The Amazon Way: 14 Leadership Principles Behind the World's Most Disruptive Company

That’s where the metrics come in. Creating an operational environment that automates processes and makes them clear and transparent allows you to invest more time and energy on the thornier issues that require more work and creativity.

Batch architecture is very last century. In this day and age, you need real-time data, real-time monitoring, and real-time alarms when trouble is brewing—not lag-time metrics that hide the real issues for twenty-four hours or longer.

In addition, Kimberly still had the responsibility of maintaining compliant processes and procedures. If she was going to innovate, she had to be able to present options, choices, trade-offs, and opportunities. This required her to combine both her years of expertise and a “beginner’s mind-set.”

you need metrics and systems designed to collect and analyze them accurately, consistently, and quickly. Leaders must have a willingness to dive deep, but Amazon.com’s remarkable culture of metrics provides the data that rewards the

In most organizations, the typical mentality is, “I have so many obvious needs and threats, I can’t possibly spend time looking for the non-obvious threats—much less doing something about them.” Through these types of exercises, teams at Amazon can pick a couple of ideas, build programs around them, and make progress.

When a company makes a customer unhappy, that customer won’t tell a friend or two or three… he or she will tell many, many more; and ▪The best customer service is no customer service—because the best experience happens when the customer never has to ask for help at all.

Price, selection, and availability…these are the three durable and universal customer desires that Amazon thinks of as its holy trinity.

The real test of someone’s ability to rise to the top rests more in perseverance—the tenacity they display when confronted by obstacles or conflict.

Amazon just prefers to reward employees with stock options rather than salary or cash bonuses.