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.
Thanks for another great installment in Fixing the Hole in the Corporate Soul Anne!
I love the fact that at Zappos you can be who you are. That freedom breeds commitment, creativity and responsibility.
You know a company has a culture when it permeates every aspect of the organization from the hiring process, to IT systems, to the work space, to the cafeteria and from the top floor to the basement. This type of culture does in fact exist.
I do wonder, does one have to build a culture such as Zappos from the ground up like Tony did or can you successfully rebuild a culture?
Food for thought!
Kelly
.-= Kelly Ketelboeter´s last blog ..What’s Your Purple Goldfish? =-.
Thanks Kelly for asking one of the big questions. I hope others will share their views and experiences. While I don’t claim to have an answer I do have experience with one company that made a big shift in culture. The conditions were:
1. New CEO
2. Board mandate for change
3. Several new senior executives who were hired under this mandate
4. A very sound in-depth and broad based plan for change
4a. First and big steps were planned and much emerged organically from there
5. External consultants to usher in the change
What happened along the way:
1. A number of people got off the bus
2. Leaders made mistakes, admitted them and changed course as needed.
3. Voracious amounts of feedback within the system about how things were going
4. At first trust was extremely low due to sins of the previous culture – the way people were treated
5. Healing the wounds and leaving the old behind was a critical piece of work and a pivotal point in the change process
I just discovered your blog by following Kelly Ketelboeter on Twitter. I’m looking forward to reading more from you!
I’m wondering what advice you would give in the following situation: Say you are in a position where you are hiring people who report directly to you. Your boss wants you to hire people who are different from the people you want to hire. Are you the “wrong cog in the wheel”? Should your boss feel like he/she should be deciding who you hire? Should you go against what your boss advises? Should you follow your boss’ lead, hire who he/she wants you to hire, and try to make it work?
Thanks for your insights!
Jennifer
Dear Jennifer – With the caveat that advice may not be very reliable without understanding your specific situation – organization politics, your manager’s motivations and style, etc. I am replying in a general way to your question.
The principles at the foundation of my reply include:
1. The employee manager relationship is one of the most critical elements of job satisfaction and the number 1 reason people give for leaving a job is a poor relationship with their manager.
2. People should be empowered to and accountable for doing the job they are hired to do.
Your job is to manage your direct reports and the relationship they have with you is critical. Therefore I would suggest a conversation with your boss about who should be making hiring decisions and why. This is best done as a way to explore potentially different views as well as the underlying assumptions and world views that lead to these differences. If in fact you do have different views. That might lead to a more open and broader discussion of why it’s important for you as the hiring manager to be the ultimate decision maker. I don’t know your boss and how forceful he/she is about these opinions. What are the chances they are just sharing their input without the expectation that you will follow their advice?
I’d like to hear back about how you resolve this.
Thanks
I love the image of the Corporate Cobbler finding the right Souls! And the planned incentive for people to opt out after a period of time with dignity and pocketbook intact is SO refreshing!
Thanks for a good read, Anne. To your response to Kelly’s question, I also find it encouraging that organizations with already established cultures can change.
The organization I worked for (which was pretty much a benevolent dictatorship) made a valiant attempt at being more inclusive and collaborative. However, like a giant elastic band, it stretched out for a time, only to snap back into its original place after much money and time had been spent on it… Perhaps there simply was not enough belief that it could be successful.
.-= Gwyn Teatro´s last blog ..Managing Your Personal Impact …One Boss’s Story =-.
Thanks Gwyn and as always I appreciate your comments. Changing from a dictatorship to inclusion and collaboration is difficult. The organization I reference in response to Kelly’s question about culture change was also a dictatorship although by no means a benevolent one. One might expect that employees would welcome the opportunity to solve problems and think on their own. But a number of them did not want to be held accountable for the possible negative outcomes of their decisions and preferred being told what to do. In the forward to Wildavsky’s’ book Moses as a Political Leader, Hazony references numerous examples when the Israelites raged at Moses for taking them out of slavery. Many yearned to go back. I try to remember this whenever tempted to think that I am working on change that people could only welcome.
Great post Anne. As someone who works in executive search very often there are so many layers in the hiring company’s recruitment process that there can be a tendency to lose sight of the relationships that matter most. The boss, the direct report and the rest of team. When managers are not trusted to make (and be held acccountable for) this very signficant decision, that quite often indicates other types of organisational malaise.
Offering a voluntary redundancy option after 5 weeks is a great idea – though for many organisations, 5 weeks on boarding might not be long enough.
Great thoughts.
.-= Dorothy Dalton´s last blog ..The Lipstick Jungle: Female saboteurs =-.
Thanks Dorothy for weighing in and responding to Jennifer’s question as well with your wisdom about “organizational malaise.”
You bring up another good point, Anne. While a dictatorship may be something we love to hate, we can also use it as an excuse not to try. And complaining, for some people can be very satisfying!
.-= Gwyn Teatro´s last blog ..Managing Your Personal Impact …One Boss’s Story =-.
[...] acclaimed leadership speaker, coach, and author. As a leadership … 2 Tweets Zappos: How the Corporate Cobbler Finds the Right Souls (Chapter 1 Part 2) | Germane Insights How do you make sure you hire people who will like, love it, live and grow the culture? Read how [...]
[...] For the next installment in this series on the Soul of Zappos click here. [...]