This month I want to highlight an article, Turning Goals into Results: The Power of Catalytic Mechanisms, by Jim Collins. Catalytic Mechanisms empower people closest to the work to drive meaningful, outsized outcomes, at the expense of leadership control. Catalytic Mechanisms create an environment that drives innovation and change, as opposed to the typical route of asking people to change their behaviors with good intentions. Although this article is 25 years old, it remains entirely relevant today because our innate human instincts continue to create control-based systems with ineffective results.

One such Catalytic Mechanism I appreciate at Amazon is how we can change teams at any point, for any reason. Your current team cannot force you to stay with them, other than a short transition period. If you don’t like the organizational vision, your direct work, or anything else, you can seek a new role somewhere else within Amazon and continue your growth journey. This mechanism feels good as an employee because it encourages leaders to create environments where people want to perform their best work. It also benefits Amazon when people invariably outgrow their current situation, because they can continue to grow elsewhere inside Amazon instead of looking externally.

This article is fantastic and serves as a reminder that yielding control is uncomfortable, leadership requires effort, and creating lasting change requires us to fight against our instincts.

https://hbr.org/1999/07/turning-goals-into-results-the-power-of-catalytic-mechanisms

“Bureaucracy may deliver results, but they will be mediocre because bureaucracy leads to predictability and conformity. History shows us that organizations achieve greatness when people are allowed to do unexpected things—to show initiative and creativity, to step outside the scripted path. That is when delightful, interesting, and amazing results occur.”