(Unless you know better ones)

As a new employee at Amazon, one of the distinctive cultural notions I really like is their addendum at the end of every tenet.

Our Tenets (unless you know better ones)

These are our leadership principles, unless you know better ones. Please be a leader.

This goes from the Leadership Principles all the way down to team-level and individual role guidelines. This is an invitation - to think, to critically evaluate, to speak up, and to improve.

True to form, the principles evolve over time - mainly to clarify and simplify things better. They also allow people to change their minds once they “know better” or have more data.

While not everyone can achieve these ideals to a high degree, the level to which these principles have permeated this organization is greater than any other org I’ve seen - and seems to be a crucial aspect of its success so far.