Complying with these procedures then becomes the benchmark for success. “It’s not that rare,” Jeff Bezos says, “to hear a junior leader defend a bad outcome with something like, ‘Well, we followed the process.’” “If you’re not watchful,” Bezos warns, “the process can become the thing.” But you don’t need to throw your standard operating procedures into the shredder and create a corporate free-for-all. Rather, you need to make a habit of asking, as Bezos does, “Do we own the process or does the process own us?”7
Good question!
