2. Have an employee outing outside the office. Ask employees what they would like to do for the outing (for example,
hiking, bowling, or group dinner).
3. Ask employees what they’d like to be doing five years from
now.
P: What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made along the
way? What did it teach you?
H: I co-founded LinkExchange, an internet advertising cooperative, with Sanjay Madan in 1996. Sanjay was my roommate
during college and ran a pizza business with me. When we first
started, we only had a few thousand dollars that was saved up
from jobs that we had previously worked at. I remember the early
days of the company were a lot of fun and very exciting. When it
was just 5-10 of us, we were working around the clock, sleeping
under our desks, and had no idea what day of the week it was.
LinkExchange just started out as a side project, but within a week
of launching, we knew we were onto something big.
“My advice to businesses
of all sizes is to figure out
what you want to stand
for...and continue to make
decisions based on that.”
A lot of people actually don’t know why we ended up
selling the company, and the reason is because the company
culture went downhill. Even though it was a lot of fun in the
early days, by the time it was 100 people, I just didn’t look
forward to going into the office anymore. At the time, we didn’t
know any better to pay attention to company culture.
With Zappos, I want to make sure that I don’t make the
same mistake again, so from the beginning, we’ve always made
company culture a high priority.
P: How do you maintain happiness in your personal
life?
H: I think it’s important to take a step back from the business
of the day-to-day every once in a while (such as once a week)
and ask yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing and if it’s
truly making you happy, and being really honest with yourself
when answering.
P: What’s the most important message you hope to
leave the audience with at the 2011 ISPA Conference?
H: I would say rather than focus on what will make you the
most money or be best for your career, figure out what you
would be passionate about in 10 years and pursue that. A lot
of people work hard at building a career and think that one day
down the road it will bring them happiness. And most of the
time, when they finally accomplish their goal, they realize that
it doesn’t really end up bringing happiness or fulfillment for the
long term. One of the things that research has shown is that
people are very bad at predicting what will make them happy.
If the ultimate goal is to achiev