If you’re going to do anything new or innovative, you have to be willing to be misunderstood.
Jeff Bezos
You can also listen to this post by clicking play:
At one point in time, in 1995, Amazon only sold books. They then started something called ‘customer reviews’ that was unheard of at that time. Customers were allowed to come in and rate a book between one and five stars as well as write a text-based review on that book. This is something very familiar now but was a big deal back then. The publishers did not like this at all as it meant customers could give reviews that were not positive thereby damaging the sale of their books. Jeff, the founder and CEO of Amazon got a letter from one publisher that suggested a good idea – to only publish the positive reviews from customers. The publisher made a case for this and said Amazon’s sales would go up if they did this, to which Jeff contemplated doing. The publisher had touched on Jeff’s self-interest in order to get him to do what the publisher wanted. However, Jeff had blossomed into a leader at this time. His conviction was not that Amazon made money through the sale of books but made money when they helped someone make a purchase decision. To this effect, Amazon existed and placed its focus on helping customers, not on making money. Amazon put the customer’s interest above its own. This is a philosophy that has catapulted Amazon into being the global leader and behemoth it is today.
In order to lead people, you need to be clear and understand what their interests are. What you see on the surface is only a result of something deeper. To satisfy their interest, you need to be willing to spend time to dig even further down from the surface. An employee’s interest is not to earn a salary. A customer’s interest is not to buy from you. Their interest is to fulfil a need of what that money or that product can do. This is fundamental and if you understand it, you realise that there’s more ways than one of fulfilling this interest.
In Jeff Bezos’ case, the customer wasn’t looking at buying a specific book. They were either avid readers who read for pleasure, or were looking to learn, a new skill, a different way of doing something, anything, and by publishing both positive and negative reviews, the customer was able to make an informed decision that lead them to buy the best book that would help them fulfill their need.
If Jeff had decided to go with the publisher’s advice and pursue a sale, customers may not have liked their purchases as they deemed them unhelpful and unsatisfying for their needs. What would they have done? They’d have moved to a different company to seek a product that could satisfy what it is they were looking for. Amazon would not have retained as many customers and would not have survived in the long run.
Jeff put his self-interest aside and put his customer’s interest above his. He chose the leadership side of the coin. That’s how you win!
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Here’s the video to Jeff’s interview: