Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is considered one of the most talented entrepreneurs who founded Amazon and has grown into a global company. Buster Benson, who has worked at Amazon for nine years and now works as a writer and entrepreneur, says Bezos’s ability to make quick, smart decisions is the key to success.
To be successful at work or in life, sometimes even in difficult situations, you need determination to decide the path you choose. However, this skill is not easy to learn. Point out that in scenes where you have to make important decisions, you often don’t have enough time and information to spend your thoughts, so sometimes you have to make decisions based on your own information or prejudices.
Of course, there is not enough information and time, and decisions made based on bias are often misleading. But Bezos is eager to save time and information about decision making, and rather recommends making prejudiced decisions.
One of the principles of leadership that is also listed on Amazon’s website is called Bias for Action. It argues that speed is important to the business, and notes that it does not require detailed study of many decisions, and that failure can be retried later. In other words, Bezos believes that making quick decisions based on bias is important to the growth of a company, taking into account the risk of failure.
Another thing widely known as Bezos’ idea is a company called Day 1 companies. Bezos is strongly obsessed with the concept of the first day of business, including the end of the email sent to shareholders every year, saying that today is still the first day of business, and the name of the headquarters building as Day 1.
In an annual letter to shareholders in 2016, Bezos said that the second day of the founding business was suspended, and that there was a continuing decline in pain and pain that was difficult to bear. You can see how much he hates the stagnation that lost his sense of speed when he started his business. This idea is the key to Bezos’ success, and analysts say it will make Amazon’s growth unstoppable.
Bezos thinks that there is a problem with slow decision-making, even though he was able to make high-quality decisions while enjoying the sense of speed the company has on the first day of its founding. Here are four rules Bezos has laid out for fast, brilliant decisions.
First, don’t make a rigorous decision-making process that seems to work out in any case. It’s easy to think that many will never be wrong in the decision-making process. But Bezos thinks a lot of decisions will eventually be made again. So don’t make the decision-making process too cumbersome and say that speed is important.
Second, most decisions should be made when 70% of the desired information is obtained. Many people ask you to thoroughly gather information before deciding something. However, if 90% of all information is obtained, it takes a lot of time. Therefore, Bezos argues that if only 70% of the desired information is gathered, a decision must be made. The reason is that the downside is greater if the decision is too late to make the wrong choice and retry.
The third is to persuade them with words that they do not agree. If you don’t get the other person’s consent, but you’re confident in your decision, you know you don’t agree, but the persuasion for a chance is still valid. Few people can be confident before taking action. So, if you’re trying to convince someone who doesn’t agree with your decision, this can be useful.
The last thing is to quickly recognize the difference in perception and expand immediately. If there is no agreement between multiple teams, it may be because there are fundamental differences in their goals or perceptions. As it is difficult to resolve such gaps through interviews, it is important to recognize the gaps before implementation and make decisions to aim for business expansion.
There is no time to think about all the information and convince everyone involved in every decision. Benson recommends using Bezos’ rules to save time. If you’re hiring tens of thousands of employees as the CEO of a large company, that means tens of thousands of people can act quickly a day if a decision is made one day ahead. So it has enough charm to save you time.
The importance of speeding up decisions isn’t limited to Amazon. Facebook’s motto is Move fast and break things. There are things like Fake it till you make it or Fail fast in Silicon Valley’s famous sayings.
These words are meant to reinforce the prejudice of all decisions. In the business world, it’s often better to make decisions quickly, even if it leaves uncertainty, rather than being late. So, Benson argues, that success like Bezos acknowledges the need to make decisions and act even in uncertain situations. Related information can be found here .