From the beginning, the company's founder, Jeff Bezos, set out to create a unique work environment that would motivate employees to achieve high results. Amazon provides one of the greatest corporate culture examples. The leadership principles developed at Amazon serve as the basis for all decisions and actions, helping the company to remain competitive and grow dynamically. In this article, we have collected some of Amazon’s core principles which you can learn to apply in your company.
1. Customer needs are a priority
Jeff Bezos's strategy became known for always putting oneself in the customer's shoes before making any decisions or changes. This helped him better understand consumers' needs and desires. His employees often ironically call this a “customer obsession” because no action in the company can be taken without considering this factor.
Nevertheless, Bezos understood the truth of business long ago: the best customer service is the absence of customer service. Amazon's corporate culture is focused on ensuring that customers don't even have to ask for help or additional services, which has led to a huge amount of positive feedback from American consumers.
2. Improved hiring system
People define the corporate culture of a company, so Amazon paid a lot of attention to selecting new employees. Jeff Bezos believed that it was easier not to hire the perfect employee than to deal with firing the wrong one. This takes a lot of time and resources that could be invested in improving the company.
When Amazon started working with Zappos, their CEO Tony Hsieh shared his thoughts on employee selection with Jeff Bezos. The wrong people cost Zappos $100 million in their time, so they were meticulous about this process. Since then, Amazon has begun to improve its hiring system, so it is not surprising that now, to become part of the company, a candidate must go through up to 30 interviews, some of which can last 9 hours.
3. High standards
Good leaders have high standards for the company's products and services, sometimes so high that others may consider them unreasonable. One of the hallmarks of Amazon's corporate culture is that they see a leader in every employee. That is, employees are expected to behave like leaders and do the best they can.
Jeff believed that his team was like technology, which should constantly improve to achieve better results. For this purpose, Amazon uses service level agreements (SLAs), a kind of contract with both external and internal employees. The SLA sets precise requirements and standards for the quality of goods and services provided by the employee and helps to track performance.
4. Thinking big and making visionary plans
One of the defining characteristics of leaders in companies with great culture is their ability to think big and make long-term plans. Jeff Bezos said that even though many people say that we need to live in the here and now, we need to think and create on a large scale so that our work will be admired for generations to come. Therefore, when developing any plan, Amazon tries to analyze how it will work in many years.
Jeff Bezos is closely associated with the Long Now organization. This organization has a clock that ticks only once a year, the century hand advances every 100 years, and the cuckoo will come out once every millennium for the next 10,000 years. Bezos loves this symbol because it reminds him to think big and always ahead.
5. Trust within the company
Much has been said about how essential it is for Amazon to gain customer trust, but one of the company's greatest corporate values is trust among employees. To achieve this, employees must possess such traits as honesty, transparency, and mutual respect. However, not everyone can do this so easily.
In his book The Amazon Way John Rossman, a business advisor and strategist, talks about his first days at Amazon. At first, he was very worried about the excessively high standards and had a feeling that he could be kicked out at any moment. This led him to take on most of the work himself to present the “best” result. However, he later realized that his colleagues were also working hard to produce excellent results and he should trust them instead of taking on all the tasks.
6. Proper goal-setting
For any company to succeed, the team must be result-oriented and able to set clear goals — these are the corporate values of Amazon. In the company, employees often organize debates before setting their goals, as this helps them assess the situation from different angles, listening to different points of view. At the same time, Amazon always prioritizes long-term solutions over temporary financial achievements.
Amazon also encourages employees to use the “BHAG” approach, which means “Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal.” This encourages the team to set clear, achievable, and yet ambitious goals. This way, good teams can face no obstacles or mistakes on the way to achieving their goals.
7. Continuous improvement
Employees of a successful company are expected to not only deliver “good” results but also to deliver professional-level results. That's why Amazon's company culture is focused on continuous improvement. Leaders are constantly striving to make their products and services better to create progress and initiate innovation.
Jeff Bezos said, “This is Day 1 for the Internet. We still have so much to learn.” Since then, “Day 1” has become an Amazon slogan that can be found everywhere from marketing campaigns to quotes in employees' offices. Interestingly, the two largest buildings on Amazon's Seattle campus are called Day 1 North and Day 1 South. This slogan helps employees to remember that to create innovation, you need to constantly learn.
8. Openness to opposing opinions
Most companies' corporate cultures nowadays don’t accept various challenges and disputes over different opinions, as they prioritize friendly relations and teamwork. However, Amazon proves that one does not interfere with the other and that a team can work even more efficiently when its members share different points of view. Moreover, most of the best decisions in the company are born from constant debate among employees.
When Jeff Bezos disagrees with one of his colleagues, he encourages them to challenge him. The argument may continue until the colleague completely convinces Bezos that their option is better, or vice versa. Such debates help to see all the weaknesses and strengths of a particular decision and analyze it from all sides.
Amazon's corporate culture demonstrates how a strategic approach to organizing workflow can contribute to a company's sustainable success. Based on the principles of leadership, it ensures high performance and continuous improvement. The high standards set for employees contribute not only to the company's development but also to the professional growth of each of them. Thanks to this, Amazon has created an innovative environment where creativity and initiative are valued.
Constantly striving to improve products and services based on feedback allows the company to meet and exceed customer expectations. Nowadays, Amazon's corporate culture is an example for many companies around the world. It is a powerful engine that ensures the company's stable development and competitiveness in the global market.
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