[00:00:00] Welcome to Unpacking the Digital Shelf, where we explore brand manufacturing in the digital age.
[00:00:16] Hey everyone, Peter Krozgi here from the Digital Shelf Institute. I don't know about you, but I
[00:00:19] feel like there's a distinct sense out there that we are at the precipice of another era-defining
[00:00:24] change in commerce, business and even societies. A moment where leaders will be called to envision
[00:00:30] and enable the big transformations necessary to survive and thrive. In business, we call
[00:00:37] that making big bets, and getting good at them is more critical than ever. That's why John Rossman,
[00:00:42] author of the Amazon Way and Think Like Amazon, has co-authored with Kevin McAfrey,
[00:00:47] former strategy head at T-Mobile, a new business playbook called Big Bet Leadership,
[00:00:53] Your Transformation Playbook in the Hyper Digital Era. John joined Lauren Levac Gilbert and me
[00:00:58] to introduce his clear, concise and actionable treatise for driving the change your organization
[00:01:04] needs for this next era. John Rossman, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for being
[00:01:11] here with us today and congratulations on your book. Well, Peter Lawrence, great to be here.
[00:01:17] The Digital Shelf is such a great community and I appreciate the opportunity to come and talk
[00:01:23] today. Well, I have to tell you, reading through your remarkable book on how to pull
[00:01:29] off big bets, there are a lot of business books. It's the first sentence I think of your
[00:01:37] book actually. There are countless books that make the case for digital transformation, etc.
[00:01:43] Because I know you, I knew I would get something fresh and new, but I was thinking to myself,
[00:01:50] well, how do you do something fresh and new on here? One of the things that really pulled me
[00:01:56] into the urgency of getting this right was you started off by naming three mega forces
[00:02:03] that shape the next period of time that is forcing, I mean, not just businesses but entire
[00:02:13] populations to change the way we work, live, create. And they were generative AI and quantum
[00:02:20] computing, the aging of America's workforce and the changes that that rots and the opportunities
[00:02:29] hopefully. And then the growth and spending on entitlement programs which will have to change
[00:02:34] the way we create value and drive results in all three of these are both opportunity and challenge.
[00:02:43] And to me, they were a gut punch for holy crap. We have to get better at big bets
[00:02:51] and our listeners need to if their companies are going to survive and if frankly our cultures
[00:02:56] are going to survive. Is that what you were thinking with that first mention?
[00:03:00] It really is. Each of those mega forces is a cyclone to deal with, but I think that they
[00:03:06] combine together and the general premise is if you think the last 25, 30 years of digital
[00:03:13] transformation has been exciting, you're not going to see. The next phase is really coming at you
[00:03:21] and that's what I frame as the hyper digital era. And what I think is primarily going to be the
[00:03:26] big difference is that the customer experience has been really greatly reinvented a bunch of
[00:03:34] cool technology. But if you look at productivity and how work actually gets done in mid to large
[00:03:42] companies, it really hasn't changed that much. It's been a fairly slow incremental productivity
[00:03:48] change and operating model change. I think that is what's going to be the distinguishing feature
[00:03:55] when we in 25 years and we're looking back like, oh man, we reinvented productivity.
[00:04:01] And so there are going to be companies that have 10 to 100x productivity. Like what it takes to get
[00:04:08] something done is going to be completely transformed and changed. And that's what we have to prepare
[00:04:15] for. And we know we're not good at these things, but we're going to have to get good at it.
[00:04:20] And this is what's going to separate out the long term winners from the long term losers.
[00:04:25] I love that. And I will call you 25 years from now so we can laugh about it all.
[00:04:32] Yeah, look at all the kids pulled off. Yeah, the great thing is that nobody will be calling
[00:04:37] me on this prediction in 25 years, right? Well, no, there'll be a chip in our heads and I'll
[00:04:42] just beam my thoughts to you as soon as possible. Right on. But and that's what so for me,
[00:04:49] bracing about the book is that it really lays out
[00:04:55] takes from a bunch of resources, but also your experiences, you know, you,
[00:05:00] you went through a big bet at the Gates Foundation that didn't work. And I feel like that
[00:05:06] experience has contributed and all the other companies that you've consulted with and just
[00:05:10] your own thoughts and those of your co-authors. But it feels like that is that experience
[00:05:17] is what almost drove you to not want other people to have to go through that. Is that fair?
[00:05:23] It is. We wrote this book both for companies to succeed at their big bets,
[00:05:28] but also for the people that are involved with them because there's nothing better to have your
[00:05:33] career positively impacted by a big bet. And it's also it can be a real derailment to a
[00:05:40] career to be associated with a failed big bet. And so I wrote this book for two specific
[00:05:46] personas, but then kind of the people run. The two specifics personas are the senior leader who
[00:05:51] is accountable for pulling off a major transformation and the directly responsible individual that
[00:05:58] tends to be the fully committed individual leading the transformation. Those are the
[00:06:03] two specific personas that we wrote this book to plus all the people that support
[00:06:08] are involved in the effort. But those are the two, you know, kind of target customers
[00:06:12] for the book. Yeah, I think our listenership is probably a combination of the two. But I would
[00:06:17] say they're a lot in the second where in the next couple of years or few years of big bets,
[00:06:24] they'll be that person. But then they will be because of those big bets paying off.
[00:06:29] They'll be the ones that are deciding what the next bet should be. So it's an exciting time
[00:06:33] for this to be discussed. You know, one thing I like to be really clear about is like what
[00:06:38] a big bet is and that this book isn't for every situation in a big bet is a strategy
[00:06:46] initiative, a plan, an objective that has these two key attributes. One is that it has high
[00:06:52] ambition has the potential for truly impacting our business. And that can be at the enterprise
[00:06:58] level. That can be at a team or capability level, but it has high ambition. And the other
[00:07:05] attribute is that it's multi-sided and risk and complexity and stakeholders, right? And so those
[00:07:11] two things are what make a big bet unique. And so incremental straightforward projects,
[00:07:17] super important, nothing wrong with them, but they're not a big bet. They don't have that
[00:07:21] type of complexity and that tension between high ambition and multi-sided risk.
[00:07:27] Yeah, and the potential to really transform the operating model and the success of the business.
[00:07:33] Yeah, exactly. And John, I was just going to say, I think even if it's not a the big bet that has
[00:07:40] the high complexity, I like the way you broke down thinking through it. Like the wicked problem,
[00:07:45] the environment that you're in. Like I love that way of thinking. So I think it's also helpful as
[00:07:51] anything that happens in digital is new and is a test and learn and we don't necessarily have the
[00:07:58] end result of what it's going to look like. So using this way of thinking to just say,
[00:08:02] what are we trying to solve? What's the actual problem? How do we get the rest of our environment,
[00:08:07] people process technology on board? So I really like that aspect too because you can apply it to
[00:08:12] just thinking about new things in digital like AI or retail media or anything new,
[00:08:18] name 17 new things that will come out in the next five years and how to tackle those problems.
[00:08:23] Well, I think so I agree with you. I think there is some definite aspects of this that
[00:08:28] can be used in other scenarios and in particular, you're absolutely right, which is we don't spend
[00:08:36] enough time in either the problem space or the solution space before we start getting to the
[00:08:42] how to do it and everything. And everybody knows like, oh, we can't approach this as a technology
[00:08:48] project or technology initiative. But what happens really quickly? It becomes a technology
[00:08:53] problem and a technology initiative. And so really thinking through the multi-sided aspects of a
[00:09:03] problem, taking the appropriate amount of time not suffering from analysis paralysis, which can be
[00:09:08] the counter risk to this of really understanding the customer and the job they are trying to get
[00:09:15] done, what the real problem is, where are the multi-sided features of it? And then quickly
[00:09:20] creating the hypotheses for what we think the future state should be. I'm skipping over the how,
[00:09:26] how we get there and everything. So some unconstrained opportunity to really
[00:09:31] like what would be the ideal situation? And then the hypothesis, what are the three to five
[00:09:36] assumptions or capabilities that would have to be true for us to deliver that future outcome?
[00:09:42] Just taking that effort. My co-author, Kevin McAfrey, have a situation we're
[00:09:47] dealing with where it's like, I mean, they just plowed through that. And then,
[00:09:51] everybody is so anxious to get to building and deploying and things like that.
[00:09:57] Just take a little more time and kind of the upfront stays and the kind of go slow to go fast
[00:10:04] mindset is really true upfront. And you can redo these things too. But yeah, I agree.
[00:10:13] So there's three main elements of the Big Bet playbook. So we're not going to be able to dive
[00:10:19] into all of them, but just to kind of set the stage for the audience. So we have the Big
[00:10:23] Bet thinking, which is the wicked problem. I have to say, I love that because
[00:10:26] Well, especially you're from Boston, New England. Yeah.
[00:10:28] Well, but I moved to Boston in 2020 and I'd never heard anyone use the word wicked. And
[00:10:33] now it's one of my favorite new words. So the wicked problem,
[00:10:37] Big Bet environment. So figuring out your opening moves. And then Big Bet management.
[00:10:42] How you're actually going to be managing through that problem. So we don't have time
[00:10:46] to dig into all of these, but we thought a great approach for our audience would be
[00:10:51] to try and solve an actual problem or walk through not solve. Sorry. Walk through
[00:10:58] and think through a problem that our audience might be tackling. So John, let's try this.
[00:11:08] Ready? Here we go. So a big challenge for our audience, operating as an omnichannel organization.
[00:11:15] You said it in the beginning, the ways of working inside most large organizations have not changed,
[00:11:20] but the industry, the environment, the consumer has changed and people are still working with
[00:11:26] the in-store approach and then there's the e-commerce approach and they're siloed and
[00:11:30] they're not talking to each other. So if this were a problem, someone came to you
[00:11:34] with and you wanted to use your Big Bet playbook, where would you start?
[00:11:38] Okay. Resate the current problem statement. Operating as an omnichannel organization and
[00:11:44] breaking down silos. Okay. Great. And so what I would really want to start with is
[00:11:51] understanding how that gets manifested to the customer or to some operator external to us.
[00:11:58] So what are all the ways that this gets manifested? How often does this happen?
[00:12:05] What do we think the impact to it is? And so really what I'm trying to do is size the
[00:12:10] prize here and really understand the size and the scope of this issue. And then really understand
[00:12:18] by reframing the question, it's like why are we in this situation? And that is a
[00:12:26] problem statement would easily get transitioned into solely a technology solution relative to get it.
[00:12:34] But in my experience, we live in a... We all have to deal with forces and the things that
[00:12:43] compel us to do stuff. Understanding the incentive system both internally and externally
[00:12:50] relative to why are we in this situation? And what would we have to
[00:12:53] unfreeze or change in order to actually start making better decisions around this problem
[00:13:00] would maybe be a real insight into how do we truly solve the problem that resulted in this
[00:13:07] problem? Because you may get to a one-time fix of like, hey, we've got a better data flow here
[00:13:13] and everything. Great. But what we know is that launch is never the end of the journey. There's
[00:13:19] always more work to do. And if we don't solve the underlying like, how do we value this channel?
[00:13:27] How do we grow it over time? What is the right roles and responsibilities and incentive systems
[00:13:36] and decision-making frameworks that led us to get into the situation again? We're just putting
[00:13:42] a band-aid on the problem at that point. So it really is if this might fit into the...
[00:13:46] and tell me if it's true, fit into the category of an operating model big bet in a way. Would that
[00:13:52] be accurate that you're trying to change the way you work? Absolutely. And it could also...
[00:13:57] If I think about a portfolio of good ideas versus the really great idea, and we all know
[00:14:04] like the most important decision senior leaders make is resource allocation decisions.
[00:14:09] And what tends to happen is we get fractionalized across lots of things and therefore nothing
[00:14:15] really moves the needle. And so I would want to really gain clarity of like,
[00:14:21] you know, how important is this channel to our perspective on future growth and make sure that
[00:14:28] we're at a senior level aligning against what we think the real prize is? The biggest issue
[00:14:37] with big bets is that we quickly lose the ambition relative to them, right? We de-risk
[00:14:44] them by thinking small, by tunneling, by going about it in a very incremental manner. And so again,
[00:14:51] that what we're trying to solve for is how to both amplify the ambition but to de-risk it
[00:14:58] before we make the big commitments relative to it. And that's I think what's truly unique
[00:15:04] about the big bet leadership approach is how to both increase ambition and de-risk it before...
[00:15:11] the key risks before we actually proceed on it both internally or externally. And
[00:15:18] people get that backwards all the time, all the time. They have a good idea, they commit big to
[00:15:24] it, they really haven't de-risked it. That's you know, the title of the book is kind of a play
[00:15:28] on words, right? People think that big bet is about big bets. It's not about... there's a chapter
[00:15:34] called Thinking Big But Betting Small. The big is the ambition. The bets are intended to be placed
[00:15:42] very small and de-risk until the point it's just a great investment. We understand what we are
[00:15:47] doing well enough that we are proceeding with a much better investment thesis than a big bet.
[00:15:54] The goal is not to make big bets. The goal is to have big ambition and do it through
[00:15:59] experimentation to de-risk them. So let's say you go through the things to really arrive at a
[00:16:05] crisp clear set of outcomes that everyone now has looked around and said, holy crap. And we want that.
[00:16:13] Let's go down this path. In the big bet environment section, you talk about opening moves.
[00:16:20] Like can you tell us what an opening move might be to build that team that's going to make
[00:16:26] this process? Yeah. The whole philosophy is summed up in the quote that I start the chapter,
[00:16:31] which is, the greatest victory is that which requires no battle. And so it's like we know
[00:16:37] there's... we know there's going to be issues and factors that come into play that slow
[00:16:45] our big bet down. There's three critical habits that big bet legends have. They create
[00:16:49] clarity. We've just talked about the aspect of creating clarity. This is about maintaining
[00:16:56] velocity. We all start off with great commitment, great vigor, great energy. We, you know,
[00:17:03] u-ra we're all in, but these initiatives quickly just slow down and become paced by other gating
[00:17:09] factors. So this chapter opening moves is all about predicting the predictable things that are
[00:17:14] going to try to slow down and force our big bet to act like other incremental run the business
[00:17:20] projects. So you can think through what those types of factors are. They tend to be around
[00:17:26] policies, policies that impact how we hire, how we staff, how we make decisions, how resources
[00:17:33] get allocated. Those policies are geared towards mature run the business situations.
[00:17:40] They aren't wired towards the special purposes of what a big bet is. So what do I do as a big
[00:17:46] bet leader? Well, I engage early with my stakeholders to help them understand like
[00:17:52] these are what we're going to try to do differently. I can predict some things that are coming on
[00:17:56] and when you typically engage with those stakeholders and you've got executive commitment
[00:18:01] to us, then you have the leverage to actually like, oh okay, we're going to create
[00:18:06] a separate path essentially for your situation. Fantastic. Another big one that comes up
[00:18:12] is just kind of team commitment. You need the most predictable risk factor of why big bets fail
[00:18:20] is because of a completely fractionalized team. Nobody is truly committed to the effort.
[00:18:27] Having a small dedicated team with a senior leader who is dedicated to the project,
[00:18:33] the DRI at Amazon, we call it the single threaded leader that has sway in the organization.
[00:18:39] They're senior enough to actually get things done within the organization. A committed team
[00:18:46] from my standpoint is kind of a starting point yes or no on whether we're going to be successful
[00:18:52] on this. And then the third one is oftentimes the technology environments.
[00:18:58] And I've seen too many situations like, yep, we're going for the big bet.
[00:19:03] And then quickly it's like, yeah, but we've got a year long system conversion or
[00:19:08] replatforming that has to take place before we can even get to it. So predict the fact that
[00:19:14] we need a separate, I call it a digital lab environment that allows us to quickly iterate
[00:19:22] on the technology and not allowing the technology barriers to be the thing that slows us down
[00:19:28] relative to these big bets. So John, I've seen this in the CPG world manifest as incubators.
[00:19:36] So let's say like a large CPG company who as we've been talking about has operated the same way
[00:19:41] and might take longer to do things, they decide to come up with an incubation team where
[00:19:45] they're going to develop a new product, a new innovation. And so they create the small
[00:19:50] nimble team, they have that one executive leader and they are operating in that team and don't
[00:19:56] have to really, I'm not going to say apply the same rules, but they get to kind of skip some
[00:20:00] of the processes and they get to work separately. Is that what you're talking about from a digital
[00:20:05] lab perspective? And then I guess my sub question to that is in the scenario of an incubator,
[00:20:12] how do you then thread that through the organization to continue beyond just that
[00:20:18] one moment? Yeah, well you're quickly going to run into my limitations which is I can only
[00:20:22] remember one question at a time. Okay, I'll bring it back. No, no, no, no. So there can be several
[00:20:29] ways to solve for the issue. What's most important is that we understand what issue we're trying to
[00:20:35] deal with and so an incubation team can be a way to solve it. The thing you have to think
[00:20:42] through then is just what are the constraints that incubation team operates within. I've seen too many
[00:20:50] innovation labs, incubation teams essentially be the land of no accountability.
[00:20:57] A hundred percent. And so that's the counter fact. That's half of Google right now, isn't it?
[00:21:04] No comment. And so you just have to be really thoughtful about how you integrate it
[00:21:13] because most all big bets are kind of across the enterprise. Like they're rarely siloed in nature.
[00:21:20] There probably could be a scenario where it is, but that's rare in nature. You have to think through
[00:21:25] how do I integrate it across through the executive teams? We've got a lot of comments
[00:21:31] further down in the Big Bet Management section about how to gain that true alignment. But
[00:21:35] an incubation team can be the way to proceed as long as you have the right leader and the
[00:21:42] right constraints relative to it and you're not allowing it become the land of no accountability.
[00:21:48] I'm so glad you said that because I had some experience with an incubator and you're right,
[00:21:52] they just kind of went and did whatever they wanted to do on specifically Amazon and Target.
[00:21:57] And I was like, you can't just do that. Like that's not how this works, but they were operating
[00:22:02] to be able to be nimble and fast and test and learn. But there were effects of that
[00:22:07] through the broader organization that they didn't realize because they sat in that side.
[00:22:12] So the reason I'm bringing that up is because I think from a larger company organization,
[00:22:16] a lot of times when people think of Big Bet, they think of let's create this small little team and
[00:22:20] then go from there. But to your point and to the whole point of the playbook is it
[00:22:24] needs to be integrated more broadly to be successful for more than just a year or
[00:22:29] more than just a project that you're working on. The reason we call this a leadership book
[00:22:34] is because it's a combination of both strategy, what do we do? What problem do we solve?
[00:22:39] How do we figure out how we compete? But it's also really a communication and culture book.
[00:22:45] How we work together through these initiatives is an absolute critical pillar of Big Bet leadership.
[00:22:53] And so a lot of these challenges get solved by changing how we work, how we communicate.
[00:23:01] We've got some very specific recommendations that are kind of built on top of completely
[00:23:06] reverse engineered kind of Amazon working backward technique of writing things out, debating them.
[00:23:14] I wrote a newsletter just the other day that was about great documents, messy meetings,
[00:23:20] and that whole notion of really great writing to clarify the situation, but then allowing
[00:23:27] kind of great debate and messy meetings so that senior leaders actually understand what
[00:23:34] you're proposing. So John, speaking of messy meetings, one of the anecdotes that stood out
[00:23:39] to me in the book was really one of, I mean, one of your, I'll just say one of your career defining
[00:23:47] big bets that you personally worked on, you brought the Amazon marketplace to market.
[00:23:53] And there was a moment in a boardroom somewhere in Amazon where Jeff Bezos turned
[00:23:59] to you and asked you a question, which changed really and put you onto a big bet mode of thinking.
[00:24:06] Can you just quickly tell our listeners about that? Because as someone with imposter syndrome,
[00:24:11] in that moment I would have just melted and anyway, go tell.
[00:24:15] Well, I probably add some of that too and everything. But yeah, so this was,
[00:24:19] you know, so I was at Amazon from early 2002 through late 2005. We launched the marketplace
[00:24:24] business in late 2003. This is January 2003 at the S team. I wasn't on the S team, but I was,
[00:24:33] you know, at the S team meeting talking about the marketplace and yeah, Jeff asked me a question
[00:24:39] about like, well, how many merchants have we launched this year? And so I started to explain
[00:24:44] to him essentially why there were no merchants to launch any, and he goes, the answer to that
[00:24:50] question begins with a number. And there's actually a really important lesson to learn,
[00:24:55] which is senior leaders always have like they're trying to daisy chain something together,
[00:25:00] create a context, answer the question up front. Then if they want an explanation,
[00:25:04] you can explain it, but that that's really not the lesson here. The lesson was he wanted
[00:25:09] us all to think like owners. And even though you have functional responsibility,
[00:25:15] a job and you have to be a master of that job, we also want you, you know, longitudinally across
[00:25:21] the company, oftentimes against the bureaucracy, like, like you got to be thinking about enterprise
[00:25:27] optimization here, right? And tackling those, those bottlenecks. And he was just setting
[00:25:33] the tone from the top about like, you know, your title might be director of merchant integration,
[00:25:38] but you need to act like you run the business. And I was like, I got the point and my willingness
[00:25:46] to be a much more assertive partner with all my other constituents completely changed that day.
[00:25:55] And it was needed. And that was completely on me. And so it's like, you know,
[00:26:02] I took it as like, what a great lesson. And that's a that speaks volumes to who you are and how you
[00:26:09] behave in organizations. And I'm assuming what you bring to, you know, the clients that you work
[00:26:15] with. And one of the things I took away is that that's what led you to create kind of the
[00:26:20] secondary title for roles like this of chief repeating officer. Like,
[00:26:26] I think of, I think of all the things that Bezos did so well. The one that doesn't get highlighted
[00:26:34] much is what a strategic on point consistent communicator he was and is. And that ability to
[00:26:43] be on point. And we go into a lot of depth about this in the book. But too often senior leaders,
[00:26:52] they're inconsistent in their communication about what we're trying to do. They are vague about
[00:26:59] either the problem we're solving, they're especially vague about why we're doing it and what the
[00:27:03] future path is. And they don't understand the types of commitments or path that we should be
[00:27:08] laying out when we do that communication. So we have a whole playbook within the playbook
[00:27:15] relative to the communication that's required from senior leaders, which is to be focused less
[00:27:22] on the burning platform, the problem we're solving be much more specific about the future of where
[00:27:27] we're going to and why and then be be accurate and very clear about where we are on that journey.
[00:27:33] We are testing this concept out or we are fully committed to it and we are scaling it.
[00:27:39] Senior leaders get that wrong all the time they actually detract the communication detracts
[00:27:44] from the situation doesn't help the situation. And that is something that big
[00:27:49] bet legends do extremely well is be that chief repeating officer.
[00:27:56] So John, you talked a little about this in our conversation but thinking big and betting small
[00:28:01] and testing things out and deciding whether it's something that you're just going to try or
[00:28:05] continue forward with. So if we're thinking about thinking big betting small and if we bring
[00:28:11] it back to that larger problem of operating differently right whether it's the Romney Channel
[00:28:15] or just operating to be more agile in the environment, what's a way that you can practice that especially
[00:28:22] when you have such a meaty problem and you probably have demands from your leadership to do it quickly
[00:28:29] and to get it done. Yeah so I mentioned up front there's three critical habits that big
[00:28:35] bet legends have they create clarity we've talked about that they maintain velocity we've
[00:28:39] talked about that now we're talking about the third critical habit and I think it's
[00:28:43] the most counterintuitive which is big bet legends accelerate risk and value deferring as much else
[00:28:51] until you've de-risked the situation right and so think big but that small is all about
[00:28:57] that experimentation process of how do you actually identify the critical high value
[00:29:04] high risk assumptions risks things that must be true in order to create this outcome
[00:29:10] how do you find ways to accelerate learning and testing and adapting those assumptions
[00:29:17] before you invest in other things and there's a real skill and art to to identifying what those
[00:29:26] high value high risk things are and then finding ways to test them but in most incremental projects
[00:29:33] and hence where most good operators come from you come from a very methodical like left to
[00:29:39] right build the foundation then we build up then we build up relative to it and so in a lot of ways
[00:29:45] we are recommending flipping the script it may feel like you're wasting a little bit of you know time
[00:29:51] and money on this but it it's the most valuable money and time you can take which is to de-risk
[00:29:57] these things before you start really building for them and and so it's all about actual agility
[00:30:05] and experimentation and doing it on the right things at the right time
[00:30:10] and I can imagine if I'm a leader reading the book or sitting here and thinking about it
[00:30:15] it's the like what if I fail right like that that's a big question especially when it comes to a
[00:30:19] big risk like that like what would your answer be to especially going through your experience
[00:30:23] yeah that that's what that's why language is so critical just just the difference between
[00:30:30] we have an initiative or we have a bet if I use the term we have a bet and everybody understand
[00:30:36] what that means oh okay I'm clued in this is a high value high risk situation so what I expect
[00:30:42] that person is doing is that they're experimenting and there's a high degree of potential changes
[00:30:48] that are going to happen here that's the type of thing that makes it safe for everybody
[00:30:53] to actually want to participate on these versus you know what happens in too many companies like
[00:30:59] oh you know they're part of the special projects you know and everything is like oh man that's a
[00:31:03] career limiting right that's a clm and and and if company that's why this is a leadership challenge
[00:31:09] right because you set the environment that creates the type of culture where yeah we say
[00:31:16] we're going to be innovative and nimble and experimentation but really people get punished
[00:31:21] if something doesn't work out short term and long term you are going to create an
[00:31:27] incrementalist play it safe organization you know I when I think of our listeners
[00:31:33] they're they're the last I don't know decade of their work for some of them and and certainly
[00:31:39] several years for the rest of them is all about thinking big and betting small like the digital
[00:31:44] shelf was a big bet and particularly so in COVID but it the COVID as a as a defining event
[00:31:54] removed a lot of the resistance to massive change quickly and re-ordering priorities and
[00:32:00] wasn't it amazing how fast we were able to move during the pandemic and everything right yeah
[00:32:05] oh that that's because it was a real priority then right and and in this moment you know when
[00:32:11] I think back to your mega forces um we have to not you know all of humanity is only moves in
[00:32:21] crisis which is super annoying particularly right now to me but we that's a different podcast
[00:32:28] so it feels like that thinking back in a way to COVID and like holy crap and look how we
[00:32:36] transform the business um some the the urgency to take on big bets how do you see that happening
[00:32:45] at the organizations you're engaging with like is it always a sea level person that's that knows
[00:32:52] if we don't change we're gonna die or where does that energy come from to even it can come from
[00:32:59] a couple of places but at the end of the day it has to be at at the board and the senior level
[00:33:06] because they truly are accountable and control the resources and the priorities of the
[00:33:11] organization and so it has to end up there and that's who we wrote this book for but
[00:33:21] you know I so I absolutely agree with your your point which is great companies that are
[00:33:27] going to be durable in nature understand how that they have to carve off some aspect of
[00:33:35] resources time and priority to inventing the future uh the future business and instead of just
[00:33:42] incrementalizing through the next year and I I believe that that's what's gonna create really
[00:33:49] durable brands and and enterprise value is those companies that play the long game
[00:33:55] and allocate the right time and attention towards the big bets that they need to be
[00:34:01] taking and you know my premise is is that every time you know all these failure statistics of
[00:34:06] digital transformation those are errors of commission where something an action was taken but it didn't
[00:34:12] work out but it doesn't measure all the errors of omission where a big bet was needed but wasn't
[00:34:17] taken so every time you see a great brand go to average or an average brand go to
[00:34:24] irrelevant well that's that's a failure a big debt wasn't taken and what you want is you want
[00:34:32] time to be able to figure it out and to do it from a position of strength I was a partner at a
[00:34:37] turnaround and restructuring firm for 12 years after amazon I've seen too many companies who
[00:34:43] wait until it's too late you have far fewer options you've got a really short runway in
[00:34:48] front of you uh your brand is likely you know kind of damaged at that point too makes
[00:34:53] turn around it's difficult and so you know we end up the book with the recommendation of you need
[00:34:58] to be an active skeptic active meaning you need to take action you need to allocate you need to
[00:35:03] make a priority but you want to be a skeptic you want to prove these things out before you
[00:35:08] make big commitments and so you know being active skeptic is is the best way I can sum up
[00:35:13] the advice yeah I'm going back to thinking big embedding small the the verbs that you use
[00:35:18] to describe the decision points that are made along that are so clear that um and then so you
[00:35:26] describe the verbs are continue do we continue this do we kill this do we pivot this and then you
[00:35:32] say or kind of dot dot dot confusion if you don't make a clear one of those three decisions
[00:35:38] then you're risking the whole big bet it's and the process yeah so there not all decisions
[00:35:46] not all meetings are the same right there are these high stakes moments where we're evaluating a big bet
[00:35:52] and the hygiene around those tends to be really bad the setup how we manage them and so that
[00:35:58] chapter is solely dedicated to how we run these high stakes meetings so that you are clear about
[00:36:05] do we continue do we pivot do we scale do we pull back and you avoid what typically happens which
[00:36:11] is there's confusion out of actually what we decided out of this meeting all right listeners do you want
[00:36:17] to be a big bet legend well read the remarkable book by john rosman and and kevin mccaffrey it's
[00:36:25] it's fascinating a great read and I think is a clarion call but also an actionable clarion
[00:36:34] call to the next decade or two or more of your company and your career which I think you know it's a cool
[00:36:42] thing to consider um you know the book of course is available at amazon and if you are a dsi member
[00:36:49] you're going to get in your email an exclusive discount for the kindle version and also a book
[00:36:54] club event john thank you so much for offering that to our community that's amazingly generous
[00:36:59] I really look forward to continuing the conversation into the book club and um and you have all sorts of
[00:37:05] of resources outside the book as well is that is that true yeah I would say more than any book
[00:37:11] I've ever seen we are giving away tools and resources to help a reader put this very
[00:37:17] readable book into action and so we kept the book very tight didn't suffer from too long
[00:37:24] didn't read but we're giving tools templates prompts a scorecard a bunch of tools to help people
[00:37:33] transition it into action for their organization and all of those are available where
[00:37:39] at bigbet leadership dot com there you go and we'll be going through them at the book club so
[00:37:43] another reason to come check your email john thank you so much again and congratulations to you
[00:37:49] both on on this book well thank you for the venue and the great discussion and preparation
[00:37:55] thank you john thanks again to john for sharing the highlights of his book and his
[00:38:00] super kind offer for the discounted kindle version and book club events if you're not
[00:38:04] already a member of the digital shelf institute run on over to digital shelf institute dot org and
[00:38:09] become one if you miss the email you can ping loren levac gilbert through linkedin to get in on
[00:38:14] the action thanks for being part of our community