I have recently read a number of books around the subject of business, corporate culture, customer service and entrepreneurship. Books like Rework by Jason Fried and The Four Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss. These books, in particular, challenge the way in which we work and the amount of time we spend doing it. Although I have found them useful, they do make some outrageous claims. Jason thinks learning from mistakes is rubbish, because apparently we shouldn’t be making mistakes and Timothy thinks its viable for us to all outsource our life and check our email once a week.
Unfortunately, we are not all so experienced that we don’t make mistakes and we don’t all have the finances to pay other people to do the work we could be doing.
Listening to the audiobook ‘Delivering Happiness — A Path To Profits, Passion, and Purpose’ by Tony Hsieh was definitely a breath of positive fresh air. Tony, co founder of dot com company LinkExchange and Amazon acquired Zappos.com, talks about his experience in not only business, but in life.
He tells stories of his childhood and parallels it with his adult working life. He doesn’t shove his opinions down the readers’ throats, instead, he tells compelling stories.
I like that the book contained emails from his colleagues and business partners, demonstrating how much gut instinct, risk and passion played a part in their decisions.
If anyone interested in business or self development asked me what one book they should buy this year, I would definitely say Delivering Happiness. Why?
First of all, the book is positive. There seems to be a fair few books out there telling us that we are all doing it wrong and their way is the only way. Negativity can be extremely paralysing, especially when you are starting out.
He talks about corporate culture in-depth and the vital role it played in the success of Zappos. Developing a good culture starts early. Having core values and sticking by them. Core values should be taken seriously. They should play a major part in recruiting new employees, as well as in everyday life.
Zappos has ten Core Values:
1. Deliver WOW Through Service
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More With Less
9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble
What stands out in the ten values? Well, to begin with it’s delivering the WOW factor. One of the ways his company does this, is through upgrading their customers shipping to one day shipping. It reminded me; I like making my clients happy. Other books are about making yourself happy and letting other people deal with your clients. When in reality, what makes me happy is the email, or phone call after a project from a happy client. What are you doing for your customers to share the WOW factor? Not even your customers, what are you doing for family, friends, even strangers to let them experience the WOW factor. Number ten ‘Be Humble’ really made me think too. When starting out, there is a feeling that you need to prove yourself. Tell people how awesome you are, so they will hire you. I would much prefer to show them my awesomeness by providing great product and service.
There were many moments in the book that gave me goosebumps. His stories contained all the ingredients of good drama and great advice.
I will leave you with one of the quotes the book introduced me to “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.” Gandhi
What are your thoughts? What is your favourite business/self development book?
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