July 5, 2022 • 33 mins
In episode 119, host Eric Dickmann talks with John Rossman - Founder and Managing Partner of Rossman Partners, a digital transformation marketing agency. Previously, John served as an executive at Amazon.com where he played a key role in launching the Amazon Marketplace business as the Director of Merchant Integration and went on to have responsibilities for the enterprise business. He leverages Amazon's leadership principles to help others innovate, compete and win in the digital era.
John is also the author of "The Amazon Way: Amazon's 14 Leadership Principles" and writes a weekly newsletter titled "The Digital Leader Newsletter" on Substack.
For more information and access to the resources mentioned in this episode, visit: https://fiveechelon.com/leadership-principles-amazaon-s8e4/
A fractional CMO can help build out a comprehensive marketing strategy and execute targeted campaigns designed to increase awareness and generate demand for your business...without the expense of a full-time hire.
The Five Echelon Group - Fractional CMO and strategic marketing advisory services designed for SMBs looking to grow. Learn more at:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Eric Dickmann (00:01):
Welcome to The Virtual CMO podcast.
I'm your host, Eric Dickmann.
In this podcast, we haveconversations with marketing
professionals who share thestrategies, tactics, and mindset
you can use to improve theeffectiveness of your marketing
activities and grow yourbusiness.
Today, I'm excited to have guestJohn Rossman on the program.
(00:22):
John is the Managing Partner atRossman Partners, a consulting
agency dedicated to helpingleaders innovate, compete, and
win in the digital era.
He is also the author of TheAmazon Way: Amazon's 14
Leadership Principles, a bookwhere he shares his leadership
insights from his tenure atAmazon helping launch Amazon's
third party marketplace.
(00:43):
John, welcome to the show.
John Rossman (00:45):
Eric, great to be here.
Thanks for having me.
Eric Dickmann (00:47):
I'm excited to have you on the program.
This is podcast really dedicatedto marketing.
And I will say that as we talkabout marketing, two companies
always rise to the top asexamples, Apple, certainly from
a marketing standpoint, some ofwhat they do and Amazon from a
customer experience perspective.
So I'm gonna enjoy today'sdiscussion, we're gonna get your
(01:08):
insight on all of this, but tokick things off, I'd love it if
you could share with theaudience a little bit about your
background.
How did you get to Amazon andthen from there to starting your
own firm
John Rossman (01:17):
So I was a partner at Arthur Anderson in the
consulting business.
I then went to a startuptechnology company, wound that
down in 2001, one of my formerArthur Anderson colleagues was a
Finance Director at Amazon.
And he was like, you know, youshould come over and talk to us,
we've got a strategy we'rethinking about.
(01:39):
And so over the next threemonths, think I had 21
interviews.
And really it was a consultingproject to some degree, right?
Like they were getting to knowme, I was getting to know them
and like where this strategy wasat.
And so I joined in March of 2002and we launched the marketplace
(02:01):
business then late that fall.
So I was at Amazon for aboutfour years, launched the
marketplace business.
I also ran enterprise servicesat Amazon, so I had
responsibility for target.com,ToysrUs, Marks Spencer in the
UK, Sears Canada, a bunch ofother great brands.
And I left Amazon in late 2005.
I was a partner at another firmand I started working with my
(02:25):
clients on digital strategyoperations, you know, clear
thinking work.
And one of my clients was thegates foundation, and I wrote
this one piece called- Futureready self-service and it was
all about the power of makingcapability self-service both
(02:46):
internally and externally, andlike what it has so many healthy
benefits to it.
It forces you to build bettersimpler capabilities and
products.
And one of my clients at theGates foundation pulled me into
his office and this is like sixyears after I left Amazon.
And he is like, you know, you,you wrote a really good paper,
then he gave me like the 10things I should have done better
on it and everything.
(03:06):
He was an editor by background,it was pretty funny.
And he goes- You know, I've seenhow you take all the little
strategies, the nuggets, theinsights from Amazon, and you
delicately put'em into our work.
You don't hit us over the headwith them.
You, you kinda, you're workingus to think a little harder.
And he goes, I think you oughtwrite a book about Amazon
(03:28):
because it's such a fascinatingcompany.
So the smartest thing I did wastalk him into being my partner
on these books, we still worktogether today.
And we just rereleased the thirdedition of the Amazon Way, which
is about the leadershipprinciple.
So it's a pretty short, easyread.
My whole design principle wassomebody could read it on one
(03:50):
plane ride with a glass of wine,you know, and everything, right.
It's no academic book, but it'skind of my story at Amazon.
And some of the things you cantake from Amazon, I then wrote a
bigger book called Think likeAmazon, 50 and a halfway to be
digitally.
That's like the full playbook ofevery little mechanism.
The two books kind of gotogether, and that's really been
(04:13):
my mission ever since then isyou know, I always say like this
isn't about Amazon, it's aboutyou, how you're gonna compete,
how you're gonna win in thedigital era.
And I borrow from a lot ofplaces, including Amazon of
which I have some, you know,authority to, because I got to
participate there so much.
And that's kind of what I do andmy story a little bit.
Eric Dickmann (04:35):
I think that's great.
And I appreciate you sharingthat about your background and
also, you know, thank you forsending me the book.
I enjoyed it as well, and Iwould agree, it's a read that
you can digest pretty quickly,but there's a lot of real
nuggets of wisdom in here.
You know, I think for a lot ofbusinesses, they look at a
company like Amazon, sosuccessful, right?
It's part of just abouteverybody's daily life it seems.
(04:55):
And yet sometimes they'rewondering, well, how can I apply
some of the things that made abusiness like that successful?
And I'm just a small business,but I thought that the 14
principles that you outlined inthe book gave some real relevant
kind of ideas for businesses tothink about.
John Rossman (05:11):
Amazon.
Wasn't always this big, When Istarted at Amazon in 2002
holiday of that year, we had ourfirst billion dollar quarter.
Right?
So while that's still a bigcompany like that, you know, to
this year, they'll do 480billion.
You know what I mean?
But they operated with the sameprinciples, the same approaches
then, and we weren't successful,right?
(05:32):
We were being referred to asamazon.com, amazon.toast,
amazon.org, because obviously wecan't make money.
You know we were small, we hadto be extremely frugal, and use
that as a constraint toinnovate, not as a constraint to
(05:53):
complain or limit our vision.
And I just wrote about kind ofconstraints, and in this
environment, in my newslettertoday and everything, and it's
like, It's a tremendousopportunity and everything, and
you can get so much more donebecause, you know, people have
just a, a better sense ofurgency and they're much less
prone to you know, analysisparalysis and more of just like,
(06:16):
okay, we think this is due, doit, you know and everything,
right?
And so just don't think ofAmazon as the Goliath we know
today, whether it was a team ofa 100, 1,000, 10,000, a 100,000,
they, still fought about thesituation and they held each
other accountable with the sameapproaches.
And that's why, whether theseprinciples are the ones you use
(06:40):
or not thinking through.
How do we make decisions?
How do we hold each otheraccountable?
How do we prioritize thecustomer?
These sorts of things help youthink better, even on an
individual basis.
Eric Dickmann (06:54):
Any business that you're talking about big or
small, you know, Apple almostwent bankrupt.
Amazon started out as abookstore, right?
They all had a genesis somewhereand they all grew to what they
are today by trial and error andimplementing good principles.
And that's what I loved about alot of what you talk about in
the book, these are practicalthings that any business can
really implement.
And the first one I wanted todive into a little bit is this
(07:14):
idea of customer obsession,because certainly from a
marketing standpoint, you know,people look at marketing and
say, oh, all these guys aretrying to do is sell me
something.
But I think really goodmarketers are framing it into
customer value, right?
What can we really do to solvecustomer problems?
So when you think back toAmazon, and this principle,
what's your thought on customerobsession?
John Rossman (07:37):
Well, I actually listened to your prior podcast.
I forgot the gentleman's name,but you were talking about
customer obsession andeverything.
And I thought that was a reallygood conversation.
In general, I think there's twotypes of customer obsession.
So first I'll, I'll read theprinciple and it says, leaders
start with the customer workbackwards, they work vigorously
to earn and keep customer trust.
(07:59):
Although leaders pay attentionto competitors, they obsess over
customers.
And you know, the mostinteresting word in that
principle is the word obsession,right?
Like we could have chosen a morecomfortable word, like we're
focused on our customers, or wecare about our customers and
everything, but we chose theword obsession for really
specific purposes.
Because it meant we were willingto do really hard thing for the
(08:24):
customer.
So I think there's really twotypes of customer obsession, and
I'll refer to one as tacticaland the other as strategic.
The tactical customer obsessionis about getting today's
customer today's, you know,we'll call it, delivery, the
promise you're making to yourcustomer as perfect as possible,
(08:46):
right?
Exceed this customer'sexpectations.
And so that drives all of yourkinda operational excellence,
the value proposition you maketo your customer and measuring
every aspect of that customerexperience for today.
The other type of customerobsession, strategic.
Well, that is really what helpsyou look up and down the
(09:10):
customer value stream, find newways of understanding your
customer, having more empathyfor them beyond just your
product and your service andalways asking the question like,
well, how can I serve thiscustomer bigger and broader than
I just served them today?
And that lens of customerobsession is really been, what's
(09:32):
taken Amazon from being thisbook's music, video retailer to
the conglomerate business thatthey are today because they were
exploring the customer, thelongitudinal, the long point of
view of the customer and beingreally interested in, you know,
where's their friction, where'stheir poor value exchange
(09:55):
relative to what they'regetting.
And they've been willing to dothe hard things, which is build
new products and services inorder to insert themselves into
that value proposition.
So that's one aspect ofunderstanding customer
obsession.
Eric Dickmann (10:09):
I love that you use the word friction, because I
use that a lot on this podcast.
It sort of makes the hair on theback of my neck stand up a
little bit, because I think somany businesses have so much
friction in their buyingexperience and it's such a
turnoff to customers.
I'll give you a quick example.
I just went and had my annualphysical the other day, went
into a doctor's office.
(10:29):
The number of forms that I hadto complete that required me to
fill out the exact sameinformation.
None of which was different thanthey already had on file.
And then I go in and see myphysician.
They asked me all the samequestions anyway.
So it was just all thisfriction, it just makes for a
terrible customer experience.
And I think that that rolls verynicely into sort of one of your
second principles here, which isinvent and simplify.
(10:51):
I know as a marketer, when we gointo businesses, often one of
the first things that we have todo is deconstruct the mess that
has been created, right?
It's simplification, simplifyingthe messaging, simplifying the
way you're presenting yourproducts and services to
customers.
There's a lot of simplificationthat goes on, and I think that's
(11:11):
been keys to Amazon as well,right?
They're the inventor of oneclick buying.
John Rossman (11:15):
You go exactly where I go to on this principle,
right?
The name of the principle isinvent and simplify.
And I think the invention pieceis always, you know, fascinating
to people and sounds reallyhard, you know, and everything.
But what we recognize is thatthe and simplification aspect is
both as important and as hard asinventing and that
(11:40):
simplification mindset again,kind of comes in two general
arenas, although they'reconnected, obviously simplifying
the customer experience.
And every single touchpoint youcan have with them, not asking
them to reintroduce themselves,essentially, which is the
experience, uh, that you werehaving.
(12:01):
And other types of, friction isimportant.
But then, internally as anoperational leader, you were
always looking to scale and toscale means being able to do
more on a declining cost perunit, right?
Actually gaining efficiency.
Most companies, they initiallystart getting scale, but then
they actually like, they can domore, but it's not improving on
(12:24):
an economic basis, right?
And that's because they haven'tdone the work of simplifying the
work that needs to be done.
And that is super hard, superimportant and super
uncomfortable work to do becauseyou have to challenge and force
(12:44):
sometimes the uncomfortableconversations around, well, how
does work get done?
How's the organization structurelook?
You know, why do we do it thisway?
How do we get out of our own wayin order to simplify the work
that gets done?
But you know, when you know,there's this concept called
Conway's Law and Conway's Lawessentially says that you ship
your org chart, right?
(13:05):
And that's what happens so oftenthat customers see is.
Hey, you buy something online,you go to the retail store and
they go, well, we can't accept.
It goes spot online.
Like that's essentially becausethe organization structure is
split between stores andeCommerce, right?
Like they've shipped their orgchart.
The customer doesn't care aboutyour org chart, right?
They care about theirexperience.
(13:27):
The reason it's called frictionfor me, because it's the little
tiny things that yes, a customercan compensate for, but really
you would never want it thatway.
And as an operator, you you'vekind of grown numb to it, right?
You're blind to all of theselittle things.
(13:49):
My favorite, personal experienceof, of friction is, and I hate
to call anybody out, but I'mgoing is going to a Home Depot
store, right?
I've got a specific little lightbulb that you know, maybe I need
or something specific.
It's in the store someplace,right?
And not only is it difficult tofind the aisle, but then you're
(14:11):
sitting in front of this massivewall of light bulbs and you're
going up and down the walltrying to find this specific
light bulb.
I cannot understand, andsomebody will say to me, well,
John, they have an app for youto download that you can do
this.
That's way too much friction andeverything.
Why don't they have a littlehandheld device?
(14:32):
I walk into the store, I grabthe device.
I can either take a photo, scanthe UPC, or speak to it.
And it says, Hey, John, go toaisle seven.
I go to aisle seven and then allof a sudden, like a little light
goes off.
Well, here's the item on thewall.
You try something like that ofreally understanding, the
discovery in particular tends tobe a really hard problem.
(14:57):
know, I would say about Amazon,like the only problem with being
the everything store is it's theeverything store, right?
A customer isn't looking foreverything they're looking for
anything.
And so discovery at Amazon is ahard problem.
Discovery at a lot of stores isa big problem.
You need to rethink thediscovery moments for a customer
(15:17):
and that really is oftentimessimplification work that needs
to be done.
Eric Dickmann (15:23):
Hey, it's Eric here and we'll be right back to
the podcast.
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Services.
Now back to the podcast.
Discovery as a podcast host,this is a huge issue for us in
this business because the toolsaren't really very good right
now for discovery.
They're very keyword focused.
And if you're not using theright keyword, you don't even
find what you're looking for.
And for somebody who's lookingfor marketing services, well,
what would they be searchingfor?
(16:29):
So discovery is a really bigdeal.
And I wanna skip ahead toanother point.
And this is really around a biasfor action because as a
marketer, what we often find isyou know, we're a cost center,
we're an expense for a businessand businesses sometimes are
reluctant to take action.
They're reluctant to take thatrisk of spending the money
(16:50):
because they're not certainabout what the outcome is going
to be, but you sort of have tobe willing to take risks, you
have to be willing toexperiment.
You know, we always talk.
Uh, marketing as a mixture ofart and science, right?
There is an art aspect to it.
There is an experimentation,nobody gets their messaging
right out of the gate.
Nobody gets that ad perfect thefirst time, right?
They have to experiment.
(17:11):
So when you talk about a biasfor action, how did you see that
work inside Amazon and how doyou advise leaders to take those
necessary risk?
John Rossman (17:20):
Yeah.
So the leadership principlereads like this, it says speed
matters in business.
Many decisions and actions arereversible and do not need
extensive study.
We value calculated risk taking,and the way it manifested itself
in the business is inunderstanding that all decisions
aren't made equal, and that somedecisions you need to slow down,
(17:43):
you need to talk about a lot,you need to bring to the center.
We call those one-way doordecisions.
Most decisions are two-way doordecisions.
They should be made.
With a little bit of discussion,a lot of intuition and at speed,
because if we break down thesedecisions into more of a test
and adapt test and learnmindset, the speed element
(18:05):
becomes even more, that muchmore valuable versus just
continual studying.
And what you notice in mostcompanies is that when you start
slowing things down and youstart making them into big study
appointments, well then what youdo is you just make the decision
bigger and bigger, bigger.
And so it actually becomes arisk.
It becomes a riskier decision atthat point, right?
(18:26):
It becomes more of a one waydoor versus a two-way door
decision.
And you know, the thing aboutthese principles is they're
balanced.
You, can't just, overindex onone.
Sometimes they actually pullagainst each other, right?
They're not in completealignment that typically leads
you to a better set of thinkingand a better outcome than if you
were just using, you know, oneprinciple and at the end of the
(18:51):
day, leaders do need to havereally good insights and proceed
with speed and be willing tohave both, you know,
responsibility andaccountability relative to those
decisions versus trying to kindof shift them off with others,
and that just slows the businessdown and it doesn't grow good
leadership.
Eric Dickmann (19:12):
I love the way you talk about the way these
principles kind of pull at eachother to find balance because
the next principle I want totalk about is frugality, right?
And as a marketer, that's not aterm I like to hear a lot
because we're a cost center,right?
We're an expense.
You have to make an investmentin marketing.
John Rossman (19:29):
Yes
Eric Dickmann (19:29):
Spend, spend, right.
But there's also a balance,right?
There are things that we can dothat are very cost effective,
trying to create content, togenerate organic leads.
And there are things that can bevery expensive, a Super Bowl ad
isn't cheap.
So there are balances that needto be made.
How do you sort of balance thebias for action with frugality
and making sure that you're notjust spend, spend, spend.
John Rossman (19:52):
Yeah.
So the spirit of the principleisn't about being cheap, it's
about using resources smartlyand using resource constraints
as a forcing function to helpyou innovate, like how do you
actually improve on the unitcost of whatever it is you're
(20:13):
doing right on the item, maybeit's on customer acquisition.
How do we actually get better atthat and come up with better
solutions?
Because to scale, we know weneed our unit costs in order to
get better.
I just wrote about this in theDigital Leader newsletter today
about, you know, just themindset of do more with less.
(20:35):
And that mindset of do more withless is actually the mindset
that helps you innovate.
You use constraints in order tocome up with a better approach,
a more efficient approach.
In order to accomplish what youneed to get it done.
One of the things I wrote aboutin the newsletter is typically
op people go, they translate, domore with less to do less with
(20:57):
less, right?
Oh, well, if you're gonna cut myspend, then I'm gonna scale
back.
No, no, no, no.
The game plan for today's marketvolatility.
Is do more with less.
What we need from teams and fromleaders is to actually be
problem solvers and innovatorsand figure out a way how do we
get better at what we're doingand using the constraint as an
(21:20):
opportunity to force us torethink whatever it is that
we're working on.
Eric Dickmann (21:25):
Yeah, I like that.
Constraints really force thebest ideas, right?
They force a better approach.
It's not a signal to pull back.
It's a signal to be morecreative.
Look at new ways of approachinga problem.
John Rossman (21:39):
And you know, when you're designing constraints,
when you're designing thisscenario that you know, you're
gonna solve, or you're gonnahand to a team, you really need
to be thoughtful about theconstraints you put in place.
You know, you always have tolike, well, if you're gonna put
these constraints in, what areyou willing to do in order to
meet those constraints?
And if you put too manyconstraints in, you will put a
(22:01):
situation into a no winsituation.
And so designing will call it anexperiment or a scenario and the
smart constraints have to bereally careful.
And the other mistake somebodywill make is they'll put just
one constraint on, right?
And then a good team, just likethey optimize to that
constraint, right?
Like lower the inventory levelor whatever it is, like lower
(22:24):
the cost.
Well, then what will happen is,yeah, we, you know, we hit the
inventory level, but guess what?
In stock percentages, plummeted,right?
Okay, you know, you didn't thinkthrough the constraints very
well, so you always have tothink through kind of the really
smart constraints that you'regonna put on and that's why, you
(22:44):
know, none of these tools orapproaches can be used without
thinking about'em right?
They need wisdom in order to useit's a sophisticated playbook.
At the end of the day, you can'thave an evil attempt and you
can't have a dumb attempt and besuccessful at any of these
things, like you have to use'emsmart and with wisdom.
Eric Dickmann (23:05):
I agree.
One of the things that we'refacing in the world today, not
just this country, but I thinkpretty much globally is an
erosion of trust.
And you talk about yourprinciple of earning trust.
And I know that a lot of theprinciples really based on
earning trust within theorganization, as a leader with
your employees, but inmarketing, we also have this
(23:25):
brand persona that's out there,really earning the trust with
the customer.
And it's so hard to earn thattrust and so easy to lose it,
right?
And we're in an era, I thinkwhere customers and employees
are reluctant to trust anyone,right.
So talk to me a little bit aboutthis principle and how at
Amazon, they really built thattrust and what you advise
(23:47):
leaders in terms of earning itwith their employees.
John Rossman (23:50):
Yeah.
So this is one of those topicswhere I would go, like, in my
humble opinion, this is myanswer to you on this, there's
probably other opinions on this,but I think when you take on an
important topic, like trust, andit's kind of ethereal too,
right?
It's hard to pinpoint.
You need to try to translatethat into either specific
(24:14):
scenarios or into specifictangible traits that you can
have.
So we took a concept when wewere launching the marketplace
business in 2002, we took thenotion of what did customer
trust mean?
Well, it, to us, it meant whatwas called a perfect order,
right?
A perfect order really meantthat the right item was
(24:36):
delivered on time with nocustomer questions, no
deficiencies in the order,right?
Like, so we had a reallyspecific concept of what
customer trust meant in oneparticular scenario.
And then we said, well, how doesthat customer trust element
translate into this new businesscalled the marketplace business,
which is third party selling atAmazon?
Eric Dickmann (24:58):
Mm-hmm
John Rossman (24:58):
If you remember back in the day, you and I might
be old enough to remember this.
Well, eBay was the king of themarketplace business at that
point.
And it was kind of the wild westof marketplaces, right?
It was very much kind of eBaywas like, Hey, we're just
connecting two parties together,we take no accountability to it
(25:19):
at all.
We took the exact oppositeapproach because we knew what
trust meant for our customers,right?
So our entire strategy was builtoff of this element of customer
trust and the way we defined itinto tangible terms, which meant
we were able to then measure itand then we were able to
implement and design around it.
(25:40):
And so take an element likecustomer trust, put it into
specific terms, then measure itand design around it, and that
helps make these elementscritical as well as manageable
to a business.
Eric Dickmann (25:55):
When you talk about measurement and design
around it, I think you just madea perfect segue into sort of
this final point that I wantedto talk about, which is
delivering results, right?
Many businesses, they gothroughout the year and then
sort of whatever's left over atthe end of the year are the
results that they've achievedversus really designing a plan,
whether it's profitability orcertain metrics, they just don't
(26:19):
have a plan in place to achievethem, and oftentimes
organizations within a companyare fighting with different
goals and objectives so it makesit very hard for the
organization as a whole toachieve something.
So when you look at this sort ofholistically, how do you advise
leaders really to deliver theresults and design around that?
John Rossman (26:37):
Yeah.
Well, let's read the leadershipprinciple.
So much of the secret of theleadership principle, there's
kind of this short title, butthen there's a paragraph that
kind of opens up, right?
And so it reads leaders focus onthe key inputs for their
business and deliver them withthe right quality in a timely
fashion, despite setbacks, theyrise to the occasion and never
settle, right?
Oh, interesting.
(26:58):
Understanding.
Amazon, while we focused a loton the outputs of the business
of defining like, Hey, what areour goals?
We spend more time writing outand debating what the inputs
were, what are the things we'regoing to do in order to get
there that A, made us muchbetter actionable planners,
(27:20):
right?
Like we could, we knew what theplan was.
And then before we agreed, wesaid, does everybody agree with
this plan or not?
Not just the goal, but theactual plan.
And in any business you alwayshave dependencies, right?
So if you have these planningdiscussions that has both
outputs, but more priority onthe inputs and you talk about
(27:40):
them as a team.
Guess what?
All your colleagues, all yourdependencies are part of the
plan, right?
They have buy-in, they have anopportunity to shape it.
You're gonna execute so muchbetter and you're gonna make
better resource allocationdecisions, right?
The most important decisionssenior leadership teams make.
And this is what true strategyis what do I say yes to?
(28:03):
And what do I say no to?
You have to say no to a lot ofreally good concepts.
And what happens in so manybusinesses is they say yes to
specific things, but they don'tdeliberately, specifically in a
broadcast manner, make it clearof which things we are saying no
to.
So what happens is resources,get confused, teams start, you
(28:26):
know, working on things thatit's a good idea, but we said no
to it, you know?
And everything, right?
That's the linkage betweenstrategy and execution and you
tend to lose when you're notcompletely focused, completely
bought in to what the plan is,which is a good compliment to
the 13th leadership principle.
This deliver results is the14th.
(28:48):
The 13th is called half backbonedisagree and commit.
And that principle is all abouthow we debate things, but then
we make a decision and we allbuy in to that decision, whether
we agreed with it or not, right?
And so again, these principleshave linkage together.
And from a planning standpoint,I think the tool of OKRs,
(29:10):
objectives and key results is agood tool, a good methodology to
talk about both the outputs andthe inputs, the key results that
are gonna get us there andeverything, but it really is
about taking the time to writethem out and then debate them as
a team and be clear about whatyou're saying yes, to, and as
(29:31):
importantly, maybe even moreimportantly, what are the good
ideas we're saying no to fornow?
Eric Dickmann (29:37):
I love this and I really appreciate these
principles that you've writtendown and framed, because like I
said, at the top of the show, Ithink these are so applicable to
so many businesses.
You don't have to be a largeFortune 500 company for these to
make sense or have a largeorganization, even a small
business like my own, these areperfect things to be mindful of
as you build and grow yourbusiness.
John Rossman (29:59):
I just wanted to be clear these aren't my
principles, these are Amazon'sprinciples.
I just happened to get to bethere at a point when they were
being, when we were figuring outwhat these principles were.
I do have an appendix in thebook that is about how to build
your own principles.
You know, my take, I've workedwith a few teams on building
principles and kind of theiterative mindset that I would
(30:21):
recommend, the approach that Iwould recommend in building your
principles versus I think themistake some teams make is they
go, yes, we need principles.
They write'em out.
And then they say, these are theprinciples like, ah, that
typically doesn't work realwell, you need to have, you
know, I always use the phraseetch and jello.
You want to etch these in jello,try'em out, use'em.
(30:42):
It's so critical to get theexecutive team modeling these
and holding each otheraccountable with them.
And that's how real culturechange happens from, from an
intentional leadershipstandpoint.
Eric Dickmann (30:57):
They aren't just for a poster in the conference
room in other words.
John Rossman (31:00):
That is the saying exactly.
Eric Dickmann (31:03):
Yeah, no, this is great.
And I really enjoyed reading thebook and I'd love it if you
could just share how people canget a copy of this book, how
they can get a hold of you,where they can find you on the
web.
John Rossman (31:13):
So the Amazon Way is available at, of course at
Amazon paperback, Kindle audibleversion, the audible version is
real nice, listen andeverything.
I write a newsletter called TheDigital Leader Newsletter.
It's on Substack, it's free, andyou can find me on LinkedIn,
John Rossman, or my website isrossmanpartners.com.
Eric Dickmann (31:36):
Hey John, that's great.
Thank you again for sending overthe book.
I really enjoyed it and we'llcertainly pass along with
friends.
I will make sure that everythingthat you mentioned today is
linked up in the show notes sothat people can find you and
find the book on the web.
It's been a fascinatingdiscussion.
I've really enjoyed our timehere today.
Thank you so much.
John Rossman (31:51):
Eric.
Thank you.
Thank you for everything you do.
I really enjoy all of yourconversations.
Eric Dickmann (31:59):
Thank you for joining us on this episode of
The Virtual CMO podcast.
For more episodes, go tofiveechelon.com/podcast to
subscribe through your podcastplayer of choice.
And if you'd like to developconsistent lead flow and a
highly effective marketingstrategy, visit fiveechelon.com
to learn more about our VirtualCMO consulting services.
Welcome to The Virtual CMO podcast.
I'm your host, Eric Dickmann.
In this podcast, we haveconversations with marketing
professionals who share thestrategies, tactics, and mindset
you can use to improve theeffectiveness of your marketing
activities and grow yourbusiness.
Today, I'm excited to have guestJohn Rossman on the program.
(00:22):
John is the Managing Partner atRossman Partners, a consulting
agency dedicated to helpingleaders innovate, compete, and
win in the digital era.
He is also the author of TheAmazon Way: Amazon's 14
Leadership Principles, a bookwhere he shares his leadership
insights from his tenure atAmazon helping launch Amazon's
third party marketplace.
(00:43):
John, welcome to the show.
John Rossman (00:45):
Eric, great to be here.
Thanks for having me.
Eric Dickmann (00:47):
I'm excited to have you on the program.
This is podcast really dedicatedto marketing.
And I will say that as we talkabout marketing, two companies
always rise to the top asexamples, Apple, certainly from
a marketing standpoint, some ofwhat they do and Amazon from a
customer experience perspective.
So I'm gonna enjoy today'sdiscussion, we're gonna get your
(01:08):
insight on all of this, but tokick things off, I'd love it if
you could share with theaudience a little bit about your
background.
How did you get to Amazon andthen from there to starting your
own firm
John Rossman (01:17):
So I was a partner at Arthur Anderson in the
consulting business.
I then went to a startuptechnology company, wound that
down in 2001, one of my formerArthur Anderson colleagues was a
Finance Director at Amazon.
And he was like, you know, youshould come over and talk to us,
we've got a strategy we'rethinking about.
(01:39):
And so over the next threemonths, think I had 21
interviews.
And really it was a consultingproject to some degree, right?
Like they were getting to knowme, I was getting to know them
and like where this strategy wasat.
And so I joined in March of 2002and we launched the marketplace
(02:01):
business then late that fall.
So I was at Amazon for aboutfour years, launched the
marketplace business.
I also ran enterprise servicesat Amazon, so I had
responsibility for target.com,ToysrUs, Marks Spencer in the
UK, Sears Canada, a bunch ofother great brands.
And I left Amazon in late 2005.
I was a partner at another firmand I started working with my
(02:25):
clients on digital strategyoperations, you know, clear
thinking work.
And one of my clients was thegates foundation, and I wrote
this one piece called- Futureready self-service and it was
all about the power of makingcapability self-service both
(02:46):
internally and externally, andlike what it has so many healthy
benefits to it.
It forces you to build bettersimpler capabilities and
products.
And one of my clients at theGates foundation pulled me into
his office and this is like sixyears after I left Amazon.
And he is like, you know, you,you wrote a really good paper,
then he gave me like the 10things I should have done better
on it and everything.
(03:06):
He was an editor by background,it was pretty funny.
And he goes- You know, I've seenhow you take all the little
strategies, the nuggets, theinsights from Amazon, and you
delicately put'em into our work.
You don't hit us over the headwith them.
You, you kinda, you're workingus to think a little harder.
And he goes, I think you oughtwrite a book about Amazon
(03:28):
because it's such a fascinatingcompany.
So the smartest thing I did wastalk him into being my partner
on these books, we still worktogether today.
And we just rereleased the thirdedition of the Amazon Way, which
is about the leadershipprinciple.
So it's a pretty short, easyread.
My whole design principle wassomebody could read it on one
(03:50):
plane ride with a glass of wine,you know, and everything, right.
It's no academic book, but it'skind of my story at Amazon.
And some of the things you cantake from Amazon, I then wrote a
bigger book called Think likeAmazon, 50 and a halfway to be
digitally.
That's like the full playbook ofevery little mechanism.
The two books kind of gotogether, and that's really been
(04:13):
my mission ever since then isyou know, I always say like this
isn't about Amazon, it's aboutyou, how you're gonna compete,
how you're gonna win in thedigital era.
And I borrow from a lot ofplaces, including Amazon of
which I have some, you know,authority to, because I got to
participate there so much.
And that's kind of what I do andmy story a little bit.
Eric Dickmann (04:35):
I think that's great.
And I appreciate you sharingthat about your background and
also, you know, thank you forsending me the book.
I enjoyed it as well, and Iwould agree, it's a read that
you can digest pretty quickly,but there's a lot of real
nuggets of wisdom in here.
You know, I think for a lot ofbusinesses, they look at a
company like Amazon, sosuccessful, right?
It's part of just abouteverybody's daily life it seems.
(04:55):
And yet sometimes they'rewondering, well, how can I apply
some of the things that made abusiness like that successful?
And I'm just a small business,but I thought that the 14
principles that you outlined inthe book gave some real relevant
kind of ideas for businesses tothink about.
John Rossman (05:11):
Amazon.
Wasn't always this big, When Istarted at Amazon in 2002
holiday of that year, we had ourfirst billion dollar quarter.
Right?
So while that's still a bigcompany like that, you know, to
this year, they'll do 480billion.
You know what I mean?
But they operated with the sameprinciples, the same approaches
then, and we weren't successful,right?
(05:32):
We were being referred to asamazon.com, amazon.toast,
amazon.org, because obviously wecan't make money.
You know we were small, we hadto be extremely frugal, and use
that as a constraint toinnovate, not as a constraint to
(05:53):
complain or limit our vision.
And I just wrote about kind ofconstraints, and in this
environment, in my newslettertoday and everything, and it's
like, It's a tremendousopportunity and everything, and
you can get so much more donebecause, you know, people have
just a, a better sense ofurgency and they're much less
prone to you know, analysisparalysis and more of just like,
(06:16):
okay, we think this is due, doit, you know and everything,
right?
And so just don't think ofAmazon as the Goliath we know
today, whether it was a team ofa 100, 1,000, 10,000, a 100,000,
they, still fought about thesituation and they held each
other accountable with the sameapproaches.
And that's why, whether theseprinciples are the ones you use
(06:40):
or not thinking through.
How do we make decisions?
How do we hold each otheraccountable?
How do we prioritize thecustomer?
These sorts of things help youthink better, even on an
individual basis.
Eric Dickmann (06:54):
Any business that you're talking about big or
small, you know, Apple almostwent bankrupt.
Amazon started out as abookstore, right?
They all had a genesis somewhereand they all grew to what they
are today by trial and error andimplementing good principles.
And that's what I loved about alot of what you talk about in
the book, these are practicalthings that any business can
really implement.
And the first one I wanted todive into a little bit is this
(07:14):
idea of customer obsession,because certainly from a
marketing standpoint, you know,people look at marketing and
say, oh, all these guys aretrying to do is sell me
something.
But I think really goodmarketers are framing it into
customer value, right?
What can we really do to solvecustomer problems?
So when you think back toAmazon, and this principle,
what's your thought on customerobsession?
John Rossman (07:37):
Well, I actually listened to your prior podcast.
I forgot the gentleman's name,but you were talking about
customer obsession andeverything.
And I thought that was a reallygood conversation.
In general, I think there's twotypes of customer obsession.
So first I'll, I'll read theprinciple and it says, leaders
start with the customer workbackwards, they work vigorously
to earn and keep customer trust.
(07:59):
Although leaders pay attentionto competitors, they obsess over
customers.
And you know, the mostinteresting word in that
principle is the word obsession,right?
Like we could have chosen a morecomfortable word, like we're
focused on our customers, or wecare about our customers and
everything, but we chose theword obsession for really
specific purposes.
Because it meant we were willingto do really hard thing for the
(08:24):
customer.
So I think there's really twotypes of customer obsession, and
I'll refer to one as tacticaland the other as strategic.
The tactical customer obsessionis about getting today's
customer today's, you know,we'll call it, delivery, the
promise you're making to yourcustomer as perfect as possible,
(08:46):
right?
Exceed this customer'sexpectations.
And so that drives all of yourkinda operational excellence,
the value proposition you maketo your customer and measuring
every aspect of that customerexperience for today.
The other type of customerobsession, strategic.
Well, that is really what helpsyou look up and down the
(09:10):
customer value stream, find newways of understanding your
customer, having more empathyfor them beyond just your
product and your service andalways asking the question like,
well, how can I serve thiscustomer bigger and broader than
I just served them today?
And that lens of customerobsession is really been, what's
(09:32):
taken Amazon from being thisbook's music, video retailer to
the conglomerate business thatthey are today because they were
exploring the customer, thelongitudinal, the long point of
view of the customer and beingreally interested in, you know,
where's their friction, where'stheir poor value exchange
(09:55):
relative to what they'regetting.
And they've been willing to dothe hard things, which is build
new products and services inorder to insert themselves into
that value proposition.
So that's one aspect ofunderstanding customer
obsession.
Eric Dickmann (10:09):
I love that you use the word friction, because I
use that a lot on this podcast.
It sort of makes the hair on theback of my neck stand up a
little bit, because I think somany businesses have so much
friction in their buyingexperience and it's such a
turnoff to customers.
I'll give you a quick example.
I just went and had my annualphysical the other day, went
into a doctor's office.
(10:29):
The number of forms that I hadto complete that required me to
fill out the exact sameinformation.
None of which was different thanthey already had on file.
And then I go in and see myphysician.
They asked me all the samequestions anyway.
So it was just all thisfriction, it just makes for a
terrible customer experience.
And I think that that rolls verynicely into sort of one of your
second principles here, which isinvent and simplify.
(10:51):
I know as a marketer, when we gointo businesses, often one of
the first things that we have todo is deconstruct the mess that
has been created, right?
It's simplification, simplifyingthe messaging, simplifying the
way you're presenting yourproducts and services to
customers.
There's a lot of simplificationthat goes on, and I think that's
(11:11):
been keys to Amazon as well,right?
They're the inventor of oneclick buying.
John Rossman (11:15):
You go exactly where I go to on this principle,
right?
The name of the principle isinvent and simplify.
And I think the invention pieceis always, you know, fascinating
to people and sounds reallyhard, you know, and everything.
But what we recognize is thatthe and simplification aspect is
both as important and as hard asinventing and that
(11:40):
simplification mindset again,kind of comes in two general
arenas, although they'reconnected, obviously simplifying
the customer experience.
And every single touchpoint youcan have with them, not asking
them to reintroduce themselves,essentially, which is the
experience, uh, that you werehaving.
(12:01):
And other types of, friction isimportant.
But then, internally as anoperational leader, you were
always looking to scale and toscale means being able to do
more on a declining cost perunit, right?
Actually gaining efficiency.
Most companies, they initiallystart getting scale, but then
they actually like, they can domore, but it's not improving on
(12:24):
an economic basis, right?
And that's because they haven'tdone the work of simplifying the
work that needs to be done.
And that is super hard, superimportant and super
uncomfortable work to do becauseyou have to challenge and force
(12:44):
sometimes the uncomfortableconversations around, well, how
does work get done?
How's the organization structurelook?
You know, why do we do it thisway?
How do we get out of our own wayin order to simplify the work
that gets done?
But you know, when you know,there's this concept called
Conway's Law and Conway's Lawessentially says that you ship
your org chart, right?
(13:05):
And that's what happens so oftenthat customers see is.
Hey, you buy something online,you go to the retail store and
they go, well, we can't accept.
It goes spot online.
Like that's essentially becausethe organization structure is
split between stores andeCommerce, right?
Like they've shipped their orgchart.
The customer doesn't care aboutyour org chart, right?
They care about theirexperience.
(13:27):
The reason it's called frictionfor me, because it's the little
tiny things that yes, a customercan compensate for, but really
you would never want it thatway.
And as an operator, you you'vekind of grown numb to it, right?
You're blind to all of theselittle things.
(13:49):
My favorite, personal experienceof, of friction is, and I hate
to call anybody out, but I'mgoing is going to a Home Depot
store, right?
I've got a specific little lightbulb that you know, maybe I need
or something specific.
It's in the store someplace,right?
And not only is it difficult tofind the aisle, but then you're
(14:11):
sitting in front of this massivewall of light bulbs and you're
going up and down the walltrying to find this specific
light bulb.
I cannot understand, andsomebody will say to me, well,
John, they have an app for youto download that you can do
this.
That's way too much friction andeverything.
Why don't they have a littlehandheld device?
(14:32):
I walk into the store, I grabthe device.
I can either take a photo, scanthe UPC, or speak to it.
And it says, Hey, John, go toaisle seven.
I go to aisle seven and then allof a sudden, like a little light
goes off.
Well, here's the item on thewall.
You try something like that ofreally understanding, the
discovery in particular tends tobe a really hard problem.
(14:57):
know, I would say about Amazon,like the only problem with being
the everything store is it's theeverything store, right?
A customer isn't looking foreverything they're looking for
anything.
And so discovery at Amazon is ahard problem.
Discovery at a lot of stores isa big problem.
You need to rethink thediscovery moments for a customer
(15:17):
and that really is oftentimessimplification work that needs
to be done.
Eric Dickmann (15:23):
Hey, it's Eric here and we'll be right back to
the podcast.
But first, are you ready togrow, scale, and take your
marketing to the next level?
If so, The Five Echelon Group'sVirtual CMO consulting service
may be a great fit for you.
We can help build a strategicmarketing plan for your business
and manage its execution,step-by-step.
(15:44):
We'll focus on areas like how toattract more leads.
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How to strategically package andposition your products and
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How to increase lead conversion,improve your margins, and scale
your business.
To find out more about ourconsulting offerings and
schedule a consultation, go tofiveechelon.com and click on
(16:07):
Services.
Now back to the podcast.
Discovery as a podcast host,this is a huge issue for us in
this business because the toolsaren't really very good right
now for discovery.
They're very keyword focused.
And if you're not using theright keyword, you don't even
find what you're looking for.
And for somebody who's lookingfor marketing services, well,
what would they be searchingfor?
(16:29):
So discovery is a really bigdeal.
And I wanna skip ahead toanother point.
And this is really around a biasfor action because as a
marketer, what we often find isyou know, we're a cost center,
we're an expense for a businessand businesses sometimes are
reluctant to take action.
They're reluctant to take thatrisk of spending the money
(16:50):
because they're not certainabout what the outcome is going
to be, but you sort of have tobe willing to take risks, you
have to be willing toexperiment.
You know, we always talk.
Uh, marketing as a mixture ofart and science, right?
There is an art aspect to it.
There is an experimentation,nobody gets their messaging
right out of the gate.
Nobody gets that ad perfect thefirst time, right?
They have to experiment.
(17:11):
So when you talk about a biasfor action, how did you see that
work inside Amazon and how doyou advise leaders to take those
necessary risk?
John Rossman (17:20):
Yeah.
So the leadership principlereads like this, it says speed
matters in business.
Many decisions and actions arereversible and do not need
extensive study.
We value calculated risk taking,and the way it manifested itself
in the business is inunderstanding that all decisions
aren't made equal, and that somedecisions you need to slow down,
(17:43):
you need to talk about a lot,you need to bring to the center.
We call those one-way doordecisions.
Most decisions are two-way doordecisions.
They should be made.
With a little bit of discussion,a lot of intuition and at speed,
because if we break down thesedecisions into more of a test
and adapt test and learnmindset, the speed element
(18:05):
becomes even more, that muchmore valuable versus just
continual studying.
And what you notice in mostcompanies is that when you start
slowing things down and youstart making them into big study
appointments, well then what youdo is you just make the decision
bigger and bigger, bigger.
And so it actually becomes arisk.
It becomes a riskier decision atthat point, right?
(18:26):
It becomes more of a one waydoor versus a two-way door
decision.
And you know, the thing aboutthese principles is they're
balanced.
You, can't just, overindex onone.
Sometimes they actually pullagainst each other, right?
They're not in completealignment that typically leads
you to a better set of thinkingand a better outcome than if you
were just using, you know, oneprinciple and at the end of the
(18:51):
day, leaders do need to havereally good insights and proceed
with speed and be willing tohave both, you know,
responsibility andaccountability relative to those
decisions versus trying to kindof shift them off with others,
and that just slows the businessdown and it doesn't grow good
leadership.
Eric Dickmann (19:12):
I love the way you talk about the way these
principles kind of pull at eachother to find balance because
the next principle I want totalk about is frugality, right?
And as a marketer, that's not aterm I like to hear a lot
because we're a cost center,right?
We're an expense.
You have to make an investmentin marketing.
John Rossman (19:29):
Yes
Eric Dickmann (19:29):
Spend, spend, right.
But there's also a balance,right?
There are things that we can dothat are very cost effective,
trying to create content, togenerate organic leads.
And there are things that can bevery expensive, a Super Bowl ad
isn't cheap.
So there are balances that needto be made.
How do you sort of balance thebias for action with frugality
and making sure that you're notjust spend, spend, spend.
John Rossman (19:52):
Yeah.
So the spirit of the principleisn't about being cheap, it's
about using resources smartlyand using resource constraints
as a forcing function to helpyou innovate, like how do you
actually improve on the unitcost of whatever it is you're
(20:13):
doing right on the item, maybeit's on customer acquisition.
How do we actually get better atthat and come up with better
solutions?
Because to scale, we know weneed our unit costs in order to
get better.
I just wrote about this in theDigital Leader newsletter today
about, you know, just themindset of do more with less.
(20:35):
And that mindset of do more withless is actually the mindset
that helps you innovate.
You use constraints in order tocome up with a better approach,
a more efficient approach.
In order to accomplish what youneed to get it done.
One of the things I wrote aboutin the newsletter is typically
op people go, they translate, domore with less to do less with
(20:57):
less, right?
Oh, well, if you're gonna cut myspend, then I'm gonna scale
back.
No, no, no, no.
The game plan for today's marketvolatility.
Is do more with less.
What we need from teams and fromleaders is to actually be
problem solvers and innovatorsand figure out a way how do we
get better at what we're doingand using the constraint as an
(21:20):
opportunity to force us torethink whatever it is that
we're working on.
Eric Dickmann (21:25):
Yeah, I like that.
Constraints really force thebest ideas, right?
They force a better approach.
It's not a signal to pull back.
It's a signal to be morecreative.
Look at new ways of approachinga problem.
John Rossman (21:39):
And you know, when you're designing constraints,
when you're designing thisscenario that you know, you're
gonna solve, or you're gonnahand to a team, you really need
to be thoughtful about theconstraints you put in place.
You know, you always have tolike, well, if you're gonna put
these constraints in, what areyou willing to do in order to
meet those constraints?
And if you put too manyconstraints in, you will put a
(22:01):
situation into a no winsituation.
And so designing will call it anexperiment or a scenario and the
smart constraints have to bereally careful.
And the other mistake somebodywill make is they'll put just
one constraint on, right?
And then a good team, just likethey optimize to that
constraint, right?
Like lower the inventory levelor whatever it is, like lower
(22:24):
the cost.
Well, then what will happen is,yeah, we, you know, we hit the
inventory level, but guess what?
In stock percentages, plummeted,right?
Okay, you know, you didn't thinkthrough the constraints very
well, so you always have tothink through kind of the really
smart constraints that you'regonna put on and that's why, you
(22:44):
know, none of these tools orapproaches can be used without
thinking about'em right?
They need wisdom in order to useit's a sophisticated playbook.
At the end of the day, you can'thave an evil attempt and you
can't have a dumb attempt and besuccessful at any of these
things, like you have to use'emsmart and with wisdom.
Eric Dickmann (23:05):
I agree.
One of the things that we'refacing in the world today, not
just this country, but I thinkpretty much globally is an
erosion of trust.
And you talk about yourprinciple of earning trust.
And I know that a lot of theprinciples really based on
earning trust within theorganization, as a leader with
your employees, but inmarketing, we also have this
(23:25):
brand persona that's out there,really earning the trust with
the customer.
And it's so hard to earn thattrust and so easy to lose it,
right?
And we're in an era, I thinkwhere customers and employees
are reluctant to trust anyone,right.
So talk to me a little bit aboutthis principle and how at
Amazon, they really built thattrust and what you advise
(23:47):
leaders in terms of earning itwith their employees.
John Rossman (23:50):
Yeah.
So this is one of those topicswhere I would go, like, in my
humble opinion, this is myanswer to you on this, there's
probably other opinions on this,but I think when you take on an
important topic, like trust, andit's kind of ethereal too,
right?
It's hard to pinpoint.
You need to try to translatethat into either specific
(24:14):
scenarios or into specifictangible traits that you can
have.
So we took a concept when wewere launching the marketplace
business in 2002, we took thenotion of what did customer
trust mean?
Well, it, to us, it meant whatwas called a perfect order,
right?
A perfect order really meantthat the right item was
(24:36):
delivered on time with nocustomer questions, no
deficiencies in the order,right?
Like, so we had a reallyspecific concept of what
customer trust meant in oneparticular scenario.
And then we said, well, how doesthat customer trust element
translate into this new businesscalled the marketplace business,
which is third party selling atAmazon?
Eric Dickmann (24:58):
Mm-hmm
John Rossman (24:58):
If you remember back in the day, you and I might
be old enough to remember this.
Well, eBay was the king of themarketplace business at that
point.
And it was kind of the wild westof marketplaces, right?
It was very much kind of eBaywas like, Hey, we're just
connecting two parties together,we take no accountability to it
(25:19):
at all.
We took the exact oppositeapproach because we knew what
trust meant for our customers,right?
So our entire strategy was builtoff of this element of customer
trust and the way we defined itinto tangible terms, which meant
we were able to then measure itand then we were able to
implement and design around it.
(25:40):
And so take an element likecustomer trust, put it into
specific terms, then measure itand design around it, and that
helps make these elementscritical as well as manageable
to a business.
Eric Dickmann (25:55):
When you talk about measurement and design
around it, I think you just madea perfect segue into sort of
this final point that I wantedto talk about, which is
delivering results, right?
Many businesses, they gothroughout the year and then
sort of whatever's left over atthe end of the year are the
results that they've achievedversus really designing a plan,
whether it's profitability orcertain metrics, they just don't
(26:19):
have a plan in place to achievethem, and oftentimes
organizations within a companyare fighting with different
goals and objectives so it makesit very hard for the
organization as a whole toachieve something.
So when you look at this sort ofholistically, how do you advise
leaders really to deliver theresults and design around that?
John Rossman (26:37):
Yeah.
Well, let's read the leadershipprinciple.
So much of the secret of theleadership principle, there's
kind of this short title, butthen there's a paragraph that
kind of opens up, right?
And so it reads leaders focus onthe key inputs for their
business and deliver them withthe right quality in a timely
fashion, despite setbacks, theyrise to the occasion and never
settle, right?
Oh, interesting.
(26:58):
Understanding.
Amazon, while we focused a loton the outputs of the business
of defining like, Hey, what areour goals?
We spend more time writing outand debating what the inputs
were, what are the things we'regoing to do in order to get
there that A, made us muchbetter actionable planners,
(27:20):
right?
Like we could, we knew what theplan was.
And then before we agreed, wesaid, does everybody agree with
this plan or not?
Not just the goal, but theactual plan.
And in any business you alwayshave dependencies, right?
So if you have these planningdiscussions that has both
outputs, but more priority onthe inputs and you talk about
(27:40):
them as a team.
Guess what?
All your colleagues, all yourdependencies are part of the
plan, right?
They have buy-in, they have anopportunity to shape it.
You're gonna execute so muchbetter and you're gonna make
better resource allocationdecisions, right?
The most important decisionssenior leadership teams make.
And this is what true strategyis what do I say yes to?
(28:03):
And what do I say no to?
You have to say no to a lot ofreally good concepts.
And what happens in so manybusinesses is they say yes to
specific things, but they don'tdeliberately, specifically in a
broadcast manner, make it clearof which things we are saying no
to.
So what happens is resources,get confused, teams start, you
(28:26):
know, working on things thatit's a good idea, but we said no
to it, you know?
And everything, right?
That's the linkage betweenstrategy and execution and you
tend to lose when you're notcompletely focused, completely
bought in to what the plan is,which is a good compliment to
the 13th leadership principle.
This deliver results is the14th.
(28:48):
The 13th is called half backbonedisagree and commit.
And that principle is all abouthow we debate things, but then
we make a decision and we allbuy in to that decision, whether
we agreed with it or not, right?
And so again, these principleshave linkage together.
And from a planning standpoint,I think the tool of OKRs,
(29:10):
objectives and key results is agood tool, a good methodology to
talk about both the outputs andthe inputs, the key results that
are gonna get us there andeverything, but it really is
about taking the time to writethem out and then debate them as
a team and be clear about whatyou're saying yes, to, and as
(29:31):
importantly, maybe even moreimportantly, what are the good
ideas we're saying no to fornow?
Eric Dickmann (29:37):
I love this and I really appreciate these
principles that you've writtendown and framed, because like I
said, at the top of the show, Ithink these are so applicable to
so many businesses.
You don't have to be a largeFortune 500 company for these to
make sense or have a largeorganization, even a small
business like my own, these areperfect things to be mindful of
as you build and grow yourbusiness.
John Rossman (29:59):
I just wanted to be clear these aren't my
principles, these are Amazon'sprinciples.
I just happened to get to bethere at a point when they were
being, when we were figuring outwhat these principles were.
I do have an appendix in thebook that is about how to build
your own principles.
You know, my take, I've workedwith a few teams on building
principles and kind of theiterative mindset that I would
(30:21):
recommend, the approach that Iwould recommend in building your
principles versus I think themistake some teams make is they
go, yes, we need principles.
They write'em out.
And then they say, these are theprinciples like, ah, that
typically doesn't work realwell, you need to have, you
know, I always use the phraseetch and jello.
You want to etch these in jello,try'em out, use'em.
(30:42):
It's so critical to get theexecutive team modeling these
and holding each otheraccountable with them.
And that's how real culturechange happens from, from an
intentional leadershipstandpoint.
Eric Dickmann (30:57):
They aren't just for a poster in the conference
room in other words.
John Rossman (31:00):
That is the saying exactly.
Eric Dickmann (31:03):
Yeah, no, this is great.
And I really enjoyed reading thebook and I'd love it if you
could just share how people canget a copy of this book, how
they can get a hold of you,where they can find you on the
web.
John Rossman (31:13):
So the Amazon Way is available at, of course at
Amazon paperback, Kindle audibleversion, the audible version is
real nice, listen andeverything.
I write a newsletter called TheDigital Leader Newsletter.
It's on Substack, it's free, andyou can find me on LinkedIn,
John Rossman, or my website isrossmanpartners.com.
Eric Dickmann (31:36):
Hey John, that's great.
Thank you again for sending overthe book.
I really enjoyed it and we'llcertainly pass along with
friends.
I will make sure that everythingthat you mentioned today is
linked up in the show notes sothat people can find you and
find the book on the web.
It's been a fascinatingdiscussion.
I've really enjoyed our timehere today.
Thank you so much.
John Rossman (31:51):
Eric.
Thank you.
Thank you for everything you do.
I really enjoy all of yourconversations.
Eric Dickmann (31:59):
Thank you for joining us on this episode of
The Virtual CMO podcast.
For more episodes, go tofiveechelon.com/podcast to
subscribe through your podcastplayer of choice.
And if you'd like to developconsistent lead flow and a
highly effective marketingstrategy, visit fiveechelon.com
to learn more about our VirtualCMO consulting services.
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