The phone rang this morning and I saw a number I did not recognize.
“Fred, it’s Jeff Bezos. Got a minute?”
“Jeff, good to hear from you. I’ve been wondering about what you are thinking in buying the Washington Post. I heard George Will say it was probably an intellectual challenge. Others have said this is what rich people do. Something like your own ‘Jurassic Park’ except you buy dinosaurs instead of creating them. Everyone down here is talking about it.”
“I know, and I’m a little surprised myself. I thought I was just another bidder for buying lunch with Warren Buffett but it went another way. So, I’m on my way to Washington to meet with the management and wanted to get your perspective. I’m a big fan of your blog and know you always have great reading suggestions. What do you think I should be reading right now?”
“Jeff, that’s a tough one on such short notice. How about a few quotes from books, articles, and interviews? If any of them are useful, that works for me. By the way, just about everything is available on Amazon.”
So…here’s what I sent him.
Pulitzer
By James McGrath Morris
“Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together,” Pulitzer wrote. “An able disinterested public-spirited press with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery. A cynical mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself. The power to mold the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations.”
Focus
By Al Ries
“The minute management takes its eyes off the core business and starts chasing synergies and secondary opportunities the company starts to go downhill. It may not be immediately obvious. Problems usually fester for some time before they become visible. The CEO is often quick to blame the manager running the core operation: ‘I turn my back and you let the operation go to hell.’ So it’s off with his or her head and on to the next executive in line.
“A focus problem often looks like a people problem. You can’t solve a focus problem by changing managers. You solve a focus problem by refocusing the company on the core concept. You need to put the power of the corporation behind the main line of attack.
“First things first. First, find a focus even if that focus is unprofitable. Then make it profitable. If you develop a powerful, narrowly focused corporation then the job of making it profitable is greatly simplified. If you take an unrelated collection of profitable businesses and try to build them into an organization, you are asking for problems.”
“A focus exists in the mind of the customer and it drives your business.”
The Essential Drucker
“Results are obtained by exploiting opportunities, not by solving problems.”
“If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old”
“There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer.”
“Business has only two functions — marketing and innovation.”
Leadership Is An Art
By Max DePree
“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.”
The Change Masters
By Rosabeth Moss Kanter
“Everything can look like a failure in the middle.”
Bill Gates
“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”
Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance
By Lou Gerstner
“It’s about communication. It’s about honesty. It’s about treating people in the organization as deserving to know the facts. You don’t try to give them half the story. You don’t try to hide the story. You treat them as – as true equals, and you communicate, and you communicate, and communicate.”
Warren Buffett
“Charlie and I believe that papers delivering comprehensive and reliable information to tightly-bound communities and having a sensible Internet strategy will remain viable for a long time. We do not believe that success will come from cutting either the news content or frequency of publication. Indeed, skimpy news coverage will almost certainly lead to skimpy readership. And the less-than-daily publication that is now being tried in some large towns or cities – while it may improve profits in the short term – seems certain to diminish the papers’ relevance over time. Our goal is to keep our papers loaded with content of interest to our readers and to be paid appropriately by those who find us useful, whether the product they view is in their hands or on the Internet.”
“Those are great”, Fred! Anything else?”
“Just one…”
Kenny Rogers “Know when to hold ’em. Know when to fold ’em.”