You Never Run Out Of Runway
Photo by Marques Thomas @querysprout.com on Unsplash
In his first letter to shareholders, Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy, wrote:
“In every business we pursue, we’re constantly experimenting and inventing. We’re divinely discontented with customer experiences, whether they’re our own or not. We believe these customer experiences can always be better, and we strive to make customers’ lives better and easier every day. The beauty of this mission is that you never run out of runway; customers always want better, and our job is both to listen to their feedback and to imagine what else is possible and invent on their behalf.”
I love the evocative nature of that line - “you never run out of runway”. To me, it represents a foundational principle, much like Bezos’ phrase that it’s always Day One.
I don’t know if Jassy meant it this way but the way I interpret his statement is that not only should we never believe that ‘we’ve arrived’, but, frankly, that we must maintain the mindset that we’re always preparing to take off, to get going. (In aviation terms, it’s understood that the takeoff (along with the landing) is the most dangerous part of a flight. It needs the most attention and focus and deftness of decision making.)
And so, if we behave as if we’re always in that process, we’re constantly vigilant, constantly looking out for signals both internally and from our environment, constantly ensuring the best possible performance, the greatest success.
You never run out of runway.
Of course, there is a duality to this idea, because you need to launch and actually deliver in parallel. We can’t always be in preparation mode - at some point, we have to ship.
But we also need to be on the lookout for ways to to refine, iterate and improve. To stay wary of complacency and inertia. To remain cautious and mindful of our competition. And certainly to never expect that we can simply coast to our destination.
I appreciate that there’s more than a dose of paranoia in this mindset, but I don’t think it’s all that. There’s also an implicit sense of optimism. Specifically, that there is, indeed, always more runway! That we can always improve and grow and change. That even if we veer off course, for whatever reason, we can always course correct. There’s real hope in that perspective.
The balance of those perspectives - that we must remain agile as we ship, and that we must balance paranoia with optimism - are the hallmarks of a high performance mindset.
