Keynote - Tony Hsieh
Tony Hsieh of Zappos fame has most definatley given the most inspiring speech of the conference so far with a real logical but different approach to business management and development.
His business approach is that the company delivers customer service, the products they sell are the revenue generators but with out customers that is irrelevant. The budget they would spend on marketing is ploughed into providing great customer service and this is not by optimising process or efficiency as customers don’t care value that.
What Tony has done at zappos is to create a culture around the company internally and externally that has seen it thrive. Examples of this is offering staff within the first month of training $2000 to leave he company. This not only weeds out the people that are there to earn money but also has a stronger effect on the ones that do not take it by making that consider why they want to work for this company.
He is of the opinion that the creation of core values for the company that are lived and breathed in everything the company does and is built from the ground up. This approach seems so logical yet it is so common to see companies try and turn this approach on it’s head and try and implement core values to build loyalty and brand as an after thought. He feels so strongly about the culture and values of the company he is willing to hire and fire by them.
The core values are:
- deliver WOW
- embrace change
- create fun and a little weirdness
- be adventurous and creative and open-minded
- pursue learning
- be honest
- be positive
- do more with less
- be passionate
- be humble
Tony then went on to talk about happiness from multiple angles these were:
- Pleasure, which he equates to the “rock star” happiness, always looking for the next high.
- Engagement, or flow, when you’re so absorbed in something that time flies.
- Meaning, the feeling that you’re working towards a higher purpose.
We tend to seek the first and then fall back to the others when the approach should be that you address the meaning followed by the engagement and then the Pleasure is the icing on the cake.
For further reading the following two sites also have write ups: