“You can download the free audio version of the Tribal Leadership book online. It’s sponsored by Zappos,” said John King, the presenter and co-author of the book.
“How generous,” I thought.
And that was the first time I had heard of Zappos. It was the 2008 International Coach Federation’s conference in Los Angeles and King had shown us a video clip of the Zappos office, depicting their unique corporate culture and the essence of a tribe that thrives.
The fun, creative, laid back environment we witnessed reminded me of the Internet start-up culture that captured young adults’ imagination during the dot com years. But unlike those start-ups that evaporated into oblivion, Zappos has survived and flourished over the last decade, resulting in Amazon’s acquisition of Zappos for $1.2 billion in 2009.
How did an online shoe retailer go from being on the verge of closure to being a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon? How did it dominate the $2 billion online shoe market when there are still people who haven’t bought a single pair of shoes online?
In Delivering Happiness, Tony Hsieh, Zappos’ CEO, answers these questions in a no-holds-barred manner. Even though Hsieh states upfront that it is “not meant to be a complete autobiography”, readers are treated to Hsieh’s first entrepreneurial inklings as a child, his college years at Harvard, his first job at Oracle, and his first major business success at LinkExchange.
As an Asian, I was tickled by Hsieh’s “three categories of accomplishments that mattered to Asian parents” and his ingenious way of dealing with having to learn three musical instruments.
As a business coach, there are two significant business lessons from Zappos’ experience that I hope more entrepreneurs and businesses would heed.
The first one is Zappos’ clarity about their business’s potential market share – the $2 billion online slice of the $40 billion shoe retail market. This clarity seems to have driven several of their decisions, especially those crucial ones about whether to close the business or soldier on.
In Hsieh’s words, “In business, one of the most important decisions for an entrepreneur or a CEO to make is what business to be in. It doesn’t matter how flawlessly a business is executed if it’s the wrong business or if it’s too small a market”.
Many entrepreneurs, on the other hand, start and struggle in businesses because they lack this clarity. Instead they believe, to their detriment, the adage “If you build it, they’ll come”.
Another intriguing lesson learned is Hsieh’s experience at LinkExchange that centers around culture: “How did we go from an “all-for-one, one-for-all” team environment to one that was now all about politics, positioning and rumors?”
Even though Hsieh could not pinpoint the precise causes of this dysfunctional culture, what came out of it was his resolve to design a culture at Zappos that was the opposite, where their goal is for their employees to “think of their work not as a job or career, but as a calling”.
And Hsieh fills the book with details of how Zappos’ fun yet sustainable culture was built, from their 10 Core Values, their Culture Book to the strategy of Brand, Culture, Pipeline.
As a business coach, I’ve always believed in the power of a company’s culture to sustain its growth. It is one of the core pillars of any successful business and a significant competitive advantage. So it’s heartening to read about a culture’s evolution in Delivering Happiness, to see a “tribe’s” journey, and the many facets that go into generating a connectedness and sense of belonging in the context of a business.
Hsieh states that his purpose in writing Delivering Happiness is to help people avoid making many of the same mistakes that he has made, and for the book to “to serve as encouragement to established businesses as well as entrepreneurs who want to defy conventional wisdom and create their own paths to success”.
If you are one such entrepreneur, Delivering Happiness is the book for you.
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A few of my favorite quotes from the book
- “There’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path” – Morpheus, The Matrix
- “The Zappos Mission: To live and deliver WOW.”
- “Zappos is about delivering happiness to the world.”
- “We are all human at the core, and it can be easy to lose sight of that in a world ruled by business, politics, and social status.”
- “No matter what your past has been, you have a spotless future.” – Author unknown
- “It’s more fun to talk with someone who doesn’t use long difficult words but rather short easy words like “What about lunch?” – Winnie-the-Pooh
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* P.S. A free advanced copy of the Delivering Happiness book was sent to us by Zappos to review.
