Definition
Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.
Explained by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy
So the right a lot leadership principle is very much proxy for judgment. And the truth is that you can do a lot of things right, but if you make the wrong decisions on really the key questions we have to answer for ourselves—for customer experience in the business—you’re going have an issue.
And we operate in high areas of ambiguity in many of the businesses that Amazon pursues. We’re the first market or we’re inventing in that space. Or even when we built a business that works well, we’re constantly trying to figure out how to keep changing and improving the customer experience.
So we always deal in areas that have lots of ambiguity, lots of noise around it. And we have to be great at this company at sifting through all the different noise and finding the signal and what really matters for customers.
And I remember when we first put this leadership principle in place, people often got it wrong and what people misinterpreted was they thought, “well, if I’m really great at the leadership principle of being right a lot, it means when we’re debating something, my idea has to be one, the one that carries the day because after all, I would be right a lot.”
And the reality is what we’re all trying to do is we’re trying to get to the best possible answer for customers, whoever’s idea it is. And so what, what we need to do and we’re thinking about a hard issue is we need to get the right people in a room, the right people to give feedback. It’s often why as leaders, we speak last in the room. We want everybody’s input, we want, you know, and a lot of times in those meetings, what a lot of the leaders are doing is they’re thinking about what they going in opinion was, and they’re seeking to try and find a different way.
You know, I’m often question my close, most closely held beliefs on a particular topic to see, are they really right? Is there another way to think about it? Can we do better for customers?
And so the key is to get the right people involved in giving feedback, listen to the different perspectives and then think about what is the best possible answer for customers or for the business. It doesn’t matter if it was your idea or not in many of the best meetings I’m in, I never even have to express an opinion. The team has sorted it out for themselves. But all we care about as leaders is getting to the best possible answer for customers. That’s our job.