Definition
Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results. They think differently and look around corners for ways to serve customers.
Explained by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy
All of us have to be looking around corners, we cannot be content with where we are. Part of being a great inventor is being able to look around corners. And you have to constantly be asking what are the next big breakthroughs for customers? What is a customer problem that needs solving?
Look at technology and the technology that’s around the corner. How is that going to change the customer experience? What are other companies going to do that we know customers are going to love where we’re going to want to be there first and we’re going to want to deliver that for customers earlier?
If you want to build a company that lasts over 100 years and that outlasts all of us, you cannot run the same playbook for decades at a time. And what’s interesting is even though that makes perfect sense to most people, it still tends to be hard for people to change, to pursue a different tack than what they’ve been taking, to take risks.
And that’s where leaders who are great at the think big leadership principle are so important and so important to our company and so important in business. And if you look at the goals that we have taken, if you look at things like for years and years, the way people expect to get products from our ecommerce business was over many days. And taking that to a model of no more than two days. And then taking that to more often one day and then taking that to the same day. And eventually, with drones and what we’re doing with Prime Air, we should be able to take it into a couple of hours or less. That’s very different.
Or if you think about inventing the next generation infrastructure technology capability with cloud computing and AWS. Or if you think about looking at the 400 to 500 million households in this world that do not have broadband capabilities and giving them that connectivity, or if you think about building the world’s most helpful personal assistant, or if you think about how we can reinvent the consumption of automotive products. Or if you think about what has been a hopeless area in this country for many years in health care and trying to reinvent that customer experience. These are bold initiatives that are not simple to do and these types of initiatives require thinking big and it’s what you do if you want to serve customers better. And it is part of what not only makes Amazon unique but also gives us a unique impact in the world.