This morning I woke to the sad news that one of my heroes, Tony Hsieh (pronounced “shay”), has passed away. And while I never meet Tony, he sits firmly in the top 3 people that had the most profound impact on my career.

Tony Hsieh built Zappos, a Billion dollar online business and literally rebuilt an entire community in downtown Las Vegas. I say this not because he would point to this as his legacy, but rather because he talked about things like “culture, values and happiness”, which many hardcore business leaders can be quick to dismiss.

Below I will share Tony’s top 5 ideas that had the greatest impact on me.

I first came across Hsieh in the book “The Zappos Experience: 5 Principles to Inspire, Engage & WOW” which is a super practical guide to building a company culture. I quickly followed this up by reading Hsieh’s own book “Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion & Purpose”. I highly recommend both books and will probably dedicate entire posts to each down the track.

At the time that I read these books, I was seeking to define my own purpose. Mistakingly thinking that I was a completely unique snowflake, I was seeking a sense of purpose that would set me apart from every single person on the planet (living or dead). But upon reading Delivering Happiness, it so accurately articulated what I thought and felt, that I realised that the purpose itself was more important than its uniqueness. So I’ve adopted (a version of) them as my own.

Here are 5 ideas from Tony that fundamentally impacted my perspectives on work and life:

1. The importance of DEFINING your core values, not CREATING your core values

You likely would have heard those clichéd company values — Respect, Integrity, Excellence, Communication — painted on the walls of companies like Enron. Hsieh’s take on this was, rather than create values that are vague, aspirational and not actually true, instead, understand what makes your company great, unique and valuable, and clearly define that.

(Zappos' 10 Core Values)

2. Culture is Destiny

Many companies don’t invest in their culture because it is hard to measure the immediate impact to the bottom line. Tony’s response to that was “Just because you can’t measure the ROI of something doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. What’s the ROI of hugging your mom?”. The pay off for building a great culture may not be realised for 2–3 years, but once realised, can last for decades.

3. Understand Happiness and How to Achieve It

Happiness may sound like a fluffy or esoteric concept, so replace that word with fulfilment, engagement or “state of not whinging” (whatever does it for you); perhaps think about “Happiness” in terms of the end state that most of us seek. Hsieh spent the time to codify happiness, then created an environment for his employees and customers that leveraged these.

4. Your Workplace is a Lab

Hsieh was someone who not only embraced changed, but actively agitated for it. Through this, he was able to achieve amazing things. Controversially, in 2012, Hsieh decided to restructure Zappos by removing the traditional management structure to instead become a Holacracy (a self-managed organisation).

Many business writers and contemporaries wrote at the time that Hsieh had finally lost the plot and gone too far. Holacracy has it’s pros and cons… and it is definitely not suitable for a lot of organisations) But it’s not so much the specific change, as much as it is the willingness to make this change in the pursuit of learning, evolving and achieving something great.

5. Companies Have the Power to be a Force For Good

Tony’s belief (and one that I share deeply) is:

Internally, Hsieh used Zappos as a vehicle to create an environment that positively impacted thousands of Zappos employees — this had a direct impact on the employee and their families.

Hsieh created an environment that openly celebrated when a Zappos employee improved the life of one of their customers.

But above and beyond this, Hsieh used Zappos to actively create better lives in the community around him. He rebuilt a rundown downtown Las Vegas (Zappos’ HQ) into a safe community full of families, small businesses, restaurants and bars… which positively changed the lives of thousands of people that had absolutely nothing to do with Zappos.

Thanks Tony

It was one of my life long goals to one day share a stage with Tony Hsieh, to spread the gospel that companies can be more profitable and have a greater positive impact on the world through creating amazing workplace cultures.

Unfortunately, that dream won’t be realised, however I will still continue to spread Tony’s message. #CelebrateTony