John Rossman was an executive at Amazon.com where he launched the Marketplace business and third-party selling platform and ran the merchant services. He’s an expert at digital and ecommerce business models and operations, and has led engagements on ecommerce, Internet of Things strategies, and API driven platform business models. He is the author of three books. In this episode, John shares his ideas on becoming a digital leader.
Key Takeaways
[4:05] A lot of organizations are hyper-focused on profitability and growth, but they’re not investing enough in new ideas, new people, and new capabilities.
[7:20] It’s everybody’s job in an organization to understand how the business operates, not just the chief executive.
[11:40] Amazon got a lot of things right, but they also got a lot of things wrong. In business, you tend to remember the successes rather than the failures.
[12:10] John shares an example of what Amazon didn’t get right.
[17:00] Jim has found that it’s very hard to find people who are good writers and can write paragraphs with fully fleshed-out ideas. Jeff Bezos also found the same issue.
[19:10] Writing is hard. It takes practice to do it correctly, and it takes patience.
[20:00] John defines what culture is and how to best manage the complex decision-making process in a remote setting.
[21:55] When it comes to having fun at work, happy hours don’t really work in a digital setting.
[23:10] Amazon is one of the companies that’s committed to going back to the office because they want in-person collaboration.
[25:10] Good culture attracts the right talent and deliberately repels the wrong talent.
[28:35] There’s a lot of talent out there that does not want to go back to a physical office. John shares his thoughts on how organizations will be managing this divide.
[35:10] John shares how Amazon didn’t just create a culture, they created a super-culture.
[41:05] Listener challenge: We want successful teams. In order to achieve that, we have to do something different. Instead of optimizing for this quarter’s results. Invest in the future.
Quotable Quotes
Truly digital organizations are curious. Share on X “One or two really big successes pays for hundreds of failures.” Share on X “Writing things out really helps people work remotely to do things more asynchronously” Share on X “You really have to think about culture serving a purpose that’s inherent to the function of the work that has to be done.” Share on XResources Mentioned
- Sponsored by: Pass-life.com. Coupon Code: Duty.
- Websites: The-amazon-way.com & John on LinkedIn
These are the books mentioned in John’s podcast
Think Like Amazon: 50 1/2 Ideas to Become a Digital Leader
“What would Jeff do?” Since leaving Amazon to advise start-ups and corporations, John Rossman has been asked this question countless times by executives who want to know “the secret” behind Amazon’s historic success. In this step-by-step guide, he provides 50 ½ answers drawn from his experience as an Amazon executive―and shows today’s business leaders how to think like Amazon, strategize like Bezos, and beat the competition like nobody’s business.
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The Amazon Way: 14 Leadership Principles Behind the World’s Most Disruptive Company
What is at the heart of Amazon.com’s rise to success? Is it the tens of millions of items in stock, the company’s technological prowess, or the many customer service innovations like “one-click”?
Peppered with humorous and enlightening firsthand anecdotes from the author’s career at Amazon, this revealing business guide is also filled with the valuable lessons that have served Jeff Bezos’s “everything store” so well—providing expert advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, CEOs, and investors alike.
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The Amazon Way on IoT: 10 Principles for Every Leader from the World’s Leading Internet of Things Strategies.
The Amazon Way on IoT is for business people who want to learn cases, key concepts, technologies and tools to help develop, explain and execute their own IoT approach. As a leader at Amazon who held a front-row seat during its formative years, Rossman understands the iconic company better than most. From the launch of Amazon’s third-party seller program to its foray into enterprise services, he witnessed it all – the amazing successes, the little-known failures, and the experiments with outcomes still to be determined.
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