Melih's Thoughts Stop to think and wonders emerge

Tony Hsieh at the Commonwealth Club – Overview

Last Thursday, Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos.com, spoke about the evolution behind the culture at Zappos at the Commonwealth Club in downtown San Francisco.

Some quick background on Zappos.com, and then I'll dive right into my thoughts on the evening. There was a lot of uproar when Zappos sold themselves to Amazon over whether they wanted to sell or were forced to sell by their investors. It ultimately was published in an Inc. article that the executive team of Zappos was trying to maintain their culture, and found that the best way to do it was to sell Amazon who allowed them to maintain their raison d'être.

I've heard Tony Hsieh speak on video, and so the canned stories about starting a pizza business, selling LinkExchange because the culture crashed and folks asking Zappos to run the IRA that he started the evening with felt a bit cliché. I understand why he has his go to stories, and the value that they bring to the conversation, but... oh well.

I thought the format was superb. Softball questions asked by the Wall Street Journal's Jeffery Fowler. That isn't meant as an insult as much as it allowed Tony Hsieh to just go with it, and speak. Fowler didn't interfere, and the jabs he threw into the conversation were really witty and often very funny. I thought he did a great job personally.

Some of the bigger highlights included:

• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't and Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization are the two books which have really laid the foundation for Zappos' culture
• Good service culture replaces direct marketing
• The product margins are what allow Zappos to do overnight delivery, free return shipping and some of their other perks. Hsieh said it definitely wouldn't work in electronics or at tourist traps
• Work/Life balance isn't an issue if you love what you do, are surrounded by your friends and work at a place where the things you do are just part of the greater culture

The only negative of the evening, in my opinion, came from Fowler's insistence that good culture was analogous to perks. Hsieh kept going out of his way in saying that a ping pong table isn't a culture, but the disconnect there led to some unnecessary back and forth about specifics of Zappos' culture. It was the one part of the conversation where I felt that Fowler wasn't listening, and Hsieh, who happens to be a very quiet, humble guy based on this appearance, didn't assert.

The night's big conclusion. Have a set of core values at the company, and if there are those who don't buy into the company's core values, then send them packing.

More comments to come on specific questions and answers, but all in all I would definitely say that if you have a chance to go hear Tony Hsieh speak, then take advantage of it.

Hearing instead of listening

Why is it so difficult to hear when it's so easy to listen?

Yes, it seems like a very technical question mired in definitions and understanding, but I'm increasingly discovering that one of the hardest skill to develop in oneself is the ability to hear what others say. You see, we've become experts at listening to each other. If listening were an Olympic sport, then my 5-second response technique* would be gold medal worthy. But we don't learn how to hear each other.

The distinction between the two is all about what one brings to the conversation. Everyone brings their opinion, their goals, their desired outcome. When we listen to each other, we put what we have brought to the conversation right in the thick of it all. With all of our own baggage in the conversation, there's no way that the other person's opinions, goals or outcomes has any chance of making an impression upon us. However, when we bring our own baggage, but leave it off to the side, then we start to hear each other. We can more clearly see the value that the opposite party brings to the conversation, and I've found that it makes conversations shorter, sweeter and much more productive.

So the solution is simple then, right? We just check our baggage at the door, and come into all conversations with an open mind. It turns, as is always the case, that it's not that easy. There are folks who refuse to have a conversation without bringing to the front and center all of the baggage which they brought with them. I don't think they consciously refuse to be open-minded, but they do consciously refuse to be swayed or to really hear what the other side has to say. I haven't quite figured out where the line is between being open-minded and refusing to hear what the other side is saying, but I do think that both can co-exist. As an example, I don't blame an Orthodox Jew for differing with me on topics like the Middle East Peace Process, but I do fundamentally believe that he can respect and listen to my opinion. That said, he won't do me the courtesy of leaving his foundation and standing on mine.

All of this is coming from being a fly on the wall while a lot of different things happen around me. I constantly find the need from individuals to have others see things as they do, and be as they would be. I can now catch myself doing it as I do it, whereas before I was completely oblivious to it all. For me the advantage of having a baggage free conversation is that we get to learn and teach. We get to really make each better because we're forced to really understand the opposite party's perspective. I think when we stop to hear each other, we come out of the conversation as better people.

Too bad we spend so much time listening then...

* 5-second response technique is the practice of giving a neutral answer every 5 or so seconds to seem as if one is engaged in the conversation. I perfected it in high school while listening to girlfriends speak. These days, my good friend Saar Conradi is the one who constantly catches me doing it. It's sadly become second nature

Team dynamics as seen in a soccer match

Long title. I know. I just couldn't find a better title. I've been thinking a lot about the dynamics of the last few soccer teams with which I've played. From full-time recreational teams to much more competitive teams, I've really started to notice a trend, and it's really fascinating. I'm sure if I really thought about it, I would see similar trends at the Box as well, but I'll leave that as an exercise for another day.

The really unique thing about soccer that isn't true in basketball is the need for a general consensus on how the game should be played. I'm picking on basketball because both sports have a strong playground, pick-up culture. Watch a pick-up basketball game though, and you'll generally see a few studs, and then a bunch of pretty good players. The studs dominate the action. For a full 11 on 11 soccer match, I've never really found the same dynamic though. It could be that I've just never been around stud pick-up soccer players, but more often than not with that many moving pieces on the field, there needs to be much more cohesion, and a much better general understanding of how the game is played.

And yet, I spent a full season this past fall and spring with a team that had a really tough time doing even the basics right. For the life of me I couldn't figure out why things were as bad as they were. There was some low hanging fruit. No subs for a bunch of games. A lack of general fitness. An ever changing set of players on the field. But really, I think, it comes down to the fact that we didn't agree as a unit on what the basics of the game were.

So I started to think about what it takes to get everyone on the same page. I think first, and foremost, it's a must that there be a strong leader who dictates direction. If there's no single voice driving towards a common goal, then there really isn't a chance for success. We had that strong voice, but I don't think that there was a team-wide respect for that voice. I'm not sure how to resolve that issue. That's much more of an interpersonal issue. At a company, the resolution to that problem is hire slow, fire fast. Not so sure what it is on a soccer team where you can only get 10 people to show up for a game.

Given a strong voice, what's the next step. My summer soccer team provided some insights to that question. The next important step is a willingness to adapt one's own style to one that fits in with achieving the team's goal. I don't think this comes naturally to people, nor do I think that this is very easy. I'm convinced that one can be doing exactly what they think is right for the team's goal, but in fact they are actively working against it.

This is where I think listening and giving feedback are so critical. And I think both aspects of this final step are the hardest bits for people. We neither like giving direct feedback nor do we like receiving direct criticism. And yet, it's the quickest way to get where we're all trying to go. This weekend, I kept asking for the wingers to be more conservative on the weak side to help with defensive counter attacks, and yet we consistently didn't have the weak side defender we needed. Was the thing to do to directly say, "Person A, you need to be more conservative in the attack"? Now that I think about it, the answer to that question is clearly yes. Not doing that meant that the whole team fell short of achieving its team goal.

I'm going to step up at the next match and make sure that I push others to push themselves to be better, but to also push me to be better. I'll let you know how it goes.

Can success be a formula?

I've talked a bunch the last few blog posts about being better at achieving success. This whole notion of being more successful has really spawned in me an effort to understand what it means for me personally to succeed, and to try and decipher what I need to do differently to make it happen.

I'll go ahead and answer both questions here, and then work towards gluing together a system that I hope will be one that I can repeatedly go back to when I want to succeed against a challenge.

Let it never be said that being the son of Raif nor Nur is easy. It's tough enough being their son, but then being the first-born has its own set of challenges as well. This isn't a rant about my parents, but instead a more matter of fact statement that good enough never was for them. And so, in that monkey see, monkey do style that all children seem to fall into, it was never good enough for me either.

That said, success for me has become that satisfying feeling of going from vision to execution in such a way that you surprise even yourself. It's rare, and if you ask me that's the way it needs to be. You should accomplish most of the tasks you set out to do, but you shouldn't necessarily come out of them having succeeded. I guess that's where I differ from the norm.

The tough bit is quantitatively being able to understand that surprise factor. It isn't something one can measure or plan for. It almost has to serendipitously arrive as your journey ends. This is why I think success is so difficult to achieve. Not only do you have to consciously do everything to the best of your ability, but you've got to get a little bit lucky too.

And so coming to that realization made me ask myself if there's anything that I can do to make the chance that I get lucky a little bit better.

As a compulsive gambler, I'm always looking for that little something extra. Step one, in my opinion, is asking does playing the "Don't Pass" line on a slow roller give me enough cash to catch the next streak? The philosophy there is simply stay low, and do what you can to survive until you can really make a push for it when you think lady luck has made her way back into your sights. It's painful because you're betting against the popular choice. It's frustrating because you only win if others lose, and often they lose big. But it can also be rewarding when you find yourself able to take advantage of the tables turning because of your patience and willing to go against the current.

I'm not sure how that translates into organization, measured progress, visible results and the like, but as a mantra I really like it. Bet the "Don't Pass" long enough to be there for the hot streak that's coming.

Learning to succeed

I think that one thing that I do very poorly is succeed. Succeed in the sense that I dream it, I build it, and execute it successfully. This idea goes much deeper than the lunch table "state school" jokes. Instead, it's something that I've really been thinking about lately.

As an example, I went to a soccer tryout today. I think I did really well. I played smart; I wasn't in as great a shape as I would like, but I was fit; and I think that I showed my strengths. My goal for the last year or so has been to get into good enough shape to be a contributor for a team at a higher division than the one in which I've been playing. I think that tonight I pulled that off, but it's really the first time in a long time where I've had that sense of really accomplishing something long term. I played soccer my whole life, and I never felt as if I made a team on which there was competition for my position. Doing well tonight was a big mental milestone to overcome. Nothing is set in stone yet, but regardless of the end result, I really feel like I came out of the experience better. If not because I made the team, then because I'm in a much better state of mind about my health and form.

I'm not sure where the inability to, or general lack in confidence in my ability to, succeed comes from. It may be the last bits of looking back over the last five years, and trying to figure out where I got better and at what.When I look back now, it's such a blur that I really don't know how to consume it all. I have one particular program I wrote that I'm still in love with to this day. I had 2 internships that I absolutely loved. I have a group of friends who have stayed with me through thick and thin. Those are all good things, but it's hard to label them as successes as I see success now.

All of that said, I definitely find myself tackling the issue head on. I've got the 10 resolutions for 2010, which are so far going quite well. I've got 2 or 3 projects at work against which I track daily progress against a larger goal. One is nearly finished. A second is dreadfully far behind, while a third is just getting started. This idea of doing things in a public eye as a form of public pressure to commit and delivery has been good for me. As an example, I gave up soda today to make sure that I reach my 25 lbs. lost by June 1st deadline. Both the deadline itself, and this new goal, are really tough challenges where I'd really like to succeed, and placing them out for public consumption makes it easier for me.

Nonetheless, I'm still interested in why I have to be so strong handed about this. I guess in my gut I know that everyone works hard for success, but every now and then I convince myself that it just comes easier for others. It's pretty late, and this feels really incomplete, but I think I'm going to publish it anyway. I think the underlying issue I'm facing here is finding the balance between my personal bar for success, my desire to never disappoint people and the reality that both of the previous items are both probably unattainable.

Won't stop me from trying though.