Minimizing coordination tax to maximize team ownership
The biggest barrier to any company’s growth is people. More people mean more production, more customers, and more sales, right? In practice, this is usually not the case because each additional team member results in a marginal increase in coordination time and costs. Let’s call this the “Coordination Tax.” This tax is progressive— the tax […]
by Bill Carr
Scale without bureaucracy using single-threaded teams
As organizations get larger, the size of the org can become a liability rather than a strength. The coordination and communication costs exceed the marginal output of additional team members. Here are 4 signs your organization has reached the “Efficiency Tipping Point”: 1. You feel like no one in your company or organization is accountable […]
by Bill Carr
Separate innovation from core business to succeed effectively
The most significant barrier to innovation is that organizations are designed to protect their main business. This means they have many disincentives to invest in and nurture new ideas and business units that will define their future. An excellent book on this topic is ”Loonshots” by Safi Bahcall. He outlines the conditions required for innovation, […]
by Bill Carr
Balancing operators and inventors to sustain growth
Most companies are overwhelmingly populated with Operators, not Inventors. This is because the invention of new products, services, and processes is a less frequent occurrence than the daily, weekly, and monthly execution required to run the core business. Inventors are mostly found in early-stage companies where the entire focus is on product creation. The skills […]
by Bill Carr
Jeff Bezos’s what-how-who framework for leadership growth
Jeff Bezos once said that, as Amazon grew, he had to shift his leadership focus from the “what” to the “how” and then to the “who.” Here is what he meant and what you can learn from this to grow your management and leadership skills The “what” in Amazon’s case was defining its strategy, vision, […]
by Bill Carr
How focused innovation drives success at Amazon
In Amazon’s early days, Jeff Bezos had an endless stream of ideas. Executive Jeff Wilke told Bezos: “Jeff, you have enough ideas to destroy Amazon.” This was a turning point—Bezos realized that too many ideas can create chaos, slow execution, scatter attention, and drain resources. He shifted to disciplined timing of innovation, only launching new […]
by Bill Carr
How Bezos and Wilke managed their time for maximum impact
“Effective Executives know where their time goes. They work systematically at managing the little of their time that can be brought under their control. The supply of time is totally inelastic. There is no price for it, nor is there a marginal utility curve for it. Moreover, time is totally perishable and cannot be stored. […]
by Bill Carr
A proven 30-day onboarding process for new leaders
Effective onboarding of new leaders is often overlooked. A structured process is essential during the first 30 days. Here is the exact process I used to onboard new leaders at Amazon and elsewhere. This process was a tool for the new leader, but it was also a tool for me to assess their likelihood of […]
by Bill Carr
Managing cross-functional dependencies in growing companies
Promising new product initiatives and projects get derailed by unresolved dependencies. The bigger the company, the greater the number of dependencies and the more difficult it becomes to identify and resolve them. Based on my experience, I think there are only two viable solutions to manage the inevitable cross-functional and technical dependencies of an organization. […]
by Bill Carr
Amazon’s process innovations from 2001 to 2005 explained
Amazon’s most innovative systems were all invented or refined during a remarkable 4-year window from 2001-2005. Here is what led to such a fruitful environment for process innovation. The processes invented during this time include Working Backwards, Single-Threaded Leaders, Two-Pizza Teams, Input Metrics, and 1-way/2-way Doors. They came about like this: First, Jeff Bezos fostered […]
by Bill Carr