Welcome to The Anderson Risk Growth Assessment™. This tool is designed to help you determine where you are in terms of how you view risk and growth for your business. It will also help you determine where you need to focus your attention if you want to grow your business based on the principles in The Bezos Letters: 14 Principles to Grow Your Business Like Amazon.
Let’s start with the obvious. Business today can be overwhelming. If you’re like most people, you know you need to be more proactive and do things differently, but you struggle with knowing what you should do.
In my experience working with hundreds of businesses, many people go in one of two directions: They “add” people, money, or resources (like hiring more salespeople or increased budgets) or they “subtract” people, money, or resources (killing programs, laying off people, etc.).
So, what’s the answer?
You have to start with an assessment of:
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- Where you are now
- Where your blind spots are
- Where you want to go
I created a simple, integrated approach to help you step back and look at where you are, areas that are weak, and what you want to achieve. You can’t know when or how to take risks if you don’t have a clear map of what direction you need to be heading. This “risk and growth roadmap” will give you feedback in areas that you may never have thought of — based on what Jeff Bezos has done with Amazon.
The benefit is that with the right balance of risk and growth, you can achieve freedom from always feeling “behind the eight ball” and scale your business to the level you desire — however you define that for you and your business.
The assessment is straightforward to use. Here are step-by-step instructions:
The assessment is structured around the 4 cycles and 14 growth principles.
Cycle 1: Test
1. Encourage “Successful Failure”
2. Bet on Big Ideas
3. Practice Dynamic Invention and Innovation
Cycle 2: Build
4. Obsess over Customers
5. Apply Long-Term Thinking
6. Understand Your Flywheel
Cycle 3: Accelerate
7. Generate High-Velocity Decisions
8. Make Complexity Simple
9. Accelerate Time with Technology
10. Promote Ownership
Cycle 4: Scale
11. Maintain Your Culture
12. Focus on High Standards
13. Measure What Matters, Question What’s Measured, and Trust Your Gut
14. Believe It’s Always Day 1
Review each principle, one at a time.
Read the four statements for each of the 14 Principles and select the one statement that most closely aligns with your current reality. And go with your gut. Don’t overthink it or worry about 100 percent accuracy. This is a subjective self-evaluation. The important thing is how you perceive yourself and your business
Use your overall score to understand where to focus.
Your overall score reflects where you think you are in terms of risk and growth. But this is not like grade school. The number isn’t good or bad — you can’t get an “F” on this test. That’s because your score is simply a reflection of where you are and where you could improve.
The assessment is structured around the 4 cycles and 14 growth principles.
Cycle 1: Test
1. Encourage “Successful Failure”
2. Bet on Big Ideas
3. Practice Dynamic Invention and Innovation
Cycle 2: Build
4. Obsess over Customers
5. Apply Long-Term Thinking
6. Understand Your Flywheel
Cycle 3: Accelerate
7. Generate High-Velocity Decisions
8. Make Complexity Simple
9. Accelerate Time with Technology
10. Promote Ownership
Cycle 4: Scale
11. Maintain Your Culture
12. Focus on High Standards
13. Measure What Matters, Question What’s Measured, and Trust Your Gut
14. Believe It’s Always Day 1
Review each principle, one at a time.
Read the four statements for each of the 14 Principles and select the one statement that most closely aligns with your current reality. And go with your gut. Don’t overthink it or worry about 100 percent accuracy. This is a subjective self-evaluation. The important thing is how you perceive yourself and your business
Use your overall score to understand where to focus.
Your overall score reflects where you think you are in terms of risk and growth. But this is not like grade school. The number isn’t good or bad — you can’t get an “F” on this test. That’s because your score is simply a reflection of where you are and where you could improve.
