Working Backwards to move Forward
Great books don’t just teach us or inspire us, they also compel us to action. “Working Backwards” by Amazon veterans Bill Carr and Colin Bryar did just that for me, it inspired me and recently compelled me to act in a different manner than i would have other wise. But before we get into the act, let’s first explore what Bill and Colin taught me about Amazon.
Like the flywheel that Jeff Bezos, , doodled on the back of napkin (I know how cliché), the book revealed that the secret to Amazon’s long running success was not a single factor but many factors feeding on another to the point where the whole became greater than the sum of its parts.
…earns trust, which earns more business from those customers
One of the most important factors was Jeff Bezos long-held belief that in the long term, “the interests of the customers and shareholders align”1. This seemingly simple but incredibly important belief freed amazon to focus its efforts on delighting their customers which would in turn “earns trust, which earns more business from those customers…” and thus in turn would generate more shareholder value. You’d be surprise how many businesses don’t believe or haven’t drawn that straight line.
Another important factor and the book’s title was Amazon’s process of working backwards. That is prior to starting any initiative, they would iterate dozens of times and often more on their famous six-pager document. It isn’t until they are satisfied that every fact and word do indeed lead to the statements or conclusion presented that they green light the initiative. This not only filters what initiatives make it, but means consensus has been reached for those that do go forward. It’s often said that in their famous no-powerpoint meeting Jeff Bezos was often the last person to be done reading
The best way to fail at inventing something is by making it somebody’s part-time job
Lastly, a factor not unique to Amazon, but something that the book “Trillion Dollar Coach” also mentioned, was the belief that “The best way to fail at inventing something is by making it somebody’s part-time job”. So born out of that belief, and many iterations over failures, Amazon discovered the best predictor of a team’s success wasn’t whether the team on it was a two-pizza team, but rather the leader of that initiative, had the skills, authority and sole focus to manage the initiative and the team. That concept became known as the single-threaded leader. Borrowed from computer science, it describe a team leader being completely focused on a single goal or initiative. No context switching costs.
A belief that customer and shareholder values were one and the same, that solving a customer pain point by working backwards was best and that dedicating a focused leader to an initiative were key to its success are all ingredients that have allowed Amazon an amazingly long run of successes. These are all ingredients that shouldn’t be unique to Amazon and quite frankly require no special magic sauce or company culture to implement in your very own.
As mentioned in my opening paragraph, after reading this book it became apparent that a new initiative I was on wouldn’t be able to succeed without a single, dedicated and focused leader. And with that in mind, I gave up the leadership spot so one better equipped could take the lead. As Product leaders we are often asked about saying no, I wonder how many of us are willing to step back in matrix organization to enable the team to rally around a single.
Has a book or post inspired you to the point of action? If so, please add your experience in the comments below 👇
