Back in March, Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, gave an awesome presentation at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival about culture.
You can check out the presentation and download the audio below (subscribers click through).
Here are some of Tony’s HR insights.
Committable Values
Zappos has 10 core values – everything from, “Deliver WOW through service,” to, “Create fun and a little bit of weirdness.”
The quirkiness of the values isn’t what makes them so powerful, though. It’s the fact that they’re what Tony calls “committable.”
That means they’re willing to make hiring and firing decisions based on them. Hiring and firing someone based on customer service is pretty easy if that’s your organization’s unique value proposition. Firing someone who refuses to “build a team and family spirit” takes real guts.
Tony makes a point of saying that what your values are doesn’t matter, as long as they align with your organization’s goals and you actually live by them.
Motivation vs. Inspiration
What Zappos does isn’t very sexy. They sell shoes on the internet. Most of their employees work in call centers or in a warehouse, and make at or below market. There aren’t a lot of tangible perks.
But Tony and the Zappos management team have done something profound – they’ve inspired employees around their organizational mission.
That’s because the Zappos’ mission isn’t to sell shoes. It’s to create happiness. They’ve given employees a purpose that’s more important than themselves.
