January 26th 2023
By: Audrey-Ann Tully de Cotret

Organizational culture: What if you let your employees define it?

All of us in the room knew it wasn’t just about the money. Together, we built a business that combined profits, passion and meaning. And we knew it wasn’t just about building a business. It was about building a lifestyle that brought happiness to everyone, including ourselves.

Tony Hsieh, 48 hours after Amazon acquired Zappos for nearly US$1 billion.

At first glance, the experience Zappos provides to consumers is exactly what makes it stand out (and that’s the whole truth!). That being said, when you look at how Tony Hsieh managed to succeed (saying brilliantly would come off as an understatement) in making customer experience a corporate philosophy, you realize that what he has created goes beyond a legendary customer experience.

Zappos serves as an inspiration in the business world for several reasons. One of them, if not the most important one in my opinion, is that it instinctively relied on a fundamental pillar, being the individuals who compose it and their own experience as members of the organization. In other words, it has, through the force of a powerful organizational culture that is as transparent as it is humane, succeeded in turning the traditional work experience into a lifestyle that reflected both the willingness of its partners to contribute to it and their own experience of happiness at work.

Our motto is the following: if the culture is well established, most of the other factors – such as excellent customer service, building a strong long-term brand image, dedicated employees and customers – will come naturally.

Tony Hsieh, 2019, p.151

For Tony Hsieh (alongside everyone else working with Zappos), customer service is a reflection of the organization’s culture, which in turn is a reflection of (and shouted from the rooftops) the experience of its employees and partners. See where I’m going with this? Employees’ actions and decisions are stimulated by a natural reflex that is created by the experience of the culture, which in turn is guided by an organizational identity and not by an executive document erected by decision-makers: a culture is felt. You feel it. You live it. And customer service was so important to Zappos that they made it their culture. And the more the culture became the organization’s absolute priority, the more employees could live it and, ultimately, contribute to it.

This philosophy sets Zappos apart from many others: for an organizational culture to be strong, it must be genuine. It’s probably also according to this belief that Zappos doesn’t limit its employees’ involvement to experiencing the culture; they are squarely invited to define it. In writing Delivering Happiness (which I highly recommend to anyone who makes it this far), Hsieh is a true open book and shares all the ideas Zappos has put into practice to make culture – and its experience – the anchor of the organization.

Among this flurry of ideas and practices that are catching our attention (no matter how unconventional and ingenious they may seem), one, in particular, caught my eye because of its accessibility and the opportunity it presents to all organizations in this world. It is the values definition exercise. The idea is simple: define values that would guide every decision, every action and every interaction of the organization. Values that defined them so much that they had no choice but to fully embrace them. Zappos was willing to make hiring and firing choices based on these values. And it did.

By involving all employees in defining its values, Zappos was able to develop ten existential foundations that are (and have been since 2006) still used to guide the company’s decisions:

  1. Give out a WOW effect throughout the service.
  2. Embrace and lead change.
  3. Create fun but also a bit of madness.
  4. Be adventurous, creative and open-minded.
  5. Seek growth and learning.
  6. Build open and honest relationships through communication.
  7. Build a positive team and family spirit.
  8. Do more with less.
  9. Be passionate and determined.
  10. Be humble.

Many companies articulate “core” values and make them public. Very few, however, have values like those of Zappos, i.e. values that truly reflect the company’s interactions with its audience and stakeholders: by entrusting this opportunity to employees, the ones who represent (and feel) these values daily, it made them the ambassadors of its employer brand (not just the marketing department or social networks). And Zappos employees became the faces of a brand they themselves were contributing to, inside and outside the office. “Make employees happy, make customers happy and make partners happy” became the principle that guided everything else. And the outcome of this beautiful story is only a testament to the (very often underestimated) power of the happiness experience at work.

At EPSI, we recently went through the same exercise. Having participated in this exercise as did all my colleagues, I can assure you that the message was loud and clear: our values are your values. And since EPSI’s values will not be made public until next month (!!!), what better way to keep you waiting than with the experience of my colleagues:

“The completed value exercise, in addition to fostering the emergence of cohesion with my colleagues that is otherwise difficult to reproduce, made me feel heard, considered and involved in the process of identifying the collective. The experience allowed me to influence the final result, but above all, it fed my sense of belonging … and that’s very natural since it’s hard to disagree with what you contribute.” – Benjamin

“Stimulating, relevant, concrete. It allowed us to give real meaning to them.” – Andréanne

“For me, it was the first time I had ever done an exercise like that one in a job setting. I really enjoyed the experience. We also had the chance to express ourselves and agree on our common values at work!” – Anne-Marie

“I had done this type of exercise with clients before, but I had never had the opportunity to attend as a participant. It was an exercise I greatly appreciated because it allowed us to exchange common values in our work.” – Simon

“We talked for an hour about what wellness means to us, concretely. Great discussion!” – Pascale

“I found the experience rewarding, on the one hand, because I was able to get a better idea of what goes on in the organization, and I was able to exchange with colleagues with whom I don’t daily. On the other hand, the experience was rewarding because I had a voice in the process.” – Johalie

Things to remember?

Go beyond the employee experience. Focus on employee involvement. Employee transparency. And not only will they come on board at top speed; they’ll surprise you by taking it to a whole new level.

Open the door for them and they will take care of the rest.

Stay tuned! The new EPSI values will be unveiled soon!

 
Audrey-Ann Tully de Cotret, M.SC., PHD (CDT)

Associate Head of Practice, Academy

References

Hsieh, T. (2013). Delivering Hapinness. New York.