Executives are Measured by Results: Here’s how to get them
Why delivering results is what matters; Executing with autonomy; Recovering when things go wrong
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For 15 years, “Deliver Results” was the final Amazon Leadership Principle (LP)—all the other LPs were about how to lead in order to deliver those results.
The challenge is that we often think, even hope, that we can generate results simply by working hard. Unfortunately, working hard is not a guarantee that you will produce results. Hard work is an essential part of getting results, but it isn’t ultimately what matters.
Impact is the only thing that matters for an executive in the end.
In today’s newsletter, I will explain why you and your team are measured more on outcomes than on output, and how you can adjust to this stark reality. Then, I will go through a list of the management skills you must have to lead at the executive level and produce results. Finally, I will go into depth on how to recover when things go wrong.
These three skills come from my live online course, “Stuck at Senior Manager: Breaking Through to Executive.” A few weeks ago, I wrote about three skills individual leaders need within themselves to succeed as executives. Today, I am covering three critical ways executives lead their teams. In the near future, I will cover three more skills on how to work with fellow executives to lead larger divisions or the whole company.
In the course, I go into more detail about these areas and skills, and I teach you everything I know about becoming an executive. The newest version of the course also provides students with more than 4 hours of live Q&A, and then a whole hour explicitly focused on implementing the skills you learn into your daily work.
The next cohort starts January 11 and includes four weekly, in-depth implementation sessions to ensure you can successfully apply everything you learn. This is the most detailed version of the course I have ever offered. If you read the tips here and want more, consider joining us.
Why Delivering Results is What Matters
I was promoted to Director at Amazon (my first executive role in a large company) as a direct consequence of delivering valuable results. For example, I owned the first version of Amazon Prime Video, and at the time, our team was in controversy about forming a partnership with the DVR company TiVo. I pushed for the partnership and then built the product. The success of the TiVo partnership brought us partnerships with all the major TV manufacturers, spurring an increase in business.
After my promotion, I saw the decisive line in my promo document:
“Without Ethan, we would not have had TiVo.”
The final measure of an executive is the value they create for the company. While leaders engage in many activities, all of those efforts are ultimately aimed at growing the value of the business. If there is no increase in value, those activities are a waste of time.
This is important to know because as you climb towards executive roles, you will get less credit for working hard and doing “a lot.” The focus will shift away from your activities and towards your results; towards the business value you create.
There are a few different ways to create and measure value. However, for most companies, the ultimate measure is money. That means in order to produce measurable value, your efforts either must increase how much money the company earns or decrease how much the company spends.
Another way to measure created value (that isn’t explicitly making money or saving money) could be something that creates barriers to competition or increases customer loyalty, like new features or branding exercises.
Either way, to deliver valuable results, you must identify where your team fits into one of these processes. How a legal executive leads a team of attorneys to create value for the company differs greatly from how engineering or sales executives would lead their teams to deliver results.
Once you recognize how your team creates value, you must focus your team on those outcomes. This may seem obvious, but it is where many leaders stumble. Many leaders get distracted by measuring the activity in their team, such as deals signed, features shipped, or problems resolved. However, if the deals are unprofitable, the features are unused, and the problems are small, all that “productivity” will have little impact.
As a leader, your job is to ensure the most valuable work gets done, and your team is what will allow you to do so. Executives rarely do the actual work themselves; their role is to understand which work will produce the most value and focus their teams on it.
All of this matters because as you deliver more business results, your credibility within the company will rise. Executives and leaders above you will tend to listen to you and collaborate more willingly with your team because you have shown that you can generate value.
On the other hand, as you move up, there will be less hand-holding and corrective guidance if your performance falls short. At lower levels in an organization, there is an expectation that managers will give employees feedback and extensive guidance when they struggle. At executive levels, however, it is more common that you will simply be replaced if problems persist after one or two verbal prompts to fix them. This happens because companies cannot afford lengthy corrective processes when a leadership problem is hurting the performance of the entire organization.
For a look at what it takes for rapid executive career growth, watch my chat with Ameesh Paleja (EVP at Capital One, ex-Google VP, ex-OfferUp CTO, Atom Tickets CoFounder & CEO, ex-Amazon Director) and my perspective on Ameesh’s successful recipe.
And, if you want to know how to make the most of your work with an executive coach, watch my chat with Sue Bethanis (Founder & CEO of Mariposa Leadership), my final and best coach.
Executing with Autonomy
An executive is expected to be completely and autonomously competent at managing all the basic functions of their teams. This includes hiring, developing, and retaining your team members, motivating your team to overcome setbacks and hit tight deadlines, managing your team to execute projects, and collaborating with peers and partners worldwide.
I cannot teach you the depth of skills needed for each of those areas in one newsletter, but you will be expected to know how to do these tasks without help if you are seeking an executive-level role. You will also need to learn to identify and resolve your own problems.
Since I can’t teach you each of those skills here, my goal is instead to clearly define the standards that those skills will be measured against so that you can spot your weaknesses and get to work on them now.
First, you are responsible for staffing your organization with top talent. You cannot blame recruiting for holes or expect HR to do the development and retention. Like everything else, you own it. You will need to engage your HR and recruiting partners to support your efforts, but the plans and direction need to come from you.
Action: If you have a passive relationship with those partners today, go improve it.
Second, know that your team will look to you for direction and motivation. Top performers want to succeed, but they still need to understand the organization's goal and why it matters. Workers require a clear and compelling purpose to inspire their best work, so good leaders must bring out the best in them by creating a strong vision.
Action: Follow Simon Sinek, author of Start With Why, on LinkedIn to get specific tactics on how to do this.
Once you have motivated your team, you must organize and lead them to deliver valuable projects. This will include overcoming setbacks and working quickly to hit tight deadlines. Speed matters in business because competition moves fast and markets change, so working quickly is necessary to drive results as an executive.
Finally, executives are expected to be able to collaborate with peers and partner organizations that have different priorities. These collaborations need to go both ways, and sometimes executives will need to delay or change some of their own goals to achieve a larger company priority. For example, when Amazon shipped its “Kindle” line of tablets, the entire focus of my Appstore team became putting the best possible appstore on those devices to support their sales. Collaborating well requires developing high emotional intelligence (EQ), building relationships, and learning to be a good negotiator so that you aren’t always sacrificing your teams’ needs. Also, collaboration is likely the area of executive performance where you have the least experience because it is not as relevant at the non-executive level.
Action: Start building relationships now and focus on working effectively with other leaders.
For “Stuck at Senior Manager: Breaking Through to Executive” alumni—to assess how you are doing on these skills, refer back to the How To Know Where You Stand video section and seek feedback.
Remember that you can prompt your manager and peers for specific feedback on target areas with questions like: “How have my team and I done supporting project X?”
A Harvard study found that the most successful CEOs demonstrate 4 specific behaviors that are critical to performance. Read my thoughts on each behavior along with specific actions you can take.
Also, watch Jason’s chat with Omar Halabieh (Amazon Tech Director) on what it takes to lead a high-performing org, sharpening your cross-functional acumen, and the 3 strengths Senior Managers must focus on to get promoted to Director.