This article originally appeared on Business expert.
I worked at Amazon for 15 years, starting in 2005 as a senior manager. When I left in 2020, I used to be vp.
My biggest failure when starting a project occurred in 2011 Jeff Bezos I used to be personally concerned about this. The failure interrupted Bezos’ plan to publicly introduce the feature, causing me to miss out on a promotion and almost leave the company. However, I rose from director to vp and had a long and completely satisfied profession.
I learned a lot about dealing with a crisis and rebuilding trust, and a lot about Bezos as a leader. He taught me the importance of maintaining high standards while also being willing to forgive and move on.
This is the story of my biggest failure
When I began working at Amazon, I used to be assigned to The best video and had periodic direct contact with Bezos.
When I used to be promoted to director, I continued to collaborate with Bezos on development Amazon Studios. For my first six years at the company, I met with him at least once a quarter about one of my projects.
In 2010 I began working on Amazon App Store. We have planned a recent feature called “Test Drive”, which is able to assist you to simulate the application on your phone before purchasing it.
Bezos was excited about this feature and planned to focus on it in his launch announcement. Around the time Amazon released something, the company replaced the regular homepage with a personal letter from him explaining the recent offer.
Our “Jeff Letter” for our launch focused on the “Test Drive” feature. The night before we announced this feature, our team launched the store.
Everything except the “Test Drive” function worked high-quality
We worked through the night to repair the intermittent glitches, but when morning got here and the announcement was about to be made, the feature was down. At 6:00 a.m. I received an email from Bezos asking why his letter was not on the home page.
I replied that we were working through some issues, hoping he would take a shower, go to the treadmill, or do the rest that may give us more time. Within a few minutes he responded and asked what the problems were?
All hell broke loose.
Both the VP and SVP above me woke up and began asking questions, and more and more leaders were receiving copies of the messages in the email thread. We quickly realized that our feature had several critical design flaws and there can be no quick or easy strategy to fix it.
The first three lessons I learned occurred during the crisis, and the next three occurred after it.
Mid-crisis
Lesson one: Communicate clearly and predictably
I began sending hourly updates to Bezos and other leaders, working to slowly restore trust. Each message briefly explained where we stood and what we can be doing over the next hour, and each promised further updates over the next hour.
Lesson 2: Accept help
Other leaders who had experienced similar issues reached out and offered help from their teams, so inside a few hours I had several very senior engineers working with my team.
They quickly realized what the problems were and announced that we had a design error that needed to be rewritten. The temporary solution was to work around this problem with additional hardware. Without this solution, it could take several days for the feature to begin working.
Lesson 3: No all-night starts
Scheduling an early morning start that required us to work through the night became an obvious mistake. I needed to be sharp to deal with the crisis, and my team needed to have the ability to assist solve the problem. We began rotating people home to sleep in shifts and learned that we must always never accept a start schedule that may put us in that situation again.
As my team and I became more and more exhausted, Bezos became more and more frustrated. He wanted resolution that day. This led to the other leaders increasing the pressure and the burden on us became greater and greater.
We were finally saved when the chief technology officer, Werner Vogelsintervened and said that the team wouldn’t have the ability to unravel this problem in one day. Bezos went silent on email threads.
Over the next few days, we fixed the design problem and rewrote the code to eliminate it, but as the technical hurdles were removed, the management problems only increased.
“Jeff’s Letter” was never published on the website. By the time we had every little thing fixed and tested, the news cycle continued and the moment for Bezos to tell his customers about an exciting recent feature had passed.
After the crisis
Lesson 4: Own the problem
My direct report volunteered to take the blame. The engineer who wrote some of the code did the same. My manager also desired to take overall responsibility. Ultimately, Bezos knew it was my team and my code, which meant I needed to take on the problem.
Amazon has a process called COE (Correction of Errors), which involves a written investigation of the root causes of the problem and a plan to stop similar problems. I wrote this report and was asked to share it with all colleagues in the organization. It was embarrassing to publicly share the evaluation of our mistakes, but doing it well helped me regain confidence in my leadership abilities.
Per week after the launch, I had a meeting scheduled with Bezos about one other project. I considered skipping it, but decided that if I could not face Bezos, I should probably pack up my desk and find a recent place to work.
I went to the meeting.
Bezos all the time sat in the same chair in his conference room. I went ahead and selected a chair right next to where he was sitting. He got here and sat next to me and led the meeting. At the end of the meeting he asked me how I used to be feeling because it must have been a hard week.
He showed empathy for my experience and concern for my well-being. He could have just as easily asked for a status report or directed me to troubleshoot; as an alternative, he selected to focus on me as a person quite than my frustration or curiosity about the project.
Lesson 5: Challenge your leaders
Don’t hide. I understand the temptation to avoid those that might criticize you, but confronting Bezos reassured me that he was past his initial frustration and wanted to offer me time to rebuild trust.
In short, going to the meeting allowed me to remain with the company. I knew my job was on the line and one word from Bezos would send me packing.
Lesson 6: Be patient and rebuild trust
I used to be near being promoted to vp, but now I needed to re-evaluate my ability to rigorously and consistently run a key business. I ultimately got promoted, but it took one other two years.
I learned that trust may be rebuilt, but it takes time.
Bezos taught me the importance of maintaining high standards on your teams, but also being willing to forgive and keep working. He selected to indicate me kindness, empathy, and encouragement, which inspired me to spend the remainder of my profession at Amazon.
I left in 2020, lower than a 12 months before Bezos stepped down, to focus on passing on leadership lessons to the next generation.
An Amazon representative didn’t comment on this story when contacted by Business Insider.