Category Archives: Books

Pursuit of Perfect


Pursuit of Perfect” by Tal Ben-Shahar, the famous professor of the even more famous Harvard university that taught the largest course at Harvard on “Positive Psychology” and the third largest on “The Psychology of Leadership”—with a total of over 1,400 students. In this book Ben-Shahar explains how perfectionsim might prevent you to be happy in your work as well as private life and how sliding from perfectionism to optimalism might bring you happiness and success.

Delivering happiness

Delivering happiness” from Tony Hsieh, the CEO and co-founder of Zappos, the first online shoe store in the world, recently purchased by Amazon for about a billion Euro, is providing probably the best example of a new way to manage a company. First define your values, create the right culture and the rest will follow.

 

As an example, here are the 10 Zappos familly values:

  • Deliver WOW Through Service
  • Embrace and Drive Change
  • Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
  • Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
  • Pursue Growth and Learning
  • Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
  • Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
  • Do More With Less
  • Be Passionate and Determined
  • Be Humble
One of the result of this approach is likely the quality of Zappos customer service. Do you know a lot of companies where you can return your purchased good within a year (the Wow effect) but also one where the customer support agent will send you flowers and a card, on the company’s name after you called to ask for the refund of your recently deceased husband Shoes? Happy customers through happy employees, that is very likely the best marketing you might ever have.

You can also visit their website http://www.deliveringhappiness.com/ or also http://deliveringhappinessatwork.com/

ReWork


You probably already know the famous book of Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson, the founder of 37Signal, the small company that generate 150 millions$ of benefit with 15 persons in their staff. If it is not the case yet, go get it now or at least visit their website (http://37signals.com/rework). The book is easy and quick to read and might change your ideas on how to do the things right in your company.