Please read the article below, and answer the questions thatfollow. In doing so, remember the following, - Although the use ofgeneric theories, covered in class/your module guide/text book willprovide a framework, the expectation for the student is to be ableto discuss it in context with research relevant to South Africa andyour own reflective experiences. - You are required to extensivelyresearch current South African trends, amidst our changingpolitical landscape and benchmarked against a global backdrop. -You are required to present a holistic, well integrated and appliedanswer. Preserving A Culture People Love as Your Company Grows:Lessons from Zappos Chris Cancialosi May 30, 2017 Being intentionalabout your company’s core values from day one can help to build asolid foundation to guide behaviour as your organization grows; fewleaders understand this as well as Zappos’ Tony Hsieh. Zappos haslong been an example of the power that company culture has onbehaviour and business performance. But what’s behind the curtain?What is the team at Zappos doing, specifically, that is drivingtheir admirable levels of employee engagement and retention? 2016was Zappos’ lowest turnover rate since its founding more than 18years ago — and I wanted to know the how and the why. To find out,I asked Jamie Naughton, Zappos’ Chief of Staff, to share herinsights. For Jamie, it all starts with her personal journey toZappos which, she believes, is a testament to the way theorganization is run. Having initially worked as an externalstaffing professional to Zappos, Jamie realized early on that itwas a place she’d like to be. “It was more than 12 years ago when Ifirst knew I wanted to be a part of the Zappos team,” Naughtonshares. “The people I would send to work there always came backtelling me how much Zappos cared about their culture and how greatit was to work in an environment like that.” Today, Naughtonfocuses her efforts on building myriad efficiencies within theorganization for its 1,500+ employees. When Tony Hsieh took over asCEO at Zappos, he knew he wanted to create an organization wherepeople genuinely enjoyed working. By paying close attention toevery single new hire, he was able to ensure his vision becamereality. Several years later, the team at Zappos formalized whatthey held near and dear by creating Zappos’ 10 Core Values. Doingso helped provide a clearly articulated beacon for members of theteam to evolve all of their processes and ensure their uniqueculture was able to scale as the company grew. Getting clear andexplicit about the company’s core values gave all members of theorganization a common language and understanding of what “right”looks like at Zappos. “There isn’t a day that goes by where thereisn’t a mention of our Core Values in some way,” says Naughton.“They allow everyone to easily prioritize what’s really mostimportant.” Because the process was so intentional, the resultsweren’t all that surprising. “We knew as we were building thecompany that focusing on culture was paramount,” Naughton adds. “Inorder to provide amazing service to our customers, we knew we hadto provide that same level of service to our employees andvendors.” To fully embed this value of service in all members ofthe team, each and every new employee, regardless of position,attends a full four-week call center training program, includingdozens of hours on the phonessupporting live customers. And toreinforce this message, every employee spends a minimum of tenhours during the holidays on the phones as well. Surprisingly,these mandatory trainings have helped with innovation. “When ourdevelopers started going through this training, and were forced touse the systems and tools they created for our call center, theybegan noticing opportunities for improvement. So, the developerswould finish their training and then go back to their usual desksand start building efficiencies in our tools to make it easier forcall center employees to do their jobs.” Zappos’ Three Keys toEmployee Engagement and Retention Zappos’ focus on engaging andretaining great talent revolves around a continuous focus on threethings: Culture. The culture at Zappos is grounded in their CoreValues. But simply articulating values, as many organizations do,is not nearly enough. True value is created when they are actuallyintegrated into everything the organization does. Naughton advises,“Don’t let your values become a dusty plaque on a wall, somewherenear the front desk. Talk about them and, more importantly, live bythem. Make decisions with the values in mind.” Passion. “We wantour employees to find meaning in their work. Our company isself-organized, which means employees aren’t tied to one area ofthe company,” says Naughton. Team members are given the freedom toflex and support in ways that are outside of their “box,” whichkeeps Zappos innovative, efficient and purposeful. Ownership.Zappos leadership gives employees the tools to do their jobs whileowning their work, setting them up for success by stepping out ofthe way. Naughton provides an example of how this plays out intheir day-to-day operations: “In our call center, everyrepresentative has all the tools they need to make customers happy.They don’t need to ask a supervisor for permission to overridepolicies or compensate for lapses in service.” Giving employeesownership and empowerment to make decisions is not to beunderstated here. Zappos believes that the people doing the workand servicing customers every day are the ones best suited to makethe decisions necessary to take care of those customers. While thisapproach may not work in all organizations, parts of this exampleare generalizable. The prime being that, whatever you value andwhatever culture you feel will drive the results you want in yourbusiness, you must be intentional. Taking the time to be clearabout who you are and how you do things and understanding when andhow to evolve in order to drive results is what matters. Zappos hasdesigned a foundation that elicits the customer-focused behaviorsits leaders feel are critical to its success, and the organizationcontinues to reinforce these values and ways of workingcontinuously in every aspect of their activities. What might you doin your organizations to help bring some intention to what youvalue and how you need to work together in order to succeed?Source:https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriscancialosi/2017/05/30/preserving-a-culture-people-love-as-your-companygrows-lessons-from-zappos/#3c68b4e9712bQUESTION 1 (35) Discuss the various leadership approaches andrelate it to the specific leadership style at Zappos. Why is thisleadership style successful?