EXECUTIVE MEMO

TO: TONY HSHIE

FROM: VASU GOSWAMI
SUBJECT: NEW HOLACRACY IMPLEMENTATION

The recent announcement made by you through the email to putting the Holacracy into the
Zappos culture had put the balance of the whole company in a shaking mode. The transition
this big should be slow and with this fast forwarding, that pace is being disturbed and Zappos
have is also going through the migration project of the website known as super cloud project,
which is also now at the stake of jeopardizing.
The company already have a unique culture where investments are made on people and for
people. The motto of the company is to keep the employee happy to make their customer
happy which is non-traditional. Zappos does not follow the top down hierarchy system instead
Zappos have a culture of flat organization with some modifications. This was a real customer
centric culture where the purpose of work was to create a wow culture for customers.
This transition indeed has advantages in long term as in future the top down culture will not be
the preference for employees however pushing it faster might affect the harmony of the
culture. Making people responsible for their actions is one of the things that every company
should promote and learn from Zappos
Circle: the circle in the Holacracy is defined as like teams but more fluid where everyone has
the right to propose and implement their ideas as long as they can get the circle agree on it.
The circles are created for specific purposes and disbanded depending on the situation like if
the project is completed. The circles are working fine with the regulated framework or
guidelines. Though giving freedom to people to change positions as per their will may not work
out in some of the cases. The projects which are difficult or hard to achieve, with current
system people can easily change their role and move to other doable project so there should be
some restriction or guidelines for that.
The downtown project: Developing the downtown of Las Vegas was really good idea from
profitability as well as society point of view but you should be a little more empathetic towards
the person who committed suicide. Though the questions by media on everything must be hard
but as you are well connected with the people out there in the market (customers) you should
really watch out the words that u state in front of media. Blunt statements may affect the
goodwill of the company that you have built so far.