5 min read
Sept. 29, 2022
Three takeaways from the Amazon and AWS Black Leadership Retreat
Black leaders from Amazon and AWS are uniting with company allies to support career growth and leadership development for Black colleagues across the organization
Written by Life at AWS team
Insights from the AWS and Amazon Black Leaders Retreat | Amazon Web Services
Black leaders from around the Amazon and AWS community gathered for a Black Leadership retreat in 2022 to discuss how they could make a difference in the workplace far beyond their usual business drivers and goals. Though 14 percent of Americans identify as Black, according to the most recent U.S. Census data, employment figures across the technology sector rarely reflect that same proportion.
Amazon and AWS see increasing and elevating Black leaders as one of the key drivers in reshaping that disparity into equitable numbers. With more diverse voices in the workplace comes more diverse thinking, driving better and more creative strategies, and building a richer work culture for everyone. For example, Amazon aims to increase executive-level Black and Latino leaders across the U.S. by at least 35%.
Daryl Hammett, general manager of global demand and operations at AWS, founded the Black Leadership retreat to continue the momentum of inspiring the next generation of black leaders across AWS and Amazon. He did it in the most Amazonian fashion: he had an idea, wrote a paper about it, and presented it to his leadership team.
“The goal with Enable was to begin a journey of relationship-building and connection in an effort to elevate and promote Black executive leadership, as well as development,” Hammett said. “We believe that strengthening our leadership is essential to building better leaders for present and future opportunities in Amazon and AWS. We can help each other grow through networking, experiences, and leadership opportunities that bring us together.”
With support from his leadership and an executive sponsor, he built a team of allies across AWS who support his long-term vision for Enable, including Matt Garman, senior vice president of sales and marketing at AWS, and Ian Wilson, vice president of human resources at AWS.
With support from his leadership and an executive sponsor, he built a team of allies across AWS who support his long-term vision for Enable, including Matt Garman, senior vice president of sales and marketing at AWS, and Ian Wilson, vice president of human resources at AWS.
"We’ve put a coalition of functional leaders and advisors together, including leaders from executive recruiting and HR,” Hammett said. “These are our allies—the Friends of Enable—who are supporting and championing our vision.”
The first Enable retreat took place over three days in Plano, Texas, and covered a wide range of topics. Here were the main takeaways.
“We believe that strengthening our leadership is essential to building better leaders for present and future opportunities in Amazon and AWS. We can help each other grow through networking, experiences, and leadership opportunities that bring us together."
Daryl Hammett, general manager of global demand & operations at AWS and founder of the Enable Black Leadership Retreat .
Strengthen your network
When a person grows accustomed to building a career on their own, they may take a go-it-alone approach to their work. But participants at Enable retreat agreed that building an internal network of trusted advisors and mentors is essential in continuing to build and grow within the Amazon community. This task can sound daunting.
Retreat participants find that outreach as simple as asking a new coworker to grab lunch or scheduling a quick meeting to share an idea with someone you don't know not only improves the quality of a project, but often bolsters a career trajectory. These small interactions can add up to an increase in a team member's knowledge pool and raise their profile across the company.
The Enable retreat also focused on the importance of building relationships between other Black team members. Even if two team members’ roles aren't closely aligned, conference members agreed that it's critical to share time with others who may have faced similar challenges in their careers. That connection can mean a lot.
“Amazon is a collection of highly driven self-starters. By reaching out to each other to improve our own communications and knowledge pool within the company, we're strengthening our community while honing in on our business objectives.”
Jamila King, a director in Amazon’s workplace health & safety organization
Alison Jones, left, and Nichole Henderson, regional operations directors at Amazon.
Share your story
Attendees of the Enable retreat agreed that today's business leaders need to show the leaders of tomorrow that there is no single path to success. Amazon's U.S. employees hail from a vast range of socioeconomic conditions, educational, and career backgrounds.
The retreat focused on the importance of every person sharing their stories with team members so each one gained a sense of the diversity in their own workplace. It can be easy to assume a team member went to a four-year college with a major directly relevant to their work, but that's not always the case. Many of the retreat’s attendees reached their current role from career backgrounds that could seem far afield.
Retreat participants noted sharing stories also helps leaders understand the diverse experiences of those working for them. This translates to better empathy and inclusion when meetings or projects arise. Every person is not pulling from the same playbook of cultural references, and knowing the background of your team can drive increased participation and team success. If leaders understand their audience, they can build their mentoring and management skills around a more complete picture of inclusion.
"What I'm excited about now is that the attention has shifted to being more intentional about the faces in the room," said Derek Jones, director of Amazon Worldwide Workplace Health and Safety, and a retreat Leadership Council member.
Recognize others’ contributions and accomplishments
Many of the retreat attendees shared personal or anecdotal stories about feeling nervous for taking credit for their accomplishments. They felt worried they might be seen as showy or boastful, and rub co-workers the wrong way. They agreed it’s a leader's job to help those employees stand taller—to help explain and teach the team how someone pulled off a particular accomplishment. Not only does this raise morale across the team—and perhaps spur others into competition—but it teaches team members across the company that a range of faces are making a difference.
Giving credit isn't always a public process, either. A focus of the retreat was teaching leaders how to write constructive feedback. Their employees are not only gaining important knowledge on how better to do their job, but are instilled with curiosity and energy for the next round of problems they have to solve. The key function of any good leader is providing the gas for their team's en-gines. The retreat participants could all recount stories of when previous managers had—and had not—been there to help spur them along the path of where they are today. They were excited by the opportunities at Amazon and AWS to keep paying that fuel forward for a new generation of Black leaders.
“I am so excited and inspired by the connections we were able to establish and the opportunity we have ahead of us,” Hammett said.
“Our mission is to influence the development of long-term strategic solutions that support and enable the retention, recruitment, professional growth, and promotion of Black executives at AWS and Amazon,” he said. “We’re investing in creating space for Black executives to have unique experiences and address the knowledge gaps and needs of Black executives.”
Having established a team charter, vision and tenets, executive summary, and a Leadership Council, Hammett said the Black Leadership group is now meeting monthly, building reporting mechanisms to track progress, and planning next year’s retreat.
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