Daydreamin': Who Told You To Be Quiet
One of the best roles I had at Amazon was in the Kindle department. I got to read books for an actual living as part of my role in leading the training team that helped authors and fought against fraud. It was here that I had my first boss who challenged me to use my voice instead of silencing it. His name was Mac, and we actually met when I stayed late one night and we used his binoculars to see if Jeff Bezos was in his office in the Day One building next door (don’t judge me). One day, Mac and I were talking and he asked me a question. We were getting ready for one of the largest mergers of teams in Kindle and I had just talked to him about an idea I had to help drive change management across our teams and motivate adoption when he asked, What if somewhere along the way, I don’t like your idea?” And almost without hesitation, I responded with, “Then I guess I would find out what ideas you did like so I could put those into play.” Mac just looked at me an...
