How Zappos Infuses Culture Using Core Values
Tony Hsieh is the CEO of Zappos.com, Inc. During the past 10 years, the company has grown from almost no sales to more than $1 billion in annual gross merchandise sales, driven primarily by repeat customers and word of mouth. Below is an excerpt from Tony's forthcoming book that describes the beginning of Zappos.
Even though our core values guide us in everything we do today, we didn't actually have any formal core values for the first six or seven years of the company's history. It's my fault that we didn't do it in the early years, because it was something I'd always thought of as a very "corporate" thing to do. I resisted doing it for as long as possible.
I'm just glad that an employee finally convinced me that it was necessary to come up with core values — essentially, a formalized definition of our culture — in order for us to continue to scale and grow.
I only wish we had done it sooner.
Back in San Francisco, Nick [Zappos' original founder], Fred, and I tried to interview every prospective employee to make sure they were a culture fit for Zappos. When we moved the company to Vegas, we were hiring a lot of people very quickly due to our rapid growth. It wasn't scalable for us to be involved with every new hire decision, but the problem was that because we had so many new employees, not everyone knew exactly what we were looking for when we said we were looking for a culture fit.
Someone from our legal department suggested that we come up with a list of core values to serve as a guide for managers to make hiring decisions. I thought about all the employees I wanted to clone because they represented the Zappos culture well, and tried to figure out what values they personified. I also thought about all the employees and ex-employees who were not culture fits, and tried to figure out where there was a values disconnect.
As I started creating the list, I realized that I needed to get everyone's input on what our core values should be.
Over the course of a year, I emailed the entire company several times and got a lot of suggestions and feedback on which core values were the most important to our employees.
I was surprised the process took so long, but we wanted to make sure not to rush through the process because whatever core values we eventually came up with, we wanted to be ones that we could truly embrace.
The commitment part was the most challenging part. A lot of corporations have "core values" or "guiding principles," but the problem is that they're usually very lofty sounding and they read like a press release that the marketing department put out. A lot of times, an employee might learn about them on day one of orientation, but then the values just end up being part of a meaningless plaque on the wall of the corporate lobby.
We wanted to make sure that didn't happen with our core values. We wanted a list of committable core values that we were willing to hire and fire on. If we weren't willing to do that, then they weren't really "values."
We eventually came up with our final list of 10 core values, which we still use today:
- Deliver WOW Through Service
- Embrace and Drive Change
- Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
- Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
- Pursue Growth and Learning
- Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
- Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
- Do More With Less
- Be Passionate and Determined
- Be Humble
Over time, our recruiting department developed interview questions for each and every one of the core values, and we tested our commitment during the hiring process.
Be Humble is probably the core value that ends up affecting our hiring decisions the most. There are a lot of experienced, smart, and talented people we interview that we know can make an immediate impact on our top or bottom line. But a lot of them are also really egotistical, so we end up not hiring them. At most companies, the hiring manager would probably argue that we should hire such a candidate because he or she will add a lot of value to the company, which is probably why most large corporations don't have great cultures.
Our philosophy at Zappos is that we're willing to make short-term sacrifices (including lost revenue or profits) if we believe that the long-term benefits are worth it. Protecting the company culture and sticking to core values is a long-term benefit.
Once we had our final list of our ten core values, I sent an e-mail to the entire company describing each of them in more detail. We still refer to the original e-mail today. In fact, when new employees join the company, they are required to sign a document stating that they have read the core values document and understand that living up to the core values is part of their job expectation.
Tony Hsieh is the CEO of Zappos.com, Inc. "Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose" is Tony Hsieh's first book, and will be released on June 7, 2010. The book can be pre-ordered on Amazon. For more information about the book, visit: http://www.deliveringhappinessbook.com%20./
Access Content Source: http://blogs.hbr.org/kanter/2010/05/seven-hints-for-selling-ideas.html?cm_mmc=npv-_-DAILY_ALERT-_-AWEBER-_-DATE
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http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.
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