Robert Richman

Robert Richman is a culture strategist and was the co-creator of Zappos Insights, an innovative program focused on educating companies on the secrets behind Zappos’ amazing employee culture. Robert built Zappos Insights from a small website to a thriving multi-million dollar business teaching over 25,000 students per year. Through his work, Robert has been helpful for improving the employee culture at hundreds of companies.

As one of the world’s authorities on employee culture, Robert is a sought-after keynote speaker at conferences around the world and has been hired to teach culture in person at companies like Google, Toyota, and Eli Lilly. He has pioneered a number of innovative techniques to build culture, such as bringing improv comedy to the workplace. Robert graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in film, as well as from Georgetown University’s Leadership Coaching Program. He is a member of the Transformational Leadership Council, and he is based out of San Diego (though he’s on the speaking tour most of the time).

Speaking Topics -

Built For Growth: The Values-Based Company

Engaged employees are productive, efficient, and have a great time. This means low turnover, and highly motivated employees you don’t have to micromanage. Values-based companies have employees who manage and motivate themselves. Robert shares stories of the strength of the core values at Zappos.com (A company that became the #6 Best Place to Work in America and #1 in Customer Service), then shares the science behind why they work so well. Once you learn the secrets behind how values work, you will know how to shape culture. Robert gives the group a process to use in discovering and then implementing the values across the organization. 

Key Takeaways

• Inspiring stories about how companies shifted their industries.
• Counter-intuitive principles to actively create disruption (rather than getting disrupted!)
• How to create stability in your organization, so that it’s safe to disrupt without jeopardizing the company.
• Techniques for shaking up jobs and careers in a way that enlivens people and reinvigorates their passion.
• Activate demonstrations, Q&A, and live disruption.

Surprise and Delight Your Customers and Employees

Warren Buffett said there is one determining factor for successful brands: They delight their customers. Inspire your people to deliver outstanding service in this energized experience of surprise and delight. Zappos became known for being the #1 Customer Service brand according to American Express customers. Zappos delivers a 90% NPS average (Net Promoter Score). Learn the secrets of creating a great experience from Robert Richman, the Culture Strategist from Zappos. 

Key Takeaways

• A highly entertaining and engaging experience
• The principles of outstanding customer service.
• Why customer complaints are gold.
• How to create a culture of surprise and delight from within.
• Key hacks to put to use, immediately.

Culture Hacking

Culture Hacking is a way for anyone at any level to shift the culture. As Culture Strategist for Zappos.com and the manager of Zappos Insights, Robert learned how to create change fast by using the power of hacking for good and applying them to culture. Robert leaves the group with three high-leverage tools that can be used immediately to create long-term change. Audiences are excited to become culture hackers and often report making changes the very next day. 

Key Takeaways

• How Hackers exploit networks, and what we can learn from them to shift the network of people.
• Why it’s better to destroy what’s not working than to spend time and money on initiatives that may not work.
• How to turn customer and employee complaints into innovation.
• Prefabricated culture hacks based on years of testing.
• Why standard feedback mechanisms don’t work, and how to hack them.
• The secret to learning what it is that you don’t know that you don’t know.

The Dynamics of Disruption 

Change is the new normal. Entire industries are being disrupted. Simply having a great product and service does not guarantee market leadership. And employees who are simply doing a good job are no longer the standard for a world-class company. In this talk, Robert shares stories about disruption and the principles behind it. It then gets really exciting when he shows how these principles can be applied to your business in a counterintuitive way. People at all levels of the company will benefit from learning how to outdo themselves, increasing both performance and passion for their jobs. 

Key Takeaways

• How the best organizations in the world keep their people inspired.
• Why most culture work is actually the equivalent of spoiling children.
• How to take the principles of online gaming and apply them to create the most engaging experience for employees.
• What to look for in new employees and questions that will help you learn the truth immediately.
• The #1 metric to measure culture and how one small shift can create massive engagement.