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Delivering the Future: Amazon’s Innovation Culture

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Maureen Metcalf, CEO of the Innovative Leadership Institute, shared this article as a companion to her podcast with Amazon executives David Carbon, Vice President and General Manager of Amazon Prime Air, John Love, VP of Amazon Pharmacy & Pillpack, Dr. Vin Gupta, a pulmonologist who is a medical analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. He also serves as a senior principal scientist with Amazon, affiliate professor with the University of Washington‘s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, attending physician at Virginia Mason Medical Center, and lead officer of the Critical Care Air Transport Team for the United States Air Force Medical Service Reserves, based at Joint Base Lewis–McChord, and Tye Brady, Chief Technologist at Amazon Robotics discuss how the e-commerce giant delivers the future through its highly successful innovation culture, Delivering the Future: Amazon’s Innovation Culture.

In our podcast episode “Delivering the Future: Amazon’s Innovation Culture,” four Amazon executives discuss how the company fosters a culture of innovation to deliver new products and services to customers. The guests revealed how Amazon innovates to deliver a better customer experience, care for their employees, increase sustainability, and help our communities.

 

Listen to the companion interview and past episodes of Innovating Leadership: Co-Creating Our Future via Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible, iHeartRADIO, and NPR One.

The discussion uncovered several common traits. Each leader is highly successful, passionate about their work, and kind. Kindness was the most surprising trait. In an era when many organizations struggle with civility, these leaders genuinely care about their customers, people, the environment, and their communities. They are committed to significant innovation and making the world a better place.

These four executives revealed insights into Amazon’s innovation process, which is based on five fundamental principles:

  1. Start with the customer. Amazon always begins by identifying customer needs and pain points. This customer-centric approach ensures that all new products and services are designed to meet customers’ real needs.
  2. Use purpose-driven design to solve real-world problems, prioritizing user needs and business goals.
  3. Put people at the center of the robotics and AI universe. Leverage AI and robotics to solve problems and, at the same time, create a safe, engaging, sustainable environment for people to thrive and grow.
  4. Be willing to experiment. Amazon is not afraid to experiment and take risks. The company encourages employees to develop new ideas and test them quickly. This willingness to experiment has led to some of Amazon’s most successful innovations, such as Amazon Prime and Alexa.
  5. Move fast. Amazon is known for its fast-paced work environment. The company encourages employees to make decisions quickly and to move forward with new ideas. This rapid pace of innovation keeps Amazon ahead of the competition.

Example of Innovation Putting People First

In the podcast, John Love and Dr. Vin Gupta share how Amazon developed its new prescription delivery service. Their team starts the innovation process by asking four key questions:

  1. Is this a large customer problem? An opportunity?
  2. Are customers already well-served by current offerings in the marketplace?
  3. Do we have a compelling or differentiated idea?
  4. Does it create convenient access and delivery?

By answering these questions, the Amazon Pharmacy team developed a new service that addresses the most significant pain points for customers who need to fill prescriptions. As a result, it delivers a superior customer experience. Beyond speedy delivery, Amazon Pharmacy leverages AI to estimate co-pays, check fill accuracy, and administer many data transaction processes. Imagine leaving the doctor’s office, and by the time you drive home, a drone has dropped your prescription at your house or apartment — no waiting in the pharmacy line with a sick child or while you feel ill.

Innovation success is further enhanced because different divisions work together in an interdepartmental ecosystem. Amazon Pharmacy, for example, partners with Amazon Air’s new drone service to deliver prescriptions within 30 minutes of being ordered. The drone program is being piloted in College Station, Texas, and will soon expand.

Imagine hundreds of drones carrying packages up to the size of a shoe box, swooping into an apartment complex or house’s front yard, dropping a package from 10 feet (high enough that people can’t interfere with the drone), then flying back to the fulfillment site to pick up the next package. This drone program will create an entire aviation infrastructure to load and fly the drones and a control system akin to an air traffic control system. The partnership between Pharmacy and Prime Air creates this solution for today’s long waits in prescription filling and delivery.

Leadership Suggestions

Here are four Amazon practices you can implement in your innovation process:

  • Put the customer first. Everything you do should be focused on meeting the needs of your customers. This means listening to your customers, understanding their pain points, and designing products and services that solve their problems.
  • Encourage experimentation. Create an environment where employees feel comfortable coming up with new ideas and taking risks. Give employees the resources they need to test out their ideas, even if they seem crazy at first.
  • Leverage AI. Understand the opportunities AI creates in your organization and leverage it while putting people at the center of the operations.
  • Move fast. Don’t get bogged down in bureaucracy or endless meetings. Make decisions quickly and encourage your employees to do the same. This will allow you to stay ahead of the competition and bring new products and services to market faster. As David Carbon says, “Perfect becomes the enemy of good enough.”

Conclusion

Amazon’s culture of innovation has helped the company to become one of the most successful businesses in the world. By following the fundamental principles outlined in this article, you can create a culture of innovation in your organization and deliver new products and services that your customers will love.

 

ABOUT THE GUESTS:

David Carbon is VP of Prime Air. Before that, he was VP of Operations for Boeing’s 787 program – with earlier work on the 747; he started with Boeing/Hawker de Havilland in Australia. He also spearheaded projects at Ford Motor Company.

John Love is VP of both Amazon Pharmacy and PillPack by Amazon Pharmacy. Before those, his 16-year Amazon career also saw him serve as VP of Alexa Shopping, as well as supporting many other business lines. He’s responsible for helping customers discover equitable, affordable, high-quality medical care and prescription access.

Dr. Vin Gupta is the Chief Medical Officer for Amazon Pharmacy. He remains a practicing pulmonologist and is an affiliate faculty member at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics & Evaluation and Evans School. He serves as a major in the USAF Medical Reserve Corps and is a medical analyst for NBC News.

Tye Brady is the Chief Technologist of Amazon Robotics, Fulfilment Information Technology. He has over 30 years of hands-on experience in team leadership, technical management, and system design. Before Amazon Robotics, Tye spent 15 years with Draper Laboratory. He’s a founding partner of MassRobotics, a not-for-profit that serves as a world-class platform for robotic innovation.

 

Thank you for reading Innovative Leadership Insights, where we bring you thought leaders and innovative ideas on leadership topics each week.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

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Check out the companion interview and past episodes of Innovating Leadership: Co-Creating Our Future on your favorite podcast platform, including Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible, iHeartRADIO, and NPR One.

7 Must-have Qualities of Leaders to Get the Best Output from Their Teams

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“Management is about persuading people to do things they do not want to do, while leadership is about inspiring people to do things they never thought they could.” — Steve Jobs

The responsibilities of leaders have quadrupled during an era when it has become a challenge to run a business. Covid-19 has brought fresh challenges for the companies. The onus is on leaders and remote workers to keep the business running amidst all uncertainties. But the key responsibility of helping a business thrive during the pandemic rests upon the shoulders of its leaders.

Great leaders can help to inspire teams to give their 100% at work.

Leaders need to instill a sense of courage and trust in their workers. Workers look up to leaders for direction and inspiration. If the leaders are incompetent or do not have adequate leadership skills, then it is hard to get 100% productivity from the teams.

Good leaders can get the best out of their teams during a crisis period. By keeping the teams motivated, inspired, efficient, productive, and focused on work, leaders can help a business to reach the pinnacle of success at any time. Teams look up to their leaders for direction and confidence. They walk on the path that their leaders show them. They watch and observe each movement of the leaders.

Also, leaders act as a bridge between the company and the employees. A great leader can inspire his or her teams to give their best effort during a crisis time and help to bring abundant growth to the company.

What are the great qualities of great leaders that can help to get the best output from their teams? 

  1. Give powerful and inspiring messages to your team.

Employees trust leaders more than the information they get from the media or the government. Great leaders always choose their words carefully at the time of communicating with their teams. They give clear and direct messages to make workers feel safe and protected.

During a period of crisis, leaders give moral support to workers even though they don’t feel confident about the situation. They solve the queries of the workers in the best possible manner to reduce their stress.

Great leaders are always there with their workers during ups and downs. They give powerful messages to instill hope and courage in the hearts of workers and help them shine in their full glory.

  1. Great leaders bond with the team by sharing personal stories and experiences.

Sharing personal experiences helps to strengthen the bond between leaders and team members. It helps the leaders to connect with team members and help to build healthy relationships. They speak about their personal experiences and victories to their team members.

They discuss Netflix web series, sports, personal interests, TV shows, politics, and so on to uplift team spirits. All work and no play make the team members feel bored. Personal chats and sharing of hearty laughs are also equally essential for the smooth functioning of a team.

If the bond between the leader and team members is not strong, then there cannot be 100 percent success. When leaders share their experiences and personal stories, workers feel inspired. They get the strength to collaborate with other members and get the work done as soon as possible.

  1. Great leaders act as a mentor rather than an authoritative person.

Great leaders don’t instruct workers about what to do like an authoritative boss. They act as a mentor toward the employees and guide them on how to finish a task. Leaders share helpful resources with the workers so that they can work on the project in the right direction. Leaders work with employees as a team.

They give genuine feedback about the progress of workers. They converse about the challenges that workers may face while doing the project in the weekly team meetings. Leaders ask how they can help workers overcome those obstacles and challenges. They share personal experiences to encourage workers to keep on fighting to overcome all the challenges and achieve ultimate victory.

  1. Great leaders take accountability for both success and failure.

Workers look down upon leaders who love to come to the limelight when there is a grand success and put all the blame on the workers when something goes wrong. Great leaders work as a team with workers.

They set clear objectives so that employees know what they must deliver. They work alongside the members until a project is delivered. They share both success and failures with the team members.

  1. Great leaders are fair and impartial to everyone.

Great leaders are fair and impartial to all workers so that they don’t feel deprived of anything. If the leaders are not neutral, then the team will not be motivated to give their 100% at work. The relationship between the team members and the leader will suffer, and so will the work in process.

  1. Great Leaders act as a bridge between the employers and the employees.

The outbreak of COVID-19 led to the introduction of work from home policy in many companies across the globe. Millions of workers have been working from home for the last year. Now, this has created a sense of confusion among employees. It has also created a sense of disconnect between employees and employers.

Leaders have a big responsibility here. They must act as a bridge between the employer and the employees. Great leaders communicate the new work from home policy clearly and decisively so that there is no confusion. They answer all the questions of the remote workers patiently and resolve their curiosity. After all, curiosity kills the cat.

Great leaders explain the benefits and risks of the new work from the home policy so that no one feels that others are getting an undue advantage. They work with employers to develop effective strategies to motivate workers who are coming to the office and working from home during the pandemic. They relay messages from employers from time to time so that remote workers get a sense of belonging to the company.

  1. Great Leaders work hard to lead by example and inspire others to work equally hard.

Workers will not be ready to put their 100% at work if their leaders give only 10% effort on projects. If leaders are sloths, workers will also be sloths. Great leaders prefer to lead by example. They put their 300% at work so that the workers are equally motivated to put at least their 200% on the current assignments. Strong leaders don’t believe in delivering speeches only. They believe in action. And that is because action speaks a thousand times more than words.

Final note

Leadership qualities help companies and workers in achieving financial freedom during dark times. The right behavioral attitude, empathy, and effective collaboration, and great leadership skills can help both companies and workers to get financial success in the long run.

 

About the Author

Valentina Wilson is a writer. She loves to analyze personal financial matters and help others manage their finances in a better way. Traveling is also her passion. She follows more animals on Instagram than humans and her greatest achievement is her blog. She believes that transparency and conversations about money are essential in gaining control of finances.  To connect with her, go to her LinkedIn or visit her blog bestdebtconsolidation.org

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay