Your culture is your brand

The title of this post is from the book "Delivering Happiness" by Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos. We give every new employee at Varrow this book on their first day. One of the big lessons in the book is the importance of culture in building a great company. In Tony Hsieh's words, "At Zappos, our belief is that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff -- like great customer service, or building a great long-term brand, or passionate employees and customers -- will happen naturally on its own."

A company's culture begins and ends with the people. We at Varrow recently created a site within varrow.com that celebrates our people and offers a glimpse into our culture. Check it out:

http://www.varrow.com/about/people/

Should we sign Randy Moss?

Randy Moss is one of the most talented wide receivers in the league. He had 1,264 receiving yards last year and is 2nd all-time in receiving touchdowns. He was recently traded by the Patriots for a 3rd round draft pick, then dropped by the Vikings 4 games later, and was just picked up today by the Tennessee Titans after almost every other team in the NFL passed on the opportunity to add him to their team. Moss is considered a selfish player with a bad attitude - he gets individual results, but the negative impact to the team is considered too detrimental by many to justify bringing him on board.

There is really no great reason why I am including this video other than the fact that I like it. Cool compilation of various Moss quotes set to music.



I am currently reading a book a friend of mine at EMC recommended titled "Delivering Happiness," written by the CEO of Zappos.com, Tony Hsieh.

Zappos arguably has the best customer service in the world and is one of Fortune's Best Places to Work. They have gone from $0 to over $1b in revenue in less than 10 years.

The top priority at Zappos is their culture. Hsieh talks a lot about his hiring practices and the cost of making bad ones - he estimates bad hires have cost Zappos over $100m. A big part of the entire hiring process is identifying how the candidate would contribute to the culture of the company. They have passed on many a candidate who would have had a significant positive impact on the performance of the company, but were deemed too risky in terms of the possible negative impact to the company culture.

In this day and age, your company culture is your brand. Gone are the Madmen days when a company could spend a million dollars with some high-priced advertising firm to create a brand. Every person at your company is a walking, talking, blogging, tweeting, facebooking representation of your company and its brand. Companies can't hide behind some glossy well-funded advertising campaign. This is a good thing of course.

So, when considering bringing on the next rock star, dig in on how the person would contribute to your culture. Do they embody the brand you are trying to build or have already built? If not, pass, no matter how enticing they look on paper.

Find below an interview with Tony Hsieh for more on Zappos hiring practices and their general approach.