Some Mathematical Encounters with an Exceptional CEO

A standard question Tony would often ask me in our 1:1s is “What’s happening in the CAS field?”, CAS referring to ‘complex adaptive systems’, and this would usually generate a variety of conversation to do with math, quantum systems, state of the world, amongst other topics.

As I look back now, mathematics, in fact — the math or organizations, the math of light, the math of CAS — was the defining feature of our relationship.

But let me step back about 5 years to the very first time I walked into Zappos. I came in as a consultant and tangibly felt that I had entered a different, and quite loving place (more details in an interview with Forbes from about a year ago). As a consultant, it was one of the few clients I actually looked forward to visiting week after week.

I first met Tony about three-and-a-half years ago. I used to work for the COO in the pricing area and we began to have discussions on the culture of Zappos. Our discussions led to my creating a simulation that linked the culture of Zappos to tangible business value. This connection has often been the elusive holy grail of predicting corporate success, and the COO invited me to present the simulation at a forthcoming leadership meeting.

I was advised by some before the big meeting, that Tony will not engage and will be working on his computer the whole time, will barely look up, and that he will say absolutely nothing. I was also advised not to get into too much detail and finish off in about 15 minutes.

The big day arrived, and I started off with the part of the simulation that had a present and longer-term valuation of the company based on how the culture operates. To my surprise, Tony looked up and asked me to get into more details of the valuations. When I shared my thinking, he agreed, and that was like the turning on of a tap — the math-based relationship had begun…

Next thing I knew Tony was probing into the details of some of the nodes in the simulation. “What’s this”, he asked, when he saw something called X-factor (by the way which was something I was told to specifically not talk about before the meeting). I went into an explanation on how it referred to a fourfold balance of knowledge, power, harmony, and presence that Nature tried to maintain and that Zappos core values happily were structured in the same way that quantum particles, atoms, and cells were structured.

We then got into a long discussion about the detail of this structuring and Tony asked me “so what do s-Shell elements in the periodic table have to do with Power?” I remember going into an explanation about Hydrogen and Helium and nuclear fusion, and thinking to myself — I did not just say that aloud to a whole bunch of leaders at a client company? In my mind, I thought that at this point I will certainly be ostracized by all concerned.

On the contrary, the next thing I knew Tony and I were exchanging books we had authored, he started a new group focused on complex adaptive systems which he wanted me to lead, invited me to participate in some of his think-tanks, and we began to have regular 1:1s.

I want to point out a couple of things here.

First, I really felt seen. The fact that this very well-known CEO paid attention to me, was genuinely interested in my work, and continued to interact with me made me feel quite valued. I had rarely felt like this to such a strong degree in a professional situation. It struck me then: Tony was the fountainhead of that unusual feeling I had when I first walked into Zappos. His book Delivering Happiness was not just some intellectual framework, but an embodiment of the notion of creating happiness, and recreating this experience in every moment was the foundation for the exceptional reality that was Zappos.

I have been exploring the impact that small patterns have on bigger realities for a couple of decades — that is, the fractal reality that connects one pattern to another in non-mathematical terms — and have suggested that simple attitudes such as humility, sincerity, and diligence, amongst many others can have huge effects on organizational and even market realities. Here was a tangible manifestation, a living, breathing reality, of how a simple attitude of humility had created an incredibly successful and well-known company!

Second, this feeling of being able to be who I was without any guards, allowed me to operate with on-going authenticity. It is such authenticity that is a key driver in creating long-term resilience, and I have written about this in a previous 10-part Forbes series on mastering wealth.

In my own case, I went on to become an employee at Zappos and remained one until Tony Hsieh retired. Enabled by the environment he had inspired and some extraordinary people who strove to uphold it day after day, many projects that were just a glint in my eye took on a reality — creating a pricing system run as a complex adaptive system, predicting organizational success by understanding the way people interacted, using emotional intelligence to create resilience at the team level, and using light to enhance organizational development (All these projects, by the way, were endeavours to change the active mathematics of the organization so that it would function more as a CAS. I often discussed these models and the results of the experimentation with Tony and he remained both highly interested and very supportive. Once he even pulled together a group of leaders in the organization and we went over some detailed CAS math — as depicted in the graphic above — over a 2-day workshop, for which I continued to get dirty stares from those involved for quite a while later).

Multiply projects of this nature a hundred- or even thousand-fold if that authenticity is harnessed across an organization’s employee-base, and you can begin to see unprecedented levels of innovation, and added happiness created in its wake. And all it takes is somebody at the center humble enough to see others for who they are.

Thank you, Tony Hsieh!