Leadership Leap Frog is a game for leaders of the informal or formal variety. It requires multiple players but is more fun and progressive when an entire organization gets involved. The formal leader, the one with the title, goes first by jumping beyond where he was standing and the way he was thinking and behaving. This move is called a trans-form-ation as it involves changing the boundaries of one’s form. It inspires Follower A to stand on the leader’s shoulders and leap beyond him. With this move A becomes the informal leader.

Follower B, inspired by both the formal and informal leader, but she must jump twice, first standing on the formal leader’s shoulders, then standing on the shoulders of the informal leader. Follower B is now leading the pack.

More importantly the whole group has moved ahead. It has been trans-formed. Inspired by A & B, the formal leader performs a double leap.

And so it goes. Each and every player participates in the continuous transformation of the game’s boundaries, advancing himself and the organization as they all leap for joy.

Player Requirements

In order to play the leader must be self confident and humble. She leaves her ego at the door. She must be willing to surround herself with players who will at times surpass her. She must also obey the principle that leadership is proven by concrete achievements as well as the continuous expansion and realization of human aspirations.

Leadership Leap Frog at Zappos

Tony Hsieh who appeared as an otter in Chapter 1 of the Zappos series has been transformed into a frog, not by the kiss of a princess but by my imagination. The play by play of his leadership leap frog game is reported below.

Announcer: Hiseh starts the game with a giant leap of faith in the possibility that work can be fun. In this one leap he accepts an offer to sell LinkExchange a company he co-founded. He leaps because he now dreads going to work. The company got too big too fast. The lesson? Stop chasing money. Start chasing passion. Pay attention to culture.

In Tony’s next few jumps he and some friends create a venture fund that invests in Zappos and a few other start ups. Eventually he accepts an offer to become CEO of Zappos. He leaps again, committing to Culture as Job 1. And #1 on the list of cultural attributes – have fun – which means build a community of people who enjoy being together.

Now Keith, Follower A and a Zappos employee, leaps over Tony’s shoulders to the head of the pack. After an urgent call from Tony and no time to go home to pack, he boards a plane from Sacramento to Kentucky. Zappos had outsourced logistics and shipping, it’s core expertise, to a company that was really botching things up. Keith is tasked with straightening things out. He expects to be there for a week. Eight weeks later he is still living in a hotel and has purchased a new wardrobe.

At the same time Zappos is running out of cash. Tony thinks about Keith’s commitment, about how he left home on an hour’s notice to save the company. What a leap.

At the moment, standing on Keith’s shoulders, Tony decides to make the next big leadership leap. He invests the rest of his savings, the hundreds of millions he earned from the sale of LinkExchange, in Zappos. If Keith could leave home with an hour of notice and give his life to Zappos for eight weeks, Tony would do the same.

The game goes on. Zappos is an extraordinary company making extraordinary leaps in bringing soul and meaning to work.

Click here to read more about Collaborative Transformational Leadership also known as Leadership Leap Frog.

To return to the first chapter in this Corporate Soul series, click here.

The final chapter – What Not to Learn from Zappos. One reader said it may be the most important one in the series.

I usually post only one picture but I really liked both of these and couldn’t decide, so I used my rule of shopping. When you can’t decide, get both.

I have really enjoyed your comments, as have other readers, so please continue to voice in. If you know of any corporate souls worth a post, please mention them and I’ll be in touch with you.

©2012 Germane Insights. All Rights Reserved.

Leadership Leap Frog is an original post from Anne Perschel on Germane Insights - Achieving Leadership Excellence through the Art and Science of Psychology

“Pursue growth and learning,” is fourth on the list of Zappos’ ten core values, and the shoe seller walks the talk. Zappos employees are paid for mastering new competencies.  They receive an incremental raise for becoming certified in any one of the company’s 25 skill sets, and employees choose which competencies to master. They can learn to run a customer service chat room or become a mentor, regardless of their current job title or level. The benefits to Zappos go beyond increased employee engagement. If, for example, there is an unusually high number of customer requests for on-line chats any certified employee can help.

Enabling employees to choose which competencies to learn and rewarding them as they do so meets three criteria of work-life-flow.

1. People have a sense of internal control over their actions and progress because they choose what to master.
2. They receive feedback in the form of certification (or lack thereof) and a pay increase.
3. In all likelihood, they choose to learn something they find meaningful.

You are invited to join the Corporate Soul Movement.

Please take a moment to comment and spread your words about souls at work.

See how Zappos CEO provides a shoulder for others to stand on and then stands on theirs. Click here to read Leadership Leap Frog.

©2012 Germane Insights. All Rights Reserved.

Souls are Paid to Learn at Zappos: Chapter 1 Part 3 is an original post from Anne Perschel on Germane Insights - Achieving Leadership Excellence through the Art and Science of Psychology

For the introduction to this series click here.

For Chapter 1 Part 1 – An interview with Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO and author of Delivering Happiness click here.

To read about the origins of Corporate Soul click here.

To become a member of the Corporate Soul Movement click here.

The Architect Builds a Culture of  “We”

When Tony Hsieh joined Zappos as CEO he vowed that building a culture would be job one. If not, he would again find himself waking up with a sense of dread at the thought of going to work in a company he co-created. At Zappos he sees himself not as a leader but as an architect designing an environment in which people grow and create the company.  All employees develop ideas for the business as well as for growing and evolving the culture. It’s not Tony’s vision. It a community vision.

CEO Tony, however, did have some favorite notions about the culture in which he wanted to work. It would be fun. People would be part of building a community. They would enjoy spending time together during and after work.

The rest was an act of collaboration.

Hiring the Right Souls

How do you make sure you hire people who will like, love, live and grow the culture? Enter Rebecca Ratner, HR Director.

A prospective employee participates in one interview with the hiring manager and his/her team and a second interview with HR. The former is focused on skills and experience fit. The latter is purely about culture fit. According to Rebecca,

You shouldn’t have to be a different person at work Monday through Friday. We want you to come here and be you. The core value is ‘Create fun and little weirdness.’  It’s our way of saying ‘Be Yourself.’ At Zappos everyone is responsible for the core values. It’s HR’s role to preserve these values at the point of entry, beginning with the decision about who walks through the door.

The HR interview questions are developed in accordance with the core values. For example, candidates are asked to use a 1-10 scale to rate “How weird are you?” The assessment of fit lies as much in their reaction as in their rating. “Be Humble,” is another Zappos value. So Rebecca and her team have learned how to spot humility or lack thereof.

Letting Go of Mis-matched Souls

If you really want to hire the right souls why not provide an incentive to leave once they’ve experienced the culture? That what Zappos does. After an initial five-week training program on key skills and core values, if the fit is not right, if the employee is not engaged in, satisfied or fulfilled by their work, they can avail themselves of a $2000 option to leave. Only 1% do so.

Is building a soulful culture and hiring the right souls a worthwhile and profitable endeavor? Amazon certainly thinks so, to the tune of over $845,000,000 the amount they paid to buy Zappos in the summer of 2009. And so far the on-line giant has left the Zappos culture and it architects in tact.

To read how souls are trained and rewarded at Zappos click here.

©2012 Germane Insights. All Rights Reserved.

Zappos: How the Corporate Cobbler Finds the Right Souls (Chapter 1 Part 2) is an original post from Anne Perschel on Germane Insights - Achieving Leadership Excellence through the Art and Science of Psychology

Introducing the Corporate Soul Series

Soul Hole

Welcome to the Corporate Soul series featuring people and companies who bring soul to work. It is also a forum for sharing ideas that advance this practice. After all “Life is just a chance to grow a soul.” A. Powell Davies (Thanks to SCJoson who writes about economic sense in a world of invisible money at homeecexec.blogspot.com)

The notion of encouraging companies to find their souls and inviting people to bring their souls to work has been germinating for years but the sprout finally broke ground as I was writing an article for a business journal. (Work Life Flow: How Individuals, Zappos and Other Innovative Companies Achieve High Engagement appears in the June edition of Global Business and Organizational Excellence – a Wiley publication.) That same day the Wall Street Journal published The Hole in the Corporate Soul by Gary Hamel¹, respected business strategist and thought leader. After reading it I temporarily abandoned the business article and opted for a more informal blog post. Words flew onto the page and Fixing the Hole in the Corporate Soul appeared. Your responses sparked the Corporate Soul Movement and this series.  I look forward to your comments and invite you to contact me about writing a guest post. (To join the Corporate Soul Movement, click the link. Take the pledge and leave a comment with your website address and a short phrase that describes what people will find there.)

Tony Hsieh – Sole of the Corporate Soul

The Corporate Soul series Chapter 1 focuses on Tony Hsieh, CEO and his company Zappos. Each post in this chapter highlights one or more steps in the flow model, illustrated below. Flow is a way of engaging such that your soul is front and center. We’ve all experienced flow – a state of being so engaged  in meaningful and enjoyable tasks that time goes by unnoticed and we lose ourselves to the activity. No distraction commands our attention, and we are working from our best selves. Knowing and working from one’s essence is the first step in achieving flow.

Flow State Model*

• Essence
• Passion
• Purpose
• Identifiable Goals
• Operating Rule
• Challenge
• Timely Feedback
• Attention, Concentration and Internal Control

*Adapted from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (New York: Harper Perennial, 1990).

Post #1 – Essence: Zappos and CEO Tony Hsieh

©2012 Germane Insights. All Rights Reserved.

The Corporate Soul Series is an original post from Anne Perschel on Germane Insights - Achieving Leadership Excellence through the Art and Science of Psychology

Knowing and working from essence is the first step in bringing soul to work and finding your flow. To view the flow model click here.

The Essence of Tony Hsieh

Tony makes me think about otters. Otters play and so does Tony Hsieh. He defies conventional wisdom. He succeeds by creating a different set of rules, and he has fun. He talks about Zappos not as a place to work but as a lifestyle. But how does a work/lifestyle of play and happiness benefit the company? Hsieh’s experiences have taught him that the best and most innovative business ideas emerge when people are just “hangin’ out” together. So he is creating a company where people really want to be with each other during work and non-work hours. And his unconventional formula for success is working.

When I asked Tony Hsieh “What is your essence?” he replied, “I build things creatively.” Digging deeper into his stories, I learned this means playfully defying conventional wisdom while building something of value. Value, however, is not measured by money, but by  happiness and community. The money follows in a-bun-dance.

One of my favorite essential Tony stories involves his creative solution to parental demands that he practice music four hours each day during summer vacation. Tony recorded practices sessions throughout the school year then played them during his summer “practice” sessions, while holding up in his room reading Boy’s Life. One of the magazine’s ads led to Tony’s his first venture – worm farmer and salesman. The young Mr. Hsieh failed to reach his goal of becoming #1 in U.S. worm sales when all his inventory died from a diet of raw egg yolks. Turns out young Tony was more entrepreneur than farmer.

Building a community and sharing the goodies is also part of Tony’s essence. If it isn’t shared it isn’t fun. He learned how important this was when it got lost at LinkExchange, his first post worm company, founded with a college roommate. At the beginning it was hard working fun. As the company grew more friends joined. They ate together, slept in closets and under desks in Tony’s loft, a space designed for living, working, and playing. But when the company grew to 100 employees, Tony began to dread going to work. It wasn’t fun anymore. He didn’t know everyone. The sense of a community building something together was lost. Some newer employees were motivated by the desire to fill their own pockets. So after some deliberation, the founders sold to Microsoft. No fun? No problem. Sell to Microsoft for $265 million. It was after this experience that Tony committed to building culture as job 1. And for the Otter the desired culture includes being creative and playful, defying conventional wisdom and creating a community. Zappos is this culture.

What is Essence and Why Is It Important?

Essence is what makes each of us unique. It is what we are here to express. It is the itch that does not go away no matter how often we vow to ignore it. Essence is what the soul yearns to express.

Yehudi Menuhin’s essence made itself heard in the music of the violin. At the age of four, the now renowned concert master, asked his parents for a violin. When he received one as a gift, he opened the package and promptly threw it on the floor refusing to touch it. Why? It was a toy and young Yehudi meant a real one. His essence knew itself even then.

Robbed of the opportunity to express our essence, most adults will not behave like four year old Yehudi. Instead, Important parts of the Self – essence and passion – split the scene. Engagement, on the other hand, requires our essence to be fully present.

A company’s essence can be seen in its founder. Is she an explorer, a seeker of wisdom, an inventor, a purveyor of beauty? The founder infuses the company with her essence. At Zappos, Hsieh intentionally designs and nurtures a culture based in essence and attracts like-minded others to play, defy conventional wisdom and create abundance with him.  To weed out any mismatches who find their way through the hiring process, in which people are asked about their weirdness, Zappos offers all new employees a $2000 payout to leave after the initial training period.

Hsieh’s Essence at the Core of Zappos

This essence of Zappos keeps customers coming back for more, and it is why employees like Rebecca Ratner, HR Director, who is many years from retirement, hopes that Zappos is the last company she ever works for. At the transactional level, Zappos sells shoes and accessories, but according to Hsieh they “Deliver Happiness” also the title of his forthcoming book. They do so by defying conventional wisdom. They delight customers by upgrading to next day shipping at no extra cost. Products simply arrive early. They also realize some customers want to talk as much as they want to order shoes. Their longest record for phone time with a customer is six hours. This is certainly not in line with “conventional wisdom” practiced by the many call centers that measure and reward productivity.

To read about talent management at Zappos click here.

Delivering Happiness has the potential to be a game changer for the world of business. Tony Hsieh,The Sole of Corporate Soul, is on a mission to deliver much more than shoes.

The essence of Zappos at work and at play can be viewed in the following short video.

If you share our passion for bringing soul to work please be part of the solution by joining us at the Corporate Soul Movement.

1The Wall Street Journal recently ranked Gary Hamel as the world’s most influential business thinker, and Fortune magazine has called him “the world’s leading expert on business strategy.” For the last three years, Hamel has also topped Executive Excellencemagazine’s annual ranking of the most sought after management speakers.

©2012 Germane Insights. All Rights Reserved.

Chapter 1 – Part 1: The Essential Tony Hsieh, CEO Zappos & Sole of the Corporate Soul is an original post from Anne Perschel on Germane Insights - Achieving Leadership Excellence through the Art and Science of Psychology

Imagine laying off 8% of your workforce then having kudos spread like wildfire across the internet using words like ”authenticity, transparency, accessibility and integrity.”  Meanwhile your customers commit to more word of mouth marketing and placing more orders to ensure your company survives the economic downturn.  This is exactly what happened immediately after Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh announced layoffs and that the company would “take care of employees properly” by providing 2 months severance pay, more for those with 3 plus years at Zappos, and full health insurance coverage for 6 months.  He was specific and transparent about the company’s finances and future outlook.  Hsieh also discussed the emotional aspects of these actions and encouraged employees to respond.  Failure to act as Zappos did may result in the following scenario described in INC. Magazine,  “It felt like torture…engineers seemed to be writing deliberately inscrutable code in order to protect their jobs.”  It would literally take 4-5 hours to make heads or tails of it – a job that normally takes 2 minutes.  (Seminars on Downsizing like Zappos   and    Creating Alternatives to Layoffs)

Below you can read part of Hsieh’s initial layoff announcement to employees.

“I know that many tears were shed today, both by laid-off and non-laid-off employees alike. Given our family culture, our layoffs are much tougher emotionally than they would be at many other companies.

I’ve been asked by some employees whether it’s okay to twitter about what’s going on. Our Twitter policy remains the same as it’s always been: just be real, and use your best judgement.”

 (To read the full text of Tony Hsieh’s email to employees click here)

Here are a few of the plethora of statements from customers, employees and industry experts that flooded the internet.

“Known for its extensive vetting process when hiring people, Zappos is now earning praise for how it fires people. Beyond a generous severance package, the shoe e-tailer is being commended for the comprehensive way the layoffs were explained to workers.”  (retailwire.com)

“I believe this is one of the companies that deserves to survive and succeed, contrary to many of the Wall Street fatcats that are getting away with taxpayer money… Let’s spread the word, Zappos is a company with integrity and dedicated to the clients !!! Consumers have to exercise their power to ensure that the best companies have a chance to succeed !!!”  (Zappos customer, LinkedIn)

“Good for Zappos for handling an unfortunate reality of  business with humanity, something sorely missing in corporate America.” (Twitter)

Tony Hsieh and Alfred Lin are some of the insightful, kind, and compassionate corporate executives that I have ever had the privileged of working under. I was a mere rank-in-file employee. I am sure, without a doubt, when Tony says this was an extremely difficult decision, he means it. I think Tony was being as transparent and honest as he could be about why these events transpired. When he says it was emotional, he means it.

Tony Hsieh and Alfred Lin have gone beyond every conceivable limit to make Zappos one of the best companies to work for in the United States. Zappos isn’t just a website, it isn’t just a cultural perspective, it is a family. During my time there, I noticed that Zappos cares for their employees like no other company I have ever seen. I worked in the Silicon Valley in the heyday from 1999 to 2002 during the implosion of the dot com companies. Somehow, Zappos was able to maintain a work hard play hard ethic while giving employees every possible comfort you can imagine.

In kind, the employees respond by working more productively and with a sense of ownership in their tasks. That is why the vast majority of the comments left on the site say something about how impressed they were with the fast delivery of their merchandise, or how wonderful the customer loyalty team was while speaking with them.

In contrast to Zappos, public .com companies like webvan, gave their employees no notice at all. The employees showed up to work only to find the doors literally chained shut as a putative measure by some government agency. Do you think those employees got severance packages and 6 months of paid Cobra?” (zappos blog)

“I am a repeat customer and will continue to be. I have 3 married children and 7 grandchildren and 2 soon to be grandchildren in law. I have passed the catalog that came with my shoes to them and told them to pick out their Christmas as I will be doing all my Christmas shopping at Zappos. I hope that will help the Zappos situation just a little. And I have emailed all my friends and family the web site to Zappos telling them how great product you have, how quickly items are shipped and about the free shipping and return also. Some have already made purchases from you. ” (zappos blog)

Ten Tips for Downsizing with Dignity

Company leaders demonstrate their real values when making tough decisions in difficult times.  While lay offs may be unavoidable the way you treat people during the process speaks volumes.  Word of your actions and what they say about the company travel across the internet at lightning speed.   Your current and future employees, customers, vendors, competitors, industry experts, and stock holders will hear the good, the bad or the ugly. 

If your core values include caring about employees, layoffs are a time to walk the talk.  So why don’t more companies do the kind of things Zappos does, beginning with a clear and straightforward explanation of what’s happening, allowing people to express their regrets and say goodbye, and providing services or compensation through a reasonable period after the layoff action?

Layoffs are emotionally difficult.  Rather than sit with the discomfort – our own, the person who was laid off, and his/her peers - many of us cut and run.   But when you turn your head away from the bleeding, others see you as simply not caring enough to look and tend the wound. 

Because layoffs are seen only as a cost saving measure, the idea of spending more than the bare minimum seems illogical.  But layoffs are much more than a cost saving measure.  They are an opportunity to strengthen motivation, morale,  the culture,  and the company’s reputation. It is difficult to manage the competing tensions of saving while investing but it is possible.  Here are 10 tips to guide you.  

1.  Be transparent and open. Explain what actions you are taking and why as well as the company’s current and predicted financial picture.

2.  Be generous.  Offer the best severance package possible.  (Consider how much you would have to pay for the kind of marketing Zappos received.  You are investing in your company’s future not just saving money.)

The algorithm for time to finding a new job is 1 month for every $10,000 in salary, and that’s in relatively normal times. Help employees get through this period.

3.  Continue to offer health insurance by paying some portion of or all of the employees COBRA expenses.  

4.  Help employees land on their feet by offering workshops such as 

• Managing Transitions*
• Job Search Strategies that Work*
• Job Search Tool Kit – resumes, cover letters, networking, etc*

*Germane Consulting offers these workshops

• Starting Your Own Business

5.  Make arrangement for former employees to use company resources - phones, laptops, internet access, and printers – during their job search

6.  Create and communicate a plan for saying goodbye.  Don’t just “disappear” people.

7.  Use your network to help people find work or start their own business

8.  Offer to be a reference

9.  Create a mechanism to communicate to remaining employees  good news about those who have left – with their permission of course.  For example, announce who has landed a new job and where, who has started a new business, or decided to stay home with family.

10.  Involve employees in finding ways to cut costs.  Meetings on a Napkin™ is Germane Consulting’s methods for engaging large groups in structured problem solving sessions that deliver creative outside the box solutions and engage everyone in implementation.  Employees who are closest to the work know a great deal about what can be done at the operational level.  In addition, you will be showing once again that you are all in this together and that employees have some control over their own destiny.  Both factors will help sustain morale.

©2012 Germane Insights. All Rights Reserved.

Finding the Upside in the Downturn is an original post from Anne Perschel on Germane Insights - Achieving Leadership Excellence through the Art and Science of Psychology