My lessons are largely from working in a rapidly growing scale up and alongside ex-Amazon execs (hence the bias towards how Amazon do things!)

<aside> 💡 Principle 1: “Strategy is not operational excellence”. Strategy is also not “moving fast and breaking things”

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• The essence of a startup or of a company more general is resource allocation; how can I allocated the limited resources I have to get to the overarching goal which I am looking to get to. The strategy is the way to get to that overarching goal through allocation of these resources
• “Competitive strategy is about being different. It means deliberately choosing a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value…. Trade-offs are essential to strategy. They create the need for choice and purposefully limit what a company offers” - HBR article (link)
  • Note - this is the essence of Amazon’s Tenets; providing a framework to made tricky trade-offs so anybody can understand or appreciate them
• “Moving fast and breaking things” is about execution. It is not strategy.

<aside> 💡 Principle 2: “Get the strategy right and the execution is easy” (link)

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• Deciding which direction to go and the trade-offs required to go that way ensures focus, alignment and ease of execution

<aside> 💡 Principle 3: “Strategic positions should have a horizon of a decade or more, not of a single planning cycle”

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• Think long term! One of the key lesson from Amazon (link) and also outlined in this article (link)

<aside> 💡 Principle 4: keep it simple, focused and something which everybody in the company can understand and remember

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• Lesson from CEO at Proptech company I worked at. Repetition is very useful here

<aside> 💡 Principle 5: strategy needs to be underpinned by values (the way of working & culture) and operating principles (expectations on how to operate or lead)

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• Guiding long-term principles
  • They are broader beliefs that define the company's culture and approach to business e.g. Amazon’s core long term beliefs (link)
• Operating / leadership principles / values
  • E.g. Amazon’s Leadership principles = specific set of guidelines for behaviour and decision-making. The company’s expectation for how employees should approach work, decision making and collaboration (link)