I read a blog post by Ted Mininni titled “For Sale: Business Culture”.”
It referenced a Business Week article, “Zappos Retails its Cultureabout Zappos’ culture that talks about how Zappos now offers courses to other companies on building culture. At the end of his blog, he posed 4 great questions. Here is my reponse:

1. Do you think the Zappos culture can be easily replicated in other companies? Do you think it should be?

Answer: The framework (Core Values, The Envisioned Future and Core Purpose) absolutely can be replicated in any company, however the actual culture can’t. Culture should be and is unique to every company – it gives you your unique identity. In building our home care franchise business, we studied some great companies who had great culture’s, and used the same building blocks they used to do it, but built our own culture that was 100% unique to us.

2. Does it make a difference if an entrepreneur who is starting up a new company tries to replicate the Zappos model, versus an established company trying to change an existing culture?

Answer: It is FAR easier to start on day 1 – to architect your culture from the start, then try to do it half way through. It is why most companies fail at building a great culture. And most entrepreneurs don’t realize how important it is until much after they (we) start our companies. My biggest entrepreneurial mistake in building Nurse Next Door? We didn’t architect our culture from day 1 – we only figured it out 4 years in. And I bet my Partner Ken would agree. I am just happy that I figured this out before we started to franchise our business!

3. Do you believe each company has its own, unique culture based on its mix of executives and employees? Why or why not?

Answer: Absolutely. When done right, your culture dictates who you hire, AND who you fire.

4. Lastly, do you think Zappos’ employee policies would work for most companies? Why or why not?
Nope.

Answer: Those policies will work only if you have a great culture – that’s the beauty of it! However, read my “Do you Have a Policy About Working Naked?? There are just some policies that should be simply eliminated from every company.

In fact, like Zappos, we are hosting our second annual culture day. On July 7th, we will have a day long session on building culture inside of your company.

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Posted in Culture Franchise by admin 3 Comments