That is a pretty tough statement from Peter Drucker, isn’t it? J Here is is: Within five years, if you’re in the same business you are in now, you’re going to be out of business. Jeff Bezos would certainly agree with this thought though. To survive you must know what it means to being an innovator.
Just look at Amazon and the Bezos record over the past two decades. He has established Amazon as a true business innovator. And he certainly knows much about innovative growth opportunities. No question. But most businesses would have a hard time agreeing, in our opinion.
I like to read … why? To be entertained, to learn new things, and to stimulate thinking. Jeff Bezos is a favorite author of mine, especially when the articles deal with business innovators and leaders. I have a set of five authors that I selected over a decade ago to be my silent mentors … they mentor through their writings and presentations. Jeff Bezos is one of those five mentors.
Yes … all 5 do stimulate a lot of thinking and learning, but they all have a great knack for entertaining while they teach and silently mentor. They also share many other common attributes that makes them such successful mentors for me.
It probably is not necessary to tell you a little about Jeff Bezos. He gained a solid reputation for uncanny business acumen, unique innovation strategies, and solid risk-taking during his almost 20 years as Amazon’s CEO. He remains a highly regarded figure in business circles due to his innovative management strategies, leadership style, and of course his success.
In this blog, we have selected 8 favorite topics of Bezos and used quotations and a compendium of lessons from many of his writings, articles, and presentations to focus on what he teaches us on each. We use these thoughts regularly in our work with client teams.
Customer-centric focus
Focusing on the customer makes a company more resilient.
At Amazon, there is a common line of thinking: Start with the customer and work backward.
Bezos has mentioned many times that you focus on customer needs and then work backward from there.
When you work backward, you start with the customer and their needs and problems. This is the opposite of what some companies do, which is: they think up ideas, build a product, and then see if customers like it.
Develop a vision
Vision. We are always fascinated by this skill. And it is a great skill to have in our view. Does it mean you see everything? Certainly not. It does mean you have the ability to see what many cannot. And then act on these. Vision doesn’t count without action. And not without managing innovation.
For years, I’ve been fascinated by Jeff Bezos’ vision. We write a lot about him and Amazon. They are a great company to follow because of the Bezos vision. And his ability to make good bets on his vision. While everything may seem rosy at Amazon these days, for years, it was amazing to see just how much criticism there was towards some of Bezos’ decisions.
That idea of staying the course for the long term has been the key to Bezos’s success. Vision requires the long term. As does innovation.
We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details.
Company brand
A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You can earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.
Amazon’s brand reflects Bezos’s personality, beliefs, and thinking. And the culture continues to grow and develop.
Innovation
Amazon, we believe, has one of the very best innovation cultures in an industry built around constant innovation and change. Why you may ask?
We believe there several good reasons. First, as one of the creators of the e-commerce industry, he well knows the industry is in its infancy and is built on a foundation of new technology and constant introduction of new ways of doing things … he knows their future is based on those trends.
Business is all about capturing intellect from every person. The way to engender enthusiasm it to allow employees far more freedom and far more responsibility.
One of Bezos’s most important beliefs is that me-too companies have not done that well over time. So you need to invent and be willing to be misunderstood. All disrupters are inventors. And me-too companies are not inventors.
Internet technology
An important driver of Bezos’s innovative decision making is that the internet in general and Amazon, in particular, are still in chapter one.
The operative assumption today is that someone, somewhere, has a better idea; and the operative compulsion is to find out who has that better idea, learn it, and put it into action – fast.
Company evolution
Change, BEFORE you have to. Change is a big part of the reality in business. New ideas are the lifeblood of business. And the basis for creative change.
Experimentation
Bezos knows that to do new things well, you must be good at trying new ideas in many areas as experiments. These experiments, he realizes, will not all work as planned, and a high percentage will fail. He knows and accepts this without worry.
I love this quote from Bezos:
If you double the number of experiments you do per year you’re going to double your inventiveness.
If you ask most CEOs, they’ll tell you that experimentation is imperative for their business. It’s how new innovations are born and how they stay competitive in the market. Automotive companies have concept cars; food companies experiment with new foods and flavors; retail companies experiment with the placement of products and store atmosphere; drug companies are built on experimentation; tech companies have “labs” like Google Labs; and many high performing companies, like Google, allow their employees to experiment. Even sports teams experiment with new plays and/or players. Experimentation is everywhere and is always happening.
At Amazon, experimentation and willingness to invent has always been a part of the culture. It’s not secondary or something that has to be done because everyone else does it.
Little fear of failure
We were willing to go down a bunch of dark passageways and occasionally we find something that really works.
So, his mind never lets him get in a place where he thinks they can’t afford to take these bets because the bad case never seems that bad. And to have that point of view requires a corporate culture that does a few things. Very few business leaders think that way or take that point of view.
And what does Jeff Bezos have to show for their patience and persistence? Simply one of the most dominant, enduring, and valuable enterprises that the Internet boom has yet produced.
To find a good business success story, you have to try many avenues … and experience some failures along the way. Bezos knows this lesson well, doesn’t he?
The bottom line
Yes, there are probably many, many current great authors and leaders with these attributes, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better innovation silent mentor than Jeff Bezos.
You can’t make anything or anyone grow; you can only provide the right conditions. Jeff Bezos as a mentor selection is very effective at providing components of the right conditions. Innovation and customer focus were two of his key interests.
So, who are your favorite silent mentors and what sets them apart for you? Any comments or questions to add below?
