Jeff Bezos' controversial 'question mark method' panics any employee who receives it
A vague email from your boss can be stressful at the best of times.
Maybe that one-liner about having a quick chat in their office simply means they want to have a quick chat in their office.
Or maybe you've made the biggest mistake in the history of the company and you're about to be berated, humiliated and left without a job.
Now, imagine your boss is one of the richest, most powerful men in the world.
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That's the reality for employees at Amazon who are a subjected to Jeff Bezos' controversial 'question mark method.'
In his 2013 book, The Everything Store, author Brad Stone revealed that employees would be forwarded complaint emails that customers had sent directly to Bezos.
The Amazon founder would forward the complaint to the relevant people who would forward it the relevant people and so on.
His only note - a single question mark.
They're then expected to provide a sufficient response that will go all the way back to the second wealthiest person on the planet.
The claims in Stone's book were controversial. Bezos' then-wife MacKenzie Scott said there were 'way too many inaccuracies.'
She also said the book was 'full of techniques which stretch the boundaries of non-fiction, and the result is a lopsided and misleading portrait of the people and culture at Amazon.'
But, Bezos has since confirmed claims about his controversial method during an interview at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Texas.
"I still have an email address customers can write to. I see most of those emails. I see them and I forward them to the executives in charge of the area with a question mark," he said.
"It's shorthand [for], 'Can you look into this?' 'Why is this happening?'"
And, according to Business Insider, Bezos' question mark emails are pretty common, and getting one is enough to send shivers down your spine.
An Amazon manager told the publication that when they receive the email, they are 'on the hook to drop everything, investigate, and get back with an answer.'
Bezos says having a personal email address for customers to write to is down to one of the company's core values: customer obsession.
"We talk about it, customer obsession, as opposed to competitor obsession," he said.
"If your whole culture is competitor-obsessed, it's hard to stay motivated if you are out in front. Whereas customers are also unsatisfied, always discontent, always want more. So no matter how far in front you get in front of competitors, you are still behind your customers. They are always pulling you along."