A Press Release is Always a Good Idea

The headlines were intriguing. “Jeff Bezos bans PowerPoint.” “Amazon eliminates presentations.” You’ve seen them, too. Before I joined Amazon, friends had told me about the company’s writing culture and how PowerPoint presentations, nearly ubiquitous in corporations I have worked for, were not used for decision making or strategic planning. Instead, press release style documents and Word files are the center point of discussions. As a writer myself, I was interested in how it would work. Did meetings really begin with a time of silent reading? Did it hurt collaboration and brainstorming? Did it slow things down or speed things up?

After calibrating to this new approach these past months, I can tell you that I will never go back. I firmly believe that this element of the culture is a critical contributor to Amazon’s success. Here is what I have learned.

Writing is clarifying: At Amazon, we write press releases. Not to announce products after they are done (although that sometimes happens). No, we write press releases before development begins. When the program or initiative is in the idea stage. Working backwards from what customers would care about, we start with the “why” and write what we call a PR/FAQ (press release plus frequently asked question style appendix). We write to clarify the value proposition. We write to position the offering. We write to coalesce all the ideas into a cohesive statement. Before we invest further time and energy, we make sure it is something we will be proud of and that will make a difference for customers. To clarify, these "press releases" are internal, confidential documents that inform the project throughout.

Brevity is strategy: Mark Twain once said “If I had more time, I would write a shorter letter.” Anyone who has written before knows that writing (or saying) a lot of words quickly. But if you have to write concisely and clearly for an audience – especially one not necessarily familiar with all the nuances and details of the topic - it forces you to prioritize, to get to the point, and to make every word count. This curation is the essence of strategy. What are you going to do and what are you not going to do begins with what do you want to say and what do you not want to say.

Documents are invitations: In corporate cultures that heavily rely on PowerPoint, decisions favor the charismatic. The great presenter, who can excite the audience and think on their feet, can dominate strategy conversations. In contrast, when a document has to stand on its own merit, ideas can come from anywhere. TheWhether it is a one-page press release or a 6 page strategy document, with all graphs and charts in the appendix, documents provide a platform, an invitation, for everyone to contribute.

Reading is inclusion: In a typical “read” meeting, the participants spend the first 20 minutes of a 60 minute meeting reading a prepared document and then they discuss. The agenda is simply stated “are there comments or feedback that anyone wants to share?” I have found this approach allows the introverted and analyticals of the group to bring their thinking forward. It allows those who read and process quickly to review their notes to identify the highest priority feedback before the discussion begins. Everyone on the read can fully participate. In my experience, this leads to much richer feedback, getting to the heart of the issues faster, and is a better use of everyone’s time as no one is tempted to just read you PowerPoint slides.

Clarity accelerates: As I have written about before, ambiguity kills organizations slowly and clarity speeds things up. When you can get to richer and more meaningful feedback on key strategic issues faster, as I have seen with the document process, you can speed up your whole organization to make better decisions faster. This has a huge impact across the organization and can lead to breakthroughs for customers and real competitive advantages.

I am sure this approach has its critics. It certainly requires learning (and unlearning) of past practices. It requires calibration to get everyone reliant upon it. It uses different muscles than PowerPoint presentations and forces everyone in the company to be a better writer. It is a big change (as I am reminded every time I onboard a new employee into the company).  My initial curiosity has been replaced by conviction. When it doubt, write. You may find, as I have, that a press release is always a good idea!

This article was originally published on LinkedIn Pulse.

Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

Isn't is strange how the world sticks and moves like that?

I have been enjoying the NBC show “This is Us.” In a recent episode, a character visited his childhood home and was surprised to find a few precious items tucked behind a fireplace brick left decades ago. As he takes inventory of what he found (see how I am trying so hard not to spoil it for you?), the character reflects on how the items were still hidden there after all these years and comments “isn’t it strange how the world sticks and moves like that?”

Our careers also stick and move as well. Here are three ways our work and our workplaces can be sticky and yet demonstrate mobility.

1.   Habits die hard, so it’s good you have nine lives

Each of us learned powerful lessons in our families growing up or under the tutelage of coaches, teachers, and early bosses that affect our work habits. We learned to work hard, work smart, and communicate in these early experiences. Early habits and work styles can stick. But they can move as well. Especially if we are mindful and purposeful. In this book, The Leadership Pipeline, Ram Charan, outlines steps people take in their career to abandon the things that made them successful in the past to adopt new habits and approaches befitting their increasing responsibility or more impactful role. The first passage, as he names it, is the transition from managing yourself to managing others. Then, managing managers. Then managing functions. Then to managing businesses, then groups, and finally enterprises. And at each stage there are things that have to be learned and things that need to be unlearned. That is hard work to execute, but just like child’s toys hidden behind a fireplace aren’t appropriate for a grown-up, taste and needs change and you will need to as well. 

What habits are no longer serving you that need to adapt?

Years ago, I was the one that took notes in meetings.  I can type fast. I understood the issues. I was organized. But over time, I learned that being the scribe didn’t serve me. It kept me from fully participating in the discussion and it turned me into an administrator instead of the leader I needed to be. So, I delegate this now to others and only capture my own actions or commitments. This is a small thing, but illustrates how change occurs. One habit at a time.

2.   “Culture eats strategy for lunch,” so I hope you are hungry

The quip about the importance of corporate culture is attributed to management guru, Peter Drucker and is now the title of a book by Curt Coffman and Kathie Sorensen. And just like changing your diet, changing your culture is a difficult, but worthwhile effort. I have worked in organizations whose leaders were very purposeful and thoughtful about the culture they were building. One of my past CEOs and mentors, Balaji Krishnamurthy, went onto to found a consulting company focused on culture and its impact on strategy. Changing the corporate culture requires first awareness that it is there. It is like a fish recognizing that it is swimming in water. Only if it differs from your experience or changes in some way, do you notice it is even there. And when you do notice, it is already having a negative (or positive) impact on your results, team dynamics, and job satisfaction.  The fish is gasping for air when it leaves the water.  High performing companies think about what culture they wish to build, reinforce the preferred behaviors in many ways, and demonstrate patience and persistence. Culture is very sticky, but there are many examples of leaders who decide that what they are isn’t what they need to be and they lead change initiatives that last. But it is a process and not everyone comes along for the journey.

What elements of your corporate culture are no longer helping you achieve your goals?

I worked for an established company. An established company that was acquired by an entrepreneurial Chinese firm last year and formed an incredible international business that is now being served by the combined company and our brands (Planar andLeyard). And our business is growing rapidly (we doubled last year). Facing this caliber of change - which hold so much promise and is very exciting, yet challenging - has caused me to reflect on the kind of leader I need to be and the kind of “norms” we should be cultivating in our business. This is an effort in progress and requires constant reflection. The old ways of working, communicating, executing our plans, or even making our plans must change to keep pace, and I must change with it.

3.   Excuses never made anything better

Benjamin Franklin is quoted as saying “He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.” But that doesn’t make it less tempting to cook up a fresh batch of excuses when things go wrong or when the results of poor choices catch up with us. We blame our boss, our genes, our 4th grade math teacher, or the train being late. Our dog ate our homework or our phone battery is dead. I am not saying that these things don’t occur and that everything is within our control. Clearly that is not true. But if we focus on the excuses we can get stuck. In old ways of thinking. In old patterns of acting. In using the same excuses again and again. In not holding ourselves accountable for being better versions of ourselves.

Watch yourself make excuses. What are you trying to avoid? Who are you trying to impress? What are you afraid will happen? What excuses do you use regularly?

I have been trying to post articles on LinkedIn once a month. A discipline that I started nearly two years ago and I have been quite predictable about it. Then I wrote an article in December about the benefits of procrastination and I guess I took it too much to heart: January got away from me without a post. I blamed my busy schedule. I blamed the fact that I was writing for some other publications. Those are all true, but they were true before as well. I promised myself that I would turn one of these ideas I had squirreled away in Evernote into an article and would post it tomorrow. Then tomorrow became the day after that and now a month later, I am confessing that those excuses didn’t write the article. Only writing it did. All my efforts to procrastinate could have been directed to writing and my track record would have been preserved. In this case, this is a practice I do primarily for myself, but I see the same pattern in other more important matters. It is time to retire some of my well-used and worn out excuses and perhaps you need to do the same.

This article was originally posted on LinkedIn Pulse