Hire the Right People, Use Less Rules

This morning I dropped off my dry cleaning, with a coupon.  This evening, I picked it up.  On the way home, I noticed that I had not received the proper pricing so I returned, receipt in hand and requested an adjustment.  The gentleman responded “Sorry, nothing I can do.  Only the manager can make that adjustment.”   Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a complaint about my dry cleaner.  During the normal course of business, my dry cleaner must have been de-motivated by an F Player who did the wrong thing.  In response, they added a rule they thought was correct, but that makes their customers lives more difficult.  What if we all worked harder on hiring smarter and applied only a handful of rules Give your employees and your customers the benefit of the doubt and fire those that don’t deserve it.

Action item: Give your people a numerical precision element of empowerment. For Example, "You have $50.00 to do with what you need in the best interest of our customers and company." If your company has core values and a purpose, this will work. If it has neither, it may be a problem and you need to call us at 210-403-3916 now to fix your values and purpose.

Check out Seth Godin's similar riff regarding answering the phone.