I just read an interesting expose on Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com. For the record, I have to be one of their all-time best customers. Should have bought stock! And as an author, I'm indebted to the ingenious idea of a virtual bookstore!
I found one anecdote fascinating. Amazon originally rented office space on Seattle's skid row. And the offices were sparsely and cheaply furnished. Bezos himself worked at a makeshift desk that was made from a cheap wooden door purchased at Home Depot and sawed off two-by-fours. What I found interesting is that other employees followed his example and built their own desks the same way. In the process, frugality became part of the Amazon culture. And that frugality is epitomized and symbolized by a makeshift desk.
In 1996, Amazon brought in $16 million in revenue. Three years later, annual revenues had gone up a hundredfold to $1.6 billion. And by it's 10th anniversary, Amazon.com passed the $8 billion mark.What's interesting is that, despite their exponential growth, Amazon's culture continued to self-perpetuate. Ten years into it, with 12,000 employees, you could still see people sitting at desks built from doors!
I'd said it a thousand times: creating culture is the most important and most difficult task of a leader. In fact, the only thing more difficult is changing culture. But the good news is that culture is not a mystery. It is living out your core values in meaningful ways. It is communicating your values in memorable ways. And that boils down to small actions that make a big difference. Things like making desks from doors!
I found one anecdote fascinating. Amazon originally rented office space on Seattle's skid row. And the offices were sparsely and cheaply furnished. Bezos himself worked at a makeshift desk that was made from a cheap wooden door purchased at Home Depot and sawed off two-by-fours. What I found interesting is that other employees followed his example and built their own desks the same way. In the process, frugality became part of the Amazon culture. And that frugality is epitomized and symbolized by a makeshift desk.
In 1996, Amazon brought in $16 million in revenue. Three years later, annual revenues had gone up a hundredfold to $1.6 billion. And by it's 10th anniversary, Amazon.com passed the $8 billion mark.What's interesting is that, despite their exponential growth, Amazon's culture continued to self-perpetuate. Ten years into it, with 12,000 employees, you could still see people sitting at desks built from doors!
I'd said it a thousand times: creating culture is the most important and most difficult task of a leader. In fact, the only thing more difficult is changing culture. But the good news is that culture is not a mystery. It is living out your core values in meaningful ways. It is communicating your values in memorable ways. And that boils down to small actions that make a big difference. Things like making desks from doors!
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I had a conversation with Tony Hsieh (of Zappos.com) via DM's on Twitter about creating a brand based on the culture of the people inside a company, earlier this week.
NCC does a wonderful job of letting the culture of its leaders spill over into the rest of the church and into the local neighborhood. And not only is it small action steps that lead to big successes, it is the CONSISTENCY in those action steps that proves to be the biggest key through it all (at least in my opinion).
Thanks for all that you do PM!
~Terry Hartley
The greatest impact we can have to actually create culture is to influence people before their core beliefs are pretty much set in stone after the age of 9. Creating culture within children is like working with clay; it's easy to mold and shape. The clay dries very quickly after age 9 and becomes rock solid by age 13. After that you are having to chisel away at stone. Yes, there can be change but usually only happens due to life crises and/or divine intervention.
Sadly, too many churches and church leaders wait until high school or university to seriously address spiritual formation issues and impacting culture. If we truly want to create culture and have lasting impact, then it needs to be done early. Do we ignore students and adults? No. But more intentional thought needs to go into realizing that children are probably the most integral part of our communities and deserve more of our resources, thought, and strategic planning.
Very insightful - as a staff member of a large church, I see how important it is to start with creating/changing culture within so we can apply that same principle out.
Mark - Thanks for sharing the inspirational story about Jeff at Amazon. I think that you are right on in pointing out that culture spreads from the leader. In churches where the founding pastor has been present since the beginning, the church often lives into the qualities of that pastor - both good and bad.
Hi Mark,
I am a bi-vocational pastor. I work at Amazon and sit at one of those door desks. This culture still exists. It is a great place to work.
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