popular award

Tony Hsieh at Zappos: Structure, Culture and Change

Published 26 Aug 2016
Reference 6181
Industry Retail E-Commerce
Region Global
Length 18 page(s)
Language English
popular
Prizes & Awards

2023 The Case Centre Best-selling Case in the Category 'Human Resource Management / Organisational Behaviour'

2022 The Case Centre Best-selling Case in the Category 'Human Resource Management / Organisational Behaviour'

2021 The Case Centre Best-selling Case in the Category 'Human Resource Management / Organisational Behaviour'

2020 The Case Centre Best-selling Case in the Category 'Human Resource Management / Organisational Behaviour'

2018 The Case Centre Best-selling Case in the Category 'Human Resource Management / Organisational Behaviour'

Winner of the Case Centre Awards and Competitions 2018 in the Category 'Human Resource Management / Organisational Behaviour'

2017 The Case Centre Best-selling Case in the Category 'Human Resource Management / Organisational Behaviour'

Summary

After 18 months of attempting to transition the company to holacracy, Tony Hsieh, Zappos’ celebrity CEO, decided it was time to make the change happen. In March 2015, he sent an email to all Zappos employees offering them 3 months’ severance pay if they felt that self-management was not for them. One month later, 14% of the workforce had quit, including 20% of the tech department, potentially putting at risk a complex transition to a new online platform mandated by parent company Amazon. The case recounts how Tony Hsieh financed, championed, and ultimately became CEO of online shoe retailer Zappos. A passionate entrepreneur who made millions at a young age, Hsieh was known for his penthouse parties, for what he referred to as his “tribe”. He brought the same sense of community to Zappos, which he moved from San Francisco to Las Vegas where employees could “be like family”. Despite the company’s unabashedly weird culture, it had the lowest employee turnover rate in the industry. Widely admired for its outstanding customer service, Zappos was repeatedly listed among Fortune’s “Best Places To Work.” When in 2009 Amazon acquired Zappos for $1.2 billion, it promised to preserve its management and culture. But Hsieh’s decision to implement holacracy – a form of organizational self-management that replaces job titles and hierarchy with “circles” that employees step in and out of according to their preferences and skills – was less popular than hoped. Hence his “rip the Band-Aid” approach, to ensure that only employees committed to the change remained at the company.

Teaching objectives

- Analyzing the role of culture in developing an organization’s competitive advantage - Discussing the purpose and impact of structure on those within an organization - Understanding the emotional experience of organizational change - Evaluating leadership in the context of radical change

Keywords
  • Organizational Culture
  • Structure
  • Organizational Change
  • Leadership
  • Leading Change
  • Management
  • Holacracy
  • Q41516