Day 1 : mentality
The outside world can push you into Day 2 if you won’t or can’t embrace powerful trends quickly. If you fight them, you’re probably fighting the future. Embrace them and you have a tailwind - Jeff
It’s always Day 1
In the early days of Amazon, Jeff Bezos became famous for the philosophy he described to shareholders. He called it ‘Day one’. The idea took hold that if the people in an organisation acted like it was day 1 in the job, they were more likely to stay truly focussed on customers, and driven by results, not process.
Here are some of the key points of the day 1 manifesto, taken from his letter to shareholders:
Day 1 Keys :
In a 2016 letter to shareholders, Bezos outlined the following four keys to maintaining the Day 1 mentality.
1. True Customer Obsession
“Even when they don’t yet know it, customers want something better, and your desire to delight customers will drive you to invent on their behalf.”
Here we learn that it’s just not enough to supply a product that the customer needs. To be truly relevant to the consumer, you must provide an experience and a product before they even know they want it! You must research, observe and obsess over the clients.
2. Resist Proxies
“As companies get larger and more complex, there’s a tendency to manage to proxies. This comes in many shapes and sizes, and it’s dangerous, subtle, and very Day 2.”
No amount of calculations can guarantee repeated results in business. If you focus on the process, you are likely to lose sight of the outcome.
3. Embrace External Trends
“Big trends are not that hard to spot (they get talked and written about a lot), but they can be strangely hard for large organisations to embrace.”
This ties right into the idea of avoiding proxies or algorithms. Allow your management teams freedom to embrace trends – even further, require them to embrace trends!
4. High-Velocity Decision Making
“Day 2 companies make high-quality decisions, but they make high-quality decisions slowly. To keep the energy and dynamism of Day 1, you have to somehow make high-quality, high-velocity decisions.”
Can you see the theme here? Don’t let your business get bogged down by procedures at the cost of missing opportunities.
The Day 1 mentality has had a major impact on Amazon’s success and proves itself as an excellent business practice for all who can commit and stick to it.
Why it is always Day 1
“Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1.” - Jeff Bezos
Thank you for reading, HeyPM Team.
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