1. Never Compromise on Sleep
Bezos is one of several names of successful people in the billionaire club who's managed to champion the restorative power of the eight-hour sleep, instead of overworking. The Amazon executive chairman, having stepped down from his previous role as CEO, goes to bed at 10 in the evening and wakes up around 6 in the morning without any alarms, giving himself 8 hours of sleep every single day. Bezos said that depriving yourself of sleep only creates an illusion of productivity, as you will be actually too tired to make good decisions if you don't have enough sleep. He further commented that his role doesn't require him to make 100 decisions per day, but to make at least three high quality decisions per day, and wants to be in his peak mental performance when doing those decisions.
2. Puttering in the Morning
Jeff Bezos, unlike other billionaires, spends his mornings reading the newspaper, having breakfast with his kids and family and just puttering about. The Washington Post owner sets his first meeting at 10 o'clock, which he calls his high IQ meeting. He says staying very relaxed in the morning, helps him make his high quality decisions at his 10 o'clock. He further commented that anything that is going to be mentally challenging will be dealt at that 10 o'clock meeting because at 5 pm, he will no longer be in his peak mental performance and any decision he makes by then won't probably be as high quality as the ones he makes before lunch.
3. The Two-Pizza Rule
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos uses the two-pizza rule for meetings. If two pizzas can't feed everyone in that meeting, that means you have too many people attending. Jeff Bezos believes that the more people are attending in meetings, the more chances of distraction is likely to happen. A smaller team spends lesser time dealing with timetables and keeping people up to date.
4. No Powerpoint Presentations
The Amazon founder usually starts his meetings in silence, with everyone reading six-page narrative memos about the topic they are gathered to discuss for up to 30 minutes. By starting the meeting with memos, it brings everyone up to speed, on the same page with the same information, saving time and making decisions faster and more effective. "The narrative structure of a good memo forces better thought and better understanding of what's more important than what, and how, things are related," Bezos wrote. He made sure people realised that it was about the way of passing the information, and not about the application, further explaining, "If someone builds a list of bullet points in Word, that would be just as bad as PowerPoint."
5. Two-Way Door Decisions
The E-commerce billionaire preaches "Two-Way Door" decisions within Amazon. Bezos said that most people think that decisions are always final and permanent, when actually, they are very reversible two-way doors. He said that it is much better to have a high velocity of decision-making and fail faster, rather than playing safe all the time and move slower. He further mentioned that important decisions should always be made by high judgement individuals or small groups.
6. The 70% Rule
The Blue Origin founder believes that all companies should act around 70 percent of the information they have, and that always waiting for 90 percent means that they're probably being slow. Bezos thinks that you will never have all the information you want, and waiting for that 30% could take three times as long as that 70% you already have. He said that by moving forward at 70%, you're making customers part of the innovation team. Customers will cover the remaining 30% most of the time, by letting Amazon know what's lacking and what needs adding.
7. Thinking Three Years Ahead
During Bezos' quarterly conference call with Wall Street, people will always stop him and say, ‘Congratulations on your quarter,’ to which he always replies, ‘Thank you,’ but what I’m really thinking is that quarter was baked three years ago,”. He has revealed to media that on a daily basis, he is always working on a quarter that will reveal itself three years from now. Bezos lives by the rule of 3, making 3 high quality decisions per day, thinking 3 steps ahead and always living 3 years into the future. The Amazon executive chairman often mentions and emulates fellow-billionaire Warren Buffet's decision making philosophy, which is doing three high quality decisions per year.
8. Mono-Tasking instead of Multi-Tasking
Bezos prefers to dedicate himself to one task and minimising potential interruptions until that task is completed, or at least a significant period of time has elapsed. The Amazon chairman said that if he is reading his emails, he wants to be reading his emails only. He said this is a trait he learned in school explaining that as a child, he didn't want to move to a next project until the current one is finished. He further mentioned that he approaches everything with a child-like curiosity, explaining that becoming a domain-expert in something can be more beneficial when it comes to creativity and ideation.
9. Disagree and Commit
Jeff Bezos uses the "Disagree and Commit" rule amongst Amazon employees to stop wasting time. If one has a conviction on a particular direction, even though there was no consensus, any company is obliged to take action to move forward. Even as a boss, he disagrees and commits to his employees on a daily basis. He said that every day at Amazon is always "Day 1" and that it will never stop being a start-up. He further commented, "To invent, you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it's going to work, it's not an experiment".
10. Hire Smart Employees
Jeff Bezos prefers to hire smart people who are always willing to change their minds all the time. The Amazon founder is not convinced that consistency of thought is always a positive trait. He believes that no one really knows the answer to everything and it is much better to have employees who are constantly finding out new things and confident to reverse any decisions or stand points that they have. Bezos said a healthy company is made up of smart people who are willing to admit mistakes and change direction as soon as they discover those mistakes.
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