Amazon is a famous large company. Amazon employees have to make countless decisions on a deadline. Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, has outlined some ways they make these decisions. They have to know what kind of decision is being made, because not all decisions are the same. You won’t have all of the information necessary to make the best decision, so you should have roughly 70% of the information. Disagreement is inevitable, but sometimes you will just have to commit. You need to sort out disagreements quickly, so escalate them in order to finish the discussion.
Key Takeaways:
- Healthy disagreement is essential for excavating and evaluating a full range of ideas, but infighting can also slow down implementation of whatever is decided.
- Not all decisions are created equal. Some require deep thought. Other, less weighty choices just demand speed and basic competence.
- The brilliance, philosophy, and quirks of founder and CEO Jeff Bezos are deeply baked into Amazon, which is what makes his pronouncements about his approach to business so fascinating.
“Bezos’s annual letter to shareholders is the latest peek inside his brain (and his company), covering all the ways Bezos is battling mightily to keep Amazon as quick, hungry, and innovative as a startup despite its now behemoth size.”
