Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.
For organisations that are not used to inventing and delivering new products and services, we can take inspiration from the serial winners at the game of innovation. And there are few better exponents than Amazon. Students of innovation have recorded more than 25 significant innovations by the company in its first 20 years and collecting 2,200 patents in 2020 alone. Clearly, its frameworks and cultural practices offer many lessons for those aspiring to remain relevant in today’s world.
In their book Working Backwards, Colin Bryar and Bill Carr, two former generals in the Amazon empire, recount the principles that helped make it the $386-billion annual revenue behemoth that it is today. For innovative culture to exist within the entire organisation, the vision, mission and values need to be crystal clear – something CEO Jeff Bezos goes to great lengths to cover in shareholder letters, published leadership principles and his own actions. Innovation is a function of leadership and the news industry’s inability to innovate is not merely a market failure but a failure of leadership.