Jeff Bezos' Innovation Formula
What
we can learn from the founder of Amazon.com and the owner of The Washington
Post.
In
August of this year, Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post for $250
million. In his first interview after the purchase, Bezos summed up his innovation process:
"In
my experience, the way invention, innovation and change happen is
[through] team effort. There's no lone genius who figures it all out and sends
down the magic formula. You study, you debate, you brainstorm and the answers start to emerge. It takes
time. Nothing happens quickly in this mode. You develop theories and
hypotheses, but you don't know if readers will respond. You do as many
experiments as rapidly as possible. 'Quickly' in my mind would be years."
Leaders
and entrepreneurs can learn the following from Bezos strategy:
1.
Teamwork
Leaders
should never hold out hope for a creative “lone genius” to come along and plop
a great idea into their laps.
Innovation
is a group process. That’s why it’s crucial for leaders to build coalitions
around their change agendas. The more people who are working together, the
better the result will me.
Takeaway: Stop waiting for Godot.
Build a coalition and start the discussion.
2.
Tinkering
Thomas
Edison famously said, “I failed my way to success.” So to do teams. Bezos makes
it very clear that he brainstorms, debates, and tinkers with ideas.
In
the same interview, Bezos says, “I’m a genetic optimist. I’ve been told, ‘Jeff,
you’re fooling yourself; the problem is unsolvable.’ But I don’t think so. It
just takes a lot of time, patience and experimentation.”
Bezos
works on big problems in a small, organized way. He welcomes debate and testing
because he knows creativity and innovation will be improved.
Takeaway: Kurt Vonnegut said it
best: “We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on
the way down.”
3.
Patience
For Bezos, innovation isn’t an overnight thing. It’s a long process that could
take years.
Leaders
shouldn’t try to force innovation or speed it along. It’s a slow, natural
process that needs time to grow, develop, and adapt.
Takeaway: Don’t force creativity.
Let it develop and bubble to the surface naturally. You can’t mandate
innovation.
In
the final analysis, pragmatic leadership is about implementing innovative ideas and sustaining team
momentum. Leaders and entrepreneurs should learn from Bezos’ pragmatic approach
to innovation. They shouldn’t worry about cultivating a “lone genius.” What
they should do is deliberately build a coalition. They shouldn’t spend their
time worrying about failure. They should embrace it. Lastly, they should accept
that innovation is a slow process.
Innovation
isn’t going to be delivered instantly by a Lone Ranger riding into the
boardroom. It’s going to be developed by a team over time.
SAMUEL BACHARACH is
a professor of labor management at Cornell and director of Cornell's Institute
for Workplace Studies.
http://www.inc.com/samuel-bacharach/jeff-bezos-innovation-formula.html?cid=em01020week42a&nav=su
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