I've worked at Amazon and other FANG companies and I honestly miss amazon's leadership principles. They're really just assigning a phrase to a Good Idea (TM).
Other companies don't propagate their corporate culture so explicitly, so it seems a little weird and cultish. But if you're a big company doing things the same way other big companies do them, you're going to get the same results that other big companies get. Amazon wants to get better results than other big companies.
When I started at Amazon, I felt like 14 was simply too many. I tried to do a Carlin-style winnowing, but darned if I could get the number below twelve without starting to lose things that the company obviously thinks are important. (They recently added two more, by the way.)
As a bonus, after a stint at Amazon, your familiarity with their leadership principles can make you very desirable to other companies. I know a number of people who were individual contributors at Amazon and were snagged by Microsoft for leadership positions, either team leads or product managers.
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-tells-bo...
And “instruct managers to hide from employees when they're on a PIP”
This is not as clear cut. The document cited by Seattle times clearly states to not go into details of the Focus application, and instead go into how they can improve.
A quote: “Do not discuss Focus with employees. Instead, tell the employee that their performance is not meeting expectations, the specific areas where they need to improve, and offer feedback and support to help them improve.”
Start looking for another job before I get fired. Which I assume is about 10x easier than doing so after the fact.
It seems like this is a sorta "pre-PIP"?
> If Amazon employees don’t improve while unknowingly in the Focus program, they are then placed into the “Pivot” program, according to previous reporting from Business Insider. Employees told Business Insider that if they were placed in Pivot, they were either offered a severance package or given a chance to be put on a performance improvement plan.
So "Focus" is more a manager-focused thing and then if the manager isn't able to turn things around, out comes the real PIP, is my impression.
Honestly, I've had to put someone on a PIP before, and more support and training on what to do before it got that bad would've been very appreciated.
I think the manager needs to be transparent about "you need to do better" but not about internal management practices necessarily at that point.