Answering EMBA interview questions using the “Deliver Results” Amazon Principle 

Interviewers at most EMBA colleges rely on behavioral interview questions to find the right candidates for their program. These days Amazon Principles have become the new benchmark for the behavioral interview questions. This brings us to the question: What are Amazon Principles? Amazon’s mission statement defines fourteen concepts that are used as building blocks for all decisions made inside the organization. The last among the fourteen principles is called ‘Deliver Results’ and is considered as the most important among them all.

The “Deliver Results” Amazon leadership principle states that “Leaders focus on the key inputs for their business and deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion. Despite setbacks, they rise to the occasion and never settle.” Amazon expects its employees to deliver results, or as the principle states, rise to the occasion.

Amazon Principles are one of the many things that make this organization unconventional. As an EMBA aspirant, you will be expected to be aware of the fourteenth principal, Deliver Results and understand what Amazon means when they talk about this principle. This article will act as a guide that will help you understand how you should incorporate it in your answer.

How to answer questions using the principle?

Tell success stories. You can mold any of your achievements into valid answers. Remember that your stories should equate three components:

1. Tasks or responsibilities.
2. A particular situation or the problem.
3. Actions are undertaken to overcome the problem and complete task/ meet responsibility

For example: “I was handed a lot of responsibility and decision-making ability for project ‘A’, and by doing ‘B’ tasks, I delivered ‘C’ results.”

Interview Questions that Relate to the “Deliver Results” Leadership Principle

These questions give you a rough idea of the questions that your interviewer may ask about the leadership principle.

•       How would you check your progress next to your goals?
•       Explain a circumstance where you faced a challenging situation while working on a project and how did you overcome it? (Tip: The challenge could be concerning scope, people, timeline, or a combination of all)
•       Do you set and communicate smart team goals, expectations, and priorities? How do you help employees to stay focused, help team-mates remove roadblocks towards meeting team goals?
•       Can you tell me about a time when you were able to persist through setbacks, and overcome hindrances to deliver outstanding results?
•       Can you tell me about a time where you not just met the target but exceeded expectations considerably? How did you do it?
•       What is the most intricate problem that you have ever worked on?
•       Have you ever worked hard on something and then failed?

The final question remains, how many stories should you prepare for this question?

Most people would recommend you to have two stories which are a decent benchmark. However, I would suggest you prepare four ‘Deliver’ stories. This way you will have enough stories to answer all questions. I suggest that you practice using questions that you have developed for other principles to answer the ‘Deliver Results’ questions. Any success story or successful problem-solving story generally works as a good story.