This is the second post here on the Xenium blog on Tony Hsieh’s Delivering Happiness, a book which describes how the famous company culture of Zappos acted as the primary factor in its success. Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, draws a deep connection between the culture of Zappos and the way in which it promotes customer service.
The book covers both topics, and intertwines them well. Tony Hsieh believes that “if [Zappos] got the culture right, then building [its] brand to be about the very best customer service would happen naturally on its own.” Hsieh references Southwest Airlines with regard to the foundations of a company and its culture, writing that

“when Southwest Airlines first started, they didn’t see their target market as limited to just existing airline travelers, which was what all the other airlines did. Instead, they imagined their service as something that could potentially serve all the people who traveled by Greyhound bus or by train, and they designed their business around that. They offered short flights at cheap prices … They made it easy for customers to change flights without paying huge penalties … They succeeded because they decided to play at a different table than the one that all the other airlines were playing at.”

Tony Hsieh and his co-workers ultimately come up with a Culture Book which features 10 key values. While working on this handbook-of-sorts, Hsieh reached out to all his employees at Zappos, asking for something to put in the book which would go on to define the culture of Zappos. The first value below illustrates the way in which a company’s culture impacts its relationship with its customers or clients.
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
Finding the right employees to retain within a company’s culture is a difficult process, and Hsieh realizes this. To counter, there is a unique quality within the new-hire training program at Zappos. He writes that “at the end of the first week of training … we offer [the new-hire] $2,000 to quit (in addition to paying them for the time they’ve already worked), and it’s a standing offer until the end of the fourth week of training.” Hsieh explains that “we want to make sure that employees are here for more than just a paycheck.”
As a whole, Delivering Happiness can act as a reference for an employer looking to enhance his or her business. One of Hsieh’s final comments on the concept of culture works to define it as something necessary in “creat[ing] alignment among employees.” This alignment is found within the the shared goals among employees as described in the company’s Culture Book. The Culture Book acts as a handbook with a clear culture and set of goals for its employees. It works to drive its employees towards a certain end, an end desired by Hsieh and his co-workers since the beginnings of Zappos. Rather than a list of rules, the Culture Book works as a description of how the company’s culture should be. With goals such as “pursue growth and learning” and “be adventurous, creative and open-minded,” one can conclude that this Culture Book is a step forward in the world of company handbooks. As it is progressive though, it also will have its controversy.
Not all companies should necessarily emulate Zappos, but rather learn from their developments and ideas surrounding culture. A matured and very professional office with a long history as such likely isn’t going to benefit if everyone starts to decorate their cubicles as if they’re in a rain forest as employees do at Zappos. But there is something to be learned from Tony Hsieh and his Culture Book, and this is the importance of developing a company culture and fostering it with a passion.
One can’t ignore the success of Zappos and how its customer service has been influenced by its company culture. It is a carefree yet hardworking environment, and perhaps all employers can take a leaf from the book and embrace and drive some change in their own workplace.
For more information, you can check out the first post on Delivering Happiness here.