the prime motivation of getting rich, but even they might reconsider after reading it.
And there is prime proof that doing right pays.
“Companies that consistently manage and measure their responsible business activities outperformed their FTSE 350* peers on total shareholder return in seven out of the last eight years.”
Branson believes that the right focus is your employees and your customers; take care of them and the rest will follow.
The people, stories and advice in Screw Business As Usual are about, and dedicated to, entrepreneurs, business people and anybody else who believe that there is more to work and business in the 21st century than making money.
What worked in the past isn’t going to work in the future, from top-down, command and control management to companies whose policies destroy people, resources, etc., in the name of profit.
The doing-good-by-doing-right bandwagon is picking up steam, fueled by a vocal new generation that is disgusted with business as usual and older generations (maybe not as noisy) with the same feelings who vote with their feet as US banks so recently found out.
Business needs to recognize that if they want to keep making money they need to do it responsibly—assuming, of course, they need both workers and customers to succeed.
*FTSE 350 is the British version of the Fortune 500.
I don’t think I’ve ever watched a show on TLC (a unit of Discovery Channel), but I plan to this spring; even more surprising to me is that it’s a reality show.
A reality show about great corporate culture in an industry known for the opposite.
“We were interested in working with Southwest,” said Dustin P. Smith, vice president of communications for TLC, “as it is one of the largest airlines in the country and is known for its exuberant corporate culture and for having refreshing and personal customer service that is regarded as unique in the industry.
I doubt that anyone who travels is surprised at the choice of Southwest; and certainly not Southwest.
Ashley Dillon, a spokesperson for Southwest Airlines, said the airline was chosen also because of its tradition of transparency, which relies heavily on the use of social media, blogs and other media.
In a 2009 post citing the airline’s success even during the height of the recession I linked Southwest’s and Zappos’ success to the same core cultural belief—happy employees (one Southwest flight attendant even rapped about its GAAP results).
They stowed drugs in secret panels inside planes; stole laptops, lobsters and fine clothing flown as freight; and rifled through passengers’ belongings for perfume, liquor and electronics.
Passenger losses in 2009 totaled 5.3 million dollars and for the last eight years American Airlines was the source of more reports than any other airline.
“What percent of American Airlines employees would you say engaged in this conduct?” a federal prosecutor, Patricia E. Notopoulos, asked Matthew James, a defendant in the case who pleaded guilty and testified for the prosecution. “About 80 percent,” Mr. James answered.
Of course, management claims it’s just a few bad apples.
Over the years I’ve read about and listened to hundreds of reasons why creating a culture that keeps employees happy just can’t be a priority— productivity and profit are the top priorities.
Obviously, they haven’t found the correlation, in spite of the high-profile examples that abound.
Are you one of the thousands of managers who spend your days trying to increase productivity and improve your company’s bottom line and you nights worrying that you aren’t doing it fast enough—if at all?
Does your company hire experts to teach motivation and employee engagement techniques?
Do you twist in the wind trying to implement complex, sometimes costly, approaches?
Why?
Why complex when some of the smartest CEOs, advisors and academics are all saying the same thing?
Simply put, in the words of Tony Hsieh, if your employees are happy they will make your customers happy; if your customers are happy they’ll spend more; if they spend more your bottom line will grow.
Saturday I gave you multiple links showing just how simple and inexpensive engaging your people can be—but not everybody reads Saturday.
So, instead of writing yet another post on engagement, I thought provide a video from Guy Kawasaki, who talks about how to “enchant” your employees.
His advice is simple and doable, although it does require the right MAP.
The only cost may be to your ego, since in order to implement it you need to change.
I owe my Saturday readers an apology. Expand Your Mind was absent last week and I have no excuse; worse, I have to admit I just plain forgot. That is embarrassing. I hope today makes up for it.
A rude awakening for all the companies and managers who believe they can treat their people any way they choose comes from an Aflac survey-based report saying otherwise.
77 percent of adults employed full/part time, and not currently self-employed, stated they would leave their current position to become an independent entrepreneur.
…more employees intend to stay with their employer, feel motivated to put forth extra effort, recommend their companies as a great place to work, and say they love their current organization.
What’s the difference; why such disparate results?
More research from Harvard shows that what excites and engages people has nothing to do with money and everything to do with managers (you knew that).
According to recent research, the single most important factor is simply a sense of making progress on meaningful work.
Next, two excellent survey-based articles about women and work.
First, research from Harvard Business Review, looks at the factors that impact both women and men when competing.
…how women and men perform at work may be strongly linked to the gender of the person they are competing against.
And from McKinsey comes advice based on feedback that focuses on changing deeply embedded attitudes.
…a survey we conducted earlier this year indicated that although a majority of women who make it to senior roles have a real desire to lead, few think they have meaningful support to do so, and even fewer think they’re in line to move up.
He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him, he is always doing both.
Tony Hsieh Has been beating the drum that happy employees provide the best customer experience and help assure success and sharing his wisdom on how to do it.
The other question I keep getting asked is how do you do it when you
aren’t the CEO or even a senior manager;
don’t have the budget for great perks; or
aren’t the touchy-feely rah-rah type (direct quote).
The short answer is in five words, you take time to care.
Gallup estimates the cost of America’s disengagement crisis at a staggering $300 billion in lost productivity annually.
$300 billion is a number that should get anyone’s attention.
The engagement issue is relatively simple and definitely cheap to solve.
The problem is that, as usual, employees and managers aren’t on the same page.
The research shows that for employees “the single most important [event] — by far — is simply making progress in meaningful work.”
Managers are another story.
“When we asked 669 managers from companies around the world to rank five employee motivators in terms of importance, they ranked “supporting progress” dead last. Fully 95 percent of these managers failed to recognize that progress in meaningful work is the primary motivator, well ahead of traditional incentives like raises and bonuses.”
What constitutes supporting progress isn’t rocket science, either.
Autonomy, meaning no micromanagement;
sufficient resources, meaning valid scheduling and enough of whatever to get the job done without having to beg or being left to fail without them; and
learning from problems, meaning understanding the why and how, not just the what.
If you find any of the three difficult to provide you need to look in the mirror.
The problem isn’t about having time to support progress; the problem is that your MAP doesn’t support the concept.
Although his admirers credit Mr. Hsieh with having created a unique (and unified) culture at Zappos, others point out that what he is doing is actually simple, and perhaps not so original.
I’d like to know who those ‘others’ are.
The best things usually are simple, have often been done before and I don’t think Hsieh has ever claimed his ideas and approach were new—but his execution is.
His approach is simple: happy employees make for happy customers; happy customers spend lots of money and return often.
Of course, if it’s so simple why don’t all CEOs and other bosses run their own organizations that way? Why do they pay $4000 to learn from him? Because the proof is in the Zappos pudding.
I’ll bet that Jack Welch never cared if the people who worked at GE were happy as long as they made their numbers—in fact, I’ll guarantee that no imperial CEO gave or gives a damn; nor do similarly minded managers at other levels.
Hsieh is more proof that great CEOs aren’t necessarily extroverts; don’t seek or require the limelight; nor do they actually fit all those profiles you read.
Rarely do articles focus as much on Hsieh the person as this one does. In terms of analyzing what makes Tony tick, and why others have so much trouble implementing and sustaining his simple approach, this bit of insight seems to say it all.
Then he quietly slipped out from the party. Employees talked affectionately about him after he had gone. “Sometimes I look at him, and I say, ‘He is such a dork,’ ” said Lauren Glassman, a buyer in the action sports clothing division, downing a goblet of beer. “But at the end of the day, we are all dorks.”
Want more on introverted bosses? Check out this post by Douglas R. Conant, President and CEO of Campbell Soup.
When I started RampUp Solutions way back in 1999 and talked/preached/ranted) about the importance of culture I was often met with a bored expression or an eye roll.
Back then culture was an ethereal concept compounded of smoke and mirrors and propagated by consultants whose main purpose was to generate business.
That attitude has radically changed over the last decade…
“…Our final advantage is the hard-to-duplicate culture that permeates Berkshire. And in businesses, culture counts.” —Warren Buffett
“Culture has become the defining issue that will distinguish the most successful businesses from the rest of the pack.” —Ginny Rometty, SVP, Group Executive, Sales, Marketing, and Strategy, IBM
“…he [Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO, DreamWorks Animation] didn’t always know how important it is to make employees happy in their jobs. … Had Katzenberg known earlier how critical it is to build a best company to work for, he told me, he might have been more successful than he is.”
Tony Hsieh, Jeff Immelt, numerous academics, assorted pundits, gurus and coaches, not to mention all forms of media, are focused on culture.
With all the talk and solid examples of the bottom line value of good culture why do so many companies, large and small, provide an employee experience that can only be described as ‘lousy’?
Because companies don’t provide culture, managers do.
Managers, from CEO to team leader, create/enable whatever culture exists below them.
But they have little-to-no effect on the shape of the culture above them, unless that culture permits the influence, as illustrated by the creation of Best Buy’s ROWE.
It’s not that managers don’t get it, but understanding something and doing it is not the same thing.
People look for business culture inspiration in many places, but sometimes the best is from an unexpected source. While there’s a waiting line for cultural help from Tony Hsieh, Robert Orben is still available and probably (maybe?) costs less.
Let’s start with the basics, because if you can’t get this one right there isn’t much hope, “If you can laugh together, you can work together”
Managers know that as resources are reduced it’s more and more difficult to get everything done. That said, it helps to remember this gem, “Time flies. It’s up to you to be the navigator.”
Orben had a wonderful take on failure, one that is sure to encourage your people, “Don’t think of it as failure. Think of it as time-released success.”
Here’s a little ditty should be chanted in unison at the start of every meting. I guarantee it will improve the participation and content no end, “Every speaker has a mouth; An arrangement rather neat. Sometimes it’s filled with wisdom. Sometimes it’s filled with feet.”
Some managers are good at stroking their people, some not so much. If voicing compliments is difficult for you remember this bit of wisdom might make it easier, “A compliment is verbal sunshine.”
Finally, when the deadlines loom and stress is rising it’s god to remind your team that they have choices, “In prehistoric times, mankind often had only two choices in crisis situations: fight or flee. In modern times, humor offers us a third alternative; fight, flee – or laugh.”
Every boss at every level yearns to unlock the key to engaging their employees in ways that boost productivity, juice creativity and innovation, improve retention and have positive impact on the bottom line.
To that end they hire consultants and coaches, attend seminars, read books and discuss it with their peers.
They speak of those who are successful with reverence and pay large sums to hear them speak.
And they hear the same thing over and over from every source.
Look at any successful company, department or team, large or small, and you’ll find the same 1-2-3 ideas being put into action.
The rocket science all bosses seek is the same—engagement is a function of them, not you—which is exactly why so many of them have a hard time with it.
To paraphrase an ex President, it’s the people, stupid.
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
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.
I don’t think I’ve ever watched a show on TLC (a unit of Discovery Channel), but I plan to this spring; even more surprising to me is that 
People look for business culture inspiration in many places, but sometimes the best is from an unexpected source. While there’s a waiting line for cultural help from Tony Hsieh, 
