John Rossman

BIG BETS happen at all levels in a company – the enterprise, division, product, program, and team. BIG BETS are the initiatives and plans we think will deliver lasting impact, but there is significant risk as these are complex strategies and plans. They are a “bet.” 

BIG BETS goes by many names, like digital transformations, new business models, innovation programs, and strategic initiatives.  Over 80% of all BIG BETS fail to deliver on time, on a budget, or deliver the expected business impact. Some seem to never end. This leaves leadership wary of trying more bets and risk being left behind in a rapidly changing industry. 

Based on research and 35 years of delivering BIG BETS to Fortune 100 companies, John Rossman gives you a playbook for Thinking in Outcomes to succeed at your BIG BETS. Based on his forthcoming book Thinking in Outcomes. 

Leaving Your Audience with:

A comprehensive playbook to Think in Outcomes and work backward

An understanding of the leadership challenges and skills to lead these missions

Why defining future customer experience or operational capability is a superpower we all need to leverage

Leadership is a skill. Culture is the default standard defining how we work together. So, how can you build on your leadership and culture to drive systematic growth & innovation? Based on the best-selling The Amazon Way: Amazon’s Leadership Principles, Rossman outlines a set of strategies and tactics, giving a playbook for any industry or situation to make small changes resulting in significant impact.

Customer centricity, metrics, and operational excellence, a system for innovation, Amazon’s “working backward” methodology, disagree but commit, and delivering hard results are just some of the leadership playbooks with habits to reinforce and create change.

Leaving Your Audience with:

A series of actionable lessons on leadership for driving improvements and innovation

Confidence in how to work together to achieve hard results despite setbacks

Motivation for a customer-centric mindset leading to business improvements and agile development for growth

Discover how to lead a reengineering of your business by harnessing the power of ChatGPT, generative AI and other disruptive technologies. This keynote presents a strategic leadership playbook designed to guide leaders through the process of digital transformation and business reinvention, positioning their organization for long-term success.The power and impact of ChatGPT, generative AI, computer vision, the internet of things and other disruptive technologies is awesome, and a bit scary. How do leaders create the thinking, environment, and management structures to understand, create business value, and lead their teams to embrace the technology and the changes that are coming?

Leaving Your Audience with:

A new understanding of disruptive technologies and their impact

A framework for Thinking Big…but proceeding with a test & learn approach

Actions for envisioning, prioritizing, and integrating these technologies to benefit your business and team

Inspiration and a playbook for bold leadership by Thinking in Outcomes

Is your company ready to create the future of your company and industry? Leaders who want to drive innovation must ask this while challenging conventional thinking if they want to have a future in their industry.  But what are the right questions to ask to create that future? How do we develop our strategy? How can we anticipate industry disruption, and how we adapt? 

Former Amazon Executive John Rossman was a key leader in launching and scaling the third-party platform which today accounts for over 50% of Amazon’s business, leading to fundamental disruption to the retail industry. By leveraging many of the ideas from Think Like Amazon, Rossman provides principles and strategies which drove Amazon and can drive your industry’s future. He will challenge your team and provide them with strategies, tools, and questions to help you begin creating your company’s future.

Leaving Your Audience with:

Perspectives on “How would Jeff think” in disrupting your industry from a customer-centric strategy

Tools to THINK BIG but bet small in an agile manner for innovation. 

Examples of existing friction to challenge the audience in recognizing opportunities