In a S-Meeting (senior executive meetings) at Amazon, before any conversation or discussion begins, everyone sits for 30 minutes in total silence, carefully reading 6 page printed Memos - also called as Narratives. Some people also call it a customer-centric vision narrative.
There are 3 clear benefits of this process:
1.
Writing a good six-page evidence-based narrative is hard work.
Precision counts.
It is hard to summarize a complex business in 6 pages.
So, teams work for hours preparing the document for these reviews.
So, it requires the team writing the document to really deeply understand their own space, gather their data, understand their operating tenets and be able to communicate them clearly.
2.
A great document enables our senior executives to internalize a whole new space they may not be familiar with in 30 minutes of reading thus greatly optimizing how quickly and how many different initiatives these leaders can review.
Outsiders sometimes look at Amazon and wonder how Amazon can possibly focus on so many different businesses at once.
The answer is that Amazon has fundamentally innovated in how to scale the process of bringing groups of people deeply up to speed in new spaces and making critical decisions based on that insight quickly.
3.
Reading together in the meeting guarantees everyone’s undivided attention to the issues at hand.
Jeff Bezos said:
There are 3 clear benefits of this process:
1.
Writing a good six-page evidence-based narrative is hard work.
Precision counts.
It is hard to summarize a complex business in 6 pages.
So, teams work for hours preparing the document for these reviews.
So, it requires the team writing the document to really deeply understand their own space, gather their data, understand their operating tenets and be able to communicate them clearly.
2.
A great document enables our senior executives to internalize a whole new space they may not be familiar with in 30 minutes of reading thus greatly optimizing how quickly and how many different initiatives these leaders can review.
Outsiders sometimes look at Amazon and wonder how Amazon can possibly focus on so many different businesses at once.
The answer is that Amazon has fundamentally innovated in how to scale the process of bringing groups of people deeply up to speed in new spaces and making critical decisions based on that insight quickly.
3.
Reading together in the meeting guarantees everyone’s undivided attention to the issues at hand.
Jeff Bezos said:
The traditional kind of corporate meeting starts with a presentation.
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Somebody gets up in front of the room and presents with a PowerPoint presentation, some type of slide show.
In our view you get very little information, you get bullet points.
This is easy for the presenter, but difficult for the audience.
And so instead, all of our meetings are structured around a six-page narrative memo.
If you have a traditional PPT presentation, executives interrupt.
If you read the whole six-page memo, on page 2 you have a question but on page 4 that question is answered.
Bezos also said:
Full sentences are harder to write.
They have verbs.
The paragraphs have topic sentences.
There is no way to write a six-page, narratively structured memo and not have clear thinking.
The paragraphs have topic sentences.
There is no way to write a six-page, narratively structured memo and not have clear thinking.
***** About the Meeting *****
1.
The meeting really will begin with silence as everyone digests the content.
2.
Each participant may have his/her own way for digesting that information, i.e. some may take notes on the document; others won't.
3.
Discussion is very focused around the proposal.
4.
The participants in these meetings are incredibly sharp, and you can expect the meeting to be among the most difficult and intellectually challenging that you will ever attend.
5.
Data is king, and as noted, the appendix better be well researched, or it is likely to be your last 6-pager.
6.
Reportedly, Jeff will consistently surprise the presenter with at least one question that is the proverbial "two steps ahead", considering big picture and macro factors that the presenter may never have considered him/herself.
***** Narrative's main elements *****
1)
The context or question
2)
Approaches to answer the question – by whom, by which method, and their conclusions
3)
How is your attempt at answering the question different or the same from previous approaches
4)
Now what? – that is, what’s in it for the customer, the company, and how does the answer to the question enable innovation on behalf of the customer?
5)
Appendixes.
The appendixes carry the data, the validation, the information that feeds into the narrative that doesn't carry the structure, but is needed for completeness and cross reference.
***** About the Narrative *****
1.
The six pages and the structure of the document itself is ultimately arbitrary.
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It's the forced revision/improvement/validation that is forced to fit into six pages that is critical.
3.
By forcing a limited set of pages it forces the author (or authors) to go through numerous drafts to reshape the document, polishing it by ejecting, rewriting abstracting and summarizing as you go along.
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By forcing a limited set of pages it forces the author (or authors) to go through numerous drafts to reshape the document, polishing it by ejecting, rewriting abstracting and summarizing as you go along.
4.
The six pages is a hard limit.
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This also forces are reasonable taxonomy and structure of information within the subsections and a good ordering of information. This repeated revision to fit takes the mental work that the reader must undertake to correlate and rationalize the information.
6.
There isn’t any template for the Memo.
However, there is guidelines. The write-up should be clear, concise, data driven, logical, and accurate. The best example you should reference is Jeff Bezos’s annual letter to shareholder. It’s a great example of clear and thoughtful business writing (instead of creating PowerPoints.)
7.
The memo draws out the causes and effects of what’s going on, the forces at play, and what other players might do – all so that the decision-makers can predict what happens next and choose a course of action.
8.
Narrative shows a series of events, revealing how one impacts the next.
9.
The sort of language you hear in a narrative is ‘But then …’ and ‘Because of that …’ and ‘So now …’.
10.
The narrative becomes a container for what is happening and what might happen.
11.
It can also hold people’s opinions and points of view, so you might have language like ‘It’s my view that …’ and ‘I recommend …’.
12.
Without the narrative, you just get a series of disconnected facts and opinions.
Collectively, it won’t make sense.
In the past it was like this …
Then something happened …
So now we should do this …
So the future might be like this …
However, there is guidelines. The write-up should be clear, concise, data driven, logical, and accurate. The best example you should reference is Jeff Bezos’s annual letter to shareholder. It’s a great example of clear and thoughtful business writing (instead of creating PowerPoints.)
7.
The memo draws out the causes and effects of what’s going on, the forces at play, and what other players might do – all so that the decision-makers can predict what happens next and choose a course of action.
8.
Narrative shows a series of events, revealing how one impacts the next.
9.
The sort of language you hear in a narrative is ‘But then …’ and ‘Because of that …’ and ‘So now …’.
10.
The narrative becomes a container for what is happening and what might happen.
11.
It can also hold people’s opinions and points of view, so you might have language like ‘It’s my view that …’ and ‘I recommend …’.
12.
Without the narrative, you just get a series of disconnected facts and opinions.
Collectively, it won’t make sense.
***** What a Narrative looks like *****
Then something happened …
So now we should do this …
So the future might be like this …
Screenshot of the email Bezos sent in 2004
announcing the decision to dump PPT from S Team meetings
Credits:
Anecdote.com/2018/05/amazons-six-page-narrative-structure/
Phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=97664&p=irol-reportsannual
Use-cases.org/2018/01/03/the-evil-genius-of-the-amazon-six-page-narrative/
Use-cases.org/2018/04/23/exploring-cognitive-engagement-in-amazons-six-page-narratives/
Quora.com/How-are-the-six-page-narratives-structured-in-Jeff-Bezos-S-Team-meetings
Fortune.com/2012/11/16/amazons-jeff-bezos-the-ultimate-disrupter/
Forbes.com/sites/drewhansen/2013/03/07/how-jeff-bezos-makes-big-decisions-at-amazon/#71a709ae4b5b
Forbes.com/sites/drewhansen/2013/03/07/how-jeff-bezos-makes-big-decisions-at-amazon/#71a709ae4b5b
Blog.idonethis.com/jeff-bezos-self-discipline-writing/
Linkedin.com/pulse/beauty-amazons-6-pager-brad-porter
Media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/97/97664/reports/Shareholderletter97.pdf
Linkedin.com/pulse/beauty-amazons-6-pager-brad-porter
Media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/97/97664/reports/Shareholderletter97.pdf
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