How Amazon Builds High-Performing Teams

learn and be curious just really a big part of our culture we're just a curious bunch of people that are just trying to figure stuff out we're much more excited by questions than we are about answers you know Jeff has even said this in the past that the smartest people he he he knows are people who are are wrong from time to time and they admit when they're wrong and they kind of move on you know with the learning so that learn and be curious that trying to figure it out it's also very much you

know this day one idea like it's still early we're still very Scrappy we're just trying to learn as much as we can so we can do the best possible job uh for customers we talk a lot about buys for action and you can see how like these come together right you're learning you're trying to figure things out but then you're taking decisions and you're doing something you know with speed or trying to to move and have some impact and get some things done so that's very much a key part of the culture and creates some

of the some of the intensity of what we're trying to do for our customers is that idea of of bias for Action if you come and observe an Amazon team that's working through something from the moment a decision is made it's unbelievable how quickly you know teams move out and go make things happen hey and welcome to the show how are you I'm doing great Chris uh thanks for having me I'm finally we finally connect um as well my my daughter I'm going to tell her later that we've got Amazon on the show and she's

going to be over the moon I feel like uh Alexa's her best friend in in the house as well oh that's that's great to hear I think for me and for a lot of people that I have a chance to work with you know we like that you know the amount of ways that we can connect with people and touch their lives and hopefully help them be more effective and what they're trying to do uh you know that's what drives us so that's great to hear that your daughter is an Al fan that's wonderful F

funny story like she she likes setting up like these little popup tents in our living room like she has and she creates like these shops right or little things and last night she's like I've opened up shops Daddy and I was like all right what's this shop she's like I'm like what's the name of it she was like Amazon I was like no I think that one's taken and and her answer was no but Daddy I have everything and she pulled it back and she had like trainers and like hair dryer and everything she's like

I'm like Amazon Daddy and I just she's six by the way and it just cracked me up that she connected that dot those dots together I was just like it's funny I thought i' share that with you that's that's fantastic and clear we are hiring uh six seems a little bit early but you know we like to get no Talent over time so let your daughter There's an opportunity when she's ready yeah no worries I just love her that age that she she had the relationship she has with your organization um it's quite fun um

before we jump in tell everyone a little bit more about your background and journey to where we are today did did you choose HR or did it choose you along the way it it definitely chose me along the way uh I'm very fortunate that it it chose me you know relatively early so just to gave you a snapshot for it um I initially uh went to school uh studying chemical engineering and I studied that for several years had some real nice internships uh in the space turned out it wasn't the thing that I was actually

going to be most passionate about and so while I was still in school I ended up uh switching my major um the initial idea was instead of becoming a chemical engineer that I was going to ultimately go to law school and pursue becoming an attorney um that was at least the plan that I discussed with my parents uh along the way um but after undergrad I was just ready for a little bit of a of a break from school wanted to get some real world experience uh want to make a little bit of money and

I started in a HR development uh program um honestly I didn't know a ton about it you know I had my mind around you know what I think I could learn from some of those experiences yeah but for me still very much the plan was ultimately to go back to law school and to pursue you know that as a as a long-term career and then what happened when I started uh in this HR program it just lit up for me you know the ability to work with Business Leaders and to think about the teams and

the talent you need to achieve what you're trying to do you know how you build Talent pipelines over time how you really help you know people be engaged and committed to and convicted and what they're doing and feeling enabled to be able to be successful I was like wow like this is a thing um and I was just surprised by how much energy I got out of it um how excited I was to be a part of something bigger than myself and bigger than a team and there you go you know one thing leans to

another so no when I was a a young 5-year-old I did not dream of growing up to be an HR uh person I by the way I haven't met anyone who's who had that dream as a as a young person very so definitely found yeah but but I'll share this with you though um that's where my career started and very much along the way I had different opportunities uh to look at roles outside of the function um but just so as it as it was at each at each turn I decided you know to stay

on the path and I've increasingly become convicted in the importance of what we do um the value of what you get from a great HR team when you do the work well the impact you can have yeah for your customers for your business so I remain a committed HR professional love it so I suppose the important question is how did your parents react and you said you're going over to HR to this day my dad asked if I'm going to law school and I like that we're not going La school like we're we're we're we

are so yeah I think mostly moved on from want joking yeah it's uh you're all right though I mean like I've interviewed over a thousand leaders and maybe like 10 or 15 and it was only it chose a career in HR and it was because someone in their family was in HR or something along those lines right it was never you know no one grows up being like I'm so excited to work in HR uh when when you you're younger so it's super interesting and I'm seeing it becoming more more and more more um dynamic

in terms of the different career paths and Journeys into HR you know just speaking to Stephanie over at L'Oreal their new chro you know never done a day in HR in their life just became the chro but worked in every part of L'Oreal's business as well it's just super you know lawence Schuster see Chief people officer at Lego sales and operations background in Lego into HR so it's just it's it's really it's fascinating um to see to see that happen I think that is exciting you different mentors I've had in my career and different relationships

I've had and and you could look at just the path of all these individuals and you can see just an incredible you know variety and I think that's actually a very good thing that there's many Avenues into the space and there's many ways to develop the capabilities I think that make a great HR leader you know the ability to really understand business to understand the mechanics of of culture and team to be able to you know execute effectively at scale you know to Be an Effective you know people leader so those core capabilities I think

can be developed uh through many Avenues and I think that proves out in the careers that we see for many HR leaders today what would you say some of the sort of pivotal moments or or challenges you've had to overcome in your career that have influenced um your professional growth and the way you lead you I've had a chance to work in you know a couple different companies uh variety of different roles along the way you know one that really stands out for me was uh I I just joined Microsoft uh for a few months

and an opportunity presented itself uh to do an assignment uh in China and uh this was back in uh 2006 you know you know timeline and I initially went to China to build uh an organization development practice uh for Microsoft in China and that evolved quickly into becoming the overall HR leader for for Microsoft in that region and I think for me it was it was so profound professionally because you had to take the learnings that you had from very different context and really distill them down into first principles of what makes businesses successful what

allows for people to come together to be able to accomplish something significant but doing that in a very different uh Market context a very different culture context really pushed me to have to think about things more deeply than I had before and then just on the human level because you know growing up as an American you know in a very different context how I related to people how I introduced myself how I shared to people what was important to me I just had to get more clear and more intentional and how I expressed you know

some of those things yeah and as a result of that just in developing as a leader it was a huge inflection point into me becoming a very authentic leader uh to me actually taking who I was as a human being and making that a part of how I worked how I connected with people uh professionally just was really really pivotal you know from that perspective yeah and I I continue to believe you know there's lots of ways in careers to get those very unique uh situations where you can get yourself just into a very different

context I'm a big fan of it because as what I experien I've seen others experience as well it just pushes you to go a lot deeper on many dimensions of who you are what you're trying to do how you do it and I think that just creates such a beautiful opportunity for some deep learning yeah that was definitely a big a big experience for me yeah I love that that that's that's been a very common theme of our show that um people when I when we ask that question they talk about the international assignments and

the being thrown into those different cultural but not just also personally but also for their family you know just so there's also you know the family Dynamic element but being thrown into those different thinking that what you did in the US is going to translate into a different culture with the with the global mindset but local Nuance very different uh you know even the way you give feedback or or you know or have have a meeting is super different uh out there as well and many leaders I speak to learn that the hard way going

in there so I'm glad for you that that resulted in you leaning into being your more authentic self um and that's a great thing right but it's an important lesson for everyone listening to seek discomfort and take take those opportunities because that's really where the growth happens I think that's right and to be successful and learn as much in those roles you have to really demonstrate a lot of humility a lot of curiosity and I think those are qualities that are are very durable characteristics for successful leaders across many fronts and so I do think

those are nice experiences and I also say that is one type of a very different experience that you can get and for some people they just uh can't make that happen as a part of their life plan but I would still say well still go try to do things that are very different from what you are most comfortable with um one of the things that I often think about is at any juncture in a career when you're thinking about a role decision what is the thing that you can go do that is most different from

what you just recently did and to really push yourself in those Dimensions I think again an xat assignment is really neat that you can pull it off but if not still Chase those different opportunities because I think it leads to accelerated learning is that something that you translate and encourage of your own team I do I I do you know and most recently here at Amazon we've been u in a really interesting context where you're in a high growth situation so even if you just come in and do the the same role you were doing

yesterday Tomorrow there's going to be a push around how different it is because it's scaling and changing in so many different ways um but absolutely this Core theme of trying to chase differences um to push your perspectives and push your horizons of what you understand is something that I talk a lot about with the team yeah and it's also what keep people motivated and engaged right that constant development and change like one one of the reasons I left my last company after 10 years is I just felt like I hit a wall and I was

asking for opportunities like hey I I remember saying like hey I would love to go and work in marketing for a few years or or finance and and they like they're like no you're you're just really good at Sales Chris we're just going to keep you right there doing the same thing and I was like I I I I I love the job like I enjoy my team but I kind of like I need some uh I need something else to keep to me growing and unfortunately there wasn't and sometimes that happens in companies and

and I took the extreme version of going to start my own business um as well cuz I was like hey let me create what I've been imagining for so for so long as well would you say that that was one of the reasons why you had such a long career at for example Microsoft because I saw you have quite a long career there is those constant development opportunities uh definitely you know Microsoft is is an excellent company and you know have a great chance to have a really good run there pursuing different opportunities um for

a while I had a series of HR leadership roles and some other go to market organizations including the experience in China that we talked about yeah then I had the opportunity to join uh some of their product teams you know specifically in the entertainment space and the gaming space then have a chance to really get involved in some of their uh devices uh efforts um eventually had a chance to to be the HR leader for the the windows business uh and Microsoft which is just such a an important you know brand and piece of technology

that so many people use around the world uh every day but yes really like that variety of experience I also think it's important to have a progression of experience you know to to continue to challenge yourself how can you have even more impact over a longer period of time uh sometimes go after things that take a longer time to really pay off and how do you make sure you have line a sight to how you go after those big opportunities so the variety of experience but also the progression of experience um and in many respects

you know that's what you know led me to to where I am today uh at Amazon and have been here now for I think it's coming up on uh seven years or so um you know time flies around but it was just the opportunity to go after some very different experiences you know bigger opportunities where I can continue to challenge myself and and Learn and Grow um as much as I possibly can one of the um mindsets I have is that I'm an early career talent and I will think of myself as an early career

Talent right up to the moment in which I retire because so long as I'm yeah yeah yeah so long as I'm in my early career I can acknowledge that the list of things I want to learn and explore is way bigger than the list of things that I actually feel like I understand and I also just want to keep growing and I can do that through different experiences so very much is the is the mindset that I I bring to bear love that perspective that's a super interesting perspective to have on life in general um

as well um I love to talk about you know Amon have has a very strong culture center around leadership principles which sort of guide the day-to-day decision- making as well could you talk a little bit towards towards that and how that continues to evolve as the company scales and innovate so rapidly no you are very correct to observe that uh the culture at Amazon uh is is very strong and something we take uh very seriously we don't take it for granted we're always working on it you know we don't believe that culture is something that

you can like preserve or protect or like keep static you have to keep working on it because it's it's organic right it's it's part of the people system so we are very intentional about what we do uh there are many facets to it you know it very much starts with our customer Obsession um something i' had heard about before I joined but once I started to experience was just blown away I had no idea that really obsessing on the customer could be so powerful and so motivating and so unifying for a broad set of Endeavors

across a lot of different Industries and a lot of different you know types of experiences um you were also very right to call out uh the leadership principles um which I would just describe the leadership principles as active participants in everything we do um the leadership principle headline themselves but the definitions underneath them they're just threaded in and out of everything we do they are part of the vocabulary they are how we relate and communicate with each other um as you would expect they are incredibly intentionally embedded into all of our people practices um if

someone is purs an opportunity at Amazon as a candidate right away they just are deeply exposed to all of our leadership principles that is what is the anchor and the thread you know through the hiring process but our performance evaluations how we think about promotions and careers it's all about practicing uh the leadership principles so they are as active and present um in everything we do as I could possibly imagine but again we're always you know trying to tune that up to make that even more true yeah the other thing I would say about the

leadership principles is um not everyone knows that uh we're already on our third version um which is very much a part of our culture too which is we embrace the idea that it's day one right there's nothing that's static every day is day one today is day one tomorrow is day one the day after that's going to be day one and then day one mindset says we're going to continue to be Scrappy we're going to continue to innovate and do everything we can to be successful for customers and we're going to embrace the idea of

contining you know Evolution and change and so as as powerful as our leadership principles are and as seriously as we work on them um we also modify them you know from time to time to embrace the changing context around us it's so interesting to hear you say it because I feel like externally obviously as as a as a longtime customer uh as well we we we all have heard around Amazon's customer uh experience and I personally personally experienced it whenever I call someone where it's an Amazon an order and how responsive and receptive and how

like okay no worries Chris we're going to replace that that's fine I'm like really I mean it's all it's always been a good experience for me but what does that mean from a practical point of view what does what needs to happen internally in order for you to ensure that that's always as you in such a large Global business with so many different divisions how do you still maintain that that what's made you successful from the very beginning in such a large scale if that makes sense yeah I think there there's many things again we

don't we don't take this at all for granted uh certainly we we talk a lot about customers and custom and being customer obsessed and so our leaders talk about it a lot we do all the things that you would to be you know strengthening your culture we do the storytelling we make sure that we we talk about all the lessons learns of when we think we've done it well also where we could have done better and so it's a very very active uh conversation uh that we always have we also at Amazon uh think about

what we call is mechanisms and a mechanism essentially is a business process that just really makes sure that there's good Clos Loops you know for everything that we do and that we have good defined practices for how we work with each other so for example uh anytime we are pursuing a new business idea a new product idea or maybe even a new feature um there's a mechanism that we have that we call working backward which uh we write a document we call it a prfq a press release with a FAQ and the press release actually

describes what is the customer problem what do we think is the opportunity how do we think we can help the customer like and how would we announce this to customers like what would the press release be and then we work through a whole series of questions to really you know dive into the idea so to propose an idea to get resources to get the green light to pursue something it's all embraced through that mechanism of working backward which is all about the customer and the customer problem or the customer opportunity so we do things you

know very specific like that yeah but also I'll tell you what I have been most impressed by and I remember in my early days at Amazon there were moments where I was just in in in almost shock and disbelief of in the midst of making a business decision um What mattered most to the customer was the thing that actually drove our business decisions in ways that I'd never seen other businesses in do so what you to share that you experience as a customer is exactly what you see happening beside behind the scenes decision makers thinking

about things that are going on and and at the end of the day always doing what they believe is fundamentally the best thing for the customer um and and all of those things how they work together to continue to strengthen this aspect of our culture um we find to be very important yeah I love that and so it's so it's really embedded in in every day right so like so it's you have to make it part of every process the storytelling which is super powerful aligned with those leadership principles as well so it's really embedded

the entire employee life cycle and customer all the way through um as well super interesting I have to ask about some of those leadership um PRP principles what are some of the leadership principles that really stand out to you I'm sure they're all great but what what are some of the ones that really resonate with you that you think really really move the needle and make a big impact yeah yeah are great they're all very important you know one thing that's interesting with them is some of them are in tension with each other like it's

hard to think about doing them all at the same level all the time and that's that's by Design right because the world's a complex place right and there's no clear set of things you can do so attention is someone intentional and it's kind of like my children I love them all equally um so it's hard to pick favor um but I I'll tell you this though there's a couple that do uh I think really resonate a L with me personally um one is is learn and be curious um which I think is just really a

big part of our culture you know we're just a curious bunch of people that are just trying to figure stuff out um we we're much more excited by questions than we are about answers um you know Jeff has even said this in the past that the smartest people he he he knows are people who are are wrong from time to time and they admit when they're wrong and they kind of move on you know with the learning so that learn and be curious that trying to figure it out it's also very much you know this

day one idea like it's still early we're still very Scrappy we're just trying to learn as much as we can so we can do the best possible job uh for customers so I think that's a that one is a is a very big deal um there's another one that we talk a lot about which is which is buys for Action um and you can see how like these come together right you're learning you're trying to figure things out but then you're taking decisions and you're doing something you know with speed you're trying to to move

and have some impact and get some things done so that's very much a key part of the culture and creates some of the some of the intensity of what we're trying to do for our customers is that idea of of bias for Action um if you come and observe an Amazon team that's working through something from the moment a decision is made it's unbelievable how quickly you know teams move out and go make things happen uh it's something that you know really impresses me so no question for me those are two that I think uh

are really really important but again it is the whole set um they all stitch together with some tension in very intentional ways but those are two that I would comment on it's so interesting you say that those two because I feel like fundamentally those two combined is the most powerful one of the most powerful things I always describe my myself and Shane uh as co-founders I'm very much the first one so sort of always kind of curious disrupting breaking and chain is the execution uh to your second part and we've come together and just I

happen to have those set of skills where I'm always on the Forefront trying to break what we're doing and you know and and pushing the needle and and and sometimes I go too far of it and Shane then together immediately without creating a business plan just goes into execution mode and we kind of just test it and just and then we just that this that Circle of of innovation and creating and we created now that this sort of culture of curiosity in the business as well as the psychological safety for people to be able to

fail forward and a culture of execution we go out and we do it we don't think about it for ages and we don't Ponder we we go and learn and we and we fail fast and we learn and we move forward and and I think that's been The Key to Our Success so the fact that you mentioned those two is is is really cool and I and I agree personally I relate to those as well because there's so many people have great ideas or great thoughts and perspectives but you just have to be like my

superpower is just executing on those things and most people I I had that idea that's great that's part of the part of the equation but are you executing on that every single day um as well so it makes sense in in the type of organization you're in where you're constantly innovating and you have to move quickly um uh as well H how how do you Foster that culture of curiosity and sort of create that psychological safety so so people do feel comfortable that um to fail forward uh and and and and innovate one is one

of those things where where you're constantly you know cultivating that sense of how important it is to to you know learn and be curious and try things and innovate for customers and it all comes together in very much you know reinforcing you know feedback Wheels I can tell you this when I study organizations um I'm always very interested to know what happens when things don't go right because inevitably something's not going to go right yeah and so let's take this one um we have an idea to build a new feature we think it's really good

we work through our working backward mechanism we build it we deliver it to customers and misses the mark what happens um does everybody sort of yell at each other and say oh we messed this up how do we mess this up this is so terrible we can never mess it up again is it what happened let's really understand let's get into the detail and figure it out so that we can blame the person you know who made the mistake or is it hey let's figure this out what did we miss what happened what can we

learn about what do we can do differently and oh by the way what's the next idea we're going to go try and for the person that maybe was accountable for the for the error do they get the next opportunity to go do the next thing and take that learning and go deliver some customer impact and so you study organizations through a phenomenon like that it is unbelievable at Amazon I sometimes say that the failure at Amazon is so different than what I've seen any other place that we need a different word to describe it yeah

because when things don't go well for customers it's like oh my gosh we missed this let's go figure this out there's something to learn here and then when we figure it out wow we missed this isn't it great that we just figed this out this like it's it's a weird sort of sense of we don't try to fail but when when when things don't work out you put positive energy into it and you try to pull forward into the next great thing you're going to go do for customers so you talked about psychological safety and

I think that's a part of it but all these things have to work together for your culture to be coherent yeah if you want people to contribute new ideas you have to create the space for that to happen and then you have to give them the agency to take some of them forward so that they can really maximize their own learning and you know early in my career I remember you know coming across the the concept of the difference between production and production capability and sometimes you just have to jam on production because you've got

to get things done you've got to get things out the door but there's other times when you really need to focus on but am I building over time the ability to produce the production capability how do I invest in that and sometimes you have to throttle back and so I do think when it comes to culture building organization capability broadly building you know different disciplines or technical capability just really having an eye to those two things and how they work together is uh is very important um I can't have a conversation with with you about

talking about AI I like I'd love to to get your perspectives both on the air adoption of as an organization leading the way which is super interesting well I'm sure working in a company in that sense but also where you see AI having the biggest impact on on HR itself because you know opportunities are endless but um I love to see where you see these the areas I feel can really help us um love to hear that perspective you know it is incredibly exciting times I I think it is still also unquestionably know very very

early I I think the way that we think about whether it's a generative AI or artificial generalized intelligence the way we think about these things 10 years from now we're going to look back at this time and say wow that was primitive like wow that was so early you know and so basic kind of if you think of the world of you know mobile phones like many of us you know are used to you know different you know mobile phone devices like this but you look back in time you're like wow you had a phone

in a bag and you had to plug into the wall that wasn't really a MobileOne like so I I think it has the potential to be uh that type of thing is this plays out over time so incredibly incredibly early a lot of innovation you know happening in the space I um am an optimist that probably will surprise you I believe that as a species like rebuild tools one of the things that's helped us be successful is our ability to build tools make productive use out of the tools and to go on and on and

on I think this is yet the next set of of tools that we have and I'm very optimistic that we're going to develop them we're going to think about them thoughtfully we're going to stay on top of things like security and privacy and responsible artificial intelligence it's rare when you're having a technology disruption that as many people are thinking about those types of issues this early so that makes me think that we're really going to stay on top of these things I actually believe that these technologies have the potential to be the most human of

all the technologies that we've ever had the chance to work with because of the way that they make use of unstructured data which is fundamentally what we're talking about uh humans are fantastic at making sense out of unstructured data right that is what the Human Experience is all about and so the idea that we're going to have tools that can work with us on that level uh I think bring you know tremendous potential um one of the things that I talk internally about uh with my teams and the people that I get to work with

um the full Destiny of uh gen is not a chat bot um we know why there's a chat bot we're happy that there's chat Bots out there there are certainly chat Bots and and those scenarios are going to be pervasive and they're going to persist but I really think going forward is going to be uh so much more sign ific than that I'm very excited about it and I think the other thing that I think more and more people will experience over time the early days of these gen models were really mostly about text you

know about language written language you spoken language um but there's so many more things in the world uh so many multimodal data is is how we talk about it sounds colors images all these other ways that we experience the world as these Technologies become more capable in those areas and going to be a very powerful so just think about you know in the HR space as an example um when you and I are connecting you know the research varies on this but just go with the idea that when you and I are connecting 60% of

how we're communicating is non-verbal and so if you think about gen just text and essentially you're using these tools around 40% of the interaction not the majority of the interaction which is nonverbal I think as the technology evolves into that space it's really going to line you know a whole bunch of different things that I think going be very exciting in the in the HR space oh he just opened up a whole new portal in my brain from that one it's very very super unique perspective um that you have on that and I'm really excited

about the fact that as this technology evolves it makes the focus on power skills as it were I don't I don't like the word soft skills um even more important now more more more than ever um as as well it's kind of freeing up time to focus on on that and I feel like that's an area where many companies aren't investing enough um in in at the moment I don't know if you're sure sure if you're seeing that um at all but even in my meetings for example this is very small example I'm no longer

writing notes because I have note takers so I'm way more present in that meeting now I'm having more eye contact I'm more engaged and more focused I'm not sitting there doing this writing notes and there there a small example of the way now that the technology has just helped me be more present as a leader in the room and the person feeling really valued important that they have my time um uh as well that's very small example uh of that but even with um we we launched our own Atlas co-pilot we so we launched the

world's first AI co-pilot for HR Executives we're now seeing them use Atlas in a very different way in terms of how they upskill and res themselves and and use it use our platform from a productivity point of view to disp more time with their team um as well the fact that they don't have to read through a 100 page white paper and they can ask a question it goes to the exact sentence or the fact that even this podcast so most of our listeners now are listening to the podcast inside of Atlas and they're asking

questions uh to the podcast and it's taking them to the exact seconds right so people will be asking hey what's uh Ian going to share what is the key takeaways from Ian and now and then now because that's connected to the HR text St because Atlas integrates all the platforms how does Ian's insights help us with XYZ and it knows the context of the company the culture the values Etc who you are your role so it just opens up this whole opportunity which is just and and like you just said at the beginning uh of

this as well or the fact that I can see that people are listening to me and you they will be in different languages and so opens up a whole another accessibility piece uh we did we did our aih HR Summit a few weeks back we had 13, and C Ro join us for that and I can see in the chat because we had Atlas live that we had like 100 100 plus different languages present that people were asking questions in and having conversations in that wouldn't have been possible if if we had been able to

do that so it's it's it's super exciting what about you personally how are you staying up to date I know growth and learning development is a huge part of what you mentioned throughout this conversation to growth mindset what are some of the Practical things that you do with this constant pace of change to keep yourself up to date with everything that's going on well you mentioned earlier that you are right I'm in someone have a unique position to be at at Amazon and kind of like really much in the thrust of it and you know

my ability to walk down the hall and talk to somebody about this and that person being like one of the world leaders in this space i i acknowledge that I am in uning space there but here's what I do with our teams I me personally and quite honestly I'm I also do with my family is you just have to play you just have to go do stuff um in in the earlier days of this we launched something internally first and then eventually externally that was called party rock and party rock was essentially just a very

Scrappy app a very approachable way just to start to get uh exposure to some of these Technologies and to play around and start to create things it was unbelievable that within a matter of months within the HR team people had literally created hundreds of gen applications through this thing called Party Rock which was literally just a playground it was just and all of a sudden they're building things we're like only smokes but for anyone that was getting into it they were getting sort of you know demystifying some of the things about the technology getting more

of a working experience of you know where is it in terms of what it can do what it can't do what are the limitations maybe what they might like to have it you know do moving forward um and I think that's that's what we need to do um honestly I see this with my children like the things that they're doing with J like blow me away I'm like how did you do that like how did you figure that out we just turned it on we pushed this thing we did this thing then this thing it's

like wow and so I I think it's really important that all of us are just actively using it um set aside the fear don't worry you know the robots aren't coming you know to take over like just set those things aside make sure you're double-checking you know are the platforms you're using secure is the data behind it you know buttoned up the way that it needs to be be thoughtful about those things um and then go try some things build some things and especially with this technology everyone whether you are a deep technologist you're a

big developer you're a systems architect or you're a recruiter you're an organization development professional um whenever go get some hands-on experience with this Tech technology um play with it a bit um and I think that is fundamentally the best way to learn right now yeah why am I not surprised that you shared that especially given the culture and values that you have a playground to to be able to do that I love that kind of even the name of a playground kind of emphasizes the safety and the the ability to the play element and removes

the stigma or failure uh of that and uh OB obviously you know not everyone every company has the opportunity like Amazon to have something like that but it's incredible that your your te gets the opportunity to play around with those tools so that when perhaps they even start to review different AI solutions they have way more you know knowledge and experience uh of what this actually means and and as you just said it kind of sparked Innovation and ideas and the Art of possible came from playing around with those tools which is which is such

an important uh part of it I have to ask cuz obviously it's a big challenge right now for our community like what what's been your biggest challenge of sort of integrating AI die into HR what are some of the challenges that you and the team faced or facing well I think definitely what I've talk to a lot of my peers in the industry about are definitely the questions about you know data uh security privacy you know different regulations around the world about just data in general especially you know personally identifiable you know data people data

if you will um also um who has access to it how the things like permissions work so there's a lot of those things that have been top of line for a lot of people and it it should be you know I would say if you are an HR leader in any organization and you haven't had a good high quality conversation with your technology teams with your cios with your your security officers if you haven't had a good thorough conversation about all of this you absolutely should um there's a lot of companies including ours that are

investing in making sure that these things are as dialed in as they need to be so that people can feel good about how they're using these Technologies going forward um that's a that's a very big one I think there's another piece to it which I find people thinking through is around how does the introduction of these Technologies potentially degrade the experience that employees have with other humans in the organization you know for some companies that maybe that aren't used to using things like uh you know chat experiences or other sort of nonhuman information you know

retrieval and um repository type things they feel like this shift that we're becoming less human and I think it's very important that you just think through that I personally don't believe that is the destiny I actually like what you said earlier that by using these new set of tools to help us be more productive on things where can really help us it creates war room for us to be like really human in the things where we will uniquely be the best humans and so I actually think this can create a more human experience but I

find some people really working through their their thinking that particular piece and then the third one which I think is becoming more significant for a lot of organizations is people are starting to realize that these Technologies don't come for free um especially the big you know gen models that are built on big large language models I think a lot of people hear the conversation in our communities about uh Power and building data centers and and other sort of you know infrastructure Investments that are being made um those are costs yeah and so just making sure

you're keeping an eye on exactly what does this mean for my organization okay doesn't come for free where am I going to get the best return on investment how do I think very intentionally about that as time goes on is something that I hear is very top of mind for people right now too yeah love that um last question because I know I got let you go at some point um as well when you look back at your career um I'm saying as if you're retiring when you when you look back at your career and

and sort of the lessons learns the highs and the lows you know what what what advice would you give to those HR Leaders of Tomorrow that perhaps watching this that are going to be sitting in your seat one day what advice did you wish you had on on the journey well there's one that I'll offer which is going to sound so incredibly basic and simple um yet in reality it still continues to be a mystery to me why more people don't do this which is make the decision to be focused on having business impact and

again that seems so obvious of course as an HR person working in an organization you're going to be trying to have as much business impact as you can of course right but I can tell you what I spend so much time you know with you know looking through different organizations and different companies and things and I come across these things that I affectionately call random acts of HR and a random act of HR is potentially a very good piece of HR work it's well thought out it has good science and it's being implemented in a

place where it has no use whatsoever that is a random act of HR and that happens when the HR practitioner actually isn't trying to have business impact or they don't understand what that is they haven't worked backward from the needs of their customers or their business and they're not going after the right things and so I just encourage everyone who hangs out with me anyone uh out there like if I go back in my career the times when I feel like I was just laner focused on helping my businesses be more capable and more effective

at having business impact I feel the most accomplished I feel the most satisfied when I look back at all the times when I was putting energy around random act of HR I'm just like good grief man like why why was I doing that like that was not my purpose that's not what I should be doing so that's one that I would just encourage everyone stay on top of this thing be a business person aspire to have business impact do your best work see yourself having that impact evaluate yourself that way and I think you'll feel

really really good about how your career plays out I absolutely love that I've never heard the someone say the random actx of HR but it completely as soon as you said it I completely I completely got it and I'm sure everyone listening can completely relate to that uh as well and uh it is quite hard to not get distracted with the new trends new Buzz workor new technologies and sometimes HR kind of gets pulled off off course and kind of goes down a rabbit hole of the latest trend on latest new technology AI is now

one of them right okay is this tool solving that business problem right to your point you know or or is it just another tool that that you what are you solving for where are you adding business value um as well so if you keep that as the North Star it's easier to kind of like remove all of the distractions along along along the way and have a solid foundation of decision making is this helping us getting closer to solving X and and if not then don't don't talk to me about it I talked about the

team all the time when they come to me with all these new ideas and I'm like this we need to stay focused I think it's amazing advice and I love the random actx of HR I it's super interesting but listen I appreciate you taking the time out um to come on show it's been a fun conversation um uh I not to saying that because it's the podcast this is not sponsored everyone I'm a big fan of the the organization and what you do and how you innovate um um uh HR leaders podcast was one of

the first podcasts on on Amazon Alexa and everyone thought I was crazy back then they're like what do you mean why have you uploaded the podcast why have you created the app for the Alexa to have and I was like listen voice is going to be the future and this is like that years long long long time ago and people thought I was crazy and we've got thousands of people that listen to the show every week on on their Amazon alexas around their house every day that's just one small example um of that uh and

my whole house is controlled by Alexa and automated which my friends always laugh at me about um as well and the way my daughter interacts with the products so uh it must be really exciting to be part of part of that from your perspective in the organization every day so congratulations to you and the team on the amazing work and I know The Best Is Yet To Come uh and I look for forward to chatting again soon well thank you for those comments and you are inspiring us to continue to build and innovate on your

behalf for you and your family all of your listeners to help them have the best possible experience with the things that we are working on for you so keep that feedback coming because you do fuel everything we do here and and Chris sincerely appreciate this opportunity to come and and connect with you today it's been super fun