What can we learn from the management style of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos?
Every businessman wants to know the “secret ingredient” to build and run a successful company. It does not happen overnight. It is a process of trial, error, and fast correction.
What can we study from companies and their management who continue to strengthen their growth while leading their team to prosperity and success?
In the complex business world, a leader’s success is measured by exceptional business results over time and his or her ability to influence the community.
Perhaps the definition has changed? One of the most significant types of success is raising independent business leaders within your company. These leaders are more than capable of standing on their own two feet, making decisions, leading your company, other organization, or their company.
This is one reason why we watched with boredom the U.S. congressional investigations of large corporations. The investigation is trying to show that the abuse of power techniques is what brought these leaders to their authoritative position. And this is not true.
To build a great company, you need a leader who builds a management system that is creative, innovative, and fast to decide.
What can we learn from them?
I am particularly intrigued by Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, who builds Amazon based on customer service. He proved that customers would respond positively and with their money if you give them what they want and continue to surprise them with what they do not know they want.
Steve Jobs, the man who change our everyday life with the smartphone, said, “Our job is to figure out what they’re going to want before they do.”
A great example of exceeding your customers’ expectations is by providing 1-day delivery, something Amazon continuously achieves. This type of customer service and continuous improvement makes Amazon purchasers continue to stay loyal to the brand.
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The high-tech company’s urban mythology tells the tale of how Bezos founded Amazon in his garage 25 years ago. Currently, Amazon employs more than 750,000 workers, and the incredible value on the stock exchange stands at over $1 trillion.
All these years, the company continues to grow and develop and does not stop for a moment. Amazon is perceived as innovative, flexible, competitive, and creative in its products, services, and organizational work. Managers who grew up working with Amazon grow as leaders and help lead the company to new heights. Some of these managers are creating their own startup companies and becoming founders and CEOs of their own.
It’s Jeff Bezos’s management style that leads him to success. This style is in the form of the company’s DNA:
1. Maintain a startup mentality: No matter how big or small the company is, encourage everyone to invent, innovate, and challenge the way things are done. There are no sacred cows. The goal is not to fall into complacency. The company’s employees’ official message is: “Treat every day of work as your first day in it.” Leaves your consciousness awake.
2. Embrace technology: Use technology for speed, efficiency, and customer/prospect ease of use and understand your clients. Do not look at the ‘many-people’ on the internet each minute; see ‘many-individual’ online each minute. Each visitor is an individual who expects top service.
From the Paperless Business Card to the online scheduler for meetings, Gobiggi uses this mantra often. The Paperless Business Card helps close the social distancing gap we experience these days.
Amazon’s technology requirements guide them to develop the world’s largest hosting systems, the AWS. Alexa and Amazon TV push them into the future. Bezos and his team evaluate and act on what perceive to moves the company to success.
3. Agility is the name of the game: Decisions do not come from emotional clinging or falling in love with an idea. All findings are fact-based. Basic bias is action bias. Acquiring technology or products, mainly if they help bring customers closer, is based on the market demand and should not be delayed.
4. Focused discussions: Amazon has found a way to focus each discussion on success. For example, most companies rely on PowerPoint to present topics to team leaders and clients. Instead of a presentation, a 6-page document is presented to the Amazon decision-making team. The meetings begin with a quiet 30 minutes, during which the participants read the document, and then they can discuss the issue at hand. This ensures that the discussion is focused, and all participants are ready to enter the dialogue in a way that will optimize and streamline the decision-making process.
5. Keep Moving: A moving body develops momentum and, despite setbacks and mistakes, stay on a forward move. Adapt fast to market conditions. Never stop thinking about what will give your customers and prospect the ability to contact you quickly.
Lights and Shadows
Many people have complained about the managerial style of Bezos. His morality is questionable. Some are claiming he is arrogant and rude. There are consistent rumors that Amazon is “grinding” employees. Anyone who treats each workday as their first day will probably work hard. Is it too hard? Expert in management said grinding employees to the point of “erosion” has been proven in the modern world as a disruptive factor. It undermines the employee’s connection to the organization, both in staying motivated and his ability to create.
Daily Mirror reporter, Alan Selby, went undercover to reveal Amazon’s Tilbury warehouse’s working conditions in Essex. Selby worked for five weeks while wearing a hidden camera. He uncovered an intense list of excessive demands and workers suffering mentally and physically from trying to meet the company’s demands.
With all due respect to Alan Selby and all other business managers who did not build a company to this size and magnitude, I say:
If you do not create a business with an army approach, you will not have a well-oiled machine.
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Another reservation about the company’s operation methods is regarding the bias of action and new ideas. These encourage competition over collaboration between people and organizational units that are supposed to produce a smooth, well-oiled machine in a complex organization – another problematic organizational culture issue.
Some also categorize that speed of decision-making impairs quality and even causes safety issues. Amazon executives who move to manage other companies acknowledge that their success, in large part, comes from their ability to take with them the good things from the Amazon’s culture and give up the less pleasant components that always exist in huge, successful companies.
Some also categorize that speed of decision-making impairs quality and even causes safety issues. Amazon executives who move to manage other companies acknowledge that their success, in large part, comes from their ability to take with them the good things from the Amazon’s culture and give up the less pleasant components that always exist in huge, successful companies.
So, What Can We Learn from All This?
It is best to learn and get inspiration from everyone. We can also learn from doubtful types, but it is essential to separate what is worth following.
Managerial leadership should suit the style, character, skills, and the mental stage that the company is in.
Be who you are and bring your unique fingerprint. Fakes and imitations are always worth much less.
