The sad news was all over the media this weekend: Former Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh passed away under pretty awful circumstances.
We are gutted. A big part of why Gapingvoid has developed the way it has is thanks to Tony. Around 25,000 people a year go through the famous Zappos culture tour, and the only thing that most people ever think is: “This is cool, but it would never work in my business’”. While that may be largely correct, we were so fortunate to be able to deconstruct the things Zappos does that do work, so we understood the principles and could apply them in ways that worked elsewhere. Of course, in hindsight, Tony had thought about ‘Culture as a Management System’, but no one ever really expressed it that way.
[Bonus: Our archive has around 300 images that we created at various times for Zappos. Here is a link to about 100 of them – we hope you find them intriguing.]
This all happened simply because Tony was so kind to us. Our relationship with Tony goes way back- Zappos was an early client of ours. Tony was an amazing supporter, FOG (Friend of Gapingvoid). He visited with us in Miami, and at a time when we were executing a project at the University of Miami. He offered his team to fly in and do a panel with us; when he went off Twitter for a few years, his pinned Tweet was the sign-up link for this newsletter, which he occasionally wrote for.
We always remark to ourselves that we are in an incredible position, where we are able to learn and experiment all while we deliver our services for our closest clients. This was especially true at Zappos, and so we thought it fitting to list ten insights we gained from our work with Tony.
-
Business is about human potential. One clarifying insight that we came away with after interacting at Zappos was that if you build a place where anyone, everyone, who engages with the business is invited to grow, to do better, to be their best; what will follow is an insane commitment to the business and dedication to the cause. Businesses can become movements.
-
The end result of building a great culture is a magnetic brand. This can be designed, but it cannot be faked. We used to quip that Zappos without their culture is just a website, call center, and warehouse.
-
What made Tony so powerful was a quiet determination, a fearlessness to do things differently, and without regard for convention. Sure, lots of things didn’t work, but there was a bold quality to the thinking that sometimes bordered on delusion. This is what his greatness was all about.
-
Transparency. We recall sitting with Tony after doing some deep discovery and reporting out some fairly controversial insights. He looked at us and said, “Let’s package this report up and send it out to everyone”. We just remember thinking “holy crap!”, but he knew that the only way to solve problems is to be open about them. As our buddy, Joe Polish says, “You are as sick as your secrets”.
-
Try anything. This tracks back to #3. Tony knew that the best ideas in the world existed to be borrowed. He was always willing to give something a try and see if it worked. The idea that ‘it might work’, even if the chances were slim, was really intoxicating.
-
Insatiable curiosity. Tony gave employees books…all of the time. Some of them were pretty technical and unreadable, others identified challenges they were dealing with, like Seth Godin’s The Dip. Nevertheless, part of the Zappos experience was being fed new ideas, whether you wanted them or not.
-
Forcing change. Closely connected to new ideas, was the premise of keeping the business under pressure to change. We watched the implementation of Holacracy, and the buy-out, tension was always applied without a whole lot of regard for the change that had just come before. People have a much greater tolerance for change than they’d readily admit.
-
Generosity. Tony was always generous with his time, his thoughts, his invitations. He didn’t give things away, but if he was engaged with you in a meaningful way, you had no doubt that he meant it.
-
The power of thoughtful introverts. Tony was interesting, in that he was an introvert who forced himself on stage and performed with grace. He was unfailingly polite and disliked confrontation but was amazingly effective in a remarkably powerful way.
-
Quirk and Language. Zappos is quirky, and they maintained their quirkiness even after being devoured by Amazon. Amazon understood the fundamentals of differentiation, and maintaining that quirk was fundamental to the Zappos brand. Developing a unique dialect is a powerful way for businesses to communicate their specialness.
One more factoid that most people don’t know about Zappos: Tony, Fred, Alfred, a few employees, and Sequoia Capital were paid $1.2 billion in Amazon stock in 2008. Venture Beat reported in 2010 that Sequoia received $248M, so that left almost a billion of Amazon shares to insiders. Today that original $1.2B is worth between $50-$60 billion. It’s kind of crazy that what started as an online shoe retailer created so much value.
Thank you, Tony RIP.
