Leadership Principles in the age of AI - start with Customer Obsession
One of the things that resonated most with me during my five years at Amazon Web Services, was the strength of its organizational culture, and how it had an enormous effect on every day and almost every action. In my last role at AWS, when I led the digital innovation program in the Nordics, I had the chance to dive deeper into this culture, and share it with other organizations and leaders, so that I could help think about innovation in a new light - with Amazon's approach, methodology, and technology.
One of the key expressions and foundations of this unique culture is Amazon's Leadership Principles. These serve a key role in the interview and selection process, in the way Amazon operates, and in everyday activities and decisions. When I joined in 2018 there were 12 leadership principles, which have since evolved to 16. Many of them resonated with me and felt like an articulation of many of the things I believe in and act upon.
In this section of the newsletter, I plan to connect these principles to the changes that are happening in the way work is done in the age of artificial intelligence. As jobs and the role of humans and human teams are being reshaped and maybe reimagined alongside their AI agents counterparts, such principles might serve as a beacon to guide us in the right direction.
And what better place to start than Amazon's first leadership principle, which also reflects its mission - Customer Obsession. The original wording of the principles is as follows:
"Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers."
Working Backwards is also the name of Amazon's innovation methodology or mechanism. This is quite different from what I have seen in a variety of organizations. Some focus on technology, others on beating the competition. Yet other approaches suggest starting with your existing strengths and capabilities and building on top of those. While all of these view points have value, starting with customers, and focusing on their long-term trust, puts you and the team in a very particular mindset.
I believe this principle is doubly important in the age of AI. Leaders - often pressured by the general rush to implement AI - approach me and say they want to press ahead with AI, and help their teams innovate with AI. As much as I love AI myself and believe it can create tremendous value, I ask them to take a step back, and tell me what they are trying to achieve, which problems they hope to solve, and which opportunities for delighting customers are out there. In some cases, we may indeed end up including artificial intelligence as part of the solution, or perhaps even building an AI-first solution. But in other cases, I tell them AI is not the magic wand they need - there is something else that can be done to achieve the desired result.
So what are the lessons I take from this leadership principle to how we should think and operate in the age of AI?
When you start with genuine customer needs, AI should become a partner that amplifies your team's ability to serve customers better. AI can help you scale empathy by analyzing customer feedback at unprecedented depth, personalize experiences for millions while maintaining human warmth, and respond to customer needs with the agility that only comes from combining human insight with AI speed. AI should not distance us from customers. Used correctly - it can bring us closer than ever.You can hear me explain Amazon's working backwards methodology and how it prevents teams from chasing technology for technology's sake in my interview on Digital Transformation and AI for Humans.