“A lot of people are so used to just seeing the outcome of work. They never see the side of the work you go through to produce the outcome.”

—Michael Jackson

Bezonomics

“Any Amazonian who wants to pitch an idea for a product or a service must, before writing a single line of code, compose a document no longer than six pages in length. His mantra of “always starting with the customer” comes into play here. The memos, in the form of a hypothetical PR release, typically start by laying out the long-term impact of the new project and why it’s meaningful to customers. Then an FAQ section helps determine the nuts and bolts of the proposed service or product, and how the development team should build it”

“The goal of every meeting at Amazon—whether triggered by a six-pager or not—is to get as close to the truth of the matter as possible”

A culture of metrics

Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella

3 leadership expectations / principles from Satya Nadella @ Microsoft:

  1. Bring clarity to those you work with. Synthesize the complex from internal and external noise. Use your intelligence to develop a shared understanding within teams and define a course of action.
  2. Generate energy, not only within your own team but across the company. Inspire optimism, creativity, shared commitments. and growth through good times and bad. Create an environment for everyone to do their best work and build organisations and teams that are stronger tomorrow than today.
  3. Find a way to deliver success, to make things happen. This means driving innovations that people love and are inspired to work on; finding balance between long term success and short term wins, and being boundary-less and globally minded in seeking solutions.