It was never about the shoes; it was about the culture. That was the big lesson I took away from my first meeting with Tony Hsieh at Zappos headquarters a little over a decade ago.
Like many others this weekend, I was shocked and saddened to hear that the man who built Zappos into a model of customer service had died at the age of 46. The cause of death was injuries Hsieh sustained in a house fire just ten days ago.
Although Amazon bought Zappos for $1.2 billion in 2009, Hsieh continued to run the company. He stepped down as CEO in August after 21 years with Zappos.
“I’ve never seen a culture like Zappos,” Jeff Bezos said about Zappos.
I hadn’t either. And that’s why I wanted to visit Hsieh in person. What I learned significantly influenced the way I taught communication skills and employee engagement.
Empower and Trust
“Take a look around, talk to anyone you want, and we’ll meet when you’re done,” Hsieh told me upon arriving at Zappos headquarters in Las Vegas.
“Who’s my PR person?” I asked.
“You’re on your own. Have fun,” Hsieh said.
You have to understand that no one does this. Not once in my professional career as a writer or broadcast journalist had the CEO of a company given me full and unfettered access to everything and everyone.
It hadn’t happened before my visit to Zappos and it hasn’t happened since.
I spoke to people about their jobs and how much they enjoyed working for Zappos. They were the happiest employees I had ever met.
Why? Hsieh trusted them and empowered them to make the decisions in the best interest of the customer.
Hsieh famously did away with the time limits that most call centers impose on their call-center reps.
One employee I met said she once spent hours on the phone with one customer. She thought she might be in trouble when Hsieh approached her.
“I heard you spent more than two hours with a customer,” Hsieh said. “Did you make them happy?”
“I sure did,” the employee gladly responded.
“Great job! Keep it up,” said Hsieh.
Hsieh told me that trusting your employees to keep customers happy will eventually lead to return customers, loyal customers, and higher sales. If you’ve hired the right people, then trust them to do whatever they feel is the right thing to do for the customer.
HIRE FOR CULTURE FIT
Of course, hiring the right people makes it easier to trust them.
Everyone I met at Zappos had an outgoing personality. As I watched tour groups walk through the building, call center reps would break out into cheers. They were encouraged to show off their unique personalities and to have fun at work.
Zappos hired people who fit in to such a culture.
Team spirit was so critical to Zappos’s success that 50% of an employee’s performance review was based on culture fit.
Hsieh even passed on talented people who he said would have made an immediate impact on the company’s bottom line simply because they didn’t fit the culture.
Every employee—from call center rep to attorney, accountant or senior executive—was required to spend five weeks immersed in the company’s culture and learning its core values before they began their roles.
When I was leaving after my first visit, Hsieh handed me a ‘culture book’ which I still have on my bookshelf. Once a year, employees were asked to write a few paragraphs about what the culture meant to them.
In keeping with the values of trust and transparency, the culture book was unedited. Employees were free to write anything they wanted. It ran 320 pages.
It was inspiring and heartbreaking to glance through the culture book Hsieh gave me. It’s inspiring to know that a leader could create such a magical culture, but heartbreaking to realize that the man who revolutionized customer service is no longer with us.
Among the excerpts:
“I am in love with the fact that we are encouraged to bring our personality to the table and we are able to do our jobs without limitations.” Britnee B.
“Zappos is home away from home, a place that I can call family, a place that I can be myself.” Dionne L.
“It’s all about the WOW. What can I do to make my customer say, ‘WOW!’ by the end of the call. How can I WOW you and make you feel special? Customer service—the reason I’m here.” Linda R.
“Everyplace else is a job that you have to go to. This is the place that you GET to come to.” Linda S.
As I was looking through the culture book, a polaroid photo fell out. I remember the moment. An employee took out an instant camera, asked me to sit in a king’s chair with the word VIP written on it and put a crown on me. They snapped a photo and handed it me.
“Did you have fun?” Hsieh asked when I returned to his cubicle.
I sure did.
I still miss the experience and I’ll miss Tony. I only hope more leaders will adopt Tony Hsieh’s model to deliver happiness to their employees and customers.