Amazon Staff Meetings: “No Powerpoint”

#amazon #meetings #nopowerpoint

Staff meetings at Amazon begin with 30 minutes of silent reading.

Why don’t you read the memos in advance?

“Time doesnt come from nowhere. This way you know everyone has the time. The author gets the nice warm feeling of seeing their hard work being read.”

“If you have a traditional ppt presentation, executives interrupt.  If you read the whole 6 page memo, on page 2 you have a question but on on page 4 that question is answered.”

https://conorneill.com/2012/11/30/amazon-staff-meetings-no-powerpoint/

And here is the structure of the Memo:

"For those not familiar with the Narrative process, it involves the presenter preparing a 4-6 page memo written as a document, not a PowerPoint presentation. Prose is the active word here: complete sentences, paragraphs, and complete thoughts in the introduction, supporting body, and conclusion.

In practice, it looks like this:

    The first 20 minutes of a meeting is spent reading the document quietly as a group.

    After 20 minutes, the group then discusses the content of the memo, often questioning the presenter very diligently - sometimes even to tears. But, the idea here is to truly debate the points made in the memo and let truth win out through a very healthy debate.

    At the end, recommendations are discussed and decisions are made.

Often, one of the best questions is to ask the presenter "If you were to critique the memo, what are the strongest arguments against your recommendations"?

This type of thinking allows for truth to win out."

https://www.hirevue.com/build-blog/what-i-learned-from-jeff-bezos-about-sales-management

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