I was fortunate enough to meet Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com last weekend at the NAA Conference in Las Vegas. What an incredible mind and an incredible business model he's helped build. He shared some tidbits about his company culture and offered to send anyone in the audience a book containing stories about company culture that every associate at Zappos has contributed to. Just amazing. So amazing, that right now they want to include 20 fortunate individuals in a 2-day bootcamp to learn how to apply elements of that culture to their own companies. Here's some details:
Our core curriculum will show you:
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• Instructions in how to discover and create your culture
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• How to know, live and track your values
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• How to deliver WOW! service
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• How to get your customers talking about you
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• Superior Management Techniques
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• Inexpensive ways to reward your employees
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• Much More
Hey Mark,
ReplyDeleteYou are pretty fortunate to have been able to interact with the likes of Tony Hsieh and the many other folks that Eric Wu helped secure for the show. I wonder if the folks at NAA really get how incredible that was. I am really envious that I missed it.
Not many, if any in our industry trust our employees enough to even think about implementing the type of culture that Zappo's has.
For what ever reasons, the multifamily profession has gravitated to reams of Process and Procedure Binders that attempt to answer every possible scenario and we discourage allowing the front line any autonomy, even though they could solve 98% of the issues on the spot IF we let them.
Eric, as always, thanks for stopping by. It's not just our industry that has gravitated towards this model. As you and I discussed, I feel our industry makes decisions and is based around conservative finance and fear of fair housing law. This is a real challenge moving forward and what I feel perpetuates the idea of processes and procedures to "control" and reduce risk. What we are seeing today is that successful businesses are bucking the trend (like Zappos.com), and making significant impacts not only in their industry but business in general. Let's keep pushing what we know is the better way and see if we can lead our industry in change. I know you're up to the challenge. Enjoy your weekend!
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