Delivering Happiness
A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose
By: Tony Hsieh
Published: June 7, 2010
Format: Hardcover, 272 pages
ISBN: 9780446563048
Publisher: Business Plus
"At Zappos, we had collectively come up with our own set of ten core values. Those values bonded us together, and were an important part of the path that led us to this moment", writes entrepreneur and Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh, in his revolutionary and business transforming book Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose. The author takes the reader on a journey through the success story of Zappos, from its inception to billion dollar sale to Amazon.com. Along the way, Tony Hsieh shares the company's core values of all encompassing customer service, a great company culture, and a commitment to excellence for the company employees.
Tony Hsieh delivers the important and powerful message that creating happy employees, customers, suppliers, and business associates is not only the right thing to do, but that it's also good business. In a world where business people from entrepreneurs to CEOs are told that taking a hard line on employees, cutting back on customer service, and squeezing suppliers is seen as the correct approach to business, Tony Hsieh shows a better way. Not only does the author share his vision of passion and purpose as the road to profit, but that living a balanced life is also compatible with operating a successful and growing company. The book presents this world changing business blueprint, and how it worked so well for everyone employed by Zappos, all of their customers and suppliers, and anyone who came into even peripheral contact with the company.
Tony Hsieh (photo left) is a pioneer in the effective use of social media, including the now ubiquitous Twitter and Facebook. More importantly, as CEO, he empowered his employees to use Twitter to form deeper relationships with customers, and to respond to questions about the company and its products. The company culture was built on trust between employees and management, and between customers and the company. This passion for engagement both within and outside the organization created happier employees who spread their upbeat mood to their satisfied customers. The company developed a list of core values that were not simply to serve as a guideline for operation, but as a credo to live by. The organization's values manifesto is a proven model for other businesses to infuse into their company culture. While the core values of each organization may be different, the value that they provide for empowerment, engagement, and integrity is unlimited.
For me, the power of the book is how Tony Hsieh demonstrates clearly the potential of shared passion and purpose for building an ethical and sustainable business, while at the same time increasing growth and profits. Through the Zappos experience, it's certain that a company that outlines its core values, and lives them every day as integral to the company culture, will be a competitive powerhouse. The book contains numerous testimonials, from the Zappos employees themselves, sharing their own engagement and enthusiasm for the values of the company. At the same time, the book contains some very practical and easy to apply business concepts that can be universally adopted by any business leader. Tony Hsieh even challenges his readers to join his business revolution, toward building a new type of company that empowers and engages both employees and customers, creating an entirely new business paradigm.
I highly recommend the inspirational and thought provoking book Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh, that challenges previous ideas about how a company should operate. The book presents a fresh vision, where trust, happiness, and a balanced life form the basis of a truly successful and profitable company.
Read the destined to be classic book Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh, and put the power of core values to work for your organization. While delivering happiness, your company will also be enhancing peoples' lives while building ever larger profits and share of the marketplace.
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