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Jeff Bezos is a dreamer who transformed a bold idea into one of the world's most admired brands. Over nearly three decades-especially in Amazon's early years-Bezos pioneered communication strategies that fueled the company's astonishing growth.

In my research for The Bezos Blueprint, I interviewed former Amazon executives who adopted the lessons they learned to launch their own startups or inspire teams to achieve more than the thought possible.

The top three strategies they identified involve mission building, writing, and simplifying.

1. Amplify the Mission.

Jeff Bezos turned Amazon’s mission into a mantra. For example, Bezos wasted no time telling the world what he cared about the most. In his first letter to Amazon shareholders in 1997, he cited "the customer" twenty-five times, setting the stage for what would become Amazon's secret sauce, an obsessive focus on the customer.

According to Bezos, customer obsession wasn't just a good strategy; it was an absolute requirement in 1997 when most Americans had never been online, let alone purchased a product over the Internet. Making the experience easy for customers fueled Amazon's rapid rise. In 1998, Bezos clarified the company's mission and announced that Amazon "intends to become the world's most customer-centric company."

Amazon’s stated mission that would drive the company’s business decisions for the next two decades. In fact, the word "customer" appeared more than 500 times in the annual shareholder letters that Bezos wrote from 1997 to 2021.

Bezos not only became the chief evangelist for Amazon’s mission, but he also turned it into a mantra that everyone could recite. Overcommunication fuels the impact of a message. If you believe that your company's mission is the key to long-term success and want teams to follow it, then it's up to you to remind others early, often, and consistently.

And just when you get tired of repeating the mission—say it again.

2. Develop Your Writing Skills.

In 2004, Jeff Bezos banned PowerPoint at Amazon’s senior-level meetings. He believed another tool would lead to better discussions and decision-making. The tool was the ancient art of the written word.

Writing is a foundational skill that’s more relevant today than ever. In an increasingly remote and distributed workplace where cross-functional teams communicate via Slack, emails, social media, intranet blogs and memos, people who write clearly and concisely will win fans among their bosses and peers.

When it comes to writing, most professionals face a stumbling block. They simply don’t believe they are ‘good writers.’ They’re scared of it and for good reason—writing is hard. The comedian Jerry Seinfeld once said good writing is like pushing a wheelbarrow full of bricks—uphill in the mud.

The good news is that writing is a skill and, like any skill, you can sharpen it.

When I analyzed all 50,000 words in Bezos’s shareholder letters over twenty years, I was surprised (and impressed) to see that his writing skill improved significantly in the second half of his tenure as CEO. Tools like Grammarly allowed me to see how his writing improved: shorter sentences, less jargon, tighter and more concise lists, more examples, analogies, and stories.

Bezos perfected one writing and communication tactic that stands out: making the complex simple.

3. Use Short Words to Talk About Hard Things.

After analyzing the Bezos shareholder letters, the most remarkable thing I discovered is that sentences and paragraphs shrank in length as Amazon grew in size. Meanwhile, words got shorter as topics grew more complicated.

Using short words to talk about hard things sounds easy, but it’s an advanced communication strategy based on an understanding of how the human brain processes information. Nobel Prize-winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “If you care about being thought credible and intelligent, do not use complex language where simpler language will do.” In other words, it’s a sign of genius to use short phrases to express sophisticated arguments.

Anything that requires mental effort—reading, writing, studying, listening to a presentation—adds to ‘cognitive load,’ the mental strain people feel when they consume a lot of information in one sitting. The more load a speaker or writer adds, the more likely the reader or listener will drop everything and forget most of what was communicated.

As a speaker or writer, you can lighten the load by choosing short words to replace long ones, especially if the message you're conveying is important, urgent, and requires immediate action.

For example, If you’re the last person to leave, I might ask you to “Turn off the lights when you leave the house.” The preceding sentence gets a perfect score from Grammarly because its “very clear and very engaging.” Note that each word is one syllable. The sentence is short and to the point.

The complicated way of saying the same thing is “Prior to departing the premises it is imperative that you reduce the illumination throughout the dwelling.” Who talks like that? Plenty of people do when they’re trying to sound smart instead of being effective.

Removing just one complex sentence can make a difference. For example, the first draft of this article returned a Grammarly score of 83 (out of 100). The second draft returned 89. But when I deleted the preceding paragraph (the complicated one I used for instructional purposes), the performance of his article soared to 95, an almost perfect score. The fewer problems Grammarly finds with the document, the higher the score. For perspective, a score of 100 means the Grammarly editor, with its sophisticated artificial intelligence tools, cannot find a better way to write it.

Don’t make things more complicated than they have to be. Instructions and orders that are easy to remember are usually made up of one or two-syllable words. The same goes for a pitch, presentation, email, or conversation where your goal is to persuade someone to follow you or take your advice.

When you make things simple, you’re not dumbing down the content. You’re outsmarting the competition.

Good communicators are made, not born. They work at it. They give presentations, ask for feedback, and improve the next time. They always look for ways to make their writing engaging, clear, and concise. Improving your communication skills is a journey worth taking because your ideas are worth hearing. Your ideas need to be shared, and your story deserves to be told. Make sure the power of your words matches the power of your ideas.

Article Written by Carmine Gallo, Harvard Instructor & Bestselling Author of The Bezos Blueprint

This post was written by Carmine Gallo, Harvard instructor, bestselling author, The Bezos Blueprint