Citing Zappos as great examples of employee engagement or customer service is almost cliché. So when the people behind Tony Hsieh’s new book Delivering Happiness offered me a review copy, I was a little hesitant. But I’m glad I accepted. The book is half-biography of Tony and half a biography of Zappos. It traces Tony’s career from before LinkExchange to Zappos marriage with Amazon.com a few years ago. Tony explains how the mission of Zappos went from providing an outstanding collection of shoes to “delivering happiness.”

Two elements of the book stood out to me most. The first is the unique way Zappos developed it’s new legendary core values. Rather than simply decide what they should be, Zappos polled every employee and compiled their answers until a list of 10 core values emerged. The rest is history. What isn’t history is the second thing that stood out. Tony and the leaders of Zappos realize that people aren’t a great asset; they’re a competitive advantage. For this reason Zappos has developed one of the most sophisticate pipeline program to develop team members. Haven’t heard of that one? You’ll just have to check out delivering happiness.

Check Delivering Happiness at its website here and on Amazon here.