亚马逊平淡无奇的成功秘诀
Walking around downtown Seattle, it’s impossible to avoid the whiff of Amazon that permeates the city. For a newcomer, it’s hard to tell where Seattle ends and Amazon begins, as the skyscrapers of the corporate campus blend so seamlessly into the city centre. Hundreds of US cities fell over themselves last year to compete for Amazon’s second headquarters. (A list of frontrunners was recently narrowed to 20 candidates.) But on a recent trip to Seattle, standing on a rainy sidewalk next to a dull Amazon skyscraper after an interview, I wondered if there was anything very different about this hugely successful company — or if it just happened to be in the right place at the right time, cashing in on the rise of online retail, much as Google did for online search. Some companies are lucky, others work hard, very few run on genius. Which was it? To answer this question, I looked up Amazon’s corporate value statement when I got back to San Francisco. Along with Jeff Bezos’s annual letter to shareholders, the values are a mainstay of Amazonian culture. But a lot of these 14 “leadership principles” are just as dreary as you’d expect. One advises leaders to “be right, a lot” — as if anyone ever sets out to be wrong. Another says that talent is important, so hire the best — hardly rocket science. More banalities follow, including “deliver results” and “think big”. If you’re not sure how to do that, try “looking around corners for ways to serve customers”, which sounds more useful for running a restaurant than a business. Furthermore, all this advice is aimed only at leaders, missing the point that not everyone can be a leader all the time. However, I did find three messages that seemed vaguely useful. The first is, get over yourself. Amazon doesn’t say that in so many words, but it uses a vivid analogy: “Leaders do not believe their or their team’s body odour smells of perfume.” That’s something the tech wunderkinds in Silicon Valley could afford to hear more often. The second useful message is that frugality is good. “Constraints breed resourcefulness,” the document says. I can attest to the truth of this: during my very first meeting with Amazon in one of its San Francisco offices, I was ushered into a spartan meeting room and not even offered a glass of water. Having cycled there, I was somewhat thirsty, but this only prompted me to wrap up the meeting more quickly, saving everyone time. Quite a contrast to most San Francisco tech companies, where meetings usually begin with a perusal of the gourmet beverages on offer in the kitchen, and a lack of cold-brewed coffee or kombucha is seen as an embarrassing omission. The third interesting principle is, have some backbone. “Do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion,” the document reads. Employees should “respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting”. If you are a contrarian — a type that is ostracised in the can-do Bay Area — this could be the place for you. Ironically, the principles that seem the most practical don’t make Amazon sound like a very fun place to work, what with all that confrontation and frugality. Reports of the long hours and tough culture at its offices were published in a New York Times article in 2015, prompting concern and chagrin at the highest levels of the company. Some perks were improved or added, such as more dog-friendly offices and snack bars, and a fancy greenhouse in which workers can hold meetings. I know a few people who do enjoy working at Amazon — high-achieving, hard-driving types who appreciate the company’s peculiar ways. But the culture is certainly not for everyone. Amazon seems to have anticipated this, with a principle that is perhaps the most insightful of all. “As we do new things, we accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time.” It’s still not quite genius, but something that we could all do with a bit more of — self-awareness. |