Enkele interessante weetjes over Jeff Bezos
In de Fast Company stond een interessant artikel over Jeff Bezos, oprichter en nog steeds CEO van Amazon. Alhoewel geen brick meets byte, toch aardig om te kijken of je er wat van kan leren. Hij staat bekend om zijn liefde voor spreadsheets waarmee hij zijn business monitort. Maar hij kan ook puur op buikgevoel de grootste risico’s nemen:
Just how geeky is Bezos? The man talks in numbered lists. He likes to enumerate the criteria, in order of importance, for every= decision hè has made—even why hè married his wife. The number-one reason for that particular choice: He wanted someone who would be resourceful enough to get him out of a Third World prison (presumably without pointing a gun at a helicopter pilot). But lots of businesspeople are highly analytical, even if they reserve that knack fort heir PowerPoint presentations rather than their romantic life. What really distinguishes Bezos is his harrowing leaps of faith. His best decisions can’t be backed up by studies or spreadsheets. He makes nervy gambles on ideas that are just too big and too audacious and too long-term to try out reliably in smallscale tests before charging in. He has introduced innovations that have measurably hurt Amazon’s sales and profits, at least in the short run, but he’s always driven by the belief that what’s good for the customer will ultimately turn out to be in the company’s enlightened self-interest.
Hij houdt er heel specifieke ideeen op na hoe je een organisatie moet runnen:
Communication is terrible.
When Jeff Bezos’s people said they needed to communlcate more withln the company, he shocked them by shooting back: “No, communication is terrible.” Te promote his decentralized vision of the company, hè created “two-pizza teams”: highly autonomous task forces with five to seven people—no more than can be fed with two pizzas—who innovate and testnew features..Take leaps of faith.
Bezos takes risks on ideas—such as letting Web surfers search the f uil texts of hundreds of thousands of books—that are so bold and innovative that the only way to know whether they’ll work is to try them on a grand scale.Be simpleminded.
Bezos loves making decisions based on hard data, but when that’s not possible, hè believes in the power of being “simpleminded,” relying on common sense about what would be in the best interests of his customers.Add up lots of littleadvantages.
Bezos realizes that Amazon doesn’t have any single big advantage over potential competitors, so he’s constantly introducing small but innovative features that add up to a superlative experience for customers.
Kortom, een man met uitgesproken ideeen. Het voordeel is natuurlijk dat je als oprichter/eigenaar eigenwijs kunt zijn, en in veel mindere mate rekening hoeft te houden met de belangen van anderen in je organisatie. Iets wat bij de meeste niet-eigenaar gemanagede bedrijven wel het geval is.
bron: Fast Company augustus 2004
- 16 August 2004
- Reacties (0)
- Permalink
