B^3 #1: Bias for Action
When I was in graduate school, I often noticed an interesting dynamic: the "Theorists" were always regarded as the brightest minds, while the "Experimentalists"—those working hands-on—were the ones who could prove, without doubt, what was right and wrong in theory. This relationship between theory and action can be summarized with the quote: “Engineers make the world spin.”
Thought without action may be intellectual, but it's not particularly useful. Thought without discussion, communication, and most importantly, action, is ultimately worthless. A system cannot learn without actions driving it forward. And as we all know from experience, learning is the key to growth.
In complex systems—whether it's a giant like Amazon or a multi-faceted distributor—functioning and thriving comes down to taking actions, learning from those actions, and then communicating those lessons clearly to the team. It’s this iterative process of action, reflection, and communication that creates the forward momentum necessary for growth. The important part here is not just acting, but acting with purpose, and building a feedback loop that continuously improves our system.
There’s an important distinction that we’ll explore in a future blog post: knowing which actions to take quickly and which to take time to discern is key (spoiler alert: Blog soon to come: *Is a Decision Reversible?*).
In meetings, you may notice I often take an oppositional stance. This is not because I don’t value an idea, but because I want to see how well thought out, researched, or practiced it is. It's part of my academic upbringing. In academia, you’re constantly defending: defending your undergraduate thesis, your graduate research, your published papers. It’s the defense that refines and strengthens an idea. That’s why I tend to dismiss viewpoints quickly if they don’t show:
- Lessons learned from actions taken
- Data from experiments
- Direct customer insights
The common thread here is that real progress requires real data, and real data comes from action.
Bias for action is, in my experience, what truly builds businesses—not just brains. And to have a bias for action requires a lot of grit. You have to be willing to fail, because more is learned from failure than from success.
Mark Zuckerberg famously championed the idea of “Move fast and break things”—a philosophy that’s undeniably action-driven. But it also missed some crucial long-term considerations: is what you're breaking worth it? Are we building something meaningful? Jeff Bezos, on the other hand, focused on a bias for action with a broader perspective. In his annual shareholder letters, he emphasized making decisions quickly but also ensuring those decisions aligned with long-term value. This bias for action became one of Amazon’s core leadership principles, propelling its relentless innovation and growth.
At our company, a bias for action will always be respected—when used in the guiding light of our core pillars. Action that places our customers, employees, and communities above self-interest is the action that will help us succeed. Taking initiative isn’t just a tactic; it’s how you get ahead in life and how we will collectively grow as a company.
Let’s remember, it’s the *doing* that counts.
- Ben
