Since publishing “Working Backwards,” we’ve worked with dozens of CEOs who have read the book and sought our advice. They almost always begin by describing challenges like difficulty launching new initiatives, lack of ownership, and struggles in meeting financial targets. These are common challenges that we faced at Amazon in the late 90s and early 2000s.
So, when they ask us for help, our approach begins with a deep assessment of how these companies operate.
This covers how they develop new products, make decisions, organize teams, hire, plan, execute, measure success, and review progress.
What we consistently find is that there is never a single root cause to their challenges.
Businesses are interconnected systems, and the obstacles they face are rarely isolated. Instead, process gaps or inefficiencies in one part of the operation ripple downstream and affect the whole business.
For example, a CEO might tell us, ““I am finding it challenging to establish accountability and ownership in my organization. We struggle to execute new projects and initiatives, and we don’t meet our deadlines.”
But when we dig deeper, it’s clear that the challenge isn’t just about decision-making or ownership in isolation.
Often, it’s about the quality of the inputs going into those decisions, like how well information is analyzed, the quality of their data collection, and the clarity of the principles guiding the process.
If teams aren’t structuring their analysis well, challenging their own assumptions, or working from high-quality data, simply improving the decision-making framework won’t lead to better outcomes.
In fact, it would likely just accelerate poor decisions.
Many leaders initially confuse “improving” their decision-making process with accelerating it. However, one key learning we’ve reinforced through our work is that making high-quality decisions starts with improving the quality of the information that informs them.
This may not result in immediate speed gains, but over time, as better analysis becomes the norm, confidence in decision-making increases.
And, when leaders are consistently working from stronger inputs, decision-making naturally becomes both faster and more effective.
When companies engage us, they often have a specific constraint in mind. But without exception, we uncover additional, interconnected challenges that must be addressed in tandem.
The real work lies in helping leadership teams see how their visible challenges are linked to deeper operational structures.
Curious about how we do this? Follow me here and visit us at workingbackwards.com
