Honoring a Culture Visionary
I was deeply saddened last week to learn about the passing of Tony Hsieh, founder of the online shoe company, Zappos. Hsieh (pronounced shay) was an incredible entrepreneur, management guru, and best-selling author. His book, Delivering Happiness, was instrumental for me and I attribute a lot of our success at Footers to principles I learned from that book. Reading his book was a turning point for me. Up to that point, I had limited experience with the concept that creating fun at work would translate into higher levels of service and productivity. What he was able to accomplish at Zappos was inspiring. They became icons in customer service via a call center and they did it largely with their commitment to culture.
Hsieh was adamant about valuing long term gains over short term rewards. He was called crazy for offering free shipping and returns for up to 365 days. But critics underestimated the numerous purchases that customers would eventually make as they gained a loyal following. Valuing long term gains was so important at Zappos, that after putting a new hire through the on-boarding process, they actually offered a payment for them to quit, knowing that someone who was willing to take the money, wouldn’t be a good long term cultural fit.
I loved the fact that Hsieh was willing to take risks and ignore what others said he should do. When he started Zappos, people said that no one would buy shoes without trying them on. He was willing to try new things as long as it aligned with the company’s values. Perhaps the most controversial was his experiment with a Holacracy where there are essentially no managers, and employees figure out what they need to do on a daily basis.
Hsieh knew that happy people would be more apt to give great customer service than unhappy ones and therefore dedicated tremendous resources to creating an awesome company culture. He also personally wanted to build a company he was excited to come to every day. One of their values, “Create Fun and a Little Weirdness” is the opposite of what someone would think of if you asked about a corporate core value. Ball pit conference rooms, bringing in petting zoos, crazy decor and an employee concierge service are just a few of the things that make Zappos unique. What was clear, though, was that those things didn’t detract from productivity and service, they actually enhanced it. After visiting the Las Vegas headquarters twice, our team was able to see this first hand in action and it inspired us to make culture and people our top priority at Footers.
I admired Hsieh’s willingness to help others. He invested over $350M of his own money into downtown Las Vegas, largely with the hope of providing opportunities for people to become business owners that may not otherwise have the resources. He also wanted a thriving community for his team members and essentially helped build that around the company headquarters. Hsieh had a huge impact on the lives of so many people and I know he will be sorely missed. The world lost a visionary for what culture should be and while I never met him I’m forever grateful for the impact he had on my life.