What Does it Mean to “Hire and Develop The Best?”
What Does it Mean to ‘Hire and Develop The Best?’ | Amazonian Leadership Principles Legally, a corporation is its own separate entity, its own body, acting in the marketplace as an individual. But just like bodies of our own, every company is made of parts and, no matter how small—many moving parts that vary in size and responsibility, and yet all contribute to the same thing: the health of the company. So, how does this idea of the importance that each person is a part of one whole, maybe not acting in unison, but wanting the same things, relate to […]
Earning Trust and The Second Greatest Commandment
The Human Element in Sales Upon first graduating college, I knew two things that might seem ironic to many of you now: I didn’t want to go into sales I never wanted to work in technology This may come as a surprise to many, as throughout my career, those two items have been at the core of what I do for over 30 years now. But before I ever began, I felt like both sales and tech were not for me. The market didn’t seem to reward upstanding character and didn’t necessarily disclose nor punish deceit (i.e. on the seller […]
Diversity or Agreement?
Embracing diversity will drive growth, but not necessarily agreement In a world that is obsessed with one-sided diversity, a trait I’ve come to highly value from leaders is their ability to listen and consider a difference of ideas and opinions. Even more valuable is a humble, dissenting subordinate. At Amazon (Amazon Web Services (AWS)), they label this under their Leadership Principle (LP) “Have Backbone…disagree and commit.” While Amazonians aspire to own the 16 valued “LPs”, it is easy to let the less appealing or rewarding “LPs” fall by the wayside for the sake of personal comfort and preservation. The most […]