The Amazon Way—My Notes
This book is about the unique corporate culture of Amazon. It is written by an insider who had a front-row seat at Amazon during its formative years and talks about both innovation and how to create a customer-focused culture like Amazon. I go back to the notes from this book often because a lot of the insights are not what you get in typical management books and some of them are very counter-intuitive, as you would expect from Amazon. And they apply well to growing companies as well.
Notes from the book:
put yourself in the customer’s shoes and deduce even their unwanted needs — we only listen to what users want and not go down deep into what they really need or what could they want in the future
minimize time and energy spent on routine interactions — automate them — and spend it on innovation
most senior people should also talk to customers, answer support queries, go out for interviews or make a couple of sales calls — get 1st hand feedback and really understand users/customers — not filtered down versions of them — even if it’s only a couple of calls per year that goes a long way
have built-in systems that look for less than perfect customer experiences and then refund them
determine what your customers need and work backwards even if it means learning new skills
just saying you are an owner is not enough — transform that aspiration into a daily reality
take absolute responsibility for everything under your purview, even if that is done by some other team — have a fallback for them so you can own the results and not blame it on someone else
simple scales much better than complex — think big — innovation at scale
amazon engineers do not consider themselves coders, they consider themselves problem solvers
the most radical of innovations are those that help others unleash their creativity
automate everything possible, end to end — even well meaning gatekeepers slow down innovation — they will sometimes say, that will never work
Amazon hid their customer support number on the website so people could solve problems for themselves and not have to call a number — 2/3 people say they prefer self service (in its truest sense) rather than talking to someone — it’s not cold or anything, it’s just a better way of getting things done
process innovation can be enormously powerful but when practiced without an element of simplicity, leads to bureaucracy and slows down things
when they introduced marketplace, one single page for an item showed all the places users could buy the item from — price/delivery competition among them — instead of having to go through pages and pages of search results for same item just to find best price from different vendors
forcing function — a set of guidelines, restrictions or commitments that force a desirable outcome without having to manage all the details of making it happen
for example they always wanted indirect headcount to be low which ensured that as many things as possible were automated and could be scaled and made more efficient over time
innovation is great but in high risk fields, mimicry pays off even better. let the 1st guy do all the groundwork, try execute, make mistakes, develop processes and you can just copy that improving on what doesn’t work — original guy often tied too much emotionally to the original idea, so you can be faster.
develop strong clear frameworks for decision making — that’s what great leaders do — they use it all the time and articulate to the team — that’s how you scale decision making from top to bottom
place high premium on clarity — setting of goals, communicating them and using them to gauge the success or failure of an initiative
narrative, not powerpoint slides — forces you to think deeper and have a very complete understanding of details and specifics — with slides, you can skim the surface, it dumbs down the conversation
when you have to be super specific, drives a culture of clarity, commitment and accountability
embed real time metrics right from the start of an initiative, very hard to retrofit them
Amazon has a role called bar raiser, a person who has the final say on hiring and ensures Jeff Bezos’ standards are followed — he ensures the collective IQ, capacity and capability of the company is increased by hiring that person
also see how fungible the candidate is — can expand into new roles and areas
they note down all questions interviewers have asked and the candidate’s answers to them so the next interviewer can just pick up from there — lengthy notes
quite an honor to be named bar raiser — based on the success and retention of hires you have made
focus positive reinforcement on A+ people — below that churn is completely fine
at amazon you are expected to work at breakneck startup speed yet have lengthy processes like the narrative for every new initiative — very less work life balance as a result
big on symbols and examples to drive his points and principles home — 10,000 yrs clock to say we are in it for the long term
regret minimization framework — will I regret having done this/not having done this when I am 80? helps get a great perspective on things that might seem confusing now. and separate the short term from the long term.
it’s easier to stop things from happening than make things happen
a bias for action — often leads to decision by gut instinct because startups don’t have time for detailed market analysis — characteristic of many successful startups
at amazon, leaders are expected to be right a lot. and they are supposed to take risks as well but calculated risks.
how you balance bias for action with getting things right? setting the right metrics. don’t let simple things be hard things. developing product, selling, hiring are hard things. collecting money, ensuring payments don’t fail are simple things — automate them and ensure they are not failing you using metrics. automate these things — spend more time on the thornier issues
empire building by managers is impossible at Amazon because there’s no money for it. and also because poor performers/managers can’t really hide behind bureaucracy for long
the first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging it exists — leaders are expected to be intellectually honest
organizational decline is largely self inflicted
willingness to engage in self-examination both as a person and organization is vital to success — requires a lot of humility
flourishing companies are filled with bright people who have the authority to achieve but also the confidence that if they fail, somebody will pick them, up dust them off and give them another chance
if you build a wall around yourself and not accept your failures, your team will too.
leaders at Amazon understand details and metrics two to three levels deeper than leaders at most other companies — driven in large part by the relentless curiosity of Bezos
amazon’s leadership principles are tactical in nature — they drive everyday decisions and actions
Amazon Link (meta!):
https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Way-Leadership-Principles-Disruptive/dp/1499296770/
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