3 Lessons from My Summer at Amazon
I recently began the 2nd (and final) year of my MBA program after spending 12 weeks in Seattle, WA as a Sr. Product Manager Intern at Amazon. I had an awesome team, a great project, and Seattle summers are gorgeous. While I enjoyed my internship experience, it also feels great to reconnect with my cohort and to meet the incoming class. Like many of my 2nd year peers, I’m thinking a lot about post-graduation plans. In doing so, I’ve taken some time to reflect on my experience this summer and have realized 3 key lessons from my internship that can apply to both professional and personal life.
1. Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit.
This first lesson comes from Amazon’s leadership principles. Ironically, this was the principle that I internally grappled with prior to my internship. At first glance I thought, “Is this for real? What organization encourages disagreement. Shouldn’t we all be trying to get along?”
However, after joining Amazon, I quickly realized that the purpose of this principle wasn’t to encourage fruitless arguments. Rather, it aims to empower employees to share their ideas to solve customer problems and then move forward with total support from the team once a decision is made. The reality of life is that we won’t always agree or share the same viewpoints… and that’s okay. The beauty of diverse perspectives in business (and in life) is that the best solutions are probably somewhere in the middle of our varied experiences, knowledge, and convictions.
2. Pressure is a Privilege
With any new job there is a learning curve. Some sources estimate that it takes a new employee 3–6 months to really understand their role. However, when an internship only lasts for 12 weeks, there’s inherent pressure to learn and also produce something of value at an accelerated rate.
Pressure is sometimes associated with stress, nervousness, or unease. Taken at face value, the idea of pressure may not elicit positive feelings. Nevertheless, it is not necessarily a feeling to shy away from.
If an athlete showed up to a game and no one (including the fans, teammates, and even the coach) cared, then there would be no pressure or expectation for that player to perform. However, in lieu of pressure, they may feel undervalued and overlooked. Pressure = expectation to deliver value to the beneficiaries of your work, such as a manager, a team, customers, investors, family, fans, or even yourself. More importantly, it implies trust in your abilities to complete the task at hand. Pressure says, “I see you.” How you perform when you’re seen is up to you.
A week before my final presentation, a friend who was also wrapping up her internship at another company, reminded me of the value of pressure.
Pressure is a privilege.
Throughout my academic and professional experiences, I’ve learned to work within project constraints, such as time or resource limitations. Still, as with any process, there are moments of pressure driven by external forces like manager expectations and deadlines or internal motivations like our own goals and perceptions. Rather than view it as a weight to be freed of, I’ve learned to appreciate healthy amounts of pressure as a privilege and an opportunity to demonstrate my abilities, highlight my contributions, and inspire others to follow suit.
3. It’s Always Day 1.
This philosophy is famously attributed to Amazon’s founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. A few days after completing my internship, I came across a variation of this quote on social media that read, “One day or day one… your choice.” In other words, we all have a choice to either keep putting off the things we want in life or to go after them everyday as if it’s Day 1.
So, what does Day 2 look like?
Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1. — Jeff Bezos
Adopting this Day 1 mentality has helped me think more carefully about how I allocate my time and energy in order to increase my focus on what matters most to me. It reminds me to act now, rather than allow debilitating attitudes and behaviors like procrastination, self-doubt, and fear stifle my ambition and prematurely drift into Day 2.
So What…
These three lessons are just a few of the many that I took away from this summer. My hope in sharing is to inspire deeper thought, discussion, and application of these lessons at work and generally in life.
About Me: I’m a small town girl with a big heart and even bigger thirst for life! Originally from South Georgia (USA), I’ve spent most of my 20-something life bouncing around different cities for work and for school. Music, writing, sports, and travel are my biggest passions, and I believe that one of the best feelings in life is when you meet a kindred soul and embrace the electric energy that comes from good vibes. #BeFree #LiveLife
