In 2004 I had an offer to join the new Kindle team at Amzn and I jumped at the oppty. I was on our retail team at the time -> Kindle was new/sexy. But a week before I was scheduled to start my new job, I was told to stay put and I learned an important lesson. Here’s the story:
2 years earlier I had been given P&L responsibility for Amzn’s cell phone store. We sold phones + plans (like Car Warehouse and Best Buy). This was Amzn’s highest margin biz, but it was tiny and not growing and I was told it could get shut down. I had 6 mos to turn it around.
The industry model at that time was give phones for free w/ service plan attach. I reinvested the service plan margin to make phones less than free, and rev growth exploded. GM % plummeted, but profit $ went way up. My little biz was our fastest growing segment at Amzn!
18 months later, others starting copying us and growth stalled. When I got the offer to work on Kindle, I jumped at it. Not only would I have the chance to launch a new biz, I could walk away from my current biz and let someone else clean up the mess. But then...
Diego P. (WW head of retail) called me into his office. He explained you don’t get rewarded with new opportunities when you’re doing a bad job. He would allow me to join Kindle team, as soon as I got my current biz back on track and hired a successor who was stronger than me.
This was a tough message. Not only was my new opportunity on hold indefinitely, but it was also clear I was failing in my current role. I spent the next 6 months grinding on the biz and aggressively recruiting. I was able to re-accelerate growth and find a very strong successor.
Diego finally gave me permission to join the Kindle team. Steve Kessel had been holding my spot there, and I was determined to make up for lost time. As it turned out, we were still years away from launch and I hadn’t missed as much as I had feared.
A year earlier I had been on top of the world. I was running my own P&L, had performed a turnaround, everyone told me I was a rising star. Then things got hard and I tried to run away to a new job in a new dept. But great companies and strong leaders hold people accountable.
I never forgot this lesson, and I’ve often leaned on it when things get hard. It’s tempting to run away to something new (at work, in life). Resist that temptation - stay until your job is done, take pride in fixing what you broke, don’t hide from problems, act like an owner.
Thank you Diego!
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