“Jeff Bezos does not like sitting still.”
So wrote the Economist a couple of days ago after Amazon said it would acquire Whole Foods for $13.7 billion.
The opposite of sitting still, of course, is motion. And for Jeff it’s not just about always moving, it’s moving faster than everyone else.
In his letter to Amazon stockholders a couple of months ago, he wrote what he considers the key ingredients for continued success of the business: Customer obsession. A skeptical view of proxies. The eager adoption of external trends. And high-velocity decision making.
High-velocity decision making. It was that bit that really got my attention. (Not that Mr. Bezos didn’t have it already.)
He goes on to write that otherwise, companies will encounter stasis, irrelevance, decline and eventually death. These slower organizations may make high-quality decisions, but they make these decisions slowly—too slowly to ensure their survival. Bezos even says quick decision making is so critical that they don’t always have to be sound. It’s okay to make wrong decisions—as long as you can quickly see the mistake and correct it.