Summary of Colin Bryar and Bill Carr's Working Backwards

By IRB Media

Get the Summary of Colin Bryar and Bill Carr's Working Backwards in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. Original book introduction: With keen analysis and practical steps for applying it at your own company—no matter the size—the authors illuminate how Amazon’s fourteen leadership principles inform decision-making at all levels and reveal how the company’s culture has been defined by four characteristics: customer obsession, long-term thinking, eagerness to invent, and operational excellence. Bryar and Carr explain the set of ground-level practices that ensure these are translated into action and flow through all aspects of the business.

Working Backwards is a practical guidebook and a corporate narrative, filled with the authors’ in-the-room recollections of what “Being Amazonian” is like and how it has affected their personal and professional lives. They demonstrate that success on Amazon’s scale is not achieved by the genius of any single leader, but rather through commitment to and execution of a set of well-defined, rigorously-executed principles and practices—shared here for the very first time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jun 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781638154853

IRB Media

With IRB books, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

Book preview

Insights from Chapters 1-2

#1

When Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, started his company, it was so small that he was able to be with his employees every step of the way. He was guiding them into following his leadership principles, monitoring every decision they had to make.

#2

In 2004, when the company had grown far beyond its initial size, Robin Andrulevich from human resources began compiling a list of Amazon’s most important leadership principles. She interviewed the most valuable and successful leaders the company had, and ended up compiling 14 principles.

#3

The first principle is Customer Obsession: leaders must cater everything to the customers’ needs, thus earning their trust. The next principle is Ownership: leaders are able to treat the company as their own, working towards long-term success.

#4

Invent and Simplify is the third principle. Leaders are open to inventions instead of rejecting them, and they simplify their ideas for accessibility. The fourth principle,