[Fortune] Jeff Bezos’ famed management rules are slowly unraveling inside Amazon. Can they survive the Andy Jassy era?

[Pepper_Thine_Angus]

Jeff Bezos’ famed management rules are slowly unraveling inside Amazon. Can...

[rms]

If Amazon employees are expected to follow those 16 rules, most of seller support should be fir…err…executed.

[Pepper_Thine_Angus]

Reminder, Seller Support is outsourced, so none of the above applies!

[papy]

One current Amazon senior manager said they’ve consistently observed bosses new to the company use the principles “as weapons to put those who aren’t favorites in their place,” while employing other principles to build up their favorites.
…
Another employee, a longtime AWS manager, said his superiors over the last few years frequently wielded “Disagree and commit”—a maxim intended to prevent groupthink during project planning while ensuring unity once a plan has been agreed upon—as a cudgel to quash any level of pushback.

This is the Disagree and Commit LP:

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.

I distinctly remember one of the OSFE mods weaponizing “disagree and commit” to 3P SELLERS (none of whom signed up for the Cult of Amazon) as a reason to shut up about our NSFE concerns. We were not involved in planning or brainstorming–we had no “disagree and commit” opportunity–but it was definitely thrown in our faces “to quash pushback”.

If that’s just a fraction of what rank-and-file are dealing with from Amazon leadership in 2024, then they are definitely doomed. That’s not how Gen Z or Gen Alpha manage their own businesses or expect to be treated in the workplace. The Boomers who like it (and we Gen Xers who tolerate it) are dying off and retiring.

It’s backasswards in today’s workworld, which is about dynamic evolution and nimble adaptation–not “it’s decided, no going back, this is it forever”.

[Pepper_Thine_Angus]

@papy

I distinctly remember one of the OSFE mods weaponizing “disagree and commit” to 3P SELLERS (none of whom signed up for the Cult of Amazon) as a reason to shut up about our NSFE concerns. We were not involved in planning or brainstorming–we had no “disagree and commit” opportunity–but it was definitely thrown in our faces “to quash pushback”.

I remember that.