Two Quotes
“One of the things we try to do at Amazon is minimize the amount of energy that’s wasted on maintaining power and control and ego, as opposed to what really matters, which is helping our customers.” - Jeff Bezos
"To be everywhere is to be nowhere." – Seneca
A Lesson Learned
This past week, I learned about Amazon’s single-threaded leader model. I'll explain that in a minute, but first, an admission. I once thought I could do it all, whether for ego reasons or to prove my self-worth.
Whenever something needed to be done, I’d volunteer without considering the impact it would have at home or work. I kept adding more and more, which took a toll on my health, relationships, and, ultimately, my performance. Over the years, I learned:
Multitasking is impossible. It’s just high-frequency switching, and it’s expensive.
Focus over a long period is how you achieve excellence.
Saying no is a superpower.
These mistakes are costly to us as individuals — they are deadly when they occur at scale inside an organization.
Single Threaded Leader
Amazon’s Single Threaded Leader model assigns one person fully dedicated to owning or driving a specific project, product, or initiative. This leader is not responsible for multiple tasks or areas but wakes daily, focused entirely on one thing. Their sole responsibility is to ensure this initiative receives the necessary attention and resources.
The success of the Single Threaded Leader model hinges on several critical factors:
Focus, focus, focus: They have only one job. This eliminates switching costs that tax other leaders and allows them to dive deep into details. Positioned to understand reality, they can make faster and more informed decisions.
One owner: They are ultimately responsible for strategy, execution, and results. The owner is accountable for success or failure.
Autonomy Reduces Friction: Dependencies often create a ‘speed tax’ or a ‘quality tax’ because dependencies require communication and negotiation. Reducing dependencies is crucial.
Be quick and iterate: This structure allows the leader to rapidly iterate without the distractions of managing multiple projects or dependencies. They still need to manage stakeholders, but their mandate is clear: keep working on the problem until you get it right.
It might be easy to dismiss this with a comment like, “Amazon has the resources to do this.” I agree—they do. However, be careful not to rationalize away your own mistakes by blaming your operating environment. I know I’ve done it, and I still do. Here are a few other things that feel important to underscore.
If it’s important, commit. Side projects rarely get the attention and resources required to succeed. Put your best people on your biggest opportunities and be prepared for it to take longer and be more expensive than you thought.
Don’t bury important initiatives deep in the organization. Don’t worry about conventional organizational charts or little boxes. Focus on what your organization needs to be the most effective. Ultimately, that’s your job.
Fight Bureaucracy: Innovating requires moving quickly and iterating. Bureaucracy creeps in when you lack talent density, have low trust, or have high fear—usually all three.
Given the volume of information and the speed at which we operate, focus is more complicated than ever — personally and professionally. Here are a few questions I’m asking myself:
What are examples of where my expectations of people are bigger than the resources I’ve given them?
Where have I not put the best people on the most significant opportunities? Instead, I leave them where they are because I’m scared.
Am I still stuck in thinking about organizational charts in a conventional way? The NVIDIA CEO has 35+ direct reports, and the company is the second most valuable in the world. It is an outlier, to be sure, but it is still worth challenging yourself.
Where am I still saying yes to things I don’t want to do? Personally and professionally.
I hope you’re good.
If you liked this, please hit like to let me know and share it with someone else who might like it, too.
Take care, bye.
-Kelly
Single Threaded Leadership: Amazon's Model for Ensuring Focus and Resource Allocation