Ask Your Developer: How to Harness the Power of Software Developers and Win in the 21st Century – A Management Playbook for Tech Industry Leadership and Digital Transformation

by Jeff Lawson

Andy looks through the metrics of each team. When he finds something that’s off, for example something that’s trending in the wrong direction, he stops and asks the leader why their metrics are off and what they’re doing to fix it. Here’s the key part—sometimes the leader has a great answer for the issue and what they’re doing, and obviously the leader feels good and looks good in front of many other leaders. But more important is that every other leader in the room just learned what excellence looks like. Metrics will inevitably go off-kilter, but what’s important is the owner is on top of it. Of course there are the opposite scenarios, too—the times when the leader doesn’t know or can’t explain why the metric is off course. That’s bad. You have to know your business. Or maybe the leader knows what’s wrong but has insufficient plans to correct it. That’s bad, too. Andy will spend time leaning into the situation, coaching the leaders (sometimes forcefully, to be honest) in how they could run their business better. These meetings are pretty legendary in Amazon Web Services, because you’d better be prepared, which drives each team to run a tight ship, but also because it’s a master class in being an owner. That’s the kind of open, learning environment that drives innovation and success. The hard part is to balance that open environment for feedback without creating an environment of fear. That’s where the “open” part comes in. Leaders should expect the best from their teams,...