If you wait to make a decision until you have all the information you’d like to know, there’s no decision left to make, right?
The exceptional leaders understand that there comes a moment when it’s better to commit to action and deal with the outcome, whatever that may be, compared to the harm that will be done by dodging, hesitating or waiting to have all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed.
There’s a saying in the army that goes, “Everything over 70% is overkill.”
It was popular with a four-star U.S. general named Colin Powell.
Analysis Paralysis affects everyone from CEOs juggling with million-dollar investments, to soldiers risking their lives on the battlefield, to you and I pondering on our career choices, to kids hesitating which toys to include in their Christmas letters.
In each case, the solution is the same.
Don't wait for all the data.
Commit to an imperfect decision before your time runs up and course-correct to maximize your chances of success.
Learn to recognize and correct bad moves.
Once you master the art of recalibrating, being wrong may be less costly than you think.
The 70% rule made its way to Amazon and Jeff Bezos himself wrote about it in one of his annual letters to shareholders.
How do you know how much is 70% of the needed information?
You don’t.
And there’s a lesson in there.
Jeff is typing now:
"Jeff, what does Day 2 look like?"
That's a question I just got at our most recent all-hands meeting.
I've been reminding people that it's Day 1 for a couple of decades.
I work in an Amazon building named Day 1, and when I moved buildings, I took the name with me.
I spend time thinking about this topic. "Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1.”
To be sure, this kind of decline would happen in extreme slow motion. An established company might harvest Day 2 for decades, but the final result would still come. I'm interested in the question, how do you fend off Day 2? What are the techniques and tactics? How do you keep the vitality of Day 1, even inside a large organization?
There are many ways to centre a business. You can be competitor focused, you can be product focused, you can be technology focused, you can be business model focused, and there are more. But in my view, obsessive customer focus is by far the most protective of Day 1 vitality.
Why? There are many advantages to a customer-centric approach, but here's the big one: customers are always beautifully, wonderfully dissatisfied, even when they report being happy and business is great.
Staying in Day 1 requires you to experiment patiently, accept failures, plant seeds, protect saplings, and double down when you see customer delight. A customer-obsessed culture best creates the conditions where all of that can happen.
A remarkable customer experience starts with heart, intuition, curiosity, play, guts, taste. You won't find any of it in a survey.
Day 2 companies make high-quality decisions, but they make high-quality decisions slowly. To keep the energy and dynamism of Day 1, you have to somehow make high-quality, high-velocity decisions. Speed matters in business - plus a high-velocity decision making environment is more fun too. We don't know all the answers, but here are some thoughts.
First, never use a one-size-fits-all decision-making process. Many decisions are reversible, two-way doors.
Second, most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you're probably being slow.
Third, use the phrase "disagree and commit." This phrase will save a lot of time. If you have conviction on a particular direction even though there's no consensus, it's helpful to say, "Look, I know we disagree on this but will you gamble with me on it? Disagree and commit?" By the time you're at this point, no one can know the answer for sure, and you'll probably get a quick yes.
Fourth, recognize true misalignment issues early and escalate them immediately. Sometimes teams have different objectives and fundamentally different views. They are not aligned. No amount of discussion, no number of meetings will resolve that deep misalignment. "You've worn me down" is an awful decision-making process. It's slow and de-energizing. Go for quick escalation instead - it's better. So, have you settled only for decision quality, or are you mindful of decision velocity too? Are the world's trends tailwinds for you? And most important of all, are you delighting customers?
We can have the scope and capabilities of a large company and the spirit and heart of a small one. But we have to choose it.
A huge thank you to each and every customer for allowing us to serve you, to our shareowners for your support, and to Amazonians everywhere for your hard work, your ingenuity, and your passion. As always, it remains Day 1.”
Sincerely, Jeff
Here’s the full letter.
It is packed with insights and its value goes beyond business.
Take 10 minutes, read it, share it with your team and explore how it is relevant to your business.
Day 1 is an incredible idea – it’s a way to stay relevant and on your toes.
Amazon keeps a "Day 1 mentality" even though the company is nearly 25 years old
What techniques and tactics do you use to fend off Day 2?
How do you keep the vitality of Day 1?
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