Outside of Amazon, I've found the hardest part of introducing Tenets is that half the time, people assume you're saying "tenants", as in multi-tenant service architecture. (Even when written - I've seen people confused, misreading it, or assuming I made an autocorrect typo!)
Tenets weren't an entirely foreign concept to me, when I joined Amazon -- but it just seems to be one of those words that not everyone knows. So the first hurdle is often the meta-tenet of getting everyone aligned on what tenets are, and why they're important for the org.
This article helps immensely, with that -- thanks!
(*It's interesting to observe, at Amazon we rarely ever used that other t-word, "tenant". Generally we'd just say "customer". Maybe folks in AWS talk in terms of "tenants"? I don't ever recall hearing that, even from them, and it's notably absent from their glossary: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/glossary/latest/reference/glos-chap.html#T)
In all seriousness, what I've found myself doing post-amzn, is using the concept of Tenets to encode and evangelize some basic Amazonian leadership principles that are missing from an org (or deficient, in a particular team). Basic things like "work backward from the customer" and "prefer simplicity over complexity" and "move slowly through one-way doors". I've even smuggled "it's always day one" into the language of a tenet. ("...we are not bound by what came before .. we are not afraid to address new information or adapt to a changing landscape .." etc)
This is not ideal, obviously, but it did get traction in a way that presenting a long list of LP's carved onto stone tablets, did not. (And over a longer window of time, when opportunities did arise to amend or revise the corp LPs, I was pleasantly surprised to see some of these naturally appear, without my needing to lobby for them.)
I'm laughing, because I also have had the "who's on first" type conversation around Tenets/Tenants. Imagine how bad it would be if your company also worked on rental properties. ;-)
I've found some folks talk about Principles, but there's also the risk that doing so becomes a discussion/debate about Ray Dalio. :-)
I really like your story about how you've used the tool. I 100% agree that being not super dogmatic about "what makes a perfect tenet" really frees up a lot of ways to bring in shared concepts and constructive debate in a team.
I didn't intend this connection when I started writing. But to pull another Christopher Nolan film into the mix - using Tenets with a loose definition of perfection is a great way to "incept" things that can take root in an org over time. Love your example of that.
Outside of Amazon, I've found the hardest part of introducing Tenets is that half the time, people assume you're saying "tenants", as in multi-tenant service architecture. (Even when written - I've seen people confused, misreading it, or assuming I made an autocorrect typo!)
Tenets weren't an entirely foreign concept to me, when I joined Amazon -- but it just seems to be one of those words that not everyone knows. So the first hurdle is often the meta-tenet of getting everyone aligned on what tenets are, and why they're important for the org.
This article helps immensely, with that -- thanks!
(*It's interesting to observe, at Amazon we rarely ever used that other t-word, "tenant". Generally we'd just say "customer". Maybe folks in AWS talk in terms of "tenants"? I don't ever recall hearing that, even from them, and it's notably absent from their glossary: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/glossary/latest/reference/glos-chap.html#T)
In all seriousness, what I've found myself doing post-amzn, is using the concept of Tenets to encode and evangelize some basic Amazonian leadership principles that are missing from an org (or deficient, in a particular team). Basic things like "work backward from the customer" and "prefer simplicity over complexity" and "move slowly through one-way doors". I've even smuggled "it's always day one" into the language of a tenet. ("...we are not bound by what came before .. we are not afraid to address new information or adapt to a changing landscape .." etc)
This is not ideal, obviously, but it did get traction in a way that presenting a long list of LP's carved onto stone tablets, did not. (And over a longer window of time, when opportunities did arise to amend or revise the corp LPs, I was pleasantly surprised to see some of these naturally appear, without my needing to lobby for them.)
I'm laughing, because I also have had the "who's on first" type conversation around Tenets/Tenants. Imagine how bad it would be if your company also worked on rental properties. ;-)
I've found some folks talk about Principles, but there's also the risk that doing so becomes a discussion/debate about Ray Dalio. :-)
I really like your story about how you've used the tool. I 100% agree that being not super dogmatic about "what makes a perfect tenet" really frees up a lot of ways to bring in shared concepts and constructive debate in a team.
I didn't intend this connection when I started writing. But to pull another Christopher Nolan film into the mix - using Tenets with a loose definition of perfection is a great way to "incept" things that can take root in an org over time. Love your example of that.