We all are Biased: Now Let's Have a Bias for Action
We’re all biased. But most of the time when we hear that “b-word,” we think of political opposition or media manipulation. But it goes farther than that. Philosophies and beliefs aside, we all have things we favor and prioritize in our lives, and in doing in our daily tasks. As a biased person myself, one of my favorite Amazon Web Services (AWS) principles is a “bias for action.”
Like many leaders, our CEO at Cornerstone Technologies, Michael Dyer, former Sergeant United States Marine Corps, inspires our team to think big and deliver results, but of utmost importance is our vigilance for speed. He knows speed matters and customers don’t wait. Setting high marks for all is arguably the hallmark of what makes an organization great; this is why Michael sets goals that inspire me and the team around us every day.
Michael’s focus thinking big and delivering results is one of my favorites as a former West Amazon Web Services (AWS) Telco leader, now back leading Cornerstone Technologies, the company I founded in 2007. This is to say that having a “Bias for Action” is a paramount “how” for each of us to scale to our desired “what’s.”
Does this principle sound simple? If so, that’s because it’s supposed to be. But instilling a bias for action in oneself is not nearly as easy as listening to it.
In a world economy that waits for no one, speed and agility are necessities in business.
We must shed the fear we feel as leaders and people of making mistakes and taking calculated risks. Where I came from, it was stated that the ideal was to have 70% of the data to make a decision. While I believe this was generally true, it was also important to know your scope of empowerment.
So often before we act, many of us may subconsciously think about “the process,” the stigma, or the potential risks and failures associated with this action. At Amazon, we were encouraged to “see around corners” and anticipate what would be the necessary follow-on actions to success or challenges, and to prepare accordingly.
So, today, I find myself challenging my team to be biased. So long as the intention is with a productive, constructive goal in mind to help a greater cause, action is a quicker way to find results, even if that result is failure. And the quicker we fail, the faster we can get to the greatest good.
I am not advocating for callousness, thoughtlessness, or being unscrupulous. But if you’re going to fail sometimes anyway (and failure is inevitable in everyone’s life), why not fail faster? In doing so, you’re quickly collecting more of the world’s most privileged asset: data.
There will be a lot of things that don’t work in life, in business. Everyone has a bias, but if we start to favor action and calculated risks, we take this inevitability of disadvantage and make it our greatest strength. Empowering teams to learn and take action leads to leaders who are “right a lot.”
Cornerstone Technology | Cornerstone Technologies’ rich history of innovation has relied on two things: pride in our people, and a customer-obsessed mindset that leaves no stone unturned. Ever since becoming the go-to global backup partner for Visa in 2008, Cornerstone has been just that; our job is your vision, and we gather the right people with the best expertise to build exactly what you want. Whether it be hybrid cloud migrations, cybersecurity, managed services, or any engineering augmentation you may need, we aren’t defined by ‘one-size-fits-all,’ but rather the size of the solution that works for you. We lead with listening, and we back it up with our expertise over decades of refinement and leadership.