Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh: When company culture becomes a lever for inclusion
A manifesto for reinventing the company
In “Delivering Happiness,” Tony Hsieh, co-founder and former CEO of Zappos, gives us much more than an entrepreneurial success story. He shares a revolutionary vision that resonates deeply with the values carried by 1Clusif: that of a company where employee happiness is not a nice-to-have, but the very foundation of performance and innovation.
Published in 2010, this book remains burningly relevant at a time when companies are seeking to build more inclusive, adaptable and human organizations. Tony Hsieh tells how he transformed Zappos, a simple online shoe retailer, into a company valued at more than a billion dollars, acquired by Amazon in 2009, while preserving a unique company culture.
Entrepreneurship in the service of the collective
What is striking about Tony Hsieh’s journey is his entrepreneurial spirit, inseparable from a deep sense of social responsibility. From childhood, he ran a string of small businesses, from earthworm farms to Christmas tree stands to a newspaper delivery service. But unlike many entrepreneurs who swear only by profit, Hsieh understood very early that true wealth lies in the quality of human relationships and the creation of collective value.
This philosophy echoes 1Clusif’s manifesto, which advocates building the collective and adaptable organizations. As we defend in our approach to professional inclusion, Tony Hsieh demonstrates that a high-performing company doesn’t pit profitability against well-being, but combines them in a virtuous dynamic.
The ten core values: a strong cultural DNA
At the heart of Zappos’s success is a system of values defined collectively by the employees themselves. These ten commandments resonate particularly with 1Clusif’s founding values:
1. Deliver WOW through service: Exceed expectations, positively surprise, create wonder. This quest for excellence connects with our commitment to passing on high-quality digital skills.
2. Embrace and drive change: In a constantly evolving world, adaptability is essential. This is exactly what we promote at 1Clusif by supporting companies toward emerging technologies (AI, blockchain, big data).
3. Create fun and a little weirdness: Creativity, one of our founding values, comes from the freedom to be yourself and to experiment without fear of judgment.
4. Be adventurous, creative and open-minded: The hacker mindset we champion rests precisely on this ability to explore, question and innovate.
5. Pursue growth and learning: Transmission and continuous learning are at the heart of 1Clusif’s mission. We firmly believe that training is a major lever for inclusion.
6. Build open and honest relationships through communication: The collective intelligence and co-development we practice rest on this transparency.
7. Build a positive team and family spirit: Building the collective is precisely our reason for being at 1Clusif.
8. Do more with less: A frugal, responsible approach that echoes our commitment to equality by nature and against financial exclusion.
9. Be passionate and determined: The entrepreneurial spirit we value.
10. Be humble: An essential value for fostering inclusion and fighting all forms of discrimination.
Inclusion through culture: a managerial revolution
What makes Tony Hsieh’s approach particularly relevant for 1Clusif is his radical vision of recruitment. At Zappos, cultural fit takes precedence over technical skills. This philosophy goes against the grain of traditional practices that often exclude candidates because of their atypical background, their age, their origin or their education.
Tony Hsieh demonstrates that by recruiting on values and motivation rather than the perfect résumé, doors open to an extraordinary diversity of talent. This approach aligns with our fight against professional exclusion linked to age, origin, gender or nationality. Technical skills can be learned, culture is lived.
Even better, Zappos offers 2,000 dollars to every new employee after the first week of training to leave the company if they don’t feel aligned with the culture. This bold practice ensures that only truly committed people stay, creating an authentic and inclusive work environment.
Customer service as a laboratory of collective intelligence
One of Zappos’s most striking innovations concerns its approach to customer service. Unlike traditional call centers where every second is timed, Zappos employees are encouraged to spend as much time as needed with customers, to create authentic human connections.
The record? A 10-hour, 43-minute call! This freedom given to employees perfectly illustrates the participatory management we promote at 1Clusif. By trusting teams, by giving them the autonomy and the means to excel, we unleash their creativity and their engagement.
This philosophy fits into what we call collective intelligence: every employee becomes a responsible actor, capable of making decisions aligned with the company’s values. It is a form of decentralization of power reminiscent of the principles of open-source culture and the hacker mindset.
Holacracy: toward adaptable organizations
Tony Hsieh was one of the pioneers of holacracy, an organizational system without traditional hierarchy where authority and decision-making are distributed among self-organized teams. This structure aligns with our vision of adaptable organizations.
Although Zappos’s experiment with holacracy faced challenges (30% turnover during its implementation), it raises essential questions about the organizational models of the future. How do we create structures that foster inclusion, agility and innovation? How do we move beyond rigid hierarchies that often perpetuate exclusion?
At 1Clusif, we support companies in this transition toward agile methods and participatory management, recognizing that every organization must find its own balance between structure and autonomy.
Happiness as a performance indicator
Tony Hsieh doesn’t just talk about happiness at work, but about happiness as the company’s purpose. He identifies four types of happiness:
- Happiness linked to immediate pleasure: Fleeting and addictive
- Happiness linked to passion: More lasting but likely to fade
- Happiness linked to achievement: Motivating but never durably satisfying
- Happiness linked to meaning: The deepest and most lasting, born from contributing to something bigger than oneself
It is this fourth type of happiness that Zappos seeks to cultivate, giving every employee the feeling of participating in a meaningful mission. This quest for meaning aligns perfectly with 1Clusif’s mission: reducing exclusion and fostering inclusion. Every action, every training, every act of support contributes to a goal larger than mere profit.
Lessons for building an inclusive company
“Delivering Happiness” offers valuable lessons for any organization that aspires to inclusion and social impact:
1. Culture is not decreed, it is co-constructed
As we practice in our co-development support, company values must emerge from the collective and not be imposed from above. Tony Hsieh involved all employees in defining Zappos’s values.
- Radical transparency builds trust
By openly sharing the company’s finances, goals and challenges, employees are empowered and we fight the information asymmetries that are often a source of exclusion.
- Investing in training is investing in inclusion
Zappos devotes considerable resources to continuous training. This approach aligns with our conviction that learning and mentoring serve inclusion. By improving skills in code, digital technology and agile methods, we build bridges to employment.
- Failure is a learning ground
The culture of experimentation Tony Hsieh advocates encourages risk-taking and innovation. This tolerance for failure is essential for fostering the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit we value at 1Clusif.
- The customer and the employee are two sides of the same coin
You cannot offer customers an exceptional experience if employees themselves aren’t living an exceptional experience. This coherence is fundamental.
Zappos and 1Clusif: deep synergies
Reading “Delivering Happiness,” one cannot help but draw parallels with 1Clusif’s vision. Both organizations share the conviction that a company can and must be a vector of positive social transformation.
Like Tony Hsieh, we believe that entrepreneurial responsibility is not limited to creating economic value, but encompasses the creation of human and social value. Our experimentation labs fit this logic: exploring new paradigms that foster inclusion.
The open-source culture we champion shares with Zappos this desire for transparency, collaboration and contribution to the common good. The hacker mindset is also this insatiable curiosity, this desire to understand how things work in order to improve them, which we find in Zappos’s DNA.
A legacy that continues to inspire
Tony Hsieh tragically left us in 2020, but his legacy continues to inspire thousands of entrepreneurs and leaders around the world. His book remains an essential guide for anyone who wants to build an organization where performance rhymes with humanity, where innovation is born of shared happiness.
For 1Clusif, “Delivering Happiness” is more than a management book: it is a validation of our deepest convictions. It demonstrates that a company built on strong values, that puts people at the center and cultivates an inclusive culture, is not only economically viable, it is also more innovative, more resilient and more fulfilling for all its stakeholders.
Conclusion: What if happiness were the key to inclusion?
Closing “Delivering Happiness,” one question remains: what if happiness were not a secondary goal, but the very condition for true inclusion? Tony Hsieh suggests that when you create an environment where people are happy, authentic and aligned with their values, barriers naturally fall away.
Age, origin, background become secondary in the face of positive energy, motivation and engagement. This is exactly what we experience at 1Clusif in our support and training actions: when the conditions for happiness at work are created, inclusion stops being a program and becomes a lived reality.
This book is essential reading for all committed entrepreneurs, managers seeking meaning, and everyone who believes that tomorrow’s company must be more human, more inclusive and more responsible. It reminds us that building a collective and adaptable organizations is not only a strategic necessity, it is also and above all a source of shared happiness.
Book references:
- Original title: Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose
- Author: Tony Hsieh
- Year of publication: 2010
- French edition: Leduc.s Éditions
Article written for 1Clusif’s “A bit of reading” section – A movement of entrepreneurs committed to professional and technological inclusion.