Audible’s People Principles
Audible's People Principles celebrate who we are and where we've been, and guide the way we work shoulder to shoulder to enhance the lives of our millions of customers. Authored by Don, the principles reflect and apply to everyone who works at Audible—the entrepreneurs and operators, the dreamers and the doers, those who have worked here for 20 years and those who have arrived in the past few weeks and months.
Be Customer Obsessed
A
We work ceaselessly to hear the voices of our customers—to listen for them even when they aren’t speaking to us directly. Audible inspires our listeners’ dreams and feelings, as well as serves their needs. That our customers depend on us is an honor, and we work to ensure our service exceeds their expectations in every way.
B
Millions of people around the world are listening to Audible right now because we work in pursuit of ever-improving measures of our customers’ happiness and loyalty. Any change or improvement to our service must be executed with each and every customer’s ability to easily understand our intentions in mind.
C
Understanding what we mean to customers and correctly measuring inputs that yield those insights allows the financial outcomes of our business to take care of themselves. Analysis is not an end result but one of the catalysts of original and innovative work.
D
We endeavor to humanize our own voice across all customer connections in a way that reflects the well-composed and brilliantly performed words we deliver to our listeners.
E
We obsessively focus on other key stakeholders as if they are customers too: We serve the writers, actors, and other creative professionals who craft the words we deliver, as well as the people who live in the communities where we work. At Audible, we prize the capacity to see the world through others’ eyes.
Imagine & Invent Before They Ask
A
Nobody asked Audible to invent the first solid state digital audio device between 1994 and 1997. We thrive when we gaze deeply into the future—to what spoken words can be and to the coming technologies and techniques that will define how people listen—so we can continue to invent on behalf of customers before they ask.
B
We embrace ambiguity and we tolerate and demystify complexity. We seek to simplify the end-to-end customer experience in a way that allows our customer to feel the power of the words we deliver before they have to think about it.
C
We value and reward positive disruption of the internal and external status quo.
D
To dream into the future on behalf of our customers and customers to come, we don’t fear failure. In fact, we celebrate the glorious failures that have accompanied our successes because of what we can learn from them. Innovations that can change the lives of millions of people begin as planted seeds that require several years of focus—we imagine without fear and we are patient and tenacious as we work to make our ideas real.
Articulate The Possible & Move Fast To Make It Real
A
Leaders who can imagine the possible are also able to synthesize vision in a way that “connects the dots” across strategy, function, and to the details of execution.
B
Listening well requires the ability to crystallize thoughts via well-chosen written and spoken words that can be turned into meaningful action. Audible exists to unleash spoken words that inspire, offer insight, teach, and persuade. The best visions of the possible are intellectual hypotheses made even better when data and research inform them, and the best action plans deploy an economy and clarity of expression that enables others to “dream in color.”
C
Moving fast and thoughtfully in missionary pursuit of the well-articulated vision of the possible is the best way to make things happen and exhibit leadership of the highest order.
Study & Draw Inspiration From Culture & Technology
A
At its best, Audible is an inspiration platform (a movement, a cause), and leaders who stand out operate at the cutting edge of the arts and sciences. We draw inspiration from artistic creativity, from the truths and wisdoms conveyed through the ages, from the most advanced of emergent technologies, and from the sciences focused on the study and calibration of the human condition. We hear the culture’s drumbeat and we can audit scientific innovation at the cutting edge.
B
As enlightening and enjoyable as it may be, leaders at Audible do not just listen, read, and stare at large and small screens for fun. We are vigilant professional observers, and our research laboratories include the sound, look, feel, and experience of wherever we are.
Activate Caring
A
We respect and celebrate the glories of the human spectrum. We embrace and work to protect inherent civil rights based on people’s gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, ethnicity, religious beliefs, birthplace, socioeconomic station, disabilities, and age.
B
We work to improve the lives of those without privilege in the cities and countries in which we operate, because Audible seeks to exemplify what a company can mean beyond what it does. We believe in giving people a chance, and we work to make this so, particularly in the urban core. Our focus on education innovation and urban economic and social renaissance is about advancing equality, and this mission should inform and inspire our days.
C
We work shoulder to shoulder like the missionary agents of change we are. “Allofus” share the heart and soul of a start-up even as we grow large. This requires passionate advocacy in debate and a culture of extremely high expectations, but this does not mean leaders allow ego or personal politics to darken decisions or discourse (we used to call this the no a-hole rule). We intertwine deep rigor and exacting high standards with kindness and joy, and at Audible we remember that people will invariably forget things you say, but they will rarely forget how you make them feel.
D
To create the deepest comradery, trust, and a more meaningful experience of the work that defines our days, we let others really get to know who we are as individuals. Leaders understand this and teach it through exemplary action. We work backwards from big visions, we value shared honesty, and we celebrate the quality of the collegial effort to achieve our goals.
