Ep. 18 John Bunch - Building Complex Organizations through simple constraints: Zappos

Boundaryless Conversations Podcast

In this episode, we have a conversation with John Bunch, Lead Organizational Designer and Adviser to the CEO Tony Hsieh at Zappos. John joined Zappos.com in 2009 as a Software Developer and moved on to lead the Public API team. John was the Implementation Lead during Zappos’ shift to Holacracy and self-organization. Coming out of the rollout of Holacracy, John transitioned to leading internal infrastructure and systems design.

In the conversation, we talk about how Zappos - through the application of Holacracy and marked-based dynamics - is becoming a thriving entrepreneurial organization. We use the city as a metaphor for the high diversity, high productivity organisation that Zappos strives to be, based on shared enabling services and micro-enterprising.

We also explore the concept of the “triangle of accountability” that guides the organizational development and the specific hiring process that helps make sure that people who join the company are aligned with the values and ways of working applied in Zappos.

Remember that you can find the show notes and transcripts from all our episodes on our Medium publication.

https://medium.com/@meedabyte/a2aaa916663e?source=friends_link&sk=3c1f7e1c2614731316fb0700295f982a

Here are some important links from the conversation:

Find out more about John’s work

> LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-bunch/

> Zappos: https://www.zappos.com/

> Zappos Expertise: https://expertise.zappos.com/

Other references and mentions:

> Tony Hsieh, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose. https://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446576220

> Zappos Adaptive: https://www.zappos.com/e/adaptive

> Nassim Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, https://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446576220

Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast

Thanks for the ad-hoc music to Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/music

Recorded on June 11th 2020