360 feedback is a game at Amazon

Most Amazon managers do an excellent job of talking loudly about productivity and yet never do anything to help their employees meet goals. They instead choose to meet behind closed doors all day long and gossip about which employees they like or dislike and this ultimately plays out as to who gets promoted or fired during the annual review process, regardless of who actually did a good job or not.

Amazon also touts that they care about the development of their employees but there's never any time for a productive employee to learn anything, so it's only the friends of the boss who don't really do anything that end up taking all of the training classes that their boss can claim as evidence to help them to get promoted. 

Another common practice among managers at Amazon is to encourage talking behind people's backs. 360 feedback is a game at Amazon - no one who does it honestly lasts more than a year or two because everyone else is gaming the system for themselves and their friends. 

I've heard from others that fixing this problem is as impossible as replacing the entire engine of an airplane while it's in-flight, so there's no point in trying. I disagree - it will take some major gutting of the entire layer of dishonest managers, but Amazon will be better for if it happens, just like someone removing a tumor is always better off afterwards.