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Amazon's Leadership Principles

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Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#91
post #86
post #81

"[Leaders] Are Right, A Lot" How is this even a principle ? Just "be right", a lot ?

"They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs."

Which is very sensible, but then the principle would be "[Our leaders] Do not assume they are always right".

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#92
post #36

Some of these are contradictory - in addition, some of these aren't really even leadership principles of much merit outside the company they're created for. Here is an example of a proven set of leadership principles that is a worthwhile read: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/leadership.htm . Someone who can embody all of these principles that the Marine Corps espouses is someone I can respect immensely regar…

Thanks for the link, really interesting. I'm an anti-militarist but I've recently become a little obsessed with the idea of conflict, the use of force, and how we negotiate the force-related conflicts we have with the others.

For example this:

> 1.Put your Marines' welfare before your own--correct grievances and remove discontent.

reminded me of an essay ("The Concept of the Political") that I've read recently, written by Carl Schmitt, where he defines politics as the conflict between friends and enemies, and nothing more. His later "Theory of the Partisan" was also very interesting.

Later edit: this point

> 7. Protect the health of your unit by active supervision of hygiene and sanitation.

reminded me of how the first recorded presence of a doctor on the territory of my country (which, of course, at that time hadn't been formed yet) happened almost 2,000 years ago when the Romans decided to invade this territory and when they brought doctors with them in order to heal and care the wounded soldiers. At least another ~1,500 years would pass until medics would be present again around these parts, approximately during the late Middle Age. To say nothing of the complex sanitation installations that the Romans were putting in place almost immediately after they had finished building a fort in the middle of nothingness. The more I read about the Romans' organizational structure and logistics the more impressed I am, they somehow look like an alien species.

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#93

Leaders are willing to take a 100x salary compared to their line employees because they know they can hustle hard enough to live up to the expectations. I'm very excited to see the helmet cam video of Jeff Bezos serving a customary 8-10-12-14 hour shift at the Dallas Amazon Fulfillment Center and walk out with a smile. Can you do what you ask of others? That's leadership. No, really. Principles not tested in the fire…

> I'm very excited to see the helmet cam video of Jeff Bezos serving a customary 8-10-12-14 hour shift at the Dallas Amazon Fulfillment Center and walk out with a smile. Can you do what you ask of others? That's leadership. I feel like there is a big difference between getting through some shifts, and looking at it for the next few years.

Yeah... I doubt any managers are shouting at Jeff Bezos about not meeting speed and quality metrics.

It's a farce.

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#94
post #60
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So many ambulances responded to medical assistance calls at the warehouse during a heat wave in May, the paper said, that the retailer paid Cetronia Ambulance Corps to have paramedics and ambulances stationed outside the warehouse during several days of excess heat over the summer. https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/inside-amazons-ver...

Because it's cheaper and more efficient to have them onsite.

Also because dehydration and injuries are a problem in fulfillment centers, especially during high volume or high heat.

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#96
post #36

Some of these are contradictory - in addition, some of these aren't really even leadership principles of much merit outside the company they're created for. Here is an example of a proven set of leadership principles that is a worthwhile read: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/leadership.htm . Someone who can embody all of these principles that the Marine Corps espouses is someone I can respect immensely regar…

>> Ensure the task is understood, supervised, and accomplished This might be a good idea for running a military unit but fails miserably in IT. As a leader I hardly ever supervise my engineers, they have to understand the tasks and only come to me if there something that they do not understand. Giving them as much freedom as possible is one reason they like to work with us, feedback we got from 90% of them. Sometimes…

There's a reason why that style is called "command and control"...

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#97
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Leaders are willing to take a 100x salary compared to their line employees because they know they can hustle hard enough to live up to the expectations. > I'm very excited to see the helmet cam video of Jeff Bezos serving a customary 8-10-12-14 hour shift at the Dallas Amazon Fulfillment Center and walk out with a smile. Can you do what you ask of others? That's leadership. Sometimes I just have to sit and marvel a…

Please explain.

Looking at his comment history I'm started to think I misread irony for sincerity, but its still not clear to me where that's delimited.

The 100x line sounds like the kind of deluded optimism about meritocracy you hear from a lot of people in tech, and the line about "dogfooding" is like a startup school trope that is kind of beside the point when you're talking about basic human decency towards your workers. You shouldn't have to "test" the ethicality of overworking your employees or paying yourself a huge amount of money while your worker' wages stagnate. Then again, I'm a socialist and find the entire idea of these companies to be ethically compromised because they aren't worker coops.

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#98
post #90
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could that be? I stopped buying from Amazon after reading about how they treat their warehouse employees. To me, Amazon just represents monopolistic corporate greed, with no aspiration of caring even just a little bit about anything else.

Part of the reason Amazon is so successful and highly regarded is the degree to which they exploit their warehouse employees. This exploitation results in customer orders being stocked and shipped quickly and in costs being reduced. Amazon is obsessed with the customer , remember, not the employee.

This, in general, is important to remember - especially if you're planning on being employed by Amazon, or doing business by them. Amazon will do anything* to make the customer experience better - and that means getting maximum efficiency out of every link in the supply chain by pushing vendors, publishers and employees to their limits.

Life can be quite nice as a developer, if you've got a manager who understands that developer efficiency can be cultivated by not putting on undue pressure. But if you're in any role with a single metric which can be ruthlessly optimized, expect that to happen.

* Anything except sacrifice the Long-Term Projects. As a former Amazon site developer, I've been incredibly pissed off about the Amazon website and apps degrading the customer experience in order to aggressively push Prime, Amazon Music, Amazon Mom/Student, etc. There's some stuff on there bordering on dark patterns, and it goes against everything that was drilled into us devs over the years.

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#99

The emphasis on "customer obsession" is clearly working, since it has topped the polls for best corporate reputation two years in a row. http://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-tops-harris-poll-corpora... I work for Amazon, and I personally am a huge fan of the "LPs" . I consistently find myself mentally consulting them when I'm not sure what to do in a particular situation. I also think it really helps to work in an env…

Ex-Amazonian here. I still use some of the principles in my day-to-day life. There are some things I don't like about Amazon, but I reckon they did pretty well at the Principles - and I liked the way that they refined and clarified them over time, eliminating any that didn't work, and providing good examples to prevent people from over-optimizing individual principles (particularly frugality) to the point of uselessness.

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#100
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon tries to push Leadership Principles into every part of at least their corporate world. It's supposed to drive decision making for basically everyone, brand new engineers on up (I don't know if they push them lower down the stack). What I'm getting at is it's not solely for "leaders" as in high level folks. > live a life never caring about money (> 200k a year) I'm in my 3rd year as an engineer here (and of my…

Thanks for the data point. I'm looking at openings in Canada and the only numbers I've found during a cursory search were 'Salary Range: $80,000 to $140,000/yr, commensurate with experience' for a 'Research Scientist II' position.

Pay varies a lot depending on the location, as well. It's meant to be competitive with local industry rates.
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