Company culture: how to make it not suck

I had the mistaken pleasure of watching an interview* with the following three people,

Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com
Jaya Kumar, CMO of Frito-Lay North America
William Pearce, Senior VP and CMO of Del Monte.

One of them stood out among the rest. Tony Hsieh. Yeah, you know Tony. He’s the guy you could have a beer with. He’s the neighbor who see’s you dragging something to heavy for your underworked muscles in the back yard and actually stops to help you. THAT guy is awesome.

First of all, Tony comes off clean, speaks well and is concise with his statements. I trust him, as he’s the only one on the panel not wearing a suit. (Sorry suits, I’m an artist..that’s just how I roll.) In stark comparison to his buddies his appearance AND demeanor stick out like a sore thumb.

So, what’s with the money graphic at the top of the page?

The discussion leaned toward the recruitment process Zappo’s uses to keep their company culture intact. It boils down to hiring people whom want to stay and build the company, which assuming the magic formula works, makes them a happy human. And happy people do good things. Their core company culture is based on customer service.

How do they do this?

The companies hiring manager and the HR department both interview the candidate for a good fit. The hiring manager looks for technical skill ability while the HR team looks for a good cultural fit. Once a mutual decision is achieved between these two groups the candidate is trained and exposed to the whole business. He or she has to experience the different parts of the company via the call center, the warehouse,.etc,. At the end of this training they pull the “my mouth lay open in amazement when he said this,” move.

They make an offer to pay the potential for the training plus $2000 bucks to leave.

WOW.

Naturally how could anyone who’s just there to pick up a paycheck rather than invest their life in the company say, “no way…2000 bucks for free? That’s ridiculous…” Of course not. This is an ingenious way to root out the people who are just there for the cash. Our current economic climate necessitates hiring people who are willing to put forth an effort that goes beyond money.

Tony goes on to explain how Zappos encourages a culture of customer service, which from my experience is severely lacking in our expectant American culture. One simple example is having their company contact number on the top of every website page. I went to the site and clicked everywhere and yep, it’s true. How often have you wasted your precious “e-time” looking for the “contact us” link?

More importantly this company puts customer service relentlessly first. It’s a mantra a lot of companies portray, but few follow.

THE FIELD TEST

To test my newfound appreciation of this CEO’s remarks and philosophy I called the company under the guise of ordering my favorite shoe-boot. The Doc Martin classic 5-eye Gibson. I actually do need a new pair as I noticed the odd “I must walk funny due to the weird wear and tear angle of the sole” action.

I spoke with Raven who turned out to be what I suspected by the initial tone of her voice, friendly and helpful.
More importantly I found she was personal. We spoke of shoes naturally and apparently she had a stint with puppetry at some point in her life. What sold me was her last parting statement after successfully finding my favorite shoe-boot on their site.

She said, “Thanks and have a good weekend!”

Nice. She’s aware it’s the end of the week and everybody wants just that.
A good weekend. I notice these things because it’s easy to be absent minded and it takes effort to maintain a link to the present. It’s the end of our work week and people who say “have a good weekend” inherently know that’s a good thing to hope for.

A collective effort is needed to establish a company culture.

It’s not just a mantra that’s stapled on the wall or tagged after your logo. People have to work at it. In our modern age of narcissism where people seem to be more concerned with themselves than offering a service it’s nice to see a company walking the talk. Allowing free tours and interaction, easy access to a 1-800 number, and showing up to be interviewed about their companies practices Zappo’s company is setting a good example of what it really means to have a company culture.

To watch the video: http://fora.tv/2009/03/18/Ties_That_Must_Bind_Why_CEOs_Rely_on_CMOs_More_Than_Ever