“The article doesn’t describe the Amazon I know or the caring Amazonians I work with every day,” wrote Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon, in response to sharp criticism from a New York Times article, based upon only 100 interviews of past and current employees and representing less than a fraction of its workforce.

I read the whole article and was shocked, but not outraged, by what I read. My shock was from the inhumane stories that shine a spotlight on practices that should rile any CEO.

One employee, Bo Olson, said: “Nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk.”

Another employee added, “The joke in the office was that when it came to work/life balance, work came first, life came second, and trying to find the balance came last.”

The article declares employees are nicknamed Ambots — the human Amazon robot.

That article harshly criticises the workplace culture of the world’s biggest retailer, recently overtaking Wal-Mart after reporting a surprise jump in profits. And the article generated a flurry of comments (over 5,700 on the New York Times site alone) and responses from former and current employees — defending and incriminating Amazon.

This definitely isn’t the first time the company has been criticised. Nor is this new for Bezos, who was named ‘World’s Worst Boss’ by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) at their World Congress, in May 2014.

Yet, I applaud the way this alleged “bad boss” handled this sharp criticism. Bezos didn’t spend days huddled away with his PR team trying to decide how to “manage” the criticism and public outrage.

Instead he immediately sent an email to all 150,000 of his employees. Rather than hiding from it or defending Amazon, he encouraged them to read the article, even putting the link in the opening line of his email.

He then went on to saying he doesn’t recognise the company the writers described. “But if you know of any stories like those reported, I want you to escalate [it] to HR. You can also email me directly at jeff@amazon.com. Even if it’s rare or isolated, our tolerance for any such lack of empathy needs to be zero.”

He took action! He knows how to lead. Harvard Business Review had ranked him the second-best CEO in the world by 2013, after Steve Jobs of Apple. And, in 2008, he was selected by US News & World Report as one of America’s best leaders.

I also applaud the underlying theme in the article … the drive to maximum performance. Before I continue, I am going on record to say that I do not endorse the negative practices articulated in the New York Times article.

But, I wholeheartedly support the idea of conducting an experiment in how far a firm can push white-collar workers to get them to achieve its ever-expanding ambitions. Although Bezos denies this, I think they should — as should you.

Every company has a responsibility to maximise employee performance. When I read about this “experiment” it reminded me of a similar experiment that took place a century ago at Bethlehem Steel Co. in Pennsylvania.

They needed to massively increase their production while minimising the capital costs. The average employee handled 12.5 tonnes of steel a day.

But their data experiment, just like Amazon would conduct, reported that a worker ought to handle between 47-48 tonnes per day. The unrealised worker productivity was four times what was being realised. Performance was limited by the way others worked. The concept of soldiering says, you learn to work from observation. By observing those around you, you become like them.

Then everyone falls in line with the collective performance rhythm. Or as Frederick Taylor, the consultant who made the breakthrough performance discovery, says: “They deliberately work as slowly as they dare while they at the same time try to make those over them believe that they are working fast.”

That workforce performance experiment, conceptually similar to the ones conducted at Amazon, led them to discover gigantic opportunities to improve performance. Then they put in practices to change the way employees work; the employees did work harder and the company increased output by fourfold. This was a huge win for the company.

I am sure that if New York Times found out about this they would’ve written an (incomplete) article about what the journalist deemed unfair.

Oh, I forgot to mention the employees wages increased between 30 and 100 per cent. It was a win-win.

What experiment should you conduct to greatly raise your company’s performance?

The writer is a CEO Coach and author, including of the 10 Tips for Leading in the Middle East. Contact him at tsw@tommyweir.com