by Tony Hsieh"Powered by service"
Synopsis: The visionary CEO of Zappos explains how an emphasis on corporate culture can lead to unprecedented success. Pay new employees $2000 to quit. Make customer service the entire company, not just a department. Focus on company culture as the #1 priority. Apply research from the science of happiness to running a business. Help employees grow both personally and professionally. Seek to change the world. Oh, and make money too. In his first book, Tony shares the different business lessons he learned in life, from a lemonade stand and pizza business through LinkExchange, Zappos, and more. Ultimately, he shows how using happiness as a framework can produce profits, passion, and purpose both in business and in life. [via Amazon
]Book Notes: You know a book is good when right after you put it down you have this overwhelming feeling of wanting to learn so much more—that was exactly what I felt after! I suddenly found myself at the Zappo website looking for all those uncanny details written in the book. With some of the insanely hilarious anecdotes, I was so close to having some random and totally unrelated conversation with one of their live chat customer representatives. I even signed up for a copy of their famous culture book and started following their visionary CEO on twitter.
The book was easy to read and extremely relatable. It wasn't about Internet jargon and html codes, it was their remarkable story from the brink of bankrupcy to becoming a billion dollar Internet sensation. But more than the dollar signs and the added zeros to the their paychecks, the Zappos story is really about the culture they managed to cultivate. It wasn't just a business, but a family, a network of individuals who were passionate, driven and imaginative. Their very unique transparent company structure was fascinatingly employee oriented and prided in their development and advancement within Zappos. I suddenly found myself googling their offices and thinking what a pretty kick-ass environment to be a part of! I even made a mental note that the next time I find myself in Vegas, I should sign up for one of their tours.
Overall I thought it was a very timely book for me to have read especially with the months pending to the opening of my business. It gave me a different perspective on how to be a boss and how to relate to my employees. These little people are the backbone of your business and they must be nurtured to be the best employees possible, and thats your job as the boss. It made me realize how important it is to create a working atmosphere that doesn't feel like work. It has to remain challenging, exciting and fun combined with getting everything required done.
Quotable Quotes:
"I always fantasized about making money, because to me, money meant that later on in life I would have the freedom to do whatever I wanted. The idea of one day running my own company also meant that I could be creative and eventually live my life on my own terms."
"We had no idea where it would lead us, but wherever it was, we knew it had to be better than feeling bored and unfulfilled. We were ready for an adventure."
"I thought about how easily we were all brainwashed by our society and culture to stop thinking and just assume by default that more money equals more success and more happiness, when ultimately, happiness is really just about enjoying life."
"I had decided to stop chasing the money and start chasing the passion. I was ready for the next chapter in my life."
"Looking back, a lot of our growth happened that way. We'd just throw ideas against the wall to see if they'd stick, improvise and make it happen."
"Play only with what you can afford to lose."
"Envision, create and believe in your own universe, and the universe will form around you."
"Some of us tried to figure out what our true passions were so that we would have something better than partying to focus on. I was one of those people."
"There's never one way to do things, but an incredible amount of ways to get things done. It takes an open and creative mind to find, invent and execute them."
"We learned a great lesson: If you just focus on making sure that your product or service continually WOW people, eventually the press will find out about it."
"...they saw a real-life example that it was actually possible to run a values-based company that also focuses on everyone's happiness. They saw that it wasn't just theory, that there was a way to combine profits, passion and purpose."
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2 comments:
This does actually sound like a good book. I am not usually keen on these as we have to read them for my work but this looks as though it transcends the usual and cuts through all the greatness that you usually have to read through.
Thank you for sharing, I have actually heard some good things prior to this review, but it is the first actual reveiw I have read on it.
thanks for reading my review! hope you enjoy the book as much as i did! :)
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