Mary Beth Westmoreland

I spent nearly two decades at Amazon watching brilliant engineers struggle with the same challenge: vague, frustrating directives with no clear path forward. "Make it better." "Improve reliability." "Fix the customer experience." What does that even mean? What I didn't realize until years in is that the best engineers weren't better at solving problems—they were better at DEFINING them. I've just published a framework distilled from nearly two decades in the trenches. It's the exact question-based approach I used to navigate ambiguity and rise through Amazon's ranks. https://lnkd.in/eQFxSvGv

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🤔 Are we focusing on the wrong things when building high-performing teams? Rich Diviney, retired Navy SEAL commander, argues that attributes—not skills—determine whether someone will "cut it" in high-pressure environments. This insight resonates deeply with my 15+ years at Amazon, where we've always prioritized our leadership principles over specific skill sets. Key takeaways from Diviney's perspective: 1. Attributes like adaptability, courage, and empathy are crucial during stress and uncertainty. 2. High-performing teams mesh diverse attributes, not just skills. 3. Vulnerability is the key to unlocking a team's full potential. At Amazon, our "Hire and Develop the Best" principle aligns perfectly with this focus on attributes. We look for leaders who demonstrate ownership, customer obsession, and the ability to earn trust—qualities that can't be taught but are essential for long-term success. In my journey from launching major appliances to leading Amazon Business DACH and now as Global Account Director for SAP at AWS, I've seen firsthand how these intangible qualities drive innovation and results. 👉 How are you assessing and developing attributes in your organization? Are there any you find particularly crucial for success in the tech industry? Let's discuss in the comments! Your insights could spark the next big innovation in leadership development. #LeadershipDevelopment #TeamPerformance #AmazonLeadership #TalentManagement #𝗔𝗪𝗦𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗩𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 #𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗽𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗜𝗻𝗳𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗿

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I am no longer at Amazon so I thought over the next couple of weeks I would share my thoughts on my experience. I’d like to talk first about the Amazon Leadership Principles (LPs). Amazon LPs allow a large organization to have a common set of fairly simple guidelines to follow or refer back to during the day to day operations of the company. LPs do not exist in a vacuum and are in tension - without explicit leadership interpretation of LPs can run amok or folks default to the “obvious” leadership principles. Which gets me to my *least* favorite leadership principle: Insist on High Standards. If you ask many high ranking Amazonians they would probably sit around a table, nod sagely to each other, and say High standards is the most important LP. In fact the LP text says that “many people may think these standards are unreasonably high”. It’s not that High Standards is a bad thing. Back when I was working on storage services at AWS you obviously want to have high standards about security, durability, and availability. It truly is table stakes. The problem with Insist on High Standards is that it is the ultimate trump card when it comes to a discussion. Remember that LPs do not exist in a vacuum - so without clear leadership (not management), you need your top folks to help navigate this ambiguity. Without clear leadership, folks bias on High Standards, which can lead teams to spend too much time chasing something when “good enough” has already been achieved. This is especially troubling when your L8 and L10 leaders embody “unreasonably high standards”. They view it as their primary job goal to have high standards above all else. The trump card part of Insist on High Standards is that “leaders are always raising the bar”. The reality is that the bar is sometimes high enough, or sometimes too high. When you are always raising the bar - you end up with overly long documents, mechanisms that require looking at data at the wrong level of depth, or in general, you are not leaning into the other LPs. When High standards outweighs thinking big or delivering results, it acts like a giant boat anchor on an organization -sapping the vitality and creativity from work. The only real check on always raising the bar is that your folks run out of time trying to comply to high standards. There are certainly high level leaders challenging overly high standards, but they are rare. The other challenge is that it takes incredible backbone to stand up to someone advocating for a high standard, because you are always on your back foot. And in recent years, having backbone has been down played against a stronger desire for top down control. I am sure other Amazonians have strong opinions why I am wrong, and I’d be curious to hear those view points - and of course my opinions are limited to a very small slice of the Amazon world.

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My Proven Approach to Get Clarity From Chaos at Amazon At Amazon, chaos wasn’t the exception. It was the baseline. Shifting priorities. Incomplete information. Too many stakeholders. Everything urgent. Everything important. What separated the PMs who struggled from the ones who thrived? The ability to manufacture clarity when none existed. Here’s the approach I used over and over again: 1/ I paused the swirl and wrote down what we actually knew ↳ Facts only. No opinions. No guesses. ↳ What’s true right now? What’s changed? What hasn’t? ↳ Chaos shrinks fast when facts hit the page. 2/ I named the real problem…not the loudest one ↳ “We’re blocked” wasn’t a problem statement. ↳ “We don’t have a decision owner for X, which is delaying Y” was. ↳ Precision turns noise into action. 3/ I reduced everything to 3 decisions max ↳ If more than 3 decisions were needed, we weren’t ready yet. ↳ Clarity comes from constraint, not completeness. 4/ I proposed a path forward before asking for alignment ↳ Draft plan. Draft timeline. Draft owner. ↳ People align faster when they have something concrete to react to. ↳ Waiting for consensus is how chaos wins. 5/ I communicated the same message…repeatedly and consistently ↳ Same framing in docs, meetings, and updates. ↳ No new language every week. ↳ Repetition builds shared understanding. Clarity isn’t about knowing everything. It’s about making the next step obvious. That’s how programs move…even when the environment doesn’t calm down. 📬 I write weekly about program leadership, execution, and operating under pressure in The Weekly Sync: 👉 https://lnkd.in/e6qAwEFc Where are you dealing with chaos right now…and what’s the one thing that needs to be clarified first?

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When I joined Amazon, I made a small commitment that changed everything: Meet one new economist every week. Not a complex strategy. Not a grand career plan. Just a simple habit. At first, it felt awkward. Cold-messaging strangers requesting 30 minutes of their time. But I persisted. As I got more comfortable, I expanded beyond economists to applied scientists, research scientists, engineers, and product managers. Four years and 150+ coffee chats later, I gained so much: • A clearer view of how my work fit into Amazon’s ecosystem • Perspective on the diverse ways different roles contribute across teams • Connections that span beyond company walls What surprised me most? Many connections I made in my first year have since moved to other companies with great roles. Without realizing it, I built a tech industry network that will outlast any single workplace. Now, seven weeks into my new role at Walmart, I am doing it again. This time, meeting one data science leader per week. The simple truth? Companies do not operate in org charts. They operate through connections. You will learn more in five 30-minute conversations than in months of internal documentation. What simple networking habit has unexpectedly changed your professional trajectory?

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