A Critique of the Amazon Leadership Principles, Part 5

In Part 1 of my Critique of the Amazon Leadership Principles, I covered the first two principles of Amazon’s guiding documentation: Customer Obsession; and Ownership. In Part 2, I went over three more principles: Invent and Simplify; Are Right, A Lot; and Learn and Be Curious. In Part 3, I covered these three principles: Hire and Develop the Best; Insist on the Highest Standards; and Think Big. In Part 4, I reviewed these principles: Bias for Action; Frugality; and Earn Trust. In this article, I will review these principles:

• Dive Deep
• Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit
• Strive to be Earth’s Best Employer
• Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility

Each section begins with a quote from the original document, followed by my critique. This is a work-in-progress and I acknowledge that my critique is subject to… critique. This is Medium, so please feel free to highlight those sections with which you agree or disagree, and leave your comments.

Dive Deep

Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, audit frequently, and are skeptical when metrics and anecdote differ. No task is beneath them.

I agree with all of this, except that at an organization the size of Amazon, a leader shouldn’t spend the majority of their time buried in the details. They should know how to delegate responsibility to other team members to conduct the audits. The exception would be when there is an opportunity for a teaching moment, either in humility, or in the transfer of skills.

At smaller businesses, you should also delegate whenever possible. But, there will be more opportunities to engage in tasks that are better-suited for your team. At a start-up, where you have to wear many hats, you will need to do more hands-on work while driving the vision of your company. And, you’ll want to lead by example. Show your workers that you’ll never ask anything of them that you wouldn’t do yourself, and you’ll earn their respect. If you’re finding that your team needs a lesson in humility, then take out the trash once per week. I mean it. Roll up your sleeves, visit everyone’s desk and empty their wastebasket into a bin. Then take it outside.

Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit

Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.

I’m well-known for challenging decisions with which I disagree, especially during uncomfortable or exhausting circumstances. However, I also know when I’ve lost a battle, and when a decision can have a negative impact on the stability of an organization because I’ve failed to get buy-in from the majority of stakeholders.

Social cohesion “refers to the strength of relationships and the sense of solidarity among members of a community.” It matters for an organization to have a positive culture. This doesn’t necessarily mean “compromise.” But it does mean that it’s better to get buy-in from your team on the ideas you want to pursue. If you dictate terms that people disagree with, they’ll be less likely to execute — and execute well on your vision. Under these circumstances, you may win the battle of ideas, but you’ll lose the war of executing on them. Instead, make patience one of your principles.

Respectful disagreement is challenging. Sometimes you have to deal with people with fragile egos who don’t know how to deal with negative feedback on their ideas. Sometimes this is because a person is used to being the smartest person in the room (think Ivy League graduates), where people are afraid to challenge their ideas and never do. At other times, a leader may have Impostor Syndrome, where they feel insecure and defensive because they don’t want people to see them for the fraud they perceive themselves to be. Under all of these circumstances, be patient. Build coalitions around your ideas so that when the tough conversations happen, you won’t be alone.

Deliver Results

Leaders focus on the key inputs for their business and deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion. Despite setbacks, they rise to the occasion and never settle.

This is a good principle. However, it’s a bit redundant, as is my criticism. Failure happens. Deadlines get missed, and quality can be less than optimal. A truly good leader is retrospective. One would look at what was achieved, what wasn’t achieved, and what could be done better in the next iteration.

Strive to be Earth’s Best Employer

Leaders work every day to create a safer, more productive, higher performing, more diverse, and more just work environment. They lead with empathy, have fun at work, and make it easy for others to have fun. Leaders ask themselves: Are my fellow employees growing? Are they empowered? Are they ready for what’s next? Leaders have a vision for and commitment to their employees’ personal success, whether that be at Amazon or elsewhere.

On paper, this is a great principle. But then, so is the Constitution of Russia. In practice, Amazon has gotten a bad rap. Some of you may remember when they were busted for making it impossible for warehouse workers to meet their quotas while also taking bathroom breaks, to the point where workers had no choice but to pee in bottles. They changed their policy only after they got busted. So, it makes me wonder how much they actually held to this principle.

I should also point out that I am generally a believer in second chances. And, I believe that companies should generally operate as they see fit, so long as the environment is relatively safe. Workers have the freedom to quit and work somewhere else (and under the aforementioned circumstances, they probably should).

That said, Amazon has the opportunity to actually strive to be Earth’s best employer. And, it could be that different departments have different policies. They pay their software developers well, for example, and I doubt that they’re counting the minutes between pee breaks. So, let’s just say that I hope Amazon elevates the importance of this principle.

Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility

We started in a garage, but we’re not there anymore. We are big, we impact the world, and we are far from perfect. We must be humble and thoughtful about even the secondary effects of our actions. Our local communities, planet, and future generations need us to be better every day. We must begin each day with a determination to make better, do better, and be better for our customers, our employees, our partners, and the world at large. And we must end every day knowing we can do even more tomorrow. Leaders create more than they consume and always leave things better than how they found them.

I’m a big believer in voluntary action that’s designed to produce good outcomes. This is always a much more sustainable option than using law and coercion (law) to ban people from the use of modern inventions like straws and plastic bags. Big companies, and leaders at big organizations can set the tone for a variety of conversations. If Amazon were to be more environmentally conscious about their packaging and vehicle use, then other companies and leaders may follow similar patterns.

To this end, it’s a great principle. And, as above, my criticism isn’t so much about the spirit of the text, but rather the execution. For example, I order from Amazon regularly, and items have arrived in boxes that are way bigger than necessary. Or, I’ll receive multiple items in a day, each of which arrives in a separate package. I know that waste comes in many forms, and it’s possible that the extra packaging may be balanced out by savings in the warehouse, travel, and other areas. I also know that they have (anecdotally) gotten better about using smaller boxes and envelopes. So, I would just say that they should continue to be better.

Last, I would say that it’s okay to hold themselves accountable, but they should not expect others to abide by the same standards (i.e. play the infinite game, as described previously). And, they should certainly stop lobbying for such things under the pretense of nobility. For example, (former) CEO Jeffrey Bezos lobbied for an increase in the minimum wage to $15 per hour. This sounds noble, until you realize that it’s in Amazon’s best interest to force other companies to pay this rate. Why?

It’s pretty simple economics. Amazon has the finances, and the technological backbone to automate their warehouse. So sure, their warehouse workers make more than those at other places… and they require fewer workers per package picked and packed. Consequently, Amazon can pay the higher rate because the total wages are low. Meanwhile, their competitors, including small ecommerce businesses do not have the resources to automate their warehouses to the same degree. The logical outcome is that Amazon’s competitors cannot afford the higher wages without a price increase, which drives more business to Amazon. In the long term, this also means that there are fewer warehouse jobs available, as Amazon continues to automate.

To be clear, I love automation. It is the inevitable future that we need, and people will eventually find more service-oriented jobs as their old positions become antiquated. I’m just saying that if Amazon actually wants to make the world a better place, they would play the infinite game to make themselves better, without making conditions for their competitors worse.

My Full Critique on the Amazon Leadership Principles

I hope you found value in my full critique of Amazon’s leadership principles. If you did, please leave a comment below or clap a few times. If you missed any of the parts, you can find them below: