How “Delivering Happiness” can create company Culture”
Basics:
Tony Hsieh is a fun writer to say the least. I thoroughly enjoyed it and read it in one sitting. Taking a look at how he grew up, his steps of business, hard decisions, and how he built a company through culture. The overall point of the book is to be an encouragement for the entrepreneurial spirit and show you how important culture is overall.
Culture is a relatively new idea especially to small-medium sized businesses, but not to start-ups. most start-ups create the business around the culture but I feel they do this for the wrong reasons. Many do it because of bad experiences with previous companies and that drives them to do it better. Nothing wrong with doing it better. The wrench that can occur is bitterness. No matter how awesome the culture, if a root of bitterness exists, the company will fail. This is especially true in non-profits and churches as well.
As a side note, if you grew up in an Asian family or understand Asian families, I recommend this book even more. Asian families have quirks many other cultures don’t and he explains what it was like and how he worked through it. Coming from an Asian’sh family and marrying a half-Japanese half-Okinawan, I found it hilarious.
Why is this exciting?
Delivering Happiness is written as an open and honest book. The owner talks about how he got around things, made and managed many, hated how some deals went, and tried to change. Even past that he does his best to write as he if he was speaking and it makes for a very amiable read.
I love the honesty in here that shows nature of transparency that is blossoming in our start-up cultures. It also shows how Zappos almost failed and how everyone almost went completely broke. I do notice there are times if they had not been extravagant in their lives, they might have had an easier time. I do however, respect the decisions and trips since trips and a=being away from projects does help bring much needed perspective into hard circumstance.
It also outlines how to build a culture of your own and how to build that. Its encouraged me to change the way I do business and how to teach those things to others.
Why should Christians read it?
The most obvious reason Christians should read Delivering Happiness, is to help understand and build culture. Every church has a culture, whether its a good one or bad one. Its important for them to build those and understand the people in the church. Issues of Church Piracy, division, and gossip can be suppressed by good culture
What I learned
After reading the book, I felt like a lot of assumptions I’ve made are correct, but with different names. When looking at businesses and how to run them, or even perform well at school, it is a matter of making your job, school, home, etc. a lifestyle choice.
For example, when I ran a landscaping company, I lived and breathed landscaping. I ordered magazines, I got stone catalogs, equipment catalogs, read blogs, forums, and become an expert as fast as I could. I made it a total lifestyle.
What Tony implies is that you have to life a company lifestyle which means have a great company culture that everyone can get behind.
The other thing I learned was that 5, 10 or 15 general guidelines for company culture can actually do more good for a company than an “employee” handbook. Now its good to have processes outlined, but to have a more responsive, lean, and happy culture – its good to strict with love.
Let me know if you have any questions or hit me up on twitter or facebook
