Bezos's Counterintuitive Insight for Startups: Communicate Less
As a startup founder, you've probably heard countless times about the importance of communication. Mantras like "communication is key" and "overcommunicate" are drilled into aspiring entrepreneurs. But what if this conventional wisdom is wrong? What if, as Jeff Bezos once provocatively stated, "communication is a sign of dysfunction"?
Coordination Has a Cost
Bezos made this surprising claim during an executive meeting at Amazon. The topic was the difficulty of coordinating between different divisions. The executives proposed various ways to increase cross-group communication. But Bezos vehemently disagreed.
His point was that the need for frequent communication between teams is a sign that those teams aren't working together efficiently. In a well-oiled machine, coordination should happen organically, without the need for constant meetings, check-ins, and status updates. Every minute spent communicating is a minute not spent building.
As a startup, this insight is critical. You have extremely limited time and resources. You can't afford to waste cycles on unnecessary coordination. Startups need to be ruthlessly efficient execution machines. Bezos realized that at Amazon's scale, the cost of communication overhead was enormous.
Empower Autonomous Teams
So what's the alternative? Bezos advocated for a decentralized structure of highly autonomous teams. Each team should have the resources and authority to solve problems and ship products on their own, without the need for constant approvals and check-ins with other groups.
This doesn't mean teams should be isolated from each other. But the interfaces between teams should be as simple and well-defined as APIs between microservices. Teams should be able to operate independently for long stretches, not feel the need to sync up every day.
For startups, this means resisting the urge to throw more communication at every problem. Don't reflexively schedule a meeting every time there's an issue to resolve. Strive to hire extremely capable people, give them ownership over their domains, and then trust them to execute. Save high-bandwidth communication for the truly thorny challenges.
The Maker's Schedule
Meetings and other coordination overhead particularly disrupt what Y Combinator founder Paul Graham calls the "maker's schedule." Makers, like programmers and designers, need long uninterrupted stretches of time to do their best work. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon of productive deep work.
Managers and founders are usually on the "manager's schedule" of one-hour blocks punctuated by meetings. There's a fundamental tension between the two schedules. As a founder, you have to be conscious of the cost you're imposing every time you pull someone into a meeting. A 15-minute conversation could destroy half a day of focused work.
Hire Well; Delegate; Stay Out of the Way
If constant communication is a sign of dysfunction, what's the alternative? The answer is simple, but not easy: hire extremely well, give individuals and teams clear ownership, and then mostly stay out of their way.
Hiring is absolutely critical. You need to find self-directed people who can take a high-level direction and then run with it without the need for constant oversight. These people are hard to find and recruit, but it's worth investing the time to get it right.
Clear ownership is also key. Every individual, and every team, should know exactly what they are responsible for, and have the authority to execute in their domain. Fuzzy boundaries lead to redundant communication.
Finally, you have to be willing to let go and allow your team to execute without micromanaging. If you've hired well and given clear ownership, you should be able to mostly stay out of the way. Intervene only when absolutely necessary. Your job is to set the high level direction and clear roadblocks, not to be in the weeds every day.
Find the Right Balance
None of this is to say that communication is inherently bad, or that teams should be completely siloed. Communication and collaboration are necessary. The art is in striking the right balance, and knowing when communication overhead is getting in the way of shipping. Whenever you feel the need to schedule a meeting or pull someone into a conversation, ask whether it's really necessary, or a sign that something is broken in your organization.
Bezos's counterintuitive insight won't apply to every company at every stage. But I think it's particularly relevant for startups, where moving fast is everything. Unlearning the instinct to communicate more can be uncomfortable. But it might be just what your startup needs to shift into high gear. As Bezos would say, the teams closest to the problems are usually in the best position to solve them. Hire them well, point them in the right direction, and then let them run.
Here are three ways you can leverage this in your environment.
1. Conduct a Communication Audit
Take a hard look at how communication happens in your startup. Map out all the recurring meetings, status updates, and cross-team coordination. For each communication channel, ask whether it's truly necessary, or a sign of dysfunction.
Could any of these meetings be replaced by asynchronous updates? Could any be held less frequently? Are there any teams that need to communicate constantly just to get their basic work done? That's a red flag that those teams may not be correctly structured or empowered.
The goal isn't to eliminate communication, but to be ruthlessly efficient with it. Every minute spent communicating should be justified by a clear necessity. If you can't articulate why a particular meeting or update is critical, that's a sign it may be more overhead than value.
2. Implement "Office Hours" for Interruptions
As a founder, your time is your most precious resource. You can't afford to be constantly pulled into ad-hoc conversations and fire drills. One way to protect your time, and encourage more structured communication, is to implement "office hours."
Set aside a specific block of time each day or week where your team knows they can come to you with questions, issues, or updates. Outside of those hours, protect your time for focused deep work. Of course, true emergencies are an exception. But for most things, encouraging your team to batch up non-urgent questions and updates for office hours can dramatically increase your productivity as a founder.
This also sets a powerful example for the rest of the company. If even the founder isn't available for constant interruptions, it creates permission for others to protect their own deep work time as well.
3. Empower Your Team with Decision-Making Frameworks
One reason teams often feel the need to constantly communicate is that they're unsure if they're making the right decisions. They may feel the need to get approval or consensus before moving forward. One way to short-circuit this and enable more autonomous execution is to arm your team with clear decision-making frameworks.
For example, Amazon uses the "disagree and commit" principle. Once a decision is made, everyone commits to it, even if they disagree. This allows decisions to be made quickly without the need for constant debate and re-litigation.
Another powerful framework is "strong opinions, weakly held." Team members are encouraged to have strong, well-informed opinions, but also to be open to changing their minds in the face of new data or compelling arguments. This allows for vigorous debate without things getting bogged down in endless discussion.
As a founder, your job is to set the high-level vision and strategy, and then give your team the tools and frameworks they need to make good decisions on their own. The more you can empower autonomous decision-making, the less your team will need to rely on constant communication and coordination.
Implementing these takeaways requires a shift in mindset. It can feel uncomfortable at first to step back and communicate less. But for startups in particular, learning to be ruthlessly efficient with communication can be a powerful competitive advantage. It allows you to stay focused on what matters most: shipping great products and delighting your customers.