So you might understand why I was a little skeptical when someone named Kelly Smith contacted me (through the link on my less-than-fancy, $1-per-month website) saying she wanted to talk about writing a book for Zappos. Why would I be interested in taking on a business book, which I assumed would be a “corporate” project, after I’d left the corporate world far behind and made this big decision to focus on inspiration?
If you know what Zappos is all about, you’re probably laughing at my naïveté. To be honest, I didn’t know very much about Zappos.
I didn’t know anything about Mark, so we’re even.
I knew they sold shoes, but I had never ordered anything from their website. I knew of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh and that he’d written a book himself, but I hadn’t read it. Still, there was something about Kelly’s initial email that caught my eye: She said she wanted to create a book told in the diverse voices of the company’s own employees, which intrigued me. I’d read plenty of business books and I had written plenty of business articles in my career as a journalist (especially during my early years at the Boston Globe), but I had never seen a business book written that way. It felt new to me. It felt unique. I wanted to hear more, so I set up a call with her team.
In the first hour of what would become a two-year journey into the heart of Zappos’ culture, I realized that what Zappos was doing wasn’t about selling shoes. It wasn’t even about “business,” in the traditional sense. It was about service. It was about innovation. It was about reimagining what a business could be and how a business could survive for the long term, while making not only its customers but its employees, its shareholders, its community—everyone—happier in the process.
I traveled to Zappos’ headquarters in Las Vegas and spent time with its employees. I sat around a campfire with Tony Hsieh and steeped myself in this culture, and I quickly realized that this experience wasn’t just about writing a book. This experience was inspiring me to want to do even bigger and better things with my own life’s work, which is exactly what Zappos aims to do with all of its interactions: This company’s very real goal is to change the way business is done, and to inspire other businesses, big and small, to do something more innovative, and more inspirational, along the way.
That doesn’t even sound real, right? In this cynical world in which we live, it’s easy to dismiss earnest integrity and a desire to do good as some sort of a marketing gimmick. But I was blown away to find that every employee I met at Zappos had a story to tell that backed up the company mission. It didn’t matter if it was someone in a leadership position, or behind the front desk, or driving me in a Zappos-branded shuttle to the airport. Every employee had their own passionate, personal story to share, mostly about how changing the way they work has changed their lives for the better. And each of them very clearly showed that their goal in sharing these stories with me wasn’t to self-aggrandize—it was to inspire others to take a fresh look at what they do and to consider ways to make their lives and their work better, too.
I realize that this isn’t news to all of you. Some of you who’ve picked up this book are already steeped in the Zappos mystique. You likely know far more about Zappos than I did when I first started working on this project. But while I had to play catch-up (first and foremost by devouring Tony Hsieh’s book Delivering Happiness), what I’ve learned on my journey with this company so far is that anything anyone thinks they know about Zappos, whether from past books or various articles that have appeared in the press, barely scratches the surface.
What you’re about to read in this book is the result of ten additional years’ worth of collected experience, data, and information to back up what was still mostly hypothesis and dreams back in 2009. The WOW culture, the Core Values, and the dedication to “profits, passion, and purpose” that Zappos became known for in the past still apply, but now those concepts have been road tested over and over. And as you’ll soon see, while a few of Zappos’ ideas haven’t worked, every failure has been a lesson on a road to an exciting future.
Today, the goals at Zappos are bigger than they’ve ever been, as stated in the company purpose: To inspire the world by showing it’s possible to simultaneously deliver happiness to customers, employees, community, vendors, and shareholders in a long-term, sustainable way.
That may sound lofty, but Zappos is in the unique position to set lofty goals—and then chase them. While they have the backing and resources of Amazon, the deal Tony signed back in 2009 ensures that the company remains independent and autonomous.
In fact, Amazon and Zappos have an internal document titled The 5 Tenets Document, which says:
1. Zappos will operate independently, overseen by a management committee that will function similar to the prior Zappos board of directors. The committee will initially be made up of three people from Amazon and three people from Zappos.
2. Zappos’ unique culture has been core to its success to date, and we look to protect it. . . .
3. There will be differences between the customer experiences on Amazon and Zappos, and we will maintain separation so customers understand these differences.
4. Amazon wants to learn from Zappos and vice versa. We will share information back and forth to facilitate learning.
5. The only integration “must-haves” are processes legally necessary (for example, there are disclosure restrictions due to Amazon being a public company). These will be clearly defined and communicated.
Which means that as long as it’s delivering profits and growth, Zappos has the freedom to do, basically, whatever it wants. And what Zappos has become in the second decade of its existence is much more than an online retailer, and even more than a WOW-worthy service company: Zappos has become an incubator for new ideas; a testing ground for the future of how companies large and small can adapt, grow, and thrive in the face of an exponentially increasing rate of change.
The ultimate goal is to deliver WOW to everyone. To create a business formula in which there are no losers. To turn Zappos into a self-organizing, ever-changing, dynamic system that delivers wins for all parties involved: employees, customers, shareholders, vendors, community, the world—everyone.
And that is no easy feat.
As you’re about to discover, the company has gone through some pretty crazy ups and downs in the last decade while trying to enact and establish a way of doing business that hasn’t been put into practice at scale before. But what Zappos is aiming toward, and what it’s unleashing, is a self-organized workplace in which employees operate with the same autonomy and ability to innovate as Zappos itself does under the Amazon umbrella.
“Self-organized” is a technical term with a specific definition that may not be obvious. It doesn’t mean complete chaos with no governance, let everyone do whatever they want, which is a common misperception. One of my favorite ways of succinctly describing what self-organization means is “rules, not rulers.” An example of self-organization in nature is when you see a flock of birds. There is no “leader” bird in a flock that tells the other birds what to do. Instead, the birds follow very simple rules, such as stay a certain distance from nearby birds, not too close and not too far, and leverage the “draft” or “wake” created by other birds to minimize the amount of energy needed to fly more efficiently.
What will that look like?
You’re about to find out.