Answer the Discussion Question

Harvard Business Review ranked Amazon CEO Jeffrey Bezos as the #2 Best Performing CEO in 2012. Here is what Bezos had to say about Amazon’s culture and strategy (Hansen, Ibarra, & Peyer, 2013):

“First, there are stories we tell ourselves internally about persistence and patience, long-term thinking, staying focused on the customer. Second, we select people who, when they wake up in the morning, are thinking about how to invent on behalf of the customer. If you like a more competitively focused culture, you might find us dull. We find our culture intensely fun. We have an explorer mentality, not a conqueror mentality.”

Would this culture aid strategy execution anywhere? Why or why not?

Does your own workplace follow more of a conqueror mentality or an explorer mentality? Is that good for sustainable competitive advantage?

Reference: Hansen, M. T., Ibarra, H., & Peyer, U. (2013). The best-performing CEOs in the world. Harvard Business Review, 91(1), 81–95.