Jeff Bezos’ decision-making process resurfaces and everyone is pointing out the same thing
The tech billionaire was seriously humbled
Featured Image Credit: Michael M. Santiago / Staff / Getty
Jeff Bezos must have made some of the right choices to make Amazon the global behemoth it is today, and one of his go-to decision-making processes has resurfaced, leading everyone to think the same thing.
Amazon has risen from humble beginnings to one of the biggest companies in the world, and the garage bookshop origins back in 1994 feel like a long way away when you consider the scale at which the company currently operates.
While the company has made a number of costly mistakes, including an $80,000,000 flop and a decision that almost tanked the entire company, it's founder Jeff Bezos swears by certain decision-making processes as the recipe for Amazon's success.
Perhaps the most famous of these is what's understood as the 'door process', where each decision is broken down into either a 'one door' or 'two door' process.
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In simple terms, one door decisions are those that you can't go back on - such as quitting your job or closing a company - whereas two door decisions are easy to revert like introducing a new product or service, or hiring someone for a job.
The goal of breaking these decisions down is to understand how you should approach the process, particularly from the perspective of speed, as one door decisions should have far more consideration than their two door counterparts due to the permanent nature of their conclusion.
This process has resurfaced on Reddit, with a recent post showing a whiteboard with Bezos' process, outlining the two types of decision making.
One-way doors should be approached with "great deliberation and consultation," whereas two-way doors should be "made quickly by high judgement individuals or small groups," as it's much easier to "reopen the door" and return to where you were.
A quote from Bezos himself indicates how important the implementation of this process is to growing organizations, explaining that "as organizations get larger, there seems to be a tendency to use type 1 decision-making processes on most decisions, including type 2 decisions.
"The end result of this is slowness, unthoughtful, risk aversion, failure to experiment sufficiently, and consequently diminished innovation. We'll have to figure out how to fight that tendency."
Where you might have initially thought the overall process is to lean towards the risk-averse mode as a guide for success, what Bezos actually insists is that companies take more risks and make decisions with greater speed, outlining that as the key for success.
Many underneath the Reddit post aren't exactly taking this as the revolutionary advice that Bezos might think it is though, indicating that it's nothing that hasn't already been done in the world of business.
"That's basic risk management," one comment explains. "Not that it's not great, but Bezos didn't create this he's just saying take less time on lower impact/probability risks/decisions than higher ones."
Another adds that "this is what is known as professionalizing common sense," as one user wonders: "Why would you need a graph for this. This is a concept a 5th grader could figure out."
It's hard to diminish the methodology though considering Amazon's success, as while it might not be the most original train of though, it's certainly worked for Bezos in his professional journey.