Zinger Key Points
- Jeff Bezos helped turn Amazon.com from a small online bookstore to one of the largest companies in the world.
- Here's one business practice Bezos used at meetings that may have helped with the success.
- Get the Strategy to Trade Pre-Fed Setups and Post-Fed Swings—Live With Chris Capre on Wednesday, June 11.
Jeff Bezos is one of the richest people in the world thanks to his stake in Amazon.com Inc AMZN, a company he founded and transformed from an online book seller into one of the largest retailers in the world.
Tips on how to conduct meetings for increased productivity could be one way that Bezos and Amazon have been successful over the years.
What Happened: Amazon’s success and increased valuation may be attributed to Bezos’s leadership. He led the company for 27 years before stepping down as CEO in July 2021.
Bezos’ leadership and business practices may be among the reasons Amazon survived the dot-com bubble and later diversified into other new sectors, such as streaming and the cloud.
A company such as Amazon likely holds many meetings with executives, employees, and potential partners. One practice Bezos did during meetings with employees was to speak last, something his current fiancée Lauren Sánchez said was one of the best business lessons she’s learned from him.
“I hold a lot of meetings, and I would talk first in a meeting, and (Bezos) goes, ‘No, no, no. You’re the boss. You talk last. You let everyone else talk, so that they don’t get swayed by your opinion,'” Sánchez said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
Sánchez said living with Bezos has been like “having a master class every day.”
“What he’s taught me a lot about is management.”
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Why It’s Important: Bezos previously shared that changing meeting practices helped Amazon succeed and could have been “the smartest thing we ever did” at the company.
Bezos shared in 2018 that Amazon discontinued PowerPoint presentations and instead opened meetings with a 30-minute silent reading period. This gave employees time to read through a detailed memo covering the discussion topics prior to the start of the meeting.
Similar to Bezos's speech last time, these meetings would see employees share reactions to the memo before the CEO shares his thoughts.
Bezos said the silent reading helped create “the context for what will then be a good discussion.”
The former Amazon CEO said the silent reading period ensured attendees read through the notes rather than ignoring emails.
“Executives will bluff their way through the meeting as if they’ve read the memo, because we’re busy, and so you’ve got to actually carve out the time for the memo to get read.”
Bezos also recommended keeping meetings as short as possible once the silent reading period is done. Sanchez said Bezos told her the key was to keep meetings under an hour if possible.
CNBC reported that other business leaders such as Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey also shared a similar belief in starting meetings with a silent reading period to go over the meeting agenda.
“This practice makes time for everyone to get on the same page, allows us to work from many locations, and gets to truth/critical thinking faster,” Dorsey said.
The business advice from Bezos could be worth it for bosses and companies to consider with Amazon shares up 945% in the past 10 years and the company now one of the largest in the world.
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This article was previously published by Benzinga and has been updated.
Photo: Lev Radin / Shutterstock.com
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