You may or may not have heard that Zappos, the online retailer, was recently purchased by Amazon.com for a ton of money. One of my favorite things about the sale was the way Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, told his employees.
Read Tony’s email
An excerpt…
Please set aside 20 minutes to carefully read this entire email. (My apologies for the occasional use of formal-sounding language, as parts of it are written in a particular way for legal reasons.)
Today is a big day in Zappos history.
This morning, our board approved and we signed what’s known as a “definitive agreement”, in which all of the existing shareholders and investors of Zappos (there are over 100) will be exchanging their Zappos stock for Amazon stock. Once the exchange is done, Amazon will become the only shareholder of Zappos stock.
Over the next few days, you will probably read headlines that say “Amazon acquires Zappos” or “Zappos sells to Amazon”. While those headlines are technically correct, they don’t really properly convey the spirit of the transaction. (I personally would prefer the headline “Zappos and Amazon sitting in a tree…”)
Tony doesn’t spend a lot of time beating around the bush. He gets right to the point. Amazon is purchasing Zappos. No fluff. No BS.
He has a conversation with the readers. I’ll admit, the way he speaks wouldn’t work in every culture. But it’s genuine and personal. So few corporate memos are.
Tony also follows the golden rule of good communication, he quickly answers the nagging question every employee has when change occurs: “How will this affect me?”
Want to improve corporate communication? Take a page of Zappos’ playbook!
I do like his approach to the email. Being straightforward and leaving the bs out of it. If possible I would prefer to be told in person rather than through an email so all questions can be answered then and there, but if that’s not possible than an email like this is the way to go.
@ReviewSNAP – Great point. In-person would be the preferred approach, and with a company as relatively small as Zappos, Tony should be able to do that. Since most of his workforce is either manning the phones or working the warehouse, I imagine you wouldn’t want to pull them away, though.
I’m sure you’re right about the employees manning the phones and warehouse. But, if the conditions do permit than they should be told in person. Since, the conditions most likely didn’t permit for Tony his email was a great alternative approach.
I like the approach, but this doesn’t hold true for every company and every industry segment. Tech enterprises were started with and maintained the informal work culture.
Large corporations (especially in the traditional sectors like Banking & Finance, Automobiles etc) still maintain the hierarchical approach. It would be good if this type of culture flows in each and every organization but still this does not go well with old school.
@Aravind – Wouldn’t work or doesn’t happen?
I agree that not every organization could emulate Tony’s word choice or tone, regardless of size. But I can’t think of a single organization that wouldn’t benefit from communication that was direct, open, and transparent.