The Amazon Way: 14 Leadership Principles Behind the World's Most Disruptive Company

So how do you successfully balance a bias for action with the ability to be right a lot? By developing and monitoring the metrics.

The company pays enough to attract quality talent—but not enough to make people fat and happy or to create the country-club atmosphere Jeff is trying to avoid.

At Amazon.com, there is a natural tendency to push forward at all times. The right kind of person for Amazon. com is somebody who is astute and contemplative yet avoids paralysis from analysis—the kind of person who is always moving forward on things without waiting to be asked to do so.

In addition, Kimberly still had the responsibility of maintaining compliant processes and procedures. If she was going to innovate, she had to be able to present options, choices, trade-offs, and opportunities. This required her to combine both her years of expertise and a “beginner’s mind-set.”

. Jeff rejected the idea of protecting our profit margin, emphasizing that what really mattered was what customers were thinking.

The logical corollary was that the key to creating the most pleasant, frictionless customer experience possible was minimizing human involvement through process innovation and technology.

Eventually we built a seller’s trust index based on all the touch points between merchant and customer, as well as all the promises a merchant made.

Jeff understands that a lack of trust perpetuates fear. If you fail to earn the trust of your team members, fear eventually becomes their primary driver. They will fear your opinions. They will fear your decisions and evaluations. They will fear failure. They will fear you. Once fear becomes dominant, the organization can barely operate, let alone

In a similar fractal fashion, the virtuous cycle is replicated throughout Amazon.com at macro and micro levels.