Be Like Tony: Create A Culture Where People Want to Work
“Hope you enjoy reading our culture book!” — Tony
The year was 2008 and I was a tenured professor teaching business management courses at a small college. My favorite courses to teach were leadership and organizational behavior.
As a big culture person, I stressed how leaders set the tone of the culture — either good or bad. We watched the documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room as an example of leaders creating a bad culture.
I discovered through one of the leadership blogs I was following that Zappos published a culture book. While it could be purchased from Amazon, the blogger said he requested a copy and he was sent one FREE.
So I followed his advice and sent an email to CONTACT at Zappos indicating I teach at a college and I would use the book as an example of creating a culture where people want to work.
Almost immediately, I received a reply asking for my mailing address and a book would be sent to me FREE.
At the time, Zappos published a culture book annually and I am not sure if that is still the case. But it is a great example of making culture transparent since culture in the book is “defined by employees and partners.”
I continue to reference this book as a way to care about culture and refer to Tony Hsieh (pronounced Shay) as the leader of culture guy. He created a culture that exceeded employee engagement.
As I was reading the Sunday New York Times, I was devastated to read about the tragic loss of Tony in a house fire. While I only knew of him, I felt the world become less smart, less generous, and less kind. Tony was a unique and rare visionary who cared as much if not more about people than profit.
In honor of Tony Hsieh, I am sharing some of his quotes from his book Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose. Since my passion is also the integration of leading and living, Tony’s quotes below are some of the most important life and business lessons he has learned along his entrepreneurial journey that ended way too soon.
On money and happiness:
“Money alone isn’t enough to bring happiness . . . happiness [is] when you’re actually truly ok with losing everything you have.”
“I made a list of the happiest periods in my life, and I realized that none of them involved money. I realized that building stuff and being creative and inventive made me happy. Connecting with a friend and talking through the entire night until the sun rose made me happy. Trick-or-treating in middle school with a group of my closest friends made me happy. Pickles made me happy.”
“I thought about how easily we are all brainwashed by our society and culture to stop thinking and just assume by default that more money equals more success and more happiness, when ultimately happiness is really just about enjoying life.”
“Happiness is really just about four things: perceived control, perceived progress, connectedness (number and depth of your relationships), and vision/meaning (being part of something bigger than yourself).”
On burnout:
“The problem when someone feels burned out, bored, unchallenged, or stifled by their work is not the job itself but rather the environment and playground rules given to them to do the job at hand.”
On empowering your employees to bring their talent:
“I think when people say they dread going into work on Monday morning, it’s because they know they are leaving a piece of themselves at home. Why not see what happens when you challenge your employees to bring all of their talents to their job and reward them not for doing it just like everyone else, but for pushing the envelope, being adventurous, creative, and open-minded, and trying new things?”
On company culture:
“Your personal core values define who you are, and a company’s core values ultimately define the company’s character and brand. For individuals, character is destiny. For organizations, culture is destiny.”
“What’s the best way to build a brand for the long term? In a word: culture.”
On creating your future:
“No matter what your past has been, you have a spotless future.”
On personal growth:
“It’s important to constantly challenge and stretch yourself, and not be stuck in a job where you don’t feel like you are growing or learning.”
“Wake up every day and ask yourself not only what is the 1% improvement I can change to make Zappos better, but also what is the 1% improvement I can change to make myself better personally and professionally. In the end we, as Zappos, can’t grow unless we, as individuals, grow too.”
On pursuing greatness:
“We must never lose our sense of urgency in making improvements. We must never settle for “good enough,” because good is the enemy of great.”
On change:
“We must all learn not only to not fear change, but to embrace it enthusiastically and, perhaps even more important, encourage and drive it.”
“Never accept or be too comfortable with the status quo, because the companies that get into trouble are historically the ones that aren’t able to adapt to change and respond quickly enough.”
On creating your own reality:
“Envision, create, and believe in your own universe, and the universe will form around you.”
On communication:
“Open, honest communication is the best foundation for any relationship, but remember that at the end of the day it’s not what you say or what you do, but how you make people feel that matters the most.”
On being unique:
“I believe that there’s something interesting about anyone and everyone — you just have to figure out what that something is.”
On learning:
“Continual Learning Educate yourself. Read books and learn from others who have done it before. Learn by doing. Theory is nice, but nothing replaces actual experience. Learn by surrounding yourself with talented players.”
On networking:
“I’ve found that it’s more interesting to build relationships with people that are “not” in the business world because they always can offer unique perspectives and insights, and also because those relationship tend to be more genuine.”
On having a purpose:
“When you walk with purpose, you collide with destiny.”
Conclusion
After learning about Tony’s death, I pulled out my 2008 Culture book. He had signed the inside cover. I had never noticed this before or if so, I had not remembered it.
Could someone else have signed it for him? Certainly.
Do I think so? No.
Here’s hoping more people are like Tony.
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