Shadowing Practice: "Dive Deep" Leadership Principle Explained by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Dive Deep.

Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, audit frequently, and are skeptical when metrics and anecdotes differ.

No task is beneath them.

You could argue that there is a bit of tension between the strategic part of Think Big

and the detail orientation of Dive Deep.

And oftentimes people will say, well, which do you want?

You know, do you want the strategic part or do you want the detailed part?

And the answer, of course, is yes.

We want both.

Amazon is unique from other companies in that we expect our people to not only be strategic,

but to be willing to roll up their sleeves and be great at getting into the details.

There are so many people who can fill up loads of whiteboards around office rooms with great ideas

but who don't know how to get the details of those ideas right

and the reality is

that the details of any idea are what matters most

that's what people actually see what customers actually see it's part of by the way why the narrative format

that we write papers and communicate in in the working backwards documents are

so useful because it's you know whereas in a powerpoint you can speak at a super high level

and you don't have to get into the details, it is hard to fake the details in a narrative.

And getting the details right really matters.

Every product, every business that I have ever been a part of

or seen in Amazon have been made or broken by how great we were at getting the details right for customers.

Good leaders find mechanisms to inspect and audit the details and to understand anecdotes.

And the right teams understand that the leaders who are looking at what they're doing

and working with them on the details are doing

so to help them be right a lot and achieve great results for customers.

And then the other piece is that with anecdotes, there are oftentimes, especially at our size, where you have these big metrics.

I'll take an example.

If you ever look at operational performance metrics, things like performance against service level agreements or error rates or latency,

they're measured across really large numbers.

And they can look perfectly reasonable.

And then when you actually get into the details of it, you find, well, you hear this anecdote that this customer was unhappy about something.

Or you have a friend who told you that this didn't work out for them.

Or you get an email from a customer who says, why is this the case?

And when you actually follow those anecdotes, you find that there actually is a problem

that may not be showing up in the broader metric because we cover so many people, they don't register in the metric.

But at our scale, even a 1 % impact or a half a percent impact is millions of people.

So follow the anecdotes, inspect the details, because it's where you often find the real issues that can impact customers.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “"Dive Deep" Leadership Principle Explained by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: detail, anecdote, customer, metric, strategic. This video has 38 sentences and 513 words to shadow. The speech runs for 3:07. The speaker talks at a natural 165 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 88% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
metric adjective	/ˈmɛt.ɹɪk/	Of or relating to the metric system of measurement.
strategic adjective	/stɹəˈti.dʒɪk/	Of or pertaining to strategy.
narrative noun	/ˈnæɹ.ə.tɪv/	The systematic recitation of an event or series of events.
audit noun	/ˈɔːdɪt/	A judicial examination.
inspect verb	/ɪnˈspɛkt/	To examine critically or carefully; especially, to search out problems or determine condition; to scrutinize.
format noun	/ˈfɔːɹ.mæt/	The layout of a publication or document.
argue verb	/ˈɑɹ.ɡju/	To show grounds for concluding (that); to indicate, imply.
whereas	/(h)wɛɹˈæz/	In contrast; whilst on the contrary; although.
connect verb	/kəˈnɛkt/	To join (to another object): to attach, or to be intended to attach or capable of attaching, to another object.
mechanism noun	/ˈmɛk.ə.nɪ.zəm/	Any mechanical means for the conversion or control of motion, or the transmission or control of power.
beneath	/bɪˈniːθ/	Below.
tension noun	/ˈtɛnʃən/	The condition of being held in a state between two or more forces, which are acting in opposition to each other.
operational adjective	/ˌɑ.pəˈɹeɪ.ʃə.nəl/	Of or relating to operations, especially military operations.
communicate verb	/kəˈmjuːnɪkeɪt/	To impart or transmit (information or knowledge) to someone; to make known, to tell.
unhappy adjective	/ʌnˈhæpi/	Not happy; sad.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
fill up verb	To make (something) completely full.
roll up verb	To dominate by accumulating; to become dominant by accumulating.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	have ever been · have been made
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	people who can · friend who told

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 7 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, they're, didn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: tension /ˈtɛnʃən/, operational /ˌɑ.pəˈɹeɪ.ʃə.nəl/, orientation /ˌɔː.ɹi.ənˈteɪ.ʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: mechanism /ˈmɛk.ə.nɪ.zəm/, operational /ˌɑ.pəˈɹeɪ.ʃə.nəl/, communicate /kəˈmjuːnɪkeɪt/, orientation /ˌɔː.ɹi.ənˈteɪ.ʃən/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like metric, strategic, narrative.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: "Dive Deep" Leadership Principle Explained by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy - Learn English Speaking with Video

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