retail department
store. Beyond safety,
we measure everything you might expect us to worry about in a complicated logistics network: customer experience, cycle times (both mean and variance), defect rates, productivity, cost and capi- tal investment. Tese metrics map to our leadership principles, which include customer obsession, ownership, frugality and delivering results.
Q. Amazon aims “to be Earth’s most customer-centric company where people can find and discover anything they want to buy online.” You personally are report- edly almost fanatically committed to customer satisfaction, especially during high-pressure times such as the holiday season. Te Army acquisition commu- nity’s customers are the Soldiers who use the items procured. What could the Army learn from Amazon about manag- ing “customer” relationships?
A. We have two leadership principles that help define Amazon’s approach to customer-centricity. First, we want lead- ers to display “customer obsession.” We ask leaders to start with the customer and work backward. Tey work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. If you ask,
“How obsessed is enough?” we answer with our leadership principle “insist on the highest standards.”
We think leaders have relentlessly high standards; many people may think these standards are unreasonably high. Leaders continually raise 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. So you will find us correcting mis- takes before customers get angry about them, sometimes before they even notice. We’ll drive to stores on Dec. 24 to buy the few out of hundreds of millions of items
that we just can’t find in the fulfillment center. When we build new products, we write press releases to help visualize what we would like to announce to customers about the product at a successful launch. I love that the words “processes” and
“fixing defects” are in our highest-level leadership vocabulary. Great customer experience starts with superb attention to execution.
I had the honor of visiting the Army War College at Carlisle, PA, some years ago, and I was struck by just how much consideration the Soldier-customer received by the military’s highest leaders. With respect to how we think about our employee customers, we borrowed some of our approach from the best practices of our military.
Q. You mentioned that you found that military people have a penchant for action and are comfortable with rapidly chang- ing environments. Can you give me a little bit of background on how much Amazon has worked with military people?
A. For 13 years, we’ve been actively recruiting everyone from former enlisted folks and junior military officers to more senior officers because of these traits. And it’s proven to be a highly successful hiring channel for us. Tere are hundreds and hundreds of folks who are veterans who are at Amazon. And we expect to hire 1,200 this year.
I mentioned my own experience with the Army War College. Tat experience was just prior to my joining Amazon in 1999, and so it was very fresh in my mind. Te new leader for human resources for worldwide operations in 1999, Dave Niekerk, was a West Point alum.
Q. You talked about leaders hav- ing relentlessly high standards. Tat’s
exactly the kind of thing that DOD is trying to get at these days with bet- ter buying power. Central to that is raising the standards of leadership and independent
thinking in acquisition
professionals. DOD is working very hard to have top-level acquisition pro- fessionals
recognized and documented
as the elite that they are. What you said about high standards gets right to that point. Does Amazon ever do anything like better buying power?
A. Not per se. We have 14 leadership prin- ciples (online at
http://www.amazon. com/Values-Careers-Homepage/b? ie=UTF8&node=239365011),
ing the leadership principle “insist on the highest standards.” Tis principle of independent thinking is close to one that we have called “disagree and com- mit.” (See related article on Page 122.) What we want our bright people to do, when they’re pretty sure they’re right, is to disagree when they think that some- body else’s approach is not correct or they think they can improve on an already good approach.
And it’s interesting, because people asked for a long time, “Well, when do you stop disagreeing?” My answer is, when you’re not sure you’re right. So I tell people—I don’t know how this would work in the military—but in our world, if you’re sure you’re right and your boss tells you, “No, you’re wrong,” you have the obligation, after telling your boss that you are going to do this, to go to his boss or her boss. And if that boss says, “You know, I don’t think you’re right” and gives reasons and you’re sure you’re right, you have the obli- gation to keep going up the chain until you get to our CEO. And if he tells you, “I hear you, but we’re going to do this other thing,” then we want you to disagree and commit to the choice that the company’s made, and move forward.
ASC.ARMY.MIL 119
includ-
CRITICAL THINKING
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196
