Being Amazonian

In a talk at the 2018 Air, Space and Cyber Conference, Jeff described Amazon this way: “Our culture is four things: customer obsession instead of competitor obsession; willingness to think long term, with a longer investment horizon than most of our peers; eagerness to invent, which of course goes hand in hand with failure; and then, finally, taking professional pride in operational excellence.” (xi)
Another of Jeff’s frequent exhortations to his small staff was that Amazon should always underpromise and overdeliver, to ensure that customer expectations were exceeded.
“The best way to fail at inventing something is by making it somebody’s part-time job.”
A switch to narratives places the team’s ideas and reasoning center stage, leveling the playing field by removing the natural variance in speaking skills and graphic design expertise that today plays too great a role in the success of presentations. The entire team can contribute to the crafting of a strong narrative, reviewing the revising it until it’s at its very best. It should go without saying - sound decisions draw from ideas, not individual performance skills.
Working Backwards is a systematic way to vet ideas and create new products. Its key tenet is to start by defining the customer experience, then iteratively work backwards from that point until the team achieves clarity of thought around what to build. Its principal tool is a second form of written narrative called the PR/FAQ, short for press release/frequently asked questions.
When you see an anomaly, ask why it happened and iterate with another “Why?” until you get to the underlying factor that was the real culprit.
Leaders do not believe their or their team’s body odor smells of perfume. They benchmark themselves and their teams against the best.
The institutional no refers to the tendency for well-meaning people within large organizations to say no to new ideas. The errors caused by the institutional no are typically errors of omission, that is, something a company doesn’t do versus something it does. Staying the current course offers managers comfort and certainty - even if the price of that short-term certainty is instability and value destruction later on.
Articulate the core elements of the company’s culture, as Amazon did with long-term thinking, customer obsession, eagerness to invent, and operational excellence.