Grand Central Publishing Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose

急成長を遂げたアメリカの靴のネット販売業者'Zappos'のCEOであるTony Hsieh氏が、今日の成功までの道のりを書いた本です。Tony Hsieh氏のこれまでの人生は山あり谷ありで、とても興味深く、一気に読むことができました。単語もそれほど難しくはなかったので、洋書にしてはめずらしく、一週間弱で読み終えてしまいました。 Tony Hsiehの経営は、常識に囚われない、かなり型破りな方法をとっています。企業文化をとても大切にし、従業員にはその企業文化を体現し、そのことを通じて自己成長することまで求めています。'Zappos'の企業文化を形作るものとして１０個の'core values'を定めているのですが、なかなか興味深いです。 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 そして、究極的には、 Zappos is about delivering happiness to the world. とのことです。共感できる'value'（1,3,4,6,7,10）もあれば、耳の痛い'value'（2,5,8,9）もありました。７つめの'value'なんかは、昔の日本企業の価値観に近いものがあるような気がしました。 いずれにせよ、このような価値観を従業員が本当に実践し、それによって会社が成長していっているのはすごいことだ、と心から思えました。まだ１０年そこそこの会社ですが、この先どう発展していくか面白そうです！

Dieses Buch liest sich unglaublich leicht und ist gleichzeitig inhaltlich fundiert und ergiebig. Anschaulich beschreibt Tony Hsieh, wie er Schritt für Schritt in die Führung dieses Unternehmens geht. Es wird nachvollziehbar, was ihn an die Idee und an die Entrepreneure der ersten Stunde glauben lässt. Und mit welchen Mühen ein beständig liquides Unternehmen schrittweise Realität werden konnte. Sehr gut finde ich auch die immer wieder deutlich skizzierte Unternehmenskultur, die er selbst als schräg bezeichnet und die den KundInnnen zB auch bei Telefonaten mit dem Support hautnah begegnet. Nicht nur der "service extraordinaire" sondern auch die Kreativität bis in die kleinsten Handgriffe sind einfach schön - und menschlich. Durch Six Sigma und ISO wohl nicht erreichbar, das macht hier den Unterschied - wie gehen wir mit MitarbeiterInnen, BewerberInnen, KundInnen, ja auch LieferantInnen um? Endend mit einem Exkurs in die Glückspsychologie - ein wirklich empfehlenswertes Management-Buch, das auch als Urlaubslektüre gut geeignet ist. Enjoy!

As the author best puts it "This book is not meant to be a comprehensive corporate history of Zappo or any of the previous business I've been involved in. It's also not meant to be a complete autobiography...The purpose of this book is to give some of the highlights of the path that I took in my journey toward discovering how to find happiness in business and in life." The journey Tony takes the readers on is both very educational and exciting. Along the path, he shares great gems of wisdom that he has collected both on from a personal basis and an organizational perspective. These include but are not limited to: management, leadership, following one's passion, relationship building etc. His passion for vision, values and happiness radiates through and is very contagious and inspirational. Having personally experienced Zappos WOW experience, I can truly say that the material preached by the CEO is truly believed in and practiced throughout the organization. A highly recommended book! Below are excerpts from the book that I found particularly insightful: 1- "One of the most interesting things about playing poker was learning the discipline of not confusing the right decision with the individual outcome of any single hand, but that's what a lot of poker players do. If they win a hand, they assume they made the right bet, and if they lose a hand, they often assume they made the wrong bet. With the coin that lands on heads a third of the time, this would be like seeing the coin land on heads once (the individual outcome) and changing your behavior so you bet on heads, when the mathematically correct thing to do is to always bet on tails no matter what happened in the previous coin flip (the right decision)." 2- "We learned that we should never outsource our core competency. As an e-commerce company, we should have considered warehousing to be our core competency from the beginning. Outsourcing that to a third party and trusting that they would care about our customers as much as we would was one of our biggest mistakes. If we hadn't reacted quickly, it would have eventually destroyed Zappos." 3- "Looking back, a big reason we hit our goal early was that we decided to invest our time, money, and resources into three key areas: customer service (which would build our brand and drive word of mouth), culture (which would lead to the formation of our core values), and employee training and development (which would eventually lead to the creation of our Pipeline Team)." 4- "We believe that it's really important to come up with core values that you can commit to. And by commit, we mean that you're willing to hire and fire based on them. If you're willing to do that, then you're well on your way to building a company culture that is in line with the brand you want to build. You can let all of your employees be your brand ambassadors, not just the marketing or PR department. And they can be brand ambassadors both inside and outside the office." 5- "The best leaders are those that lead by example and are both team followers as well as team leaders. We believe that in general, the best ideas and decisions are made from the bottom up, meaning by those on the front lines that are closest to the issues and/or the customers. The role of a manager is to remove obstacles and enable his/her direct reports to succeed. This means the best leaders are servant-leaders. They server those they lead." 6- "While we celebrate our individual and team successes, we are not arrogant nor do we treat others differently from how we would want to be treated. Instead, we carry ourselves with quiet confidence, because we believe that in the long run our character will speak for itself." 7- "Your personal core values define who you are, and a company's core values ultimately define the company's character and brand. For individuals, character is destiny. For ogranizations, culture is destiny." 8- "Happiness is really just about four things: perceived control, perceived progress, connectedness (number and depth of your relationships), and vision/meaning (being part of something bigger than yourself)."

Not your typical autobiography book. History of Zappos and some autobiography elements from Tony's life nicely woven into interesting story. And you get your share of "howto" in business culture and building business in general. To me, most valuable part(s) of the book is story of building company culture and sense of belonging and connection to your job. The other one, maybe not so obvious, is how many times Tony's bussinesses were hanging on a brink of bankruptcy. Something you don't read about often and something that is very, very common. This story teaches you that if you want to succeed in what you are doing there's no giving up and it is not a walk in the park if you want to make big things. Recommended.

Una sorprendente historia de alguien apasionado por sus sueños, aun cuando éstos estaban algo borrosos al inicio. La inacabable energía para hacer que las cosas funcionen y la madurez (a temprana edad) de los fundadores de esta empresa guiados por algunos principios de "Built to Last" pero adecuándolos a su estilo y realidad. Si estás pensando en los valores que deben guiar tu empresa y cómo energizar a tu equipo, este libro te dará una perspectiva útil.