Strategic Thinking and Writing by Michael Edmondson

Author:Michael Edmondson
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Business Expert Press
Published: 2019-12-22T16:00:00+00:00

Jeff Bezos’ 2018 Letter to Shareholders

In his 2018 Letter to Shareholders—the twentieth year in a row he had published such a letter—Bezos highlighted the following four dynamics that provide insight into Amazon’s culture in general and the rationale behind the six-page memo specifically. After congratulating the company for reaching first place in the American Customer Satisfaction Index and the top prize in the United Kingdom. Customer Satisfaction Index, Bezos went on to discuss specific elements of Amazon’s culture.5

1. Have a Bias Toward Action: “One thing I love about customers is that they are divinely discontent. Their expectations are never static—they go up. It’s human nature. We didn’t ascend from our hunter-gatherer days by being satisfied. People have a voracious appetite for a better way, and yesterday’s ‘wow’ quickly becomes today’s ‘ordinary.’ Have a bias towards action so that you continually strive to create something new. You cannot rest on your laurels in this world. Customers won’t have it.”6

2. Set High Standards: Bezos stressed that having high standards widely deployed across all departments, levels, and functional areas remains critical to Amazon’s past, current, and future success.

3. Remain Humble: Bezos understood that it is possible to be a person with high standards in general and still have debilitating blind spots. Understanding this point is important because it keeps you humble. There can be whole arenas of endeavor where you may not even know that your standards are low or nonexistent, and certainly not world class. It’s critical to be open to that likelihood and recognize the level of work required.

4. Work Hard at Hard Work: To achieve high standards it is imperative to know how much work is involved. How much will it cost? What are the internal and external resources required to achieve the high levels? How many people are required to work on the project and for how long?

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