Abhijit BhaduriGuest AuthorLeadership
Trending

Tony Hsieh on Building Culture

By | Abhijit Bhaduri |Keynote speaker, Author and Columnist

The tech world is mourning the loss of former Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, who died on Nov 29, 2020 from injuries he sustained in a house fire while visiting family. Most founders can build products, they don’t know how to build organizations. Tony was different.

Hsieh was 46. Hsieh was well known for his leadership of online shoe and clothing retailer Zappos. For me, Tony was not just another entrepreneur. He was an entrepreneur who leveraged culture as a way of turning a business that started in 1999 as a site that sold shoes online. In 2009, Amazon bought Zappos for $1.2bn. On August 24, 2020, Tony Hsieh retired as CEO after 21 years at the helm. COO Kedar Deshpande took over as the new CEO.

Why am I talking about Tony

No alt text provided for this image

Tony Hseih built a successful startup that went from being a Dreamer to a Unicorn and became part of Amazon – a Market Shaper. What set him apart was his deep commitment to building a culture that brought out the best in people. “Culture and brand are two sides of the same coin,” he said. “The brand is a lagging indicator of culture.”.

5 ideas that you can implement

  1. Your hiring process is a vital way to shape culture. Start there.
  2. Invest in onboarding the new hire for 5 weeks. Give people a chance to opt out.
  3. Build a culture book that employees create with stories about the workplace
  4. In the performance reviews, 50% weightage is given to the employee’s contribution to the culture.
  5. Leverage social media to let employees discover and connect with colleagues. Social bonding with colleagues matters.
No alt text provided for this image
Source
LinkedIn
Show More

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Back to top button