The 'Leadership Principles' that led Amazon to success are no longer being used correctly
Amazon has set out '
Jeff Bezos' famous management rules are slowly unraveling inside Amazon. Can they survive the Andy Jassy era?
https://fortune.com/2024/07/31/amazon-leadership-principles-questions-future-jeff-bezos-departure-andy-jassy/
How are Amazon's leadership principles holding up under Andy Jassy? - The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/31/24210633/how-are-amazons-leadership-principles-holding-up-under-andy-jassy
Jeff Bezos' management rules are slowly unraveling inside Amazon | Hacker News
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41120201
The Leadership Principles are principles that Amazon uses in all situations, including when discussing new projects and seeking solutions to problems. They consist of 16 items, such as 'obsession with the customer,' 'leadership responsibility,' and 'hiring and developing the best talent.'
According to a report by the American business magazine Fortune , the lockdown and subsequent changes in work patterns that Pamela Hayter, a program manager at Amazon, faced due to the COVID-19 pandemic are considered to be contrary to the leadership principles. Amazon allowed work from home as a measure against the COVID-19 pandemic, but this was for a limited period of time and was repeatedly extended , but it was one of the strictest restrictions among major IT companies, along with Apple. Finally, on October 12, 2021, CEO Andy Jassy announced a policy to leave the minimum number of days of work at the discretion of each team when returning to the office, but said, 'Remote work probably won't work at Amazon.'
Amazon CEO warns employees who continue working remotely: 'It probably won't work at Amazon' - GIGAZINE
By Tony Webster
As part of this remote work and attendance policy, Amazon updated its 'return to office plan' in February 2023 to require employees to attend work at least three days a week. It also revealed that employees were being asked to relocate so they could attend offices in Seattle, New York, San Francisco, and other locations. In response, Hayter said, 'Amazon's policy was essentially designed to allow only those who live near the office to continue working, which I thought violated the principle of 'hiring and developing the best talent.''
Amazon to ask some employees to relocate to return to the office - GIGAZINE
Apart from the Leadership Principles, Amazon has something called the 'six-page rule.' This means that whether it's an important meeting, a light brainstorming session, or a one-on-one meeting, instead of explaining it through a presentation, a six-page document is prepared to present ideas and promote discussion, and the meeting is held after reading it. Mr. Hater also prepared a 'six-page' response to the return to work order with the cooperation of 30,000 employees who actually gathered on an internal channel. However, it has also been pointed out that presentations that were previously prohibited in favor of the six-page rule are gradually being implemented.
In interviews with 24 current and former Amazon executives, including current executives and managers, many of them said that while the core principles and practices are core to Amazon's business, they are no longer widely adopted. Some insiders also said that rather than protecting customers or employees, the Leadership Principles have become diluted and inconsistent and are being used as an excuse to attack someone in the company.
Bill Carr, former head of Amazon Prime, said of Amazon's principles, 'The thoroughness of documentation and the various unique practices may sound like a bit of an obsession, but the payoff is that historically, Amazonians from the top to the bottom of the company have been able to understand at a granular level what's going on, the metrics, the work that teams are doing, what's working, what's not working.'
Stephen Meyer, dean of the School of Management at Columbia Business School, on the other hand, said, 'It's extremely important for an organization to have policies that make sense if they actually make sense. But if they're not implemented, if they're not in people's minds, if they don't have any impact on how we make decisions or how we treat each other, then they're completely meaningless.' While acknowledging the usefulness of principles, he also pointed out the possibility that they could be reversed and become a bad thing.
In July 2021, Amazon added two new principles to its Leadership Principles for the first time since its founding. The new principles are 'Strive to be the best employer on the planet' and 'Success and scale of business come with broad responsibilities.' At the time, there was active unionization in the warehouse network and antitrust and environmental protection were attracting attention, and these principles are thought to be in response to these circumstances. However, a former senior Amazon executive told Fortune, 'These are clearly marketing tactics that devalue the rest of the Leadership Principles. The added principles are aimed at external reputation, not at guiding internal thinking.'
Vote on Amazon unionization ends in 'Amazon's big win', Amazon's first unionization fails - GIGAZINE
By Ben Mortimer
Some Amazon insiders say the principles have been losing credibility since they were added, with several senior Amazon managers saying they feel the whole intent of the principles has now shifted from guidelines on how to make the right decisions in many situations to a punitive use intended primarily to point out deficiencies.
Some people believe that the reason for the change in thinking about principles such as the Leadership Principles is the change that occurred after Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos stepped down in February 2021 and Jassy, who was the head of the cloud service AWS, became CEO. On the other hand, many people who spoke to Fortune said that the cause was the confusion caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the sudden increase in Amazon's employee numbers, which nearly doubled, rather than the change in CEO. In fact, employees who joined the company from 2020 to 2021 were also taught the principles through video conferences, but many people pointed out that this was less effective than traditional interactions.
Jamil Ghani, Global Leader of Amazon Prime, said that an important part of his job is to instruct people on the Leadership Principles and Amazon practices. 'I often tell my team that the purpose of our work is not to create documents, but to create documents that can spark the right meetings and the right discussions. When the principles were misinterpreted or applied, I would step in and say, 'That's a bit strange. Here's why.'' He explained the importance of the principles.
On the social news site Hacker News, users who claim to be Amazon employees have also expressed their opinions. One user stated that at Amazon, you can't get promoted unless you've been there for more than five years, and that the development of new products is hindered because people with longer careers who run teams don't share their knowledge with their team members. 'If Amazon wants to change, they need to cut a significant number of full-time employees and actually promote younger engineers to decision-making positions,' he said. On the other hand, some users have pointed out the problem that promotions at AWS are too fast, so the purpose of starting a project has become promotion, and discussions are being held.
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