Why do the Amazon Leadership Principles Work? How Do They Change Behaviors?

The Amazon Leadership Principles are awesome in driving behaviors within Amazon. Why don't other companies manage this type of behavior influence?

Jan 12 • Dave Anderson

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You’re Not “Letting People Go”—You're Firing Them

Getting past the euphemisms - this is what “performance management” looks like from the manager chair.

Jan 5 • Dave Anderson

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December 2025

What's On My Mind After 4.5 Years of Writing a Newsletter

A bit of this and that.

Dec 29, 2025 • Dave Anderson

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The Easiest Way to Get a Yes at Work

Why most career asks fail (if you even ask) and how making your requests smaller, clearer, and time-bound dramatically increases your odds of getting a…

Dec 22, 2025 • Dave Anderson

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Your Strength Got You Here, but Doing The Opposite Will Take You Farther

Your natural tendencies work brilliantly in the right context, but real growth comes from learning when to flip them.

Dec 15, 2025 • Dave Anderson

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Twelve Career Lessons They Don’t Put in Onboarding

A few hard-earned lessons about people, politics, consistency, and the parts of work we pretend aren’t part of the job. But really are.

Dec 8, 2025 • Dave Anderson

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Confidence: A Legal Performance-Enhancing Drug for the Office. 7 Manipulation Tips for Winners.

You don’t need permission to lead. You just need to look, sound, and act like a person others instinctively follow. Because, yes, we're all sheep.

Dec 1, 2025 • Dave Anderson

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November 2025

Please, for the Love of All That’s Holy in Corporate America, Stop Saying These 8 Things at Work

Doing your work absolutely matters. But you can easily sabotage yourself by saying the wrong thing. These are a few phrases that quietly sabotage your…

Nov 24, 2025 • Dave Anderson

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Think Your Skip-Level Is for "Visibility"? That’s Cute. It’s Not.

Levels in an organization garble communication. A skip-level meeting is an opportunity to communicate clearly. Most importantly, it helps low-level…

Nov 17, 2025 • Dave Anderson

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5 School Habits That Make You Worse at Your Job

Being a good student might make you a poor worker. Here are a few habits and behaviors that might serve you well in the classroom but poorly in the…

Nov 10, 2025 • Dave Anderson

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If Your System Never Fails, That’s the Real Failure

Investments in operations should be at a minimal level that maintains the systems in an acceptable state forever. Poor operations are clearly bad news…

Nov 3, 2025 • Dave Anderson

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October 2025

The AWS Outage—Lessons on Worst-Case Scenarios

How bad is the worst-case scenario of your systems? I suspect it's not as bad as the DynamoDB system.

Oct 27, 2025 • Dave Anderson

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