From the Meaning-Centered Approach, how is Zappos being generated through human interaction?

The way to understand organizational communication is by discovering how organizational reality is generated through human interaction. The approach describes organizational communication as the process for generating shared realities that become organizing, decision-making, influence and culture.

I must admit, I didn’t fully understand when Karl Weick proposed that organizations as such do not exist but are in the process of existing through on-going human interaction. Then I thought about it and was like, he’s right. Organizations are social systems and can only exist when human interaction exists. In other words, if there’s no communication there’s no organization.

It’s evident in both videos that value is placed on the employees which spills over to customer service. The corporate culture is much more than a set of values but a web of human interactions. It’s all about how the business gets done. Employees share the same core values and share in the responsibility of delivering happiness to the customers. The company doesn’t focus on customer service but on the culture of the company. Employees have the same shared practices and realities which is how they create and shape the company.

The influence comes from the CEO Tony Hsieh. In the video, the CEO talks we not I. He doesn’t have his own office but instead shares a space among his employees. His salary is lower than some of the call members. All of this communication allows his employees to understand we are one big family. He wanted to define the culture before the company got too big, something he didn’t take the time to do with his former company. It was important to him to have employees that were the right fit and who love coming to work and not because they had no choice.

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