JEFF BEZOS — Most recent article in Forbes & how to apply it to Real Estate
Jeff Bezos interview published in Forbes today: think a number of these quotes are interesting and can be used when thinking about growth, leadership, and how those two intersect in Real Estate.
When talking about running two HQ’s: “what you want is those two groups to have infrequent meetings and set a roadmap of the future.” Bezos added, “if you organize correctly, people do not have to be in the same building or the same city or even the same time zone, because you can work off a roadmap.” ***The more we think about expansion, creating multiple RE teams, in different locations, seems very doable. Your first team is your prototype and your send team gives you a true A/B test to track against. The roadmap developed and communicated by the leader is so critical.***
In regards to being involved in the day to day business versus where the business will be 2–3 years into the future: ““I very rarely get pulled into the today,” he said. “I get to work two or three years into the future, and most of my leadership team has the same setup.” Bezos went on to say that when friends congratulate him on a strong quarter, he tells them that success was planned years in the past. “I’m working on a quarter that’ll happen in 2021 right now.” ***Think about your own business, are you involved in the day to day operations, the monthly #’s, or are you setting yourself up to be ahead of the disruption that is inevitable in RE?”***
Bezos lieutenant speaking about failure and having a ‘yes culture’, highlighting why nimble startups often destroy hidebound dinosaur organizations that have a bottleneck or ‘no culture’: “He knows and we know that you can’t invent or experiment without some failure,” says Jeff Wilke, who runs Amazon’s consumer and retail operations. “Those we sort of celebrate. In fact, we want them to occur all over the place. Jeff doesn’t need to review those. I don’t need to review those.” ***Bottlenecks or having a finite amount of decision makers kill morale and speed. Building a team is all about developing your bench so you can scale and focus on where the business needs to go.***
Talking about consumer obsession, trust, and loyalty. “It’s very valuable, and so you would never do anything to jeopardize it,” he says. “It’s what allows you to expand the business.”***Amazon’s emphasis on the consumer is second to no one, thinking about this in regards to your local market can be the differentiator.***
Innovation, brainstorming, and whiteboarding: “I come up with ideas. We could sit here with an idea, and I could fill this whiteboard in an hour with 100 ideas,” Bezos says. “If I have a week with no brainstorming meetings, I complain to my office, like ‘Come on, guys, help me here.”***Whiteboarding, so important.***
