You’ve seen it – I have too! And it’s becoming more and more prevalent – employees who point fingers, blaming others for their situation, problems, and feelings. Seriously, what ever happened to personal responsibility?
This post is part of the series – What Ever Happened to Personal Responsibility?
Would You Return to Your Organization?
If You’re Not Growing, You’re Dying…Really?
Leaders are the Most Creative People on the Planet
Great Leaders Serve
Is Fear Taking Over?
This past week I traveled to Washington, DC for my sister’s wedding. I generally prefer to arrive at the airport early to allow plenty of time for the “unexpected”. However, I’m still getting used to a new airport so I was a little rushed.
I arrived at the gate, waited a few moments to board, then made my way to the door as the gate agent began the boarding process.
As the agent began scanning boarding passes, a young mother carrying an infant approached the door. The agent glanced at her boarding pass, scanned it, and emphatically informed her that the airline no longer allows parents with small children to board early. He followed up with, “But we’ll let you do it this time.”
Serve others (without them knowing it)
I’m sure there’s a good reason that American Airlines changed their policy for allowing parents with small children to board early. Maybe other airlines have done the same.
[UPDATE: A representative from American Airlines contacted me with the following information: “We do allow pre-boarding when operationally possible. We’re sorry for any inconvenience to the mother traveling.”]
Yet we often create (and change) policies to benefit the organization rather than for the benefit of those whom we are supposed to be serving. Do this long enough and we’ll be serving far fewer people.
The alternative is to serve people – without expecting anything in return. A great way to do this is to serve them without them even knowing that you’ve gone the extra mile. Take personal responsibility!
But that’s hard – because we want others to acknowledge our contribution and to approve. Usually we’re looking for the approval of a supervisor rather than the approval of a satisfied customer. Since when did that start making sense?
We really don’t need to create policies to serve people more effectively. Create a culture of serving and team members will find all kinds of creative ways to serve customers.
Putting people in their place
For some odd reason we like putting people in their place. We want them to know that we “bent over backwards” for them – just this one time!
What if the gate agent had taken personal responsibility for serving the customer? What if he had felt the freedom to do so? And what if he had scanned her pass then asked her if there was anything he could do to help her with her baby or carry-on items? Did he really need to inform her about the policy change? What if in her ignorance of the new policy she “takes advantage” of his generosity? What’s the worst that could happen?
My intention is not to pick on the travel industry or American Airlines – that’s not the point. I just happened to be traveling while these thoughts were on my mind.
I’m also not excusing a sense of entitlement. I’m quick to admit that I occasionally struggle with and excuse my tendency to feel entitled – because I work hard, I help others, I’ve been where they are – you know what I mean.
Loyal to whom?
Here’s the point – many fliers are loyal to a brand which values them as customers. I know I am!
I’ll pay a few more bucks for a ticket if I know that my experience is going to be pleasant, the service is going to be excellent, and the team members are going to be able to resolve problems that arise.
As a result, I have a significant number of frequent flier miles and a top-level frequent flier status with an airline I have been using for years.
Since I’ve recently relocated to a new hub-city I have been traveling more on American.
In the past two weeks I have researched how to get better connected with the new airline – book their flights more frequently, begin using their rewards credit card, etc.
I’ve also been observing their customer service as we’ve racked up more than 25,000 miles in the past 8 weeks. How do you think observing this experience will affect my ultimate decision?
Question: Which company are you more likely to return to – one in which representatives blame the boss or a policy or one in which team members regularly take personal responsibility to exceed expectations? In your organization are you cultivating the culture you’re likely return to? Leave your thoughts in the comments.
Great post! So true. In my work with private schools, too often leadership begins to focus on the “institution” and sustaining it, instead of taking care of students and families well. Which is somewhat ironic, because a shift of focus from students to the institution actually hurts the institution in the long run. Kind of what you saw and said. Thank you.
Are you serious? In this day and age, with companies paying well below what they should be paying, and people clinging to their jobs, you have the nerve to expect anyone to give anything beyond a false sense of corporate pride to their fascist overlords? You must be an MBA! MBAs are the worst thing that ever happened to the world. Where is culture? Where is leadership? It starts at the top, and if all you give a shit about is the bottom line, well, then that’s all your employees give a shit about too. Don’t expect anyone to do anything above and beyond showing up and collecting a check, and when they can deflect responsibility to anywhere but there it is going to happen, because anything else is completely unacceptable to the incompetent management keeping a seat warm. Loyalty, what a joke!
As a current MBA student, I have learned a lot about team-based organizations and the general idea of giving employees enough authority to do their jobs. Having worked as a customer service representative in a more traditional organizational structure, I know first hand that no policy covers every situation, and sometimes following the policy will do more harm than good for the company’s reputation, while other policies are just bad and obviously enacted by someone who has never done the job that the policies govern. It is better for employees to be able to do what they need to do to solve a problem rather than having to consult a manager before any deviation from a rigid policy manual. It produces trust in the employer-employee relationship. It makes daily operations more efficient. It strengthens customer service and employee morale. It encourages leadership development within the organization. Most of all, it shifts focus away from the rules and toward the organization’s vision. I’m not saying we don’t need rules, but rules in an organization should exist as guidelines rather than restrictions. The intent of a rule can be misunderstood (as apparently happened if an employee of American thought that a rule change meant for high traffic times when early boarding would cause a bottle neck applied to every situation), as can the rigidity, causing an employee to be fearful of violating a policy when management may not see that policy as being very important. The existence of rigid policies to which only management can make exceptions also undermine non-management employees. They stick to the policy, the manager shows up and makes an exception to the policy, and the employee ends up looking incompetent to the customer. In short, such a shift in authority not only allows team members to take responsibility to exceed expectations, but it makes them willing to do so.
Great thoughts Courtney. I appreciate your thoughtful post. And I agree!
Great stuff David. Thanks for sharing your experiences!
When I was still working as a triage nurse in an ambulatory health facility, I often see some of my pesky co-workers from the Radiology department taking in-charge, yet dispelling themselves from assuming as much responsibility for the patient as possible. In effect, they blame every mishap that happens inside their department to the ones who are not supposed to help them out, but continues to – out of obligation and passion for patient service…
Am not saying that I’m an ideal or perfect employee. But these said radiology nurses always blames to me and my co-triage nurses any pitfall in terms of coordination with the patient because they are too scared of a hell to assume care for their patients. Just so we endorsed the patients to be under their care, they felt that they will NEVER be accountable no matter what the turn out would be.
Apart from that, they’re not emphatic enough to understand what their patients go through because they are too busy winning favors from the medical director and chief nurse.
I’m so happy that I’m already out of such “system.” Yet, it saddens me whenever there are people I hear of, who are in service-based professions but are too reluctant to fulfill their duties and be accounted for the welfare of others.
Thanks for your thoughtful response, Tina. I am glad you recognize the challenge and are encouraging others to grow!