Bezos is obsessed with long-term goals

Absrtact: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (Jeff Bezos) Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (Jeff Bezos) is an outstanding business leader and innovator who attaches great importance to the long-term development of the enterprise. Many of Bezos's management philosophies are worthy of our reference. For example, he made the converse

Amazon CEO Bezos (Jeff Bezos)

Amazon CEO Bezos (Jeff Bezos) is an outstanding business leader and innovator, focusing on the long-term development of the enterprise. Many of Bezos's management philosophies are worthy of our reference. For example, his "reverse-work" approach requires that everything be based on the needs of the customer, rather than on the basis of existing technology and capabilities to determine the next move. Guided by these management philosophies, Amazon eventually became the world's largest online retailer of $100 billion trillion in market capitalisation.

If you want to get a glimpse of Amazon CEO Bezos Jeff Bezos's obsession with long-term goals, you can see it in the projects he spends in his spare time. For example, his mysterious airline, the "Blue Origin" and the "perpetual clock" built in the distant mountains of Texas, he himself took out 42 million of dollars and hired people to burrow on the mountainside to put a giant clock that would show the next 10,000 years.

Why is he obsessed with things after 10,000 years? We may be able to find answers to a letter from Bezos to shareholders on Amazon's 1997 listing-a manifesto that sets out the benefits and methods of long-term goals. The main content of this letter is: if we as individuals or enterprises can not make long-term planning, then we can not achieve our potential.

In every subsequent year, Bezos will attach this letter to all his shareholders ' letters reminding them of the importance of foresight, and every year he proves he is right.

Amazon was created in a garage where employees initially had only a few people, but now it has radically changed the way we buy everything from books to toys to clothing. Amazon is now one of the top hundred companies in the US, and its success owes much to a long planned product like Amazon's Kindle.

Bezos said in an interview with Wired magazine in 2011: "If everything you do revolves around a three-year plan, you have too many competitors, but if you're willing to invest in a seven-year plan, your competitors will be a lot less-because few companies are willing to do it. ”

In a tribute to Bezos's obsession with long-term planning, we sorted out the contents of Bezos's interview and combed out his large daily habits in the hope that everyone could have a long-term vision like Bezos, regardless of a momentary gain or loss.

The following are six management philosophies that Bezos is adept at:

1. Collective reading, write down new ideas

At Amazon, executives ' meetings didn't start with conference calls or PowerPoint presentations, but read and read a lot. According to Fortune magazine, Bezos says collective reading helps keep the team's attention from being distracted. For executives, the key is the ability to write memos. "It's more difficult to write complete sentences," he said. They have verbs. The paragraph has a subject sentence. Without a clear idea, you can't write a six-page, narrative-structured memo. ”

As the entrepreneur, writer Ben Casnocha (Ben casnocha) says, when you're talking, it's easy for the audience to fill in the gaps in your ideas and make it easy to cover up the details. By asking team members to write down everything, Bezos allows them to fully consider every detail of an idea, making it more resilient in the years ahead.

2. Let team members become business owners

Amazon is more of a "lean" model than other Silicon Valley workers with high salaries and benefits. Instead of offering free lunches to employees, it would put a low salary and even rumors that Amazon used the door panels as desks rather than modern, expensive office tools. But that doesn't mean Amazon's employees are not paying handsomely.

Amazon prefers to use options rather than cash to motivate employees. In a 1997 letter to shareholders, Bezos said: "We know very well that Amazon's success depends largely on our ability to attract and retain employees, and that every employee wants to be a master, so they should be masters." ”

If two pizzas don't feed a team, it means it's too big.

3. Follow the "two pizza principles"

Bezos insists on avoiding complacency at all costs. The Wall Street Journal once reported that a former Amazon executive recalls that at one event several managers suggested that staff should be more communicative, but Bezos stood up and said, "No, communication is terrible!"

On the contrary, Bezos argues that companies should be decentralized, even into a state of anarchy, and that only in this atmosphere can independent thinking prevail in the contest against collective opinion. He believes that to make the team as small as possible, while moderately restricting the exchange between employees. Bezos says he praises the "two-pizza principle": If two pizzas don't feed a team, it's too big.

4. Devote time to thinking about the future

Wired magazine revealed in an interview with Bezos in 1999 that he set aside two days a week to imagine life and find new ideas. Sometimes he just surfed the internet, or he was immersed in his own world.

5. Routine "check-in" for long-term goals

In a 1999 report, Wired magazine also said that Bezos would meet with aides each quarter to assess the progress of the latter in the 12 preselection plans. Bezos's main hope is to test his achievements in the past three months and make sure he doesn't waste his time every day. This sign-in approach helps ensure that he always adheres to long-term goals while not distracted by new, fleeting ideas.

6. Reverse working method

In the nearly 20 years since its inception, the Amazon, which started from online sales of books, has continued to march into new fields such as music, cloud storage, content production and so on, and these attempts seem arbitrary, but in fact all have a common goal, that is all from the customer's needs. This "reverse work" (Work backwards) model differs from the "skill-oriented approach" (Skills-forward), in which individuals or businesses often decide what to do next, based on existing technologies and capabilities.

In a letter to shareholders in 2008, Bezos wrote: "In the end, existing skills will be obsolete." ' Reverse work ' requires us to explore new skills and hone them, never mind the discomfort and embarrassment of taking the first step. ”

Bezos also applies this logic to his personal life, and whenever he has to make a big decision, he often thinks about it in this way, assuming he is 80 years old, what kind of attitude to this choice.

Bezos told Wired magazine that when he was considering whether to resign from the Amazon, his fear of missing internet opportunities finally prompted him to make a choice: "Will I regret leaving Wall Street?" Am I going to regret it for not seizing the great opportunity that the Internet is booming? ”