shariq.online

Empty chair in the meeting room

At Amazon, a meeting room often has an empty chair to represent the customer.

This connects with another of Amazon’s distinctive peculiarism: Working Backwards.

Instead of starting with features, teams start with the customer’s ideal outcome.

The first deliverable is not a prototype or a design document. It is a "future dated" press release written as if the product has already launched.

I like the concept of Working Backwards because it focuses on outcomes not outputs.

Game Theory

"When people having a shared goal don't cooperate, it results in a worse outcome for all of them." [Game theory]

Working with software vendors can feel like a real-life game theory exercise. Both client and vendor want a successful product, yet both often lose time, energy, and goodwill.

Your organization funds a new app. You spend weeks on requirements and designs. Then a disagreement arises over scope, timelines, or a technical trade-off.

The vendor says, "That’s not in the contract"

The client says, "But it is essential for users"

Both sides dig in. The vendor won’t do extra work without a change request. The client won’t issue one for something they assumed was included. The result? Delays, frustration, and a relationship focused on "who’s right" instead of "what’s right."

Game theory calls this a "non-cooperative equilibrium". In software, this means defensive emails, endless clarifications, and missed deadlines.

To break the cycle, build trust and transparency (yes, easier said than done). Treat the project as a shared mission, not a transaction. Shift from "us vs. them" to "we’re in this together."

Software is a real human collaboration challenge in which clients and vendors succeed or fail together

Building things yourself

There is a reason IKEA wants you to build your own furniture. Research suggests people who built their furniture by hand valued it more.

I connect this directly to the principle of "People over Process over Tools".

When people build a process themselves, they value it and adhere to it more. This organic ownership is always better than having a process parachuted in from the top.

Because no tool can fix what unclear ownership or a broken process cannot deliver.

Bias for Action

The right answer, if late, is the wrong answer.

During my time at AWS, one Amazon "Peculiarism" that shaped how I approach decisions is the idea of "two-way door decisions".

If a decision is low risk and reversible, don’t wait for perfect information. Take it, test it, and adjust if needed. Its like walking through a door you can always come back from.

This way of thinking is deeply tied to the "Bias for Action" leadership principle. Speed matters, and so does learning. Not every decision needs long analysis, meetings and PowerPoint slides.

Would you like to know some more Amazon "Peculiarisms"? I can think of around 10 from the top of my head.

Empathy

I will never forget this one part of my AWS onboarding. The instructor showed us this short, animated video by Brené Brown about empathy. It used this characterization of a fox in a hole, and it just clicked for me. The point was that empathy isn't about having the right answer or fixing someone's problem for them. It's about climbing down into the hole and sitting with them for a minute. As Brown says, it's "feeling with people."

In cloud world, we are constantly in the weeds with complex systems and stressed-out customers. It's easy to get lost in the technical puzzle. But that lesson was a constant reminder: the person on the other end of the screen is having a real, human crisis. Sometimes, the most technical thing you can do is to first say, "Wow, that sounds incredibly frustrating. Let's figure this out together."

That early lesson stuck with me. Sure, technical chops are what get the problem solved, but empathy is what makes a customer actually trust you.

Feedback

What you don’t measure, you can’t improve.

I was once an avid Toastmaster, and my favorite part was the evaluation, which presented instant, honest feedback right after your speech or table-topic. It wasn’t about criticism, it was about growth. In under half hour of walking off the stage, you knew exactly what worked, what did not, and what to try next time. That rhythm of performing, reflecting, and refining built confidence and instilled improvement faster than anything else.

I miss that in the workplace. Imagine getting timely, constructive feedback after a presentation, meeting, or deliverable. Without that loop of reflection and measurement, improvement stays accidental instead of intentional.

Vision / Mission / Strategy

I always mix up vision, mission, and strategy until I saw the mountain analogy.

Mission: Climbing the mountain, step by step.

Strategy: The route we take from base camp to the top.

Vision: The view from the summit, the ultimate destination.

The mission drives your action, the strategy ensures you get there safely and the vision inspires your direction. 

Great leaders inspire their teams to yearn for the "Vision".

Quiet excellence

The best network engineer is the one you never saw.

That used to be the ideal, quiet excellence, systems that just worked, and engineers who stayed behind the scenes keeping everything running smoothly.

But times have changed. Corporate visibility and personal branding have become just as important as technical skill. You have to be seen, not just effective.

It’s like a goalkeeper who doesn’t move during a penalty kick, even though statistically the chance of the ball going straight down the middle isn’t small, standing still looks like doing nothing.

In today’s world, being invisible can sometimes be mistaken for being inactive.