I recently had the opportunity to see Ken Blanchard speak at a conference in Winnipeg. He had a great message to share as one of the legendary speakers on topics related to leadership. One of the key messages that I took away is that when we are building our companies and forming our culture, we must not let company policy ‘overrule our employees from using their brains’. I had two customer experiences that I wanted to share that illustrate how these actions were detrimental to the respective organizations:
1) My wife is a nurse, who often works the night shift. During one of these night shifts, I visited a local movie rental store with my two year old daughter. I went to rent the movie and pay with cash when the customer service attendant asked for my ID, or Customer Membership card- neither of which I had in my possession. I said that I could verify personal information from my account, and she advised me to go home and get my ID or Membership card. Being that it was approaching my daughters bed time, I said that I would not return and hoped that they could empathize with me and allow me to rent the movie o which I have done on several occasions. The attendant continued to say that I could be anyone trying to ‘rent’ from that account. I advised her that I think that their policy is not very ‘customer friendly’, and again I was not going to return to rent the movie. From this experience- two things happened: A) They did not get my business and will not get it in the future B) I left the store unsatisfied. Is it a coincidence that these types of establishments are going out of business? My thought is that they should be bending over backward to get any business that they can get at this time, and what does this say about the state of leadership in this establishment?
2)
I was on vacation in Boston recently. I had the opportunity to attend my brother’s college hockey game, on the road, at a University in Boston. I went to order a beverage and they asked for ID. I am completely okay with this (I am over 30 years of age). Once I showed my picture ID, they said that they do not accept out of country ID. I asked to speak to the manager, and she echoed that statement that no American issued ID will not be accepted. So, I am on holidays in your country and over 10 years the legal drinking age, and they are not allowing me to purchase their goods because they do not know enough about my ID? The Buy American policy and economy in this area must be working great because they were none too eager for my business. My thought again is that this policy is not very customer friendly and can’t be leading to developing a customer friendly brand for those who visit this organization form out of country.
I believe as managers and business owners we should have policy, but let’s not let policy overrule the ability for our employees to ‘use their brains’ and ‘apply common sense’. Unless you support negative business growth and teaching our new employees to become robots and slaves to policy. Lets aim to hire people to use their skills, and their brains to help our organizations. I for one, believe that young people have a lot to offer if we get the involved to help contribute.
- Mathew Cey, Business Leader/Partner, Morris Interactive
www.morrisinteractive.ca 
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