Leadership skills taught through the culture of Amazon

Everything you read about Jeff Bezos leads you to believe he is a business mad-man. Cutting edge technology and business thinking that he has been the driving force for has created Amazon, which is disrupting the entire retail business eco-system. And it all originating from the Bezos way of thinking.

But is his approach all that radical? Is what Bezos is preaching incredibly advanced, or just beautifully simple. ?

The Leadership Principles for Amazon

I'm presently looking to fill a management role within the organization, and we're struggling to find that ideal candidate. Finding the technical skills required is somewhat easy, but trying to find someone with the technical skills and the leadership skills combined proves elusive.

And that's not just in my organization. A lack of leadership is apparent in a great deal of companies that I interact with on a regular basis.

Can you teach leadership? I'm not sure, but you can offer up guides to help encourage the leadership that every individual holds within them. And the Leadership Principles at Amazon can help. You can reach the full details of the list at https://www.amazon.jobs/principles, but here are the 12 essential points:

• Customer Obsession
• Ownership
• Invent and Simplify
• Are. A lot.
• Learn and Be Curious
• Hire and Develop the Best
• Insist on the Highest Standards
• Think Big
• Bias for Action
• Frugality
• Earn Trust
• Dive Deep
• Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit
• Deliver Results

Tapping into the history of your organization to create a strong team in the future

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I found myself with a longer than expected commute today, and got to spend some time with ESPN’s Mike & Mike program. Being from Indiana, basketball is a big part of the fabric of growing up. So when the guests announced were former Butler University coach Brad Stevens and basketball legend Oscar Robinson, I was pretty excited about my luck. 

Brad Stevens vaulted to legendary status after taking the Butler Bulldogs to the national championship game not once, but twice in back to back years. The story of Brad Stevens is a great story of persistence, grit and determination; easily making him a Indiana legend. And being a Butler alumni, I am particularly found of him.

Quite simply, Oscar Robertson is the greatest basketball player ever from Indiana. There really is no doubt, and no room for debate. Others are also great – Larry Bird for example, but the Big O is at the top of the list. 

So with that line up, I was expecting to be schooled on hoops. Instead, I got a nice dose of leadership. First up was Stevens.

He didn’t talk about “The Butler Way” which has become synonymous with his time leading that college team. Great leadership books and lots of columns have been devoted to that, and deservedly so. The Butler Way – by the way is:

The Butler Way...
demands commitment, denies selfishness,
accepts reality, yet seeks improvement everyday
while putting the team above self.

Stevens talked about the responsibility to be great. As the head coach of the Boston Celtics, the most honored team ever in the NBA, Stevens has inherited great expectations in his role. Rather than shying away from that past, he embraces it head on. He told the interviewer that playing under the championship banners helped push him and the team to greatness. And he is achieving great things, as his team is likely to clinch the top playoff spot for the NBA’s Eastern Conference later this week.

Robertson’s accomplishments are amazing. Until this NBA season, he was the only player to ever average a triple double for the year; more than 10 points, assists and rebounds per game. While I never saw him play, his abilities are legendary. As a former broadcaster of Indiana high school basketball, I heard countless stories about Oscar’s team at Indianapolis Crispus Attacks High School, where he won back to back state championships in the early 1950’s. And might have won a third, had he not lost to little Milan High School. Milan is the team that the 1986 movie Hoosiers is based.

Robertson’s interview spanned a variety of topics, focused primarily on his historic triple double season. But Mike Greenberg ended the conversation talking about the Big O’s role in the creation of free agency in the NBA. Robertson, many don’t know, was the player that suited the NBA for that right, over 40 years ago. Robertson commented that players today don’t necessarily know about his involvement with the league all those years ago. 

NBA players are signed and are instantly millionaires, so they don’t always have an appreciation for the history, and the story of those people that came before them. He suggested that every rookie when signed should have to read the history of the league and the team they are a member. Again, a reference to understanding the history of your organization. 

Why aren’t more businesses tapping into this? Stevens and Robertson are both correct in trying to create an appreciation, understanding and respect for the past. Millennials want to connect with their employers. Generation X and Baby Boomers are a part of that history as well as revere the past, thus giving multi-generations within the workplace a potential common bond. That common bond will lead to a better team, and thus better results.

We all have work to do here. I have work to do here. Currently, I work for a newspaper that won a Pulitzer Prize, and the primary writer for that is still on staff. Yet, I know very little about it. Established organizations have the pride, accomplishments, lessons learned and institutional knowledge of our past, and yet most are not leveraging it. Sounds like an opportunity to me.

Time to get 'Lit' with your awareness of marketing for Generation Z

Every marketing and advertising person has faced the question from an account. "How do I reach the next generation of my customers?"

It is an ever moving target. Finding that next wave of customers is often elusive, no matter how much money you throw at it for marketing and advertising.  And with the latest release from Google, "It's Lit -- a guide to what teens think is cool" advertising agencies and brands are scrambling to figure out what they did right.

Or wrong.

Most brands are still trying to completely figure out Millennials. Generation Z, teenagers about to be unleashed on the marketplace, are pure digital consumers; and pure mobile platform consumers too. That is very evident on the chart of brands graded in this survey of 1,100 teens between 13-17 years old. . 

 The three coolest brands were all online products:

1. YouTube

2. Netflix

3. Google

It is easy to focus at the very top or the very bottom of this 'coolness chart'; the three least cool brands were the Wall Street Journal, Whatsapp and Vice. I think it interesting to see how like brands stack up against each other in some of the high dollar advertising groups like cellphones, cellphone providers and soft drinks. 

For all of these brands and categories, awareness was very high for them all. But the coolness showed the differences between the perception of brands and no doubt a likely indicator of future success.

What is the coolest cellphone? I would have guessed Samsung, but actually Apple was the winner.

1. Apple

2. Samsung

3. Android

Cellphone companies are dropping more than the proverbial mic in their commercials. They are spending millions of marketing dollars. But who's winning the war with the next generation? They are more aware of AT & T, but Verizon is cooler. Sprint is a distant third. 

Pepsi vs. Coke is a marketing war that dates back pre WW II. For the Generation Z consumer, it is close but Coke is the winner. 

The report is a fun read. Frankly, it is more entertaining that it is anything else. The biggest thing the survey confirmed for me was that I'm out of touch with a Generation Z consumer. Not surprising, is it?

But realizing you don't know is the first step. Marketing and advertising people have to admit they don't know, instead of trying to force down their outdated recommendations on the business paying for the media. That goes for any block of consumers you're trying to market your message. 

Do the research, tell the story through creative messaging that will reach the targeted consumer and resonate with them.