Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon

by Colin Bryar

“We have an unshakeable conviction that the long-term interests of shareowners are perfectly aligned with the interests of customers.”2 In other words, while it’s true that shareholder value stems from growth in profit, Amazon believes that long-term growth is best produced by putting the customer first.

“Our culture is four things: customer obsession instead of competitor obsession; willingness to think long term, with a longer investment horizon than most of our peers; eagerness to invent, which of course goes hand in hand with failure; and then, finally, taking professional pride in operational excellence.”

the Bar Raiser hiring process that ensures that the company continues to acquire top talent; a bias for separable teams run by leaders with a singular focus that optimizes for speed of delivery and innovation; the use of written narratives instead of slide decks to ensure that deep understanding of complex issues drives well-informed decisions; a relentless focus on input metrics to ensure that teams work on activities that propel the business. And finally there is the product development process that gives this book its name: working backwards from the desired customer experience.

“We need to plant many seeds,” he would say, “because we don’t know which one of those seeds will grow into a mighty oak.”

The customer is also at the center of how we analyze and manage performance metrics. Our emphasis is on what we call controllable input metrics, rather than output metrics. Controllable input metrics (e.g., reducing internal costs so you can affordably lower product prices, adding new items for sale on the website, or reducing standard delivery time) measure the set of activities that, if done well, will yield the desired results, or output metrics (such as monthly revenue and stock price). We detail these metrics as well as how to discover and track them in chapter six.

“You can write down your corporate culture, but when you do so, you’re discovering it, uncovering it—not creating it.”

“Leaders have relentlessly high standards—many people may think these standards are unreasonably high.”

Amazon’s Leadership Principles

Ownership. Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say, “that’s not my job.

Are Right, A Lot. Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.

Insist on the Highest Standards. Leaders have relentlessly high standards—many people may think these standards are unreasonably high. Leaders are continually raising the bar and drive their teams to deliver high-quality products, services, and processes. Leaders ensure that defects do not get sent down the line and that problems are fixed so they stay fixed.

Think Big. Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results. They think differently and look around corners for ways to serve customers.

Bias for Action. Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study...

Earn Trust. Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others respectfully. They are vocally self-critical, even when doing so is awkward or embarrassing. Leaders do not believe their or their team’s body odor smells of perfume. They benchmark themselves and their teams against the best.

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.

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.

There’s a saying often heard at Amazon: “Good intentions don’t work. Mechanisms do.”

Amazon’s planning for the calendar year begins in the summer. It’s a painstaking process that requires four to eight weeks of intensive work for the managers and many staff members of every team in the company. This intensity is deliberate, because a poorly defined plan—or worse, no plan at all—can incur a much greater downstream cost.

S-Team goals must be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely (SMART).

S-Team goals are aggressive enough that Amazon only expects about three-quarters of them to be fully achieved during the year. Hitting every one of them would be a clear sign that the bar had been set too low.

At many companies, when the senior leadership meets, they tend to focus more on big-picture, high-level strategy issues than on execution. At Amazon, it’s the opposite. Amazon leaders toil over the execution details and regularly embody the Dive Deep leadership principle, which states: “Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, audit frequently, and are skeptical when metrics and anecdotes differ. No task is beneath them.”

No matter how clear your leadership principles and yearly plan may be, they speak softly in comparison to financial incentives. Money talks—if your leadership principles, your yearly plan, and your financial incentives are not closely aligned, you won’t get the right results.

The wrong kind of compensation practice can cause misalignment in two ways: (1) by rewarding short-term goals at the expense of long-term value creation, and (2) by rewarding the achievement of localized departmental milestones whether or not they benefit the company as a whole. Both can powerfully drive behaviors that are antithetical to the company’s ultimate goals.

we wanted people who would thrive and work at Amazon for five-plus years, not the 18–24 months typical of Silicon Valley.

The Bar Raiser process was one of Amazon’s first and most successful scalable, repeatable, and teachable operational practices.

“Organizational culture comes about in one of two ways. It’s either decisively defined, nurtured and protected from the inception of the organization; or—more typically—it comes about haphazardly as a collective sum of the beliefs, experiences and behaviors of those on the team. Either way, you will have a culture. For better or worse.”

The name was intended to signal to everyone involved in the hiring process that every new hire should “raise the bar,” that is, be better in one important way (or more) than the other members of the team they join.

There are eight steps in the Bar Raiser hiring process: Job Description Résumé Review Phone Screen In-House Interview Written Feedback Debrief/Hiring Meeting Reference Check Offer Through Onboarding

First, everyone must have been properly trained in the company’s interviewing process.

Second, no loop participant should be more than one level below the level of the position the candidate will hold. Nor should there be an interviewer who would become a direct report of the candidate.

General, open-ended questions such as “Tell me about your career” or “Walk me through your résumé” are usually a waste of time and will not produce the kind of specific information you’re after. When asked such questions, most candidates will take the opportunity to deliver a positive, perhaps slightly glorified narrative of their career.

The method that Amazon interviewers use for drilling down goes by the acronym STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result): “What was the situation?” “What were you tasked with?” “What actions did you take?” “What was the result?”