Name: How Zillow's CEO Created a Relaxed Office Culture
Uploaded: 2017-06-22
Duration: 4 min 38 s
Description: Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff explains why he created a 'laid back' kind of company culture.

Spencer, one of your hobbies is studying and reading about leadership, so what have you found is the key characteristic that you find in all great leaders. The common denominator among great leaders is they help people feel connected to a greater mission, something bigger than themselves. That sense of connection helps motivate people, it helps Bring out greatness in them. So forming connection and explaining the mission of what you're trying to accomplish is what is great [ UNKNOWN ]. You've been with Zillow from the very beginning and you always talk about how the company's culture is the key to its success. Yes. And when you came as CEO six years ago, you took the company public. You made a lot of acquisitions, 13 of them, and so that impacted the culture. when you have so many newbies who come on, how do you get everybody on board with the Zillow culture? Understanding the Zillow founding story is a very important part of our culture. So the description that we use is we say, Shopping for a home before Zillow was like being in a dark room where you didn't have a flashlight. Or maybe you had a flashlight and you could kind of, you know, you or your real estate agent could show you certain things. We want to turn on the lights and so one of our core values is " turn on the lights ". And you'll see plastered on all of our walls " turn on the lights ". People say that in meetings, and what that means is empower the consumer with accessed information. It also means run the company transparently. When lights are turned on and things, a lot of good stuff happens. And so these types of stories help employees visualize what we're trying to talk about. You're a very creative company. How do you instill that creativity and innovation in your people so they try new things that could be a big payoff for Zillow down the road? Yo have to have an environment that allows failure. I mean, failure is a key part of innovation. If you're not failing enough, then you're probably not trying enough risky things. So we celebrate failure, we encourage it. How do you encourage it? When people experiment and try initiatives that don't work, we celebrate them and we say good job. Good job for trying that, here's what we learned from it, rather than punishing them. Most companies punish people for failure. I mean, tactically speaking, we have hack weeks and innovation weeks in all of our offices a couple times a year where employees work on whatever they want, whatever innovative thing they find interesting. And then, they present that thing at the end of the week and we learn a lot from that. And we decide Whether to green light some projects based on that. mm- hm, you've said that a 24 / 7 work culture won't inspire great work. But doesn't it really take intensity and discipline of work to do great things? Yes, but that doesn't Doesn't mean 24 / 7. So I think that you want to work smart, not necessarily long. What I hate is companies that have a face time culture. Where you're expected to be there around the clock. I mean my first job straight out of college. knowledge in investment banking. You used to, whenever you'd leave at the end of the day, 10PM, 11PM whenever it was, you'd leave your sport jacket on your chair. And then you'd sneak down the fire staircase to a different floor, a different elevator bank. And then escape that way. I mean that's terrible. Nobody wants to work like that. That doesn't inspire greatness. That just creates a culture where people are expected to work 24 / 7. You're a big believer in social media. You tweet a lot. Many CEOs don't do that. In what ways does this help you connect with your employees and And also I guess with your customers. Social media is a fantastic way for anybody, but including a CEO, to connect with people. I mean, that's where people are talking about my company, my industry, and so I wanna be there. I wanna be part of that conversation, rather than pretend it's not happening, so I engage in all social platforms. It's been a very important learning tool for me. And I also find it fun, it's a great way for me to share my thoughts with people, which is one thing I love doing. Spencer, you look back on your life and your career of everything from your early days as an investment banker on Wall Street and as an entrepreneur, and now at Zillow. What would you say is the best leadership advice that you ever received and why did it guide you through all the years? The best leadership advice I've ever gotten was from [ UNKNOWN ] Fox the former president of Mexico who said. Even the brick layer wants to be explained that he's building a cathedral. Laying bricks is pretty difficult, boring, back breaking job. But if you feel that you're not actually laying bricks, you're helping create a cathedral that can be inspiring. And as a leader, it's definitely changed the way I explain to my employees what we're trying to do. I think people do their best work when they feel connected to a larger mission, and so that's how I lead the company and those are the companies that I've always wanted to be a part of. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

How Zillow's CEO Created a Relaxed Office Culture

Leadership

Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff explains why he created a 'laid back' kind of company culture. 