In their new book they spell out with great examples why lightening up boosts all the metrics you want to go up—productivity, creativity, innovation, retention and happiness.
Understand that ‘levity’ is not about telling jokes any more than ‘happy’ and ‘fun’ are about goofing off. That’s especially true about jokes that start with ‘Now, don’t be offended…’ or end with ‘just kidding’. As one manager, who is deep into levity as a management tool, said to me, “If they want jokes they should watch Leno or Letterman.”
Levity is about lightening up and recognizing that trust, communication, and creativity are all increased when people spend their time with people whose company they enjoy.
It is about having fun because you are challenged, encouraged to grow and given multiple opportunities to make a difference.
The information in the book is the product of ten years of extensive research proving that traditional ‘wipe that smile off your face’ attitudes are counterproductive. The research is backed up with case studies of recognized leading companies whose numbers can’t be argued with and whose top brass are vocal in their belief that a happy workforce produces happy customers—and that levity is a major component of happy.
Of course, the problem with a book such as The Levity Effect is that the people who will be quick to ‘get it’ are the ones who already believe in the basic concept, whereas the ones who really need it will be resistant—it’s always questionable how well any book can sell a foreign concept to what may be a hostile buyer.
We’ll talk more about how to do that this week, as well as things you can do no matter your level in an organization and how to incorporate levity into your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) to make life better for you and those around you.
By now, anybody who reads or watches the news knows that Amazon acquired Zappos, even if they don’t know about Zappos (a man asked me what a zappos was because it seemed very expensive).
Jeanne Bliss quoted a line from Tony Hsieh’s internal email (emphasis mine), “Over the next few days, you will probably read headlines that say “Amazon acquires Zappos” or “Zappos sells to Amazon”. While those headlines are technically correct, they don’t really properly convey the spirit of the transaction. (I personally would prefer the headline “Zappos and Amazon sitting in a tree…”)”
I agree that it’s a marriage made in heaven.
Both companies boast management that is passionately focused on customer experience, are long-term thinkers, know how to plan and are talented at executing.
Some pundits are focusing on the cultural compatibility and whether Zappos will be forced to change because it’s now part of a public company.
People tend to forget that Jeff Bezos is the CEO that Wall Street loves to hate.
They hated it when he expanded out of books; they predicted Amazon’s demise when it used its expertise to do fulfillment for other companies and again when Amazon jumped into cloud computing.
Bezos’ attitude is encapsulated in this short interview ending with a perfect wrap when asked if he feels vindicated by the company’s success.
‘No. I’ve taken plenty of criticism, but it’s always been about our stock price and never about our customer experience. After the bubble burst, I would sit down with our harshest critics, and at the end of the meeting they would say, “I’m a huge customer.” You know that when your harshest critics are among your best customers, you can’t be doing that badly.”
I’ve written multiple times about Zappos and I’m not the only one. Any time the conversation turns to productivity, customer service, branding, leadership, staffing, etc., and chances are someone will point to Zappos.
I seriously doubt that Tony Hsieh can even spell imperial CEO, let alone act like one—his office is a cube in the middle of a lot of other cubes.
He has built Zappos around extreme customer service—only to him it’s not extreme, because he knows no other way to do business. And Zappos employees are as passionate about Zappos as Hsieh is.
During his keynote address at the CEO Summit he said that “Creating a happy workplace is crucial to building a successful company. … After looking at research on human behavior he found that happiness is about four things: perceived control, perceived progress, connectedness and vision, or in other words “being part of something bigger.””
Hsieh constantly presents Zappos anywhere possible to build his brand, not talking about shoes, but about Zappos’ culture, the customers’ experience and how happy employees mean happy customers.
Companies constantly talk about the need for a ‘great customer experience’, whereas Zappos provides one.
He’s writing Delivering Happiness due out March 2010. If I was rich I’d send it to every CEO whose company can be found by searching ‘XYZ sucks’ (for example, ‘Comcast sucks’ shows 22,300 results).
Before you start grabbing all that great advice and slapping it willy-nilly on your company you need to take stock.
Take a step back and honestly look at your company’s culture and at yourself. This step is critical because you can’t change something of which you aren’t aware or that you don’t understand.
Make no mistake, whatever company culture you find is directly a product of your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™)—whether you actively instigated it or enabled it through neglect.
To form an accurate picture of your culture you can’t just talk to your senior staff—you need a 360 degree vision of it, which means input from all levels of your company. If you’ve allowed yourself to become isolated, basing your decisions on what may be filtered information, you’ve found the first thing you need to change—and you need to accept that it’s not going to be easy.
First, look to yourself.
Why and how did you allow it to happen?
How long has it been going on?
How valid or how filtered is the information you do get?
Who is standing in your stead at the apex of the culture and what is that person’s MAP?
Next, how healthy is your culture? Indicators Abound.
Do people feel comfortable sharing bad news or do they expect the messenger to be killed?
How approachable are you—an open door policy that’s never used is a symptom, not a plus.
Do the different departments work together or are they jockeying for position?
In an ‘”us vs. them” world, do your people’s actions confirm their belief that ‘us’ are all their inside colleagues and your vendors and ‘them’ are the competition?
This may seem basic and time consuming, but in a world where it’s innovation and world-class customer service that’s can save your bacon in a downturn you need a strong handle on the basics—no matter how unpalatable they turn out to be.
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,
As I said Saturday, this is levity week at MAPping Company Success, starting with a review of The Levity Effect by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton.
