Fabio Saccà

This is really disappointing. I don't argue that in person collaboration can be incredibly valuable, or even that organizational culture can thrive in a different way when you interact with your colleagues face to face. But a 5 day in-office mandate dismisses any kind of employee who needs flexibility - which is, in reality, every employee. It puts the corporation above the needs of the employees who fuel it. What about a working parent who needs those extra hours spent commuting to make it to their kids soccer game? Or a disabled employee that struggles to be comfortable outside of their home office? Or ANY employee who would rather spend their lunch break working out, meditating, reading, cleaning or any productive activity that doesn't involve forced mingling with coworkers (and this is coming from an extrovert!)? Amazon employees - we are #hiring. We believe in fitting work around your life, and not the other way around. #wearevelocityehs

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In light of the recent events at Intuit last week, it is clear that compassionate leadership is more crucial than ever. The approach taken in labeling 1,100 of the 1,800 employees as "underperformers" is both damaging and counterproductive. Leaders, here are three steps you can take to handle this situation more compassionately and effectively, ensuring a positive outcome for all parties involved. ➡️ Reframe the Narrative Labeling a significant portion of your laid-off workforce as "underperformers" creates a negative stigma, which can severely impact their future job prospects and morale. Shift the narrative to focus on structural changes within the company and the need to realign resources. Emphasize that the layoffs are not a reflection of individual performance but a strategic decision for the organization’s future. ➡️ Provide Robust Outplacement Support The current support provided to the laid-off employees is not detailed, leaving many uncertain about their next steps. Implement a comprehensive outplacement program that includes personalized career coaching, resume optimization, interview preparation, and emotional support. With over 20 years of experience in career transition and development, I specialize in designing personalized outplacement programs that empower employees to find new opportunities quickly and confidently. ➡️ Foster an Inclusive Environment Create a culture where feedback is constructive and continuous. Encourage managers to provide regular, meaningful feedback and recognize the strengths and contributions of each team member. This approach helps employees feel valued and motivated to perform at their best. Taking these steps will strengthen your organization's culture, leading to a more engaged and productive workforce. Having compassion in leadership means committing to leading with empathy, supporting your teams, and creating an environment where everyone can thrive. The way your organization handles layoffs significantly impacts its brand equity and bottom line. How has your organization managed layoffs in the past? Leadership, I implore you to improve your approach during challenging times. Read more about Intuit layoffs here if you missed the announcement:

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Co-location strikes back! Amazon's CEO Andy Jassy just announced that Amazon's 1.5 million-plus employees must return to the office five days per week starting January 2. Desk assignments are back, too. "We've observed that it's easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture; collaborating, brainstorming, and inventing is simpler and more effective; teaching and learning from one another are more seamless; and, teams tend to be better connected to one another," Jassy said. #agile #learning #facetofacecommunication https://lnkd.in/dNBdQbF8

🚀 Leading Through Change: A Guide to Growth and Resilience 🚀 I reconnected with a few folks I worked with at #Google amid the recent round of reorgs and layoffs. We discussed all the changes happening and I wanted to summarize some of my philosophy around change for leaders here. Change is inevitable, especially in the fast-paced tech environment. How we perceive and react to change can significantly impact our career and personal growth. As leaders, our job isn't just to manage change but to drive it and turn challenges into substantial growth opportunities for our teams and ourselves. “Growth and comfort do not coexist” - Rometty. This is particularly true in leadership. Here are a few strategies to embrace and lead change effectively: - Develop a Growth Mindset: View changes as opportunities to learn and innovate rather than threats to your comfort and stability. - Communicate Openly and Offer Support: Help your team navigate through changes by fostering open communication and understanding the emotional impacts these changes might carry. - Lead by Example: Show enthusiasm and confidence in the face of change. Your team will likely mirror your reactions and adapt more readily. - Encourage Resilience: Remind your team of past challenges you’ve overcome together and the lessons learned, boosting morale and resilience. Change should not only be managed but embraced as a stepping stone to greater achievements. Let’s not shy away from change, but instead, let’s lead through it. #Leadership #ChangeManagement #GrowthMindset #TechLeadership #Innovation

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“Amazon’s leadership, like many other companies, is clinging to old ways of thinking instead of evolving to meet the needs of today’s workforce and the potential of new working models.” When you force knowledge workers back into an office five days a week—unnecessarily—you drive away talent and hurt productivity. I’m not against coming together! In fact, I encourage it. But when you have a blanket, one-size-fits-all approach, you’ll lose your best people. Because they can and will get scooped up by more flexible organizations. And you’ll also lose out on diversity. So many people who weren’t able to participate in the workforce before now can due to flexible work arrangements. With strict RTO mandates, however, you'll lose important disabled and caregiving talent (disproportionately women). Maybe Amazon can afford to do this because they're an attractive place for most to work (But maybe not! Time will tell). But if you aren’t Amazon…tread lightly with the mandates! “Success today isn’t about where people work—it’s about how they’re led.” More here in Fast Company: https://lnkd.in/eVRUX-_e

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I wonder how long to we hear about mass resignations at Amazon... Or Amazon complaining about it being hard to find or hire top talent. Why make the office a mandate when work can be done from everywhere, why?! Give me some good reasons to help me understand this. #HR #HumanResources #HRmanagement #WFH #RTO #FutureOfWork

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I got asked to join a panel about the DEI backlash, and my first thought was: Are we seriously still debating this? What’s next? A summit on whether fire is hot? A keynote called “Making Money: Crazy or Just Controversial?” This isn’t just a debate over inclusion, it’s a debate over whether you understand how power works. Every system you create in your organization, consciously or unconsciously, sends a message about who holds the power, who belongs, and who gets to succeed. People are messy, complicated, and dynamic. If your systems can’t support that complexity, you will lose. It’s not personal. And yet, we’re still arguing. I didn’t join the panel because I’m not here to debate research. I’m here to challenge leaders to ask better questions: • Are your systems designed to unlock potential or suppress it?  •Are you leading teams to innovate or to comply?  •And how much more are you willing to lose before you take this seriously? If you’re still debating whether inclusion is “worth it,” I’m genuinely not the person you need. You need Google. Or, like, one PDF from McKinsey. Arguing about inclusion in 2024 is like arguing about parachutes while falling out of a plane: If you still don’t get it now, I’m not sure what else there is to say. And if you’re ready to design a workplace that wins? I’m in. That’s a panel I’d love to do. 

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🌟 The Superpower of Connecting the Dots: Thoughts on High Impact Communication 🌟 In my career at companies like Meta and Google, I learned that effective leaders possess a unique superpower: organizational awareness. This isn't just about having information; it's about connecting the dots across a complex organization to drive impactful efforts. 🚀 Consider this: On any given day, tech leaders spend 70 to 90 percent of their time communicating. Yet, effective communication is much more than mere information exchange—it’s about informing, influencing, and inspiring. 🗣️✨ Consider this common scenario in large organizations: multiple teams working in silos, unknowingly duplicating efforts on similar efforts. This is not merely about redundancy but represents a significant missed opportunity for collaboration. When leaders facilitate connections between these teams, allowing them to share insights and understand each other’s projects, the result is often a merging or improvement of projects. This not only enhances the outcomes but also improves organizational efficiency. Such strategic collaboration underscores the power of effective leadership in fostering organizational coherence and productivity. 🛠️🤝 This experience underscored a critical lesson: Great leaders don’t just operate within their teams; they have the vision to see beyond, identifying overlaps and opportunities across the organization. Here are some actionable insights for leaders aspiring to master this superpower: 1) Step back to see the big picture: Engage with different teams, join cross-departmental meetings, and keep abreast of broader organizational goals. 2) Communicate with context: Always provide the 'why' behind your messages. This not only informs but also empowers and aligns your team with the organization's vision. 3) Be a conduit, not a bottleneck: Share knowledge freely unless specifically instructed otherwise. Your team's trust in you grows when they see you as a source of valuable information. 4) Foster connections: Encourage your team to network within and beyond their immediate circles. This builds a more interconnected team and enhances problem-solving capabilities. Remember, information is plentiful, but the ability to connect the dots to form a clear, actionable picture is what sets true leaders apart. #TechLeadership #Communication #Teamwork #OrganizationalAwareness #Influence #Inspire

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I co-presented a "Male Allies" talk last month at an Amazon conference with the extremely talented Natalie White and thought I'd share here (pt 1). An ally is a person who *actively* supports the rights of a marginalized group that they are not a member of. "Ally" is not a label that you get to assign yourself through your intentions, it's a badge you earn through your *intentional actions.* Allies can't just "not be a bad guy" - you have to actually be the good guy and good guys lend a hand and help out. Helping out doesn't mean being a "Hero" or a "Rescuer" - situations that require heroics are rare and people who are members of marginalized groups are fully capable of being their own heroes. Being an Ally means taking steady and regular actions in the moment (daily!) to make space, question, correct lightly, and set an expectation of equity so that your colleagues don't have to do this all by themselves - on top of their other work - on top of the inequities that make that work harder. Natalie's talk that I contributed to focused on gender allies because men in software have an outsized ability to act as allies to women and non-binary people in US corporate tech culture. Tech companies like Amazon have more men in leadership roles, women enter tech fields at a lower rate (US), and exit computer science at shorter tenures than men - with research showing that bad culture is one of the biggest reasons for that departure. Men benefit from a host of tech gender stereotypes - in that they don't suffer the same harms of micro-aggressions ("smile more!"), cultural expectations ("she'll volunteer to be the note taker!"), and conflicting standards ("He's a direct leader! She's a B!"). We simply just benefit from being the majority gender of the computer science field - and not because we're more capable (we're not). Being an Ally is the right thing to do as a person, for our colleagues, and as an imperative to make our workplaces more diverse (companies with higher diversity perform better), equitable (fairness ensures higher performance and engagement by our people), and inclusive (feeling included where we spend so much of our lives makes us happier and healthier people - and perform better). While men have a lot to do as allies in software, there is room for all of us be allies to someone - to the only quality engineer in the team, to the person on the team who immigrated from another country, to the person who looks "different" from others in the team, and yes - even to graduates of Ohio State (spoiler - I went to the University of Michigan). More to come if there is interest...

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Great safety teams and leaders display a few traits that stand out to us every time we work alongside them on-site, and it never ceases to amaze me. - They prioritize in the order of team, teammate, and self, caring deeply about people and their wellbeing. It's not just about numbers; it's about winning hearts and minds day in and day out. - Safety is no joke. It requires focus and dedication. But that doesn't mean you can't have fun. These leaders and safety teams on-site can switch instantly between fun and serious work. It is energizing to watch this! - They don't take much credit, but they keep pushing hard. At the end of the day, how can you prove you've prevented a catastrophe if it didn't happen at all, right? Nevertheless, they are under constant pressure and stress, knowing that if something happens, they are accountable. From the first day we met to yesterday's remarkable on-site deployment tests, Allan Parsells and his team at Amazon showed us how these exceptional traits are embodied. I could not be prouder or more excited to work with this team. Our promise to them is simple yet challenging: provide them with the tools they need to quantify the great job they are doing, offer true AI to empower their day-to-day operations, and ensure they and their teams go home safe (and perhaps a bit earlier with some automation!) every day. Another journey to zero starts here with a great team 🦺

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When folks are looking to pull together scorecards, metrics, or data points for individuals or teams, and *particularly* for technology or software product teams, I often hear: "We can't / shouldn't use that, because it's too easy to game the data." And sure, I'm a fan of uncovering more objective options. That said, I find folks have the impulse to follow immediately with: "So, what data can we use that can't be gamed or is let at risk for being gamed?" Again, good question. But here's the question I find to be more interesting and, dare I say, valuable: "What perceived reward, punishment, or other motivation would drive someone to want to game this data?" Because when we're talking about human performance, it's important to remember the human elements and variables involved. The data you chose may be just fine. It could even be a valuable metric to track. And it could also give you other qualitative data to get curious about what may incentivize or influence gaming of that data. Intentional or not; negatively impactful or not. Conscious or not. Humans don't "game the system" for no reason. That reason could be as simple as the human impulse to do a good job or provide the "right" answers and as complex as navigating real and perceived structural barriers and blockers within your organization. So...let's uncover the possible reason or reasons. The confounding variables. The *human* intentions, influences, and impacts. What would drive someone to want to game your data? (Feel free to ask that in your teams and organizations; also feel free to share some reasons you've observed via discussion in the comments. Let's share some insights and perspectives!) #data #metrics #scorecard #analysis #human #behavior #performance #decisions #motivators #perspectives #insights #DataAnalysis

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No two teams ever approach a performance challenge the same way, nor do they produce the same results. Yet all teams that perform have much in common. Check out the article from Inc. Magazine to learn more about the team studies at Google. #positiveorganizationaldevelopment #teameffectiveness #psychologicalsafety

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So if male allyship is such a good and important thing to do, why aren't more men practicing it? There are (as we say at Amazon) headwinds... (credit to Natalie White) pt 2 First, skepticism from women. "J" is one of the women I've worked to sponsor and mentor at Amazon. "J" told me that my early attempts to help made her wonder "what does he want from me?" Sadly, men in the workplace have given valid reasons for this doubt: coming on to women, inappropriate statements, passive and active sexism, taking credit for ideas, and micro-aggressions galore. It's a fair concern to be prepared for - just keep trying in different ways! I convinced "J" of my positive intent through my actions and I've learned a ton as a result! Second, career risk of allies being seen as less capable. Research from 2018 by Bosak found that men who acted as allies - more collaboratively were seen as less masculine - and therefore less competent. This perspective of "being less competent" was shared by men AND women from the study. The research is grounded in data, but my experience as an ally has been different - I've been recognized for being an ally and the benefits of a more diverse, supportive, and inclusive organization have contributed to my career. Third, "bias as blame" - or people feel bad (and therefore feel bad about you) when you highlight bias in order to change it. Bias is a common and unfortunate byproduct of learning by pattern-matching - you match the wrong pattern: "women are less assertive thus less good at driving results" instead of "women are often less visibly assertive thus drive results in different ways." But our immediate reaction as humans is to reject "feeling bad" when someone points out our bias. We can mitigate this risk by asking questions instead of making statements: "What did you mean by that? How does that relate to whether she can perform at the next level?" Or simply "why?" Finally, a false belief in a "zero sum" gender environment. 28% of men in a 2020 Pew Research study said that women's gains in the workplace have come at men's expense. It's not hard to find this belief in our culture, and I appreciate that a more equitable environment may feel like a loss of privilege - but it's still wrong. Watch Ted Kimmel's TED talk about why gender equality is good for men - he does this topic far more justice than I can. For yourself, consider whether every male hire would be an "anti-diversity hire" before you talk about a woman or non-binary hire as a "diversity hire." Hint - neither is accurate. There are a limited number of roles when hiring, so hire the best candidate - but make sure you're looking for the best instead of offering an opportunity to a person you already know (who is more likely than not - male). The same study showed that men who don't feel ownership of gender issues in their workplace will take action when "increasing gender equity is framed by company leaders as a collective imperative." At Amazon at least, it is.

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Today marks another "Day One" for me at Amazon. This selfie I took on my first "Day One" captures the same feeling I still have today: excitement and enthusiasm for the privilege to work alongside amazing people on cutting-edge technology that truly impacts customers. I've reached a point in my career where I'm getting asked a lot of questions about how I do things. Shortly after joining Amazon, I realized that I needed to scale myself by starting an internal blog to answer those questions. I've frequently been asked if I can share some of my posts externally for others who aren't at Amazon. Some of the questions I've answered include, "how do I get promoted?", "how do I grow my career?", "how do I find a good mentor?", "how do I become a force multiplier?", and "how do you deal with imposter syndrome?". Would you be interested in seeing my responses to some of these or other topics shared here on LinkedIn? Let me know in the comments! #AmazonLife #CareerGrowth #TechInnovation

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First day at the Product-led Summit was packed with insightful sessions, panel discussion and roundtable! Got opportunity to be part of the roundtable led by Dan Olsen . Can't wait to read his book! #productledsummit #alliance #productmanagement #productledculture

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tldr: I'm hiring! As many of you know, I recently joined Lattice as their SVP of Engineering and I'm excited to announce that I'm hiring for all Engineering levels and more broadly, Lattice has open roles across EPD. If you're wondering, why Lattice? The last few years have seen a step change in how we think about the meaning of work and the employer <> employee relationship - add on the fuel of AI taking our jobs and you could be forgiven for thinking the future of work looks bleak for employees. It doesn't need to be that way - here at Lattice we're building the next generation of talent tools to give employers insights and employees purpose because people matter at work. Among other things, we're using generative AI to securely analyze enormous volumes of data to unlock career insights faster and investing in building equitable feedback, compensation and employer analytics tools - not just for one company but for all companies. If you're interested in making a difference to the future of work then let's chat - all roles are remote eligible and based in the US. We have physical offices in San Francisco and NYC if you prefer the in-office environment.

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Highly impactful decisions made by senior executives often fall on middle managers to carry out and justify. Senior executives rarely directly have the conversations resulting from their mandates like #RTO, bonuses or raises not being as much as expected, or #layoffs. They make the pronouncement and carry on. Are companies properly preparing and supporting their middle managers for difficult conversations? Are those managers being trained for difficult conversations, or are they just handed talking points and told to stick to the script without preparation for their audience's emotional response? As a #leader and a #manager, I've had difficult conversations where my skills were put to the test in responding to employees getting bad or unexpected news or asking pointed questions. I can't honestly say I always did the best job, even though I wish I could. Training and properly supporting managers to deliver difficult news is essential. Not doing so makes #employeeengagement and #mentalhealth deteriorate -- not just among those receiving the news, but also among those having to deal with the emotional fallout of it.

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