Ep693: Gisela Hausmann – Encourage and Appreciate Your Employees’ Creativity
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Quick take
BIO: Gisela Hausmann graduated with a master’s degree in film & mass media from the University of Vienna. She’s one of a dying breed of adventurers – she digs in and researches topics of interest from the ground up, then tells things as she sees them.
STORY: Gisela joins the podcast again, discussing her new book Winning @ Amazon. Today she shares advice on how employees can allocate their creativity in a way that’s appreciated. She also talks about why employees need to start thinking outside the box and focus on problem-solving and innovation instead of feeling sorry for themselves and staying stuck where they’re not appreciated.
LEARNING: Encourage and appreciate your employees’ creativity.
“Appreciated creativity creates more creativity.”
Gisela Hausmann
Guest profile
Gisela Hausmann graduated with a master’s degree in film & mass media from the University of Vienna, the oldest university in the German-speaking world.
She is one of a dying breed of adventurers – she digs in and researches topics of interest from the ground up, then tells things as she sees them.
An author of two dozen books, her work has been featured in regional, national, and international publications, including GeekWire, Inc, Success (print magazine), Entrepreneur, and Bloomberg’s podcast ‘Decrypted.’ She is also the winner of the 2016 Sparky Award “Best Subject Line.”
Born to be an adventurer, she hiked in the Himalayas and the Gobi Desert, crossed Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railway twice, and meditated in the Dalai Lama’s private room at the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet.
Her motto is: “Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.” – Napoleon Hill
Encourage employee creativity
Gisela Hausmann first appeared on the podcast in episode 539, where she narrated how Amazon implemented suggestions she’d made in her book Inside Amazon: My Story. Gisela is back with a new book Winning @ Amazon. Today she shares advice on how employees can allocate their creativity in a way that’s appreciated. She also talks about why employees need to start thinking outside the box and focus on problem-solving and innovation instead of feeling sorry for themselves and staying stuck where they’re not appreciated.
According to Gisela, companies consistently ignore the input from clever, hardworking, dedicated people and—seemingly—perceive them as “irrelevant little cogwheels in a big machine.” Senior management is often threatened by subordinates who seem more innovative than them, and it’s no wonder they ignore their creative suggestions. This has led to employees choosing to keep suggestions to themselves, and this is killing most organizations, especially the big ones.
Gisela advises organizations that want to encourage employee creativity to make a written plan. Define how employees who come up with ideas implemented in the company will be rewarded. Ensure that your rewards are something better than an in-house product. It should be something special that makes the employee feel appreciated. Gisela insists on the written plan because if you don’t encourage creativity in black and white, it won’t happen.
You create positive energy in your business by acknowledging that you need creative ideas from your people and encouraging them. When you create positive energy, everybody wants to stay with you, and they carry this energy into the rest of the world.
Parting words
“If your employees carry forward who you are, they will bring the people to you.”
Gisela Hausmann
Andrew Stotz 00:02
Hello fellow risk takers and welcome to my worst investment ever stories of loss to keep you winning in our community we know that to win an investing you must take risk but to win big, you've got to reduce it ladies and gentlemen, I'm on a mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives to join me go to my worst investment ever.com and sign up for a free weekly become a better investor newsletter, where I share my lessons of how to reduce risk and create grow and protect our wealth. Fellow risk takers this is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz from a Stotz Academy, and I'm here with Gisela Hausman, who's come back, she was episode 539, where we talked about the story of how Jeff Bezos, Amazon considered my suggestions, and gets us back with some more writing a new book and a lot of advice for all of us of how we can allocate our creativity in a way that's appreciated. Just take a minute and tell us about what you've been doing as far as writing is concerned. The new book and what's going on and tell us more about it.
Gisela Hausmann 01:11
Hello, Andrew secretively back. And last time indeed, we talked about my book inside Amazon, which was basically a manual of what I as a transportation professional saw when Amazon could do better at their warehouses. And of course, that's been a problem that has been rake to the media for a long time, but not even as intensive as I saw. And one reason might be that the journalists are just now transportation professionals. So they say hard work. And I can actually say, Well, that didn't need to be that hard, because you could do it make it simpler. So anyway, so I wrote this book. And my intention was to help the workers, I also thought that my efforts will be valued by the American press, who for reasons I can only speculate on did not pick this up, per se. And I actually hit the feeling that I failed in my mission because I expected everybody from the New York Times The Washington Post, feature mean headlands like brave held, brave Walker challenges Jeff Bezos, and that didn't happen. So I was really depressed and the fact that the pandemic was still going on did not help. And fast forward to the year 2022. And suddenly having a weird problem, even though I've always had good teeth. And old injury comes up, which I thought wasn't anything. And my dentist says, I need laser treatment. And if there was one lesson that I came out of with this experience, and that was only was to support the little person, and I did not have health insurance with a big carrier who was going to cover that. So this was, of course, a bad time recession, Cassidy's hires, even eggs, the rise the price of regular eggs, and you know, so I thought maybe I can get a company to offer me health insurance and handle it this way. And as I'm looking on the internet, when Amazon pops up, and I'm like, Yeah, right. They value me, then maybe I can get them to pay for the stitch treatment, I applied. And even though I wrote this book, I immediately get accepted, only to find out that I don't get health insurance because they lied in their ad, or they presented an ad that wasn't applicable for my area or something like that. And I was still there because the economy's bad. Okay. So I re entered the warehouse after I have been there in 15 months or so. And to my utter surprise, I found out that Amazon incorporated all the changes that I mentioned in my book, including items, which they couldn't have gotten from anybody else. Because at the time, they were running warehouses for more than 20 years and delivery stations for more than seven years. And just when I published this, they suddenly have the same idea. That's kind of odd, right? Awesome. No journalist ever wrote about it. So I knew they had taken it. And I want to point out that they didn't steal it, because I wrote it, I published it. Hence it was free for to take. But of course, the proper thing would have been to call Gisela horsemen and say, Hey, apparently you know how that's done right? When they come to Seattle and talk with us, which they didn't do. And this is a problem that I think that a lot of your listeners, our listeners, can relate to, we work for a company, we apply ourselves as best as we can, we come up with real brilliant solutions. But for some strange reasons, we don't get ahead. Our employer takes what we offer, and I don't know promotes a 25 year old, who just graduated college. And here we are feeling bad about it. And that's why I wrote the second book. Now, I am published inside Amazon. So it's not the US on the market. And integrated the two chapters in which I tell you, first of all, what was great about Amazon, and why I was so thrilled about this company and how they actually started out. And then the second chapter that basically gives the list of what I felt could be improved, just to bring the proof that what I am saying is the truth. It was there, I published it, Amazon released it on their website, they sold it, it's a clear cut case, I had the idea. And this is the essential part. My ideas were not only my creative energy, as far as fixing the problem, I also engaged in the process of writing it down, or playing a copyright, getting a library of congress number. And making it clear that this is my intellectual property, nevermind whether they took it or not. It's mine. Right. And that is one of the most essential parts. If one is an employee who gets stuck in a company, you may want to think twice, volunteering, any ideas for which you don't get paid. Because that's the flip side of this whole Amazon thing. They ran the warehouses for more than 20 years into delivery stations for more than seven years. And obviously, there were people in charge who were supposed to design this, but who designed it so badly that within five weeks of me working there, I said, Now wait a minute, we can do this better, right? So the company paid somebody who didn't do the job, right, but also didn't promote the person who knew how to do it. Right. And that's a situation in which we find ourselves constantly, especially in the American corporate culture. So,
Andrew Stotz 07:43
so there's a couple of questions I have about it. So let's talk about, first of all, most employees don't make a lot of creative suggestions. In fact, I would say, from my perspective, is would you say it's a small group of people that are coming up with these creative suggestions? Or do you think that everybody's got them?
Gisela Hausmann 08:08
I want to say, at least 75%, haven't. Okay? It's only there are all these things, which is now called corporate culture, and the vibe in the company. And also, people are afraid. It's nothing new, that bosses occasionally don't like employees who are smarter than I am. And indeed, when I published inside Amazon, somebody who was apparently a manager at another company was like, wrote in their review, I'm torn about this one, of course, she was right, that these things should be improved. But we just can't like the employees know everything better than we know.
Andrew Stotz 09:01
So can we say that a second point. So most employees have ideas that could be used for improvement. And the second point is there are managers in businesses that even if the senior management, want them to hear those ideas, those particular managers are not going to take them on board? Because they don't want to hear from
Gisela Hausmann 09:26
people saying that? Top management really, once all these ideas, because I would think that my book went somewhere to a very high level, because I published my book on May 1 2021. And on June 1, Amazon announced they were going to create two new leadership principles, including being the best employer. Really, this happened so shortly after I presented my book this kind of interesting, right. And then of course, they didn't do it. I think right away. But they've said it. And so, of course, there's different levels. But one thing is for sure the manager that's closest to you, is trying to guard his job the highest if he has an impression. And I think there's a lot of people who are really scared to bring in ideas, and they may be little things, you know, but still, they would improve the workflow tremendously, or make things easier, or it may even be, so to speak, and extracurricular activity, like a team meeting or whatever. Like, for instance, I know of a company, but one of the employees brought in. And this is a company that works on Sundays. It's also a transportation company, and one of the team members brought in but years ago, that they don't work on Super Bowl day. Apparently, everybody's a sports fan at this company. And it is improved the company climate. But it could be something like that. I mean, there's like a wide range. But overall, I think that most employees, especially the ones who are dedicated and who liked the employer, have ideas, and some say it. And those are the ones that get frustrated, because they're like, hey, you know, I'm here, what more can I do? And the other one, I'm just like, man is this is a good for me, my boss, he might suppress all my efforts, I better rather quietly, and maybe things happen for me anyway. But here's the problem, especially big corporations go these days, less for creativity, if more for AI, they think that's tracking all the customers and sending them updates and offers and what have you will basically get the customers to buy anything. I mean, if you're just thinking about in the 80s, the things that were invented at the time, the wearable water world was that the nicotine patch. There was even my guy, and he was a college kid, the 17 year old who invented already this Nike. It's only he couldn't patent that. So later on, somebody else took that idea away and came out with a new patent. But in those days, people came up with ideas. Well, when you saw them, you said, Oh, this is what I need. Of course, I need the internet. Oh, man, I wanted to quit smoking for the past 20 years. I'm gonna need that nicotine patch, right? Oh, my God. The finances sound so great that I feel cold. When I watch TV, I need this snuggie and on and on and on. So these were ideas, they were kind of like in the Steve Jobs concept where said, once you see him, you know that you need them. That is not the case anymore. Like, for instance, Amazon came out with Alexa. Personally, I don't have one, I wouldn't have one for the world of it. And even if I was disabled, I wouldn't have one. But they came out with this one thing maybe makes a lot of people's better. Now they've released like 20 versions of Alexa, where's the creativity? Steve Jobs wouldn't have tolerated that. I mean, absolutely not. It was like one invention that you see. And then that's the one that you have to have it. And by the way, Apple who is still beholden to a Steve Jobs concept, the best idea must win, even if it's not mine. They were the ones that laid the fewest people off in this layoff wave at the beginning of the year, because they don't believe in AI. They follow Steve Jobs mantra. And so that's why I think that the people who have the ideas, they have the most valuable capital, not necessarily for big corporation, because I don't think that the big corporations are going to change. But that challenges all the time, like for instance, on the public book publishing market, you think that Amazon rules it, but there is also the anti Amazon Smashwords. Now they have teamed up with a print producer who prints on demand, just like Amazon, and they are teaming up together. And of course, they're coming out with their own ideas and their own stuff. So there's always the competition even if you think that the company rules the market. Totally. And then of course, there is always things that can happen, which causes the bigger business to suffer greater damage, then the smaller business, for instance. So the United States economic situation is not that great, right? It's not really a recession. shouldn't but it's certainly not good. Well, a company like Amazon has to support the 1.6 million employees. So if business goes down, they're hit harder than the small business who operates with 200 employees, because they can somehow mend ends. And maybe they have to kick out five people or something and redistribute. They have an easier than the big guy. So, and that's where the creative people come in, they can offer themselves to the smaller companies who are eager to take a share of the big guy, but who need people with the experience. And of course, if they find somebody who's so to speak, work, that the competition, that person is a good candidate.
Andrew Stotz 15:49
So one, one question I have is it is it? Do you think it's an inevitability that even when a business is small, medium size, and they're true to their values? And then they become huge? Do you think it's an inevitability that they just become not so humane, and it's just this that they don't, they just can't be as responsive as let's say, a medium size company? And if you think that that's the case, does that support us to say creativity? And, you know, innovation really should come from mid sized companies? Or how do you think about that.
Gisela Hausmann 16:30
But certainly, midsize companies are a lot more flexible than big giants. There is no doubt about it. But I think that's especially true for Amazon. They follow principles, which they just kick out, and which usually are taken up at the press and praised Uber and Uber again, and nobody actually thinks it's being talked about, like Amazon. I mean, you've heard it fire about Jeff Bezos, his business took off and exploded so to speak overnight. Because of the flywheel theory. A flywheel concept is basically that the flywheel is an item most often to be found in a car, which the worst the energy, which of course, has been provided by the gas pedal, and not only stores the elige energy also evens out any any any fluctuation smoothness in the cylinders, and what have you. Okay, so the same thing is happening with Amazon only because they kick the gas pedal constantly, allegedly happening at Amazon, because they kick the gas pedal constantly, the fly will take some more energy up to the point when it finally spins off and spins off into the universe and gets bigger and bigger. Okay, sounds great, right? But there's huge flaws in this theory. And the huge flaws are a fly realism mechanical device, you can look at it, it's metal metallic thing. And it basically fits in a car it does what the owner of the car tells you to do. The end, it doesn't matter whether there's a pandemic outside or whether it rains shines, mother has died or whatever. The flywheel operates, the way it's designed to be taken contrast that muscle. If the flywheel theory's correct, and it spins fast and fast, and the class will customers who buy more products and more windows flock to them that have you the next thing that happens is that the company needs to have more warehouse workers. And the warehouse workers become a part of the flywheel inevitably because somebody is going to move these millions of packages. Okay, but these workers in contrast to the flywheel are not mechanical devices. They are people who care about how much do I get paid? What are the working conditions? Is my manager responsible manager who helps me how do I get ahead in this company and what have you. So it's the farthest shot from a mechanical device that it can be. And now you have on one hand side, the business fly will taking off and get bigger. At the same time this business fly will requires that more people get in who bring human problems. And they drag that flywheel down again, which is basically exactly what happened in after Amazon declared that they were going to be the world's best employer and did not talk to me, but um, maybe they also didn't talk to other people who knows. They basically hid these people and did not solve these people's problem. Well, the year after that. They paid four point $3 million for union for anti union consultant. And last year, the year after that more than three times as much 14.31 can only wonder, will they pay 30 million this year? Because that too accelerates with the flywheel, obviously. And the interesting thing about this is that Amazon in the beginning did it right. And this is why I'm talking about the midsize companies. Because in the beginning, Amazon came along and said, Hey, you authors, use small publishers. Bring your book to us. We sell everything. This was the total opposite of what Barnes and Noble said. Because they said, Well, you need to have an agent. And the agent said that you need to have a distributor and we've got a bet your book? And was it featured in any magazines and isn't even really a good book and what have you. So the same authors who felt put down by what was then the giant because Barnes and Noble at that time had 860 bookstores in the United States, which is almost insane. So they that big giant did it wrong. And all the little losses that are Tada, flocked to Amazon. Needless to say, they brought in all their friends. And that is a huge effect. Because basically, these authors were running around and telling their friends and family, hey, my books on Amazon, you've got to buy it right. And if they pass that this relative long enough, then he went to Amazon bought the book, and he's like, Oh my God, there's this other book that I could buy too. And oh, now they're selling toys. Well, maybe I should buy some toys for my grandchild and on and on and on. Right. At the same time, Amazon corded the book reviewers, so they will get the reviews. And of course they will like I'm a social media personnel, right. So they told everybody that their social media star and of course brought people in. And the same thing happens on the product sector. And these were sort of sneak the flywheel spinners, who went ahead and brought in all the people when Amazon was a midsize company, and not the giant that they are today. And unfortunately, they let this get out of control. Scammers invade and invaded the thing. But instead of replacing that human fly will they had with a new human flywheel, which could have been 1.6 million warehouse workers. I mean, one has to digest this number, any presidential candidate in the United States will be happy to have 1.6 campaign help us right, and Amazon employs them. So all they need to do is show these people that they care just like they show the indie authors and the reviewers and the social media influences in their early days. And then these warehouse workers would have been again, the same people that push the flywheel. And what did Amazon do, they didn't do anything. So in my book suggested, and of course, there was delayed and dead in during the peak season 2020 When the pandemic was still ongoing, Amazon should have rewarded, they have warehouse workers with an extra bonus that they never got before a free Prime membership. Now they're just like an idea with capital lying around, they can even be measured. Because a by giving that warehouse workers free pie membership, obviously, they would have bought on Amazon, because now they had the Prime membership. Secondly, they would have shown that they care. But more importantly, if they would have done this step, the media would have gone ahead and would have written Jeff Bezos gives his warehouse workers who worked the whole year to make all the who are people who had to stay at home happy and extra gift, a prime membership. And in doing that, Bezos would have gone ahead and actually upgraded his Prime membership. It's a gift that is so valuable that I give it to my people, I reward the people who save lives during the pandemic. Right. And that would have been a great campaign. I mean, you would have had it trending on Twitter, Jeff Bezos gives away Prime membership a the word Prime membership would have trended on Twitter, right. It would have been great. And they skipped on that and it's unclear why because was replaced that was the headline. Amazon drivers have to pee the bottles Pick your pick or scrape the one or the other. Right?
Andrew Stotz 25:04
And then why do you think they did that? I mean, you got the that
Gisela Hausmann 25:07
the drivers problem was actually not really the problem. That is to be said, Because Amazon didn't start the pandemic, Amazon had nothing to do with the fact that supermarkets, coffee houses, gas stations, etc, locked off their bathrooms. And three, most of the drivers probably wouldn't even have gone into the public bathroom because you didn't know who was in there before. And that person may have had COVID. Right. So what they really should have done is set up porta potties. And they skipped out on that tool, and none of the journalists noticed it. I can't say anything about it. But what I'm saying is, is if my business trends that my workers have to pee into bottles, and I have the opportunity to do something, like I'm giving them Prime membership, my primary where she was just so valuable, then they love it right, then I'm picking that choice, because it's an image campaign. And that's the kind of ideas that are completely rethink at Amazon. So let's,
Andrew Stotz 26:15
let's think about my audience who don't work at Amazon. And they have small, medium sized businesses, they're trying to be big, they want to be big, like Amazon, and they could be, but they're far away from them. But they also have, they're close enough to their employees where they can start to bring creativity and you know, those types of things into their business, what would be some of the advice that you would give them related to, as you've talked about, you know, giving employees credit for creative ideas that they come up with coming up with rewards for employees coming up with ways to get the flywheel going and not mess it up? What are some of the advice that you would have for those people,
Gisela Hausmann 27:04
the very first thing that I would say, make a written plan. If you come up with ideas we are going to do at this business, then this is how we are going to reward you. And it should be something better than an in house product for it. Not an Alexa, if your Amazon or whatever should be something special, or a promotion, or promotional ladder, or something, whether the employee says I can bring myself in here, because these people value me. And of course, inevitably, creativity creates more creativity. If my colleague Susie, who sits at the next desk was the employee of the month, and I don't know got an extra bonus gift, a financial one or something of that nature, that I'm going to be trying to have it next month, right, obviously. So that's really a way to encourage it. But if you don't do it black and white, then it's not gonna happen. Because inevitably, all of us have had experiences where we were overlooked or what have you. So inevitably, we're suspicious. We don't necessarily trust everything. But if it's black and white, and it hangs in the conference room, and everybody can see then take a picture on their cell phone, then obviously, it's true. And that is the first step that I would do.
Andrew Stotz 28:47
And how do you handle the objection that the owner of that company or the senior managers say, Oh, now employees are going to claim everything that didn't happen was their idea. And now, all of a sudden, we're going to be giving them bonuses all the time, because everybody's going to come in and said, Well, I came up with that idea that and then you got employees fighting? No, I came up with that idea. How do you handle that?
Gisela Hausmann 29:10
Well, you have to have a format. I mean, I don't want to say it's a scientific thesis or something. But I mean, there needs to be maybe two or three page paper analysis. Right now we're doing things this and that way. And the problem that I see with this process is that whatever is happening, and then, if we fix this by doing that, then we make a prognosis that the results will be improved in whatever way and of course, everything needs to be measured and weighed. People need to think through their ideas, just having an idea isn't good enough. I would also think that it will be a good idea to propose that the idea can be tested, let's say Two or three people working on a new concept and the rest of them in the old concept, and then we take the data and compare and see what it is. But if we lay out a plan where we say, okay, you are writing something, and I don't want to say a scientific paper, but something in clear layout, what it is, what it's supposed to do, what the prognosis is, then yeah, then obviously, you, the business owner, is encouraging their employees to really think through their stuff, work out any kinks. And make so to speak brass handles.
Andrew Stotz 30:37
Yep. And what about for generally, I, I've studied a lot under Dr. Deming, and he talked a lot about being careful about doing individual incentives, because all of a sudden, you set up some internal competition, when really what you want, is everybody to be working together. So let me ask a question, what if that compensation was awarded to all employees, let's just say the objective is that all employees work together to make the company more successful, more profitable. We celebrate that in the last six months, we've had four different ideas that we've implemented that have brought us additional value that's made us more profitable, and therefore the bonus that we have the bonus pool and the distribution that is bigger, and everybody gets more. Is that a good idea? Or do you feel like no, you really have to compensate the individual for doing that individual idea? Well,
Gisela Hausmann 31:33
maybe you could reward the department for it. But rewarding, everybody is always let me put it this way. I have two kids. My daughter is very athletic. My son is two. When I asked my son if he wanted to play on the soccer team, he said, No. And I said, why not? He said, Well, that's that game where everybody plays. And at the end of the game, you have to shake the hand of the worst player and say, Thank you for helping us to win. Even if we didn't win, and everybody gets a trophy. Team squad is great in certain ways. But inevitably, some people are gonna figure out that they're gonna rest while others work. I mean, I mean, it depends. If you have a crew of five, then it might work. But if you have a crew of 100 Odds are 10 percenter sitting on the sideline and waiting for somebody else to do something. I mean, maybe even 20. So
Andrew Stotz 32:42
it, it sounds to me, I mean, I'm gonna, some of my thoughts in wrapping up. One of them is that once a business becomes so massive, it's almost impossible for it to truly improve. And it really takes, they just have economic power that drives their improvement rather than people power creative idea, power. And
Gisela Hausmann 33:07
I know that you look at Apple, know, there needs to be a vision. There needs to be a mantra. And anybody can go on YouTube and watch Steve Jobs in hundreds of interviews, are we saying the same thing, the best idea wins. And there is one
Andrew Stotz 33:28
interview, Jeff Bezos known for saying this kind of intense focus on the customer. Isn't that what he always says is you know, we're constantly focused on customer, but
Gisela Hausmann 33:46
I don't see it. And the reason I don't see this, for instance, and I wrote this in my book, too. And that's a story that's in my book, and anybody can check it out if they can pick any author. I picked Oprah Winfrey, Oprah Winfrey, when she mentioned a book, she can sell more books than Jeff Bezos will ever sell in his life. Because she just needs to drop the title. In 3 million people rush and buy this mom this book, before they have sat down on the chair or whatever. That's the way that's the power she has. And Upperman. She writes books. And if I go on Amazon that have been Oprah Winfrey. I have first three ads flashing up, which I could buy if I just pay enough money for that. And that person that wants to see Oprah Winfrey's book will see my books. Will that person buy my book? Hell no. They're gonna say I want to see Oprah Winfrey. I mean, Oprah Winfrey, so for which we really don't need to discuss which is and I mean, I've run the same tests with a other things like for instance, I typed into my computer. Campbell's tomato soup. Now there are two kinds of tomato, Campbell's tomato soups, the cans, and Andy Warhol's painting. And of course Andy Warhol's painting is on T shirts and on mouse pads and on the screensavers, and on coffee mugs and what have you. And when you go on Amazon or you type in campus tomato soup, you will not see a page with all campus tomato soup true. Oh, no, you will even see me the soups. And coincidentally, I discussed this with a friend of mine, and I forgot, but he's a vegetarian. He's like beef broth. Now, just not. I mean, this is not customer service, if I love tomato soup, and I get to see beef broth, because I don't eat beef broth, because I'm a vegetarian.
Andrew Stotz 35:57
So as the message that you're saying then is, it's not enough to have a vision or a defining thing, it's you have to make sure that it's being implemented in the business. And that's happening at Apple, but it's not happening at Amazon.
Gisela Hausmann 36:13
No, I think that would happen that Amazon is that years ago, Amazon had this vision of the customer, because of course, then they were haggling for every one of them, because there was Barnes and Noble, who said, Come to us browse for free. And we'll give you a cup of coffee too. And by the way, you can read all the magazines in the world. So this was Amazon's competition. So they said we focus on the customer. And that was also the same time when they also catered to ileal authors, small publishers, reviewers, and people who maybe had a website about gardening and offered all the gardening books that Amazon had with affiliate links and made a little bit affiliate money on their labels think it was like between five and 15%. So these were all Amazon's customers, and they tried to make it happy. And that was when the flywheel worked. And in the meantime, they're just talking about the customer. But anybody who goes on their website and calls up a product that they never call up, we'll see that they get to see something completely different. And they don't get to see this because Amazon's algorithm is bad, they get to see this because Amazon wants to make money on the ad buyers. And so they have to show whatever the ad buyers buy for. And that may not be the thing that the buyer wants to buy, obviously.
Andrew Stotz 37:38
So I want to wrap it up here. But my first thing I want to tell the listeners and the viewers out there to grab the book, I'll have the link in the show notes. And you know, learn more about it. I think from my perspective, what I enjoy about it is given that I have a small business myself with about 100 employees in my coffee business and I it's a tough business, you know, it's a tough in the arm workers in the factory, our workers in the roasting our workers that are service techs, our delivery is tough. But what I'm hearing from you is take care of your workers, get their creativity and reward them for their creativity. Listen to what they say make it a better place in that's part of the message. I also the second part of the message I take is how that its large companies start to fall apart. And I just feel like for to have strong economies, you need kind of small and medium sized business. So what would be your final words for the audience?
Gisela Hausmann 38:41
Well, I want to correct you on something, I think, and I'm not this is not a religious approach. This is just a consequence of life. When you do the right thing, and you work, so to speak in the need and try to solve this and say, Okay, these are humans, these people depend on me and you know, they want to work for me and all this and that, then you create positive energy. And if you create positive energy, everybody wants to be with you. And this energy is transferred out this was exactly what I meant with the Prime membership, these 1 million people would have run around and said, Guess what? I have a prime membership. And maybe cousin would have said well I don't have too much money can I can you order for me so I get it in the next day to or stuff like that. So they would have actually boosted the business because when you throw out positive energy, the people that you work with carry this in energy into the rest of the world. Whereas on the other hand, if you do the negative thing like what Amazon did to me, they just took my ideas and didn't do anything. Then they carry over the negative energy and they promptly put them in the shoe because now they had to pay the anti union Buster, the union busters and had to pay him $4.3 million, and the next year even more. So yeah, you have to create that positive energy. The first thing is by thinking, you know, we need those ideas, and what are we going to do to get them when some really more than a decade, during the Great Recession, I was working for a construction company, which actually was their way small business, I want to say we had like 9688 employees, something like that. And, of course, during the construction, during the great recession, the construction industry was hit first. People sit there in the evening, on their own time, not getting paid for the extra time, trying to save the company, I've seen it happen, because that's what this will create. And of course, in a world like this, where a lot of people get cheated. If these peer if your employees carry forward who you are, they will bring the people to you. Great, and you get to see it. And then. But I also want to say that my book is also written for people who may like me, be sitting in a corporation, maybe to get the experience or maybe to make the money. I mean, you need money to start a business, or to make the contacts, which is another way, and they are caught in this. So my book actually lays up plan, how you can maneuver yourself out of that. And I wrote this in the same spirit. share my experiences, tell my story, give us a blueprint. Because if you pay it forward the good way. And they see that this works for them. They're gonna run around and say you gotta read useless book, hey, this woman really tells you their story. This is not some blah, blah, blah, blah. But she gives you the details. Right? So yeah, this is the way how it works. This is the actual flywheel.
Andrew Stotz 42:12
So yes, I want to thank you for joining again, and also sharing your vision of positive energy and the flywheel that that can create. This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz saying. I'll see you. Yeah. Thanks. And I'll see you on the upside.
Connect with Gisela Hausmann
Andrew’s books
- How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market
- My Worst Investment Ever
- 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
- Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points
Andrew’s online programs
- Valuation Master Class
- The Become a Better Investor Community
- How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market
- Finance Made Ridiculously Simple
- FVMR Investing: Quantamental Investing Across the World
- Become a Great Presenter and Increase Your Influence
- Transform Your Business with Dr. Deming’s 14 Points
- Achieve Your Goals