Amazon Management Principles: Conceal and Coerce?
July 12, 2021
I read “Amazon Tells Bosses to Conceal When Employees Are on a Performance Management Plan.” Let’s assume the report is accurate and not the outputs from disgruntled individuals familiar with the online bookstore which sells a few other things to a couple of people on the Kitsap Peninsula.
The write up states:
Amazon instructs managers not to tell office employees that they are on a formal performance-management plan that puts their job in jeopardy unless the employee explicitly asks, according to guidance from an Amazon intranet page for managers.
I assume the intranet page is company confidential. If it is, what does access to the page by a “real news” professional say about Amazon security? The question is important because Amazon has floated above the cyber breach storms which are burning some organizations.
Next, the write up explains:
The policy, a copy of which was viewed by The Seattle Times, helps explain why some Amazon employees have described the experience of being on the performance-management plan, called Focus, as baffling and demoralizing. Some managers, too, question why they are asked to conceal that their employees are on a pathway that often leads out of the company. The secrecy surrounding performance management is one more reason why some Amazon office employees say the company is not living up to its April pledge to become “Earth’s Best Employer.”
What this passage suggests is that there is a disconnect between the marketing spin of a technopoly and the reality of the business processes in use at the organization.
This is a surprise? The Bezos bulldozer is a delicate machine. Unlike other largely unregulated, corporate entities, the bulldozer does not run over flowers, small creatures, and competitors. It’s a sensitive beast.
The most interesting factoid in the allegedly accurate write up may be this passage:
Some managers flout the rules and reveal to their subordinates that they are on Focus, according to two managers and documentation of one employee’s Focus plan seen by The Seattle Times. “I always broke the rule,” said one senior Amazon manager. “If I cannot share that an employee is on a coaching plan, how can I give him a fair evaluation?”
A similar management policy appears to apply at Google, the mom and pop online ad agency. “Senior Google Executive Who Opposed Work-from-Home to Move to New Zealand to Work Remotely” asserts:
CNET reported that Urs Holzle, Senior Vice President for technical infrastructure is moving to New Zealand to work remotely. Holzle told staff on June 29 that he will be moving to New Zealand. As per the report in CNET, Holzle had initially opposed WFH for staff who did not have a certain level of seniority in the organization.
Does this mean that those with seniority and maybe an elected office in the high school science club have a different rule book? Sure seems like it to me. But maybe Mr. Holzle is moving to Detroit or another Rust Belt location and New Zealand was a red herring.
If accurate, these two reports suggest that Amazon and Google may operate with three levels of high school management magic.
First, official procedures are not disclosed. Anyone remember the cockroach guy Kafka?
Second, employees are uncertain. Keeping people on edge is a clever way to exert control. There’s nothing like control, just ask a prison guard.
Third, the rules are differential; that is, those with power have a different set of guidelines.
Stephen E Arnold, July 12, 2021
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