Darren Hardy Interviews Dr. David Vik
Dr. David Vik was the Chief Culture coach at Zappos. You can view his current website at http://theculturesecret.com/ and read his new book on culture.
Learning Lessons from the Interview: (as interpreted & understood by me)
It is the mindset coupled with goal setting that creates a culture change. Start and empower the people and they will take the company forward.
David bough a throne and put in his office at Zappos. Told the employees it was for them as without them he would not have a job. The employees were royalty.
Why is Goal setting important
Goal setting is declaring what your future wants to be, what you want to be and achieve. Most people don’t declare their goals. They spend more time planning and setting goals on their one week vacation than for their life.
Life is not a gift, it is a loan. You only have certain time on this planet. Why not declare what you want for life, break it down in steps and get it.
People make huge goals, life gets in way and they lose the momentum and quit.
Break things into small steps. Use the 80/20 rule. Most people don’t give themselves any wiggle room. We need to get better than before. 80% of time stay on goal, 20% of time let it rip.
NO GUILT, HAVE FUN WITH SMALL STEPS – Keep going at it.
Company’s Goal Setting process – How do you make the connection with people’s vision and purpose to the company’s vision and purpose – Take vision and purpose and make it individualized to each person’s role and responsibility. Let people know what they are doing. They are contributing and are a part of bigger picture.
Staying focused on Goals and not getting distracted – how can that be done?
MINDSET – Battle of conscious versus unconscious/subconscious. What we repeatedly do and create goes back into the unconscious mind and unconscious takes over from there. Unconscious mind is what regulates our heart beat, our breathing etc.
30 Day Goal setting process at Zappos
Pygmalion Effect – People achieve at their own pre-conceived levels of expectation not their potential.
David put up motivational posters all around Zappos, put up the Vision planner, sent a daily inspiration blog – now self-talk, self-esteem – talked the employees in.
Spin it and Win it program – Anytime you have a challenge spin it and win it into a positive opportunity and a lesson.
Talk on FOCUS – What we focus on will come in our sight. He asked a group of employees how many red cars they saw that morning, as no one had focused on red cars they could not recollect. Next day as the focus was on red cars everyone saw red cars.
When we focus on a Goal, we have a lot of things in life and we can get it.
Setup 30 day goals with Staff – met with staff and they declared a 30 day goal. It could be small or big. E.g. new to exercise just start with 10 sit ups and 10 pushups and walk around the block, then build on these small goals.
Most people set Goals too high for their own subconscious to handle and they quit. Set goals at lower levels i.e. start small and then let it grow.
Declare your Goal
- Try not to do it all in 30 days, but set the goals to get there in 30 days, e.g. just cutting 100 calories per day can lead to 10 lbs. of weight loss in a year.