Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

As the author best puts it "This book is not meant to be a comprehensive corporate history of Zappo or any of the previous business I've been involved in. It's also not meant to be a complete autobiography...The purpose of this book is to give some of the highlights of the path that I took in my journey toward discovering how to find happiness in business and in life." The journey Tony takes the readers on is both very educational and exciting. Along the path, he shares great gems of wisdom that he has collected both on from a personal basis and an organizational perspective. These include but are not limited to: management, leadership, following one's passion, relationship building etc. His passion for vision, values and happiness radiates through and is very contagious and inspirational. Having personally experienced Zappos WOW experience, I can truly say that the material preached by the CEO is truly believed in and practiced throughout the organization. A highly recommended book! Below are excerpts from the book that I found particularly insightful: 1- "One of the most interesting things about playing poker was learning the discipline of not confusing the right decision with the individual outcome of any single hand, but that's what a lot of poker players do. If they win a hand, they assume they made the right bet, and if they lose a hand, they often assume they made the wrong bet. With the coin that lands on heads a third of the time, this would be like seeing the coin land on heads once (the individual outcome) and changing your behavior so you bet on heads, when the mathematically correct thing to do is to always bet on tails no matter what happened in the previous coin flip (the right decision)." 2- "We learned that we should never outsource our core competency. As an e-commerce company, we should have considered warehousing to be our core competency from the beginning. Outsourcing that to a third party and trusting that they would care about our customers as much as we would was one of our biggest mistakes. If we hadn't reacted quickly, it would have eventually destroyed Zappos." 3- "Looking back, a big reason we hit our goal early was that we decided to invest our time, money, and resources into three key areas: customer service (which would build our brand and drive word of mouth), culture (which would lead to the formation of our core values), and employee training and development (which would eventually lead to the creation of our Pipeline Team)." 4- "We believe that it's really important to come up with core values that you can commit to. And by commit, we mean that you're willing to hire and fire based on them. If you're willing to do that, then you're well on your way to building a company culture that is in line with the brand you want to build. You can let all of your employees be your brand ambassadors, not just the marketing or PR department. And they can be brand ambassadors both inside and outside the office." 5- "The best leaders are those that lead by example and are both team followers as well as team leaders. We believe that in general, the best ideas and decisions are made from the bottom up, meaning by those on the front lines that are closest to the issues and/or the customers. The role of a manager is to remove obstacles and enable his/her direct reports to succeed. This means the best leaders are servant-leaders. They server those they lead." 6- "While we celebrate our individual and team successes, we are not arrogant nor do we treat others differently from how we would want to be treated. Instead, we carry ourselves with quiet confidence, because we believe that in the long run our character will speak for itself." 7- "Your personal core values define who you are, and a company's core values ultimately define the company's character and brand. For individuals, character is destiny. For ogranizations, culture is destiny." 8- "Happiness is really just about four things: perceived control, perceived progress, connectedness (number and depth of your relationships), and vision/meaning (being part of something bigger than yourself)."

Deliving Happiness is a fascinating book about how to grow and nurture a company. It is written by Tony Hsieh who is the early investor and the current CEO of Zappos- online company that started out selling shoes and has now branched out to selling clothes, watches, and eyewear. Unlike most CEO, he does not see the sole purpose of the business is to maximize profits for its owners. In this book he talks about how he got be where he is today and how he learned important values and lessons. Before Zappos, he had founded LinkExchange which he sold to Microsoft for $265 million. The reason he gave for selling was LinkExchange was as it grew, it lost culture and felt like it was a different company and it get to the point he dreaded getting out of the bed in the morning to go to the office. After this, he started venture fund from which he funded Zappos’s founder. Initially, Zappos struggle because it fulfilled orders with drop shipments which did not worked well because it did not have accurate information about vendors’ inventory, and because their warehouses were all over the country, delivery times weren’t predictable. Later, he began buying inventory from manufacturers, which was freezing its capital and also relying on a third party to manage its warehouse. He recalled that it never makes sense to outsource call center and warehousing because Zappos’s higher purpose is to provide the best customer service which is only possible when it has pulse of what customer want. He felt that trusting a third party would care about its customers as much as Zappos would was one of our biggest mistakes. In the book, he talks about when Zappos was losing money and could not get any more money to run its operation, they figure out that while cutting marketing expense, only thing they can do is to focusing on the customer service. He sees his company offering the best customer services possible. He eluded couple times that Zappos could get in to many other areas including offering the airline services. Later he talks about how reading book; he learned that great company has a greater purpose and bigger vision beyond just making money or being number one in a market. He would later create a book club where each employee would read a book and discuss about it and apply lesson learned at Zappos. Unlike many businesses that put the need of the investors as the center of the business, he put the need of the customer as the core, yet believes that he needs to meet the needs and desires of all stakeholders. Tony put the best customer service at his end goal, for which he put making his employee happy as his primary target. He believes that his effort to make his employee happy will in turn make his customer happy. Tony Hsieh saw his role as the philosopher. He sold his first company LinkExchange to Microsoft, because he felt that it lost its soul and reach to where he dreaded getting out of the bed in the morning to go to the office. When he invested on Zappos, and then become involved in it, he knew the culture was important. From early on, he develops a culture that he likes. As a CEO, he does not have authority like in the typical American organization. At Zappos, he saw his role as the gardener that allows everybody around him to flourish. Hsieh put the customer’s interest as his end goal. Employees are trained to have lifelong relationship with a customer. And there are growing list of CEO who toured Zappos to learn from Zappos insight and bought his idea and have implemented at their organization. In this book, he talks about creating a culture that would outlast him. He believe that if it get the culture right, then most of the other stuff like delivering great customer service or building a long-term enduring brand or business will be a natural byproduct. Culture starts with the hiring. Zappos uses two sets of interview: one by the hiring manager for the job specific role; and second by HR which is purely for the culture fit. To hire, a prospective candidate has to be pass both. It also fires employee if they are bad for the culture even though they are doing well on their job specific role. At Zappos, they hired only people they would enjoy hanging out with after hours. This book talks about meritocracy system which Hsieh implemented in 2012. It allows employees to self-organize to complete work in a way that increases productivity, foster innovation and empowers anyone in the company with the ability to make decisions that push the company forward. All employees are part of one or more circle. People on the circle can fire another people on the circle. All employees can remove themselves from a circle and move to another circle. As a CEO, Hsieh cannot hire or fire his employee. This kind of system requires trust first. He was able to build trust by developing a culture that stems from intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic motivation. He frees his call center employee in many ways to build a lifelong relationship. One way he empowers customer service reps is by not measuring call times, not allowing them to upsell, and not using a script. It talks about how leader can affect an organization’s future by sharing his values. When things are changing fast, employees need a vision of the destination that lies beyond the horizon; they also need to understand the principles by which they must navigate their course. Without the strong value that is shared and engrained to the culture, an organization will probably lose their direction and fail. Unlike many other companies that may take only senior leadership to retreat to develop company value, he email to all his employees about their input. From all employees’ input, Zappos developed 10 core values. Since all employees have contributed to this value, they embody the company value. One value is to be adventurous, creative and open-minded which displays how his employees have embodied Zappos value. Another value he talks about is to “deliver wow through service”. To WOW, employee must differentiate themselves, which means do something a little unconventional and innovative. Once a year, Zappos ask its employee to write what Zappos cultures mean to them and publish them as a “Culture book” which is an employee review of a company and is a great way to communicate with its employee. That book is fantastic read for all MBA students and those who wants to learn how to manage team.

I am currently a student at the University of Baltimore enrolled in an Entrepreneurship class and this book was given as a recommended reading for a select amount of students in my class. Delivering Happiness is about Tony Hsieh and his life path, the Zappos Company, and how a company culture can shape the whole company from its fundamental ideas. Customer service and company culture are some of the main themes in this book that Tony Hsieh highlighted because these were Zappos core competencies that made them a one of a kind company. I personally really enjoyed this book. It is motivational and opens a path for a completely revised way of thinking about running a business. Profits usually came last for Tony Hsieh, who sold almost everything he had to keep Zappos afloat. As an employee of a business, reading this book makes you jealous of all Zappos employees. Seeing the unique culture that was created at Zappos and seeing how it positively affected customers and the business as a whole is amazing. It was a culture that included employees extremely close to each other, departments that were not separated but unified, a fun loving and relaxed place, and a common goal of being happy while delivering the best service in the world. There’s not much I didn’t like about this book, it’s incredibly relevant and helpful to anyone thinking or aspiring to become an entrepreneur. The most help the book gives to aspiring entrepreneurs is to realize the overall spectrum of a company, not just profits, but also how to thrive by creating your own core competencies that no one else can replicate.

This book is an excellent tool for those who focus obsessively on people's happiness. Apart from making profits, the author of the book and owner of Zappos, focuses consistently in making people happy in many different ways. By people, he means not just employees and people in the company but also customers, vendors, affiliates and everyone collaborating with the company. A CEO who says that customer service should NOT be just a department but the entire company speaks by itself. As a business owner, his ultimate goal is to make people, culture and society happy, far beyond just making profits. This is the reason why the company flourished after some uncertain times. Their marriage with Amazon comes as a consequence of both companies being aligned in values and being both long-term thinkers. They both focuses on win-win scenarios at all times. It is a brilliant lecture for those businesses and people whose ultimate goals in business and life is to add value to society by doing good, those types of things that people will remember in time.

急成長を遂げたアメリカの靴のネット販売業者'Zappos'のCEOであるTony Hsieh氏が、今日の成功までの道のりを書いた本です。Tony Hsieh氏のこれまでの人生は山あり谷ありで、とても興味深く、一気に読むことができました。単語もそれほど難しくはなかったので、洋書にしてはめずらしく、一週間弱で読み終えてしまいました。 Tony Hsiehの経営は、常識に囚われない、かなり型破りな方法をとっています。企業文化をとても大切にし、従業員にはその企業文化を体現し、そのことを通じて自己成長することまで求めています。'Zappos'の企業文化を形作るものとして１０個の'core values'を定めているのですが、なかなか興味深いです。 1.Deliver WOW Through Service 2.Embrace and Drive Change 3.Create Fun and A Little Weirdness 4.Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded 5.Pursue Growth and Learning 6.Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication 7.Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit 8.Do More With Less 9.Be Passionate and Determined 10.Be Humble そして、究極的には、 Zappos is about delivering happiness to the world. とのことです。共感できる'value'（1,3,4,6,7,10）もあれば、耳の痛い'value'（2,5,8,9）もありました。７つめの'value'なんかは、昔の日本企業の価値観に近いものがあるような気がしました。 いずれにせよ、このような価値観を従業員が本当に実践し、それによって会社が成長していっているのはすごいことだ、と心から思えました。まだ１０年そこそこの会社ですが、この先どう発展していくか面白そうです！

One real good book I have read in a long time. It is an honest account written amazingly well. I couldn't leave it before it was finished.. It's also a sort of coaching manual for all entrepreneurs.. The book is as much a motivational account about maintaining conviction in yourself to as much it is a guide on how to build a team - importance of having people in the team who believe in the idea and purpose, building an organization culture and maintaining it, importance of transparency in keeping the team together and about sharing the pains & gains.. The book's title is delivering happiness, but if you are looking to purchase it hoping to find a solution to happiness, then I don't think this really is that although it delves on that in the last chapter. But if you want to read a book about an entrepreneur's account of going through success, despair and success in creating a business that brings to life the concepts of mission, vision, values and culture then this is it..

Dieses Buch liest sich unglaublich leicht und ist gleichzeitig inhaltlich fundiert und ergiebig. Anschaulich beschreibt Tony Hsieh, wie er Schritt für Schritt in die Führung dieses Unternehmens geht. Es wird nachvollziehbar, was ihn an die Idee und an die Entrepreneure der ersten Stunde glauben lässt. Und mit welchen Mühen ein beständig liquides Unternehmen schrittweise Realität werden konnte. Sehr gut finde ich auch die immer wieder deutlich skizzierte Unternehmenskultur, die er selbst als schräg bezeichnet und die den KundInnnen zB auch bei Telefonaten mit dem Support hautnah begegnet. Nicht nur der "service extraordinaire" sondern auch die Kreativität bis in die kleinsten Handgriffe sind einfach schön - und menschlich. Durch Six Sigma und ISO wohl nicht erreichbar, das macht hier den Unterschied - wie gehen wir mit MitarbeiterInnen, BewerberInnen, KundInnen, ja auch LieferantInnen um? Endend mit einem Exkurs in die Glückspsychologie - ein wirklich empfehlenswertes Management-Buch, das auch als Urlaubslektüre gut geeignet ist. Enjoy!

An inspiring book gives you insights of not only how company culture can cultivate the growth of its employees and business but also to create a healthy partner ecosystem between vendors and investors.