A recent town hall meeting saw Andy Jassy, CEO, Amazon, telling employees that the e-commerce platform is altering the way it looks at promotions. He reportedly stated that the most successful leaders are those who are able to get the most out of the limited available resources to them.
Jassy made it quite clear that Amazon does not believe in maintaining large teams; that the company has witnessed better results and impact working with smaller teams. Citing examples from the past, he stated that success in the future will only come from smaller teams. He also recalled that in the past most of the successful products of Amazon Web Services were launched by small teams comprising not more than 12 members. He also felt that new product launches should not require more than 50-member teams working on them at best.
The company has been focussing on improving the ratio of individual contributors to managers by 15 per cent. The e-commerce platform has been endeavouring to reduce bureaucracy and bring down the number of management layers.
Andy Jassy also clarified that Amazon believes in rewarding work that actually gets done, irrespective of how good a manager is at managing. He highlighted the importance of merit, accountability, competence and the ability to act quickly.
Jassy conveyed to the employees that the company expects them to act like owners of the business and do everything possible to ensure success.