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AWS employee here. If you aren't aware, Amazon Leadership Principles are a bit more than the usual wishy-washy "mission statements" you see at a lot of other co
by openasocket 5y ago
AWS employee here. If you aren't aware, Amazon Leadership Principles are a bit more than the usual wishy-washy "mission statements" you see at a lot of other companies. When I first started I thought they were kind of dumb, but what they do is they give a sort of shared vocabulary when talking to management. It lets you take a position in a way that managers and other employees will take seriously. I've seen people unironically invoke leadership principles in meetings. Saying "I'm going to disagree and commit here" to explain you think a particular decision needs more discussion. Saying we need to "bias for action" when you feel there's too much hesitancy or red tape in the way. And "Customer Obsession" tends to come up a lot when you want to prioritize new features or make improvements. I've personally used that one when people have tried to explain away a bug in a tool or service as you just not using it "properly". Yeah it's a bit silly, but sometimes they are really helpful.
- notacoward 5y agoInvoking principles like this can be healthy, but it also has a downside. At another FAANG, there was quite a discussion at one point about "weaponizing" such principles against other people - especially "assume good intent" when lack of same was clearly evident. My take is that these principles are things for people to apply to themselves and everyone should be very wary when they're imposed on others.
- ramblerman 5y ago> these principles are things for people to apply to themselves and everyone should be very wary when they're imposed on others. I feel like this generalizes to a lot more than just amazon principles.
- adwn 5y ago> Saying "I'm going to disagree and commit here" to explain you think a particular decision needs more discussion. Doesn't "disagree and commit" mean the opposite? I.e., that further discussion is pointless, but a decision has to be made now, and one party budges in favor of the other party?
- rantwasp 5y agono. it means that you disagree with the decision but after the commit that’s what everyone is going to do (you included)
- adwn 5y agoThat's exactly what I wrote: "disagree and commit" == end of discussion, everyone pulls in the same direction even if they don't like the decision.
- rantwasp 5y agoyes but no. technically further discussion could lead to a better outcome. so you’re right here. not right when saying that further discussion would be pointless. usually disagree and commit is used as a forcing factor by higher ups when the drone cannot make up their minds.
- efitz 5y agoYes, I also saw it used to bring around recalcitrant people (whether they were “right” or not), e.g. “it’s time for you to disagree and commit”.
- pseudalopex 5y agoIt covers before and after the final decision. Most of the text is about how people are supposed to be tenacious and not compromise for the sake of social cohesion.
- rantwasp 5y agothe principles themselves are useful but here’s the thing: people take them literally and without any context a lot of the times effectively turning them into a weapon to show how X and Y don’t show “leadership”. Here is an example: “Insist on the highest standards” and “Bias for action”. If you have bias for action and want to get shit done you will be dinged for some technically or how the design could have used more work. If you insist in the highest standards you will be dinged for analysis paralysis and told you don’t have bias for action.
- ctvo 5y agoAmazon’s LPs have built in tension. It’s explained away by saying be Right A Lot and judge which side you’re willing to give up.
- efitz 5y agoAlso, if you read “bias for action”, it doesn’t say “go off half cocked”, it specifically says that if a decision is easily reversible then you don’t need to spend as much time investigating it as a decision that’s more permanent.
- rantwasp 5y agolol. the whole easily reversible (or two way door vs one way door) sounds soooo good in theory. You know what? Everything is reversible. The question is not how reversible it is. The question is how much effort does it take. also, people use "bias for action" as an excuse to basically do the first thing they can think off. When you push back they will want you to "disagree and commit" and after that when something, anything is delivered the same ppl are gonna claim they were right. In fact they are "right a lot"
- rantwasp 5y agoI'm sorry but this just does not work. If you are judged by the LPs this will go from "are you embodying these LPs to which one is your weakness". A good boss will coach you on your weaknesses. A bad boss will use this as an excuse to PIP you.
- datavirtue 5y agoCult. Run.
- efitz 5y agoAmazon-speak did feel very cult-like to me at first, but overall they do a good job of being intentional about corporate culture and preserving it. Not perfect but I’ve worked at other companies with much more toxic cultures.
- akomtu 5y agoLooks like it's a corporate bible: since contradicting the bible is heresy, the only way to win an argument is to pull a better quote from the bible.