Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh, about how pursuing passion and purpose leads to profit.
Tony Hsieh is a purveyor of happiness. He wants to deliver happiness to those he associates with. No, he’s not a new-age guru or snake oil salesman or televangelist. He’s a highly successful businessman—the CEO of Zappos. And he’s selling HAPPINESS —in the USA! Unbelievable!
But true. You must check out his book, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose. It’s a great 4th of July weekend/summer read. It’s patriotic to the hilt as it’s a change agent for a better way for America to conduct business. And when American businesses flourish, so does America!
I think American businesses would be putting more people back to work if they adhered to the philosophy of this book—the importance of corporate culture and WOW customer service. The importance of a higher purpose than just profits (OMG that’s sacrilegious in the business world!) The importance of employees fostering a family spirit. The importance of having FUN at work. The importance of valuing creativity, honesty, and humbleness.
Have you fallen out of your chair yet?
Imagine Goldman Sachs musing over those principles and what would you see? The entire executive staff spitting on them? Lloyd Blankfein barfing all over his 24k solid gold desk? Or is it platinum? Or is that his shower curtain?
Considering the:
“rip the faces of the customers” mentality of the banking industry;
the “rip off your customers’ wallets especially when they’re sick” attitude of the health insurance industry;
the “rip the life out of oceanic creatures and livelihoods” actions of the off-shore oil drilling companies;
the “piss on your customer’s house” stunt that an AT&T worker performed on my sister-in-law’s house;
and on and on ad nauseam, this book is a REVOLUTION to the insidious thinking of greedy, demoralizing, short-sighted, self-aggrandzing, unethical (but not illegal!) corporate America.
Frankly I was astounded that someone not only thought like this, but had the guts to admit it, AND write a book about it. It’s a good thing Tony Hsieh has made a bazillion dollars or he would be laughed out of Harvard Business School. Do you think they teach their students to worry more about the corporate culture than the bottom line? Don’t think so.
So who exactly is this Tony Hsieh and how did he get to where he is?
First all he’s really smart. He applied to eight top-notch colleges: Brown, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, MIT, UC Berkeley, and Stanford. He was accepted to ALL of them. That’s impressive.
Tony chose Harvard. He also graduated.
Second of all, Tony had the “fire in the belly” entrepreneurial spirit at a young age. In elementary school, there were gararge sales and a worm farm. In middle school there was a paper route, printed newsletter, and a profitable button-making business. In high school he worked for Lucasfilm as a video game tester and at GDI as a computer programmer.
I think Tony proves that theory that a true entrepreneurial personality is born and not made.
It’s also true that no matter how much money is being made doing something, the true entrepreneurial personality won’t do it if it’s boring/non-challenging. That’s why Tony quit Oracle and started a web design business.
Lots of successful business people have the above two characteristics. Tony has a third one that I think sets him apart from probably 98% of the rest: He’s a humanist. He values people/employees/relationships more than profits. He’d rather have a “successful tribe” (with happiness and purpose) than more money.
Hence, the Zappos’ Core Values:
1. Deliver WOW through service.
2. Embrace and drive change.
3. Create fun and a little weirdness.
4. Be adventurous, creative, and open-minded.
5. Pursue growth and learning.
6. Build open and honest relationships with communication.
7. Build a positive team and family spirit.
8. Do more with less.
9. Be passionate and determined.
10. Be humble.
I find these admirable (especially #3 and #4)—a manifesto of how to run a company the RIGHT WAY. I have worked for many companies and except for #8, none of them considered these values a good idea. I also think that for most of the folks running Fortune 500 companies and Silicon Valley, these concepts would make them puke.
After the values are listed in the book, there are detailed explanations about them as well as illustrations of how they are put into practice in the workplace—with essays by various Zappos employees. I found these enjoyable, especially the one by Vanessa L. about “Do More With Less” and yams.
From reading the book, I think Tony does an excellent job implementing Value #6. He explains: “We value strong relationships in all areas: with managers, direct reports, customers (internal and external), vendors, business partners, team members, and co-workers. Strong positive relationships are a big part of what differentiates Zappos from most other companies.”
Throughout the book he reprints his emails, which are written with casual language, openness, and lack of guile. (They’re also posted on the Zappos blog site!) After I read the one (from 11/11/08 about the 8% lay-off) I thought of Kenneth Lay and the speech he gave to his employees at Enron right before its collapse.
Lay and upper management had dumped their Enron stock, yet he assured them of the financial health of the company, encouraged them to continue to invest in Enron, and in reality lied, cheated, and stole from not only his employees, but stockholders and taxpayers as well. He obviously had never heard of “Build open and HONEST relationships.”
To prevent any more such debacles happening to American workers, I think Congress should pass a law to FORCE the CEOs and executive staff at Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, American Express, New York Mellon, Northern Trust, PNC, State Street, and US Bank to read and execute Zappos’ Core Values at their institutions BEFORE America is forced to suffer through another financial meltdown.
But we’re not talking about those Wall Street beelzebubs. Back to Tony Hsieh and his terrific book, which should be read by everyone owning, running, or working (or thinking about working) in an American business. It makes that much sense, which will not only improve dollars and cents, but happiness and purpose and as Tony says, “will help change the world.”
What more can you ask from one mind? Well done, Tony Hsieh!
P.S. My only complaint: Where are the photos of SHOES?
