A Tasty Meal of Strategy – The Triumph of Service Culture

My new book The Zappos Experience is at the printer and should be in stores thanks to McGraw-Hill, as scheduled in October.  During the time I worked with Zappos, I often heard the company’s CEO say “Culture eats strategy for lunch.”  I always loved the moxie of that sentence but initially cast it into the category of “great inspirational CEO soundbites.”

What does that sentence really mean… forget the strategy and only foster your service culture?  As my relationship with Zappos grew, I came to appreciate that Zappos has plenty of finely crafted strategies.  Those strategies, however, are guided by a richly developed culture of service values.  While the book, dives into the details, suffice it to say it is culture that sets the boundaries for strategy and anchors that strategy to a sustainable core.  In the end, culture may eat strategy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!