-Akshay Ranganath
On June 7th, the book 'Deliververing Happiness – A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose' written by its CEO, Tony Hsieh releases. In an experiment of a different word-of-mouth strategy, the author has embarked on a new experiment. This involves sending out complimentary advance copy of the book with the only condition that the blogger blog and tweet about it. I managed to get hold on a copy via Raj(http://niranjani.wordpress.com/) and here I am reviewing a book that is yet to be released!
What I liked?
Unlike many of the books by other CEOs who employ ghost writers, Tony wants to be direct. So, he makes a genuiune attempt as an author. The honesty pays off since most of the points are written as it happened without any jargons that typical management writers would have introduced. What comes across is that the focus on the your customer service, a long term vision and an ability have a bit of fun along the way is what makes Zappos such a great place. There is an abundance of stories on how great the Zappos customer service is (they helped finding nearest pizza outlet when someone tried to test their patience!) The whole book is sprinkled with anecdotes on the fun aspects - it almost makes like the stories could have been part of the book 'Fish'.
The other thing that I liked was the stress on the core competence. In this world of outsourcing, people tend to go overboard. Zappos too tried to have a tie-up with a firm called eLogisitics. With no alignment of objectives, the marriage turned sour and customers were unhappy. The lesson Tony draws saying 'warehoursing is a core competency' in the eCommerce world is quite intuitive and yet not followed so often.
What stood out is the focus on the long term. At one point, Zappos was burning cash and had no prospects for future investment but, Tony and his team were planning on what next as shoes may not be able to provide them all the growth they wanted! It was quite funny to read since Zappos, at that time had no idea on its survival for the next month but, the management was planning on growth and expansion 10 years down the line.
The core value section where Tony explains the famed culture of Zappos is the real gem of the book. It is made more interesting by adding the opinion of various other Zapponians. True to the communication policy of Zappos, the pieces have been written keeping in mind 'be real and use your best judgement'.
And of course, the 'human' face of the company was a very pleasant read. In times of downturn where all we hear is the hush-hush down-sizing, and movies like 'Up-In the Air', the way Zappos seemed to have addressed the issue of reducing workforce is refreshing. The guts of the team to call a spade as a spade and be done with it is laudable. The lack of any pretentious rationalization and open email to the whole company too is a big departure from many other organizations.
Things that could have been better
The lack of a professional help in writing means a few glitches. The core values, although very important have been repeated verbatim multiple times. Maybe, the space could have been saved and more could have been written on the other aspects of Zappos. Although the prime focus is customer service, Zappos has a great platform for online ordering and fulfillment. Not much is written on the software aspect on how the system came into place and what makes the Zappos site so special.
Poker did help Tony in re-thinking his philosophy for life. However, I felt that it consumes more pages that it should have. The lessons from poker were important in the context of the book but the fact that Tony used to prepare, the casinos he used to visit, etc are probably not too relevant.
Finally..
Francis Bacon had said that 'some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.' I am sure that this book falls in the third category, if you are:
- an entrepreneur and want to understand the amount of sacrifice necessary to stick to your dream. At one point, Tony sold off everything he had to invest in an idea that he firmly believed while the whole world conspired against him.
- a manager trying to recharge the work atmosphere.
- a call center executive. Although compaines tend to think call center as a back-office uninteresting job, Tony provides a very different perspective of why that exact opposite is true. This should keep you motivated!
- a short sighted executive. Zappos made a choice for long-term benefit of customer over short term profitability multiple times. And this paid off. So if you feel like short-cuts, think again.
And for anyone else who just wants a bunch of quotable quotes. I'll posting my favorite collection soon!
PS: I attended a session by Amazon, the company that has taken over Zappos in 2009. Although the two companies run as seprate brands, the alignment of what both say was quite amazing. In his talk, Brian kept repeating about the importance of customer service, the need to build and maintain customer trust and the need to provide a better customer experience at the cost of potential expansion was truly amazing. The long term approach of Amazon (they have 25 year plans!) was something that literally made my jaws drop!!
Links you can use:
Book Website: http://www.deliveringhappinessbook.com/
Advance copy: http://www.deliveringhappinessbook.com/contact/apply-for-an-advance-copy/
Buy the book: http://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446563048
Buy the book in India: http://isbn.net.in/0446563048
Follow on Twitter: @dhbook
Fish! A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results: http://www.amazon.com/Remarkable-Boost-Morale-Improve-Results/dp/0786866020/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275193697&sr=1-1.
Future of eCommerce talk by Brian Valentine, SVP at Amazon: http://rakshay.blogspot.com/2010/05/future-of-ecommerce-seminar-by-brian.html
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