Videos Archive - Walking the Talk

Archive for the ‘Videos’ Category

Zappos Corporate Culture

Zappos, a US on-line retailer, has built its success based on extraordinary customer service. Here, Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos describes how he learnt from bad experiences he had early in his career, and built his company with crystal clear beliefs and principles. Zappos has recently been acquired by Amazon. Watch this space on how two great organisations manage their merger.

Leading by omission – Ricardo Semler

“Every one of us can send emails on Sunday night, but how many of us know how to go to the movies on Monday afternoon”? Asks Ricardo Semler, the CEO of Semco during this interesting seminar at MIT Sloan School of Management, he talks about the way Semco innovates by challenging the business formats that are basically legacies of military hierarchies, which neglect or deny the power of human intuition and democratic participation. The best piece we found in this presentation was from the minute 26:20 to 40:27.

Davos Annual Meeting 2010 – Rethinking Values in the Post-Crisis World

“Ethics”, says one of the speakers, “are the resistance of values under pressure”. “Tourists don’t vote” says another in relation to changing the power of short term shareholders’. A panel of world leaders debate whether we are learning from what has been happening.

How Google fosters innovation

If you want to build a culture of innovation, watch how the best do it. Douglas Merrill, CIO of Google describes some of the behaviors, symbols and systems of his company. Watch his passion and his curiosity, features of innovative cultures. See how clear he is about the beliefs and principles that underpin his company. How could you help people like Douglas thrive in your organization?

Innovation: NVIDIA founder on why they chose innovation over opinion

NVIDIA is a 3D graphics company that was formed in 1993 at a time when 3D technology was an emerging field. In this interesting seminar at Stanford University, NVIDIA’s co-founder and CEO talks about why he chose to ignore industry wisdom and customer opinion when deciding about the future needs of the market. They stayed true to their belief that there was an “insatiable” desire for 3D technology, and had this lead their product design and strategy rather than the perceived wisdom of the day.

Values based organizations integrate social concerns into their mission

Ben Cohen, previous co-owner of Ben and Jerry’s icecream and current advisory board member, is a business leader who believes that companies have to be ‘mission led’ and socially responsible. In this video from The Economist he discusses his ideas about the role of business in today’s world, including the achievements that can be realized for organizations and society when values and social concerns are shared by customers and an organization.

Demystifying Culture

Before embarking on a culture change initiative, you need to have a firm understanding of what organizational culture is, why is it important and how you can work with it. In this interview, Carolyn Taylor answers those questions as well as discussing her plans for Walking the Talk.

Click here to watch ‘Carolyn Taylor – Demystifying Culture’ on YouTube.