Nobody follows the rules, in complete purity. Everyone has driven their automobile faster than the speed limit, at some time in their life. They broke the rules. However, if you did not get caught or cause an accident, it is allowed. I have never heard a story about how someone broke the rules of speeding, never got caught and immediately went to the police station to turn themselves in. We accept rule breaking by degrees. The degree of interference to others was low enough to ignore how we broke the speeding rule. It becomes an excusable degree of rule to break.
We also excuse ourself when we break rules by claiming rules are meant to be broken! This philosophy is standard practice. It is alright to break rules because they do not always apply to us. We can escape guilt by making rule breaking acceptable; by degrees and by permission due to the 'exceptions' we use in the 'rules are meant to be broken' philosophy.
Automobile driving provides some of the best examples. The "No Parking" signs are one of my favorites. I was visiting a business associate this past week and noticed a small, rural tire shop located next to a hardware retail store. The tire shop had a two car (bay) garage door closed. The weather was very cold. On the two bay garage door were two large signs, each posted "No Parking Please." The tire shop employees were inside the doors working on two cars. The doors were closed to keep the inside shop warmer. As we were chatting outside from across the street, an automobile pulled up into the driveway of the tire shop and parked right in front of one of the "No Parking Please" signs. The driver got out and walked into the hardware retail store. A few minutes went by and the garage door to the tire shop opened up. One of the cars inside the tire shop was completed and the employee was getting ready to back the finished automobile out, but noticed he could not. Someone obviously had parked in his way, exactly in front of the "No Parking Please" sign on the door. The tire employee was not happy. You could see his unhappiness in his body language. He decided to march inside the hardware store to see if the owner of the car was inside shopping next door.
Shortly after going into the hardware store, the employee of the tire store came out of the hardware store with more emphasis on his troubled body language. Right behind him was the driver of the car. Neither the employee nor the driver appeared to be in cordial moods. As upset about moving the car as the driver was, I suspect the tire guy asked the driver something about being able to read. My associate and I giggled at the exchange process the two were having with their body language. Happy would not be an accurate description. The driver all but 'peeled out' and did not return to the hardware store. It was very clear the driver of the parked car was not happy either.
What does this all mean to your business success?
Once this becomes an acceptable yardstick of tolerance; more of this allowance becomes tolerated. Since nobody was upset during the last time they used this space for an 'in and out' quick trip, they begin to believe it is alright to do some longer shopping while parked in that same fire lane. The rule breakers have a tendency to "stretch" the degree. The tolerance for breaking the rules becomes extended. Before you know it, "No Parking Please" signs do not apply to some. Some drivers no longer respect why the rule exists. In fact, if someone presses a violator to abide by the rules, they get offended...much like the hardware store driver peeled out in disgust for getting caught. Ask any police officer if those who get caught get upset with being ticketed for getting caught. Some of the stories and excuses can be really wild.
We are offended when someone honks their horn at us with disgust when we forget to use our turn indicator and accidentally 'cause' them to hold their position at a stop sign longer than they felt they needed to remain. They honked their horn at us because they want us to know if we would only use our turn indicator to let them know we would not be continuing in a straight path, they could have left the stop sign sooner. Since we turned before going in front of them, they could have left the stop sign sooner. We did not follow the rules but it was of a low degree of offense. Yet when they honked their horn at us with displeasure, we get offended. Our yardstick of tolerance for breaking the rules gets extended. We tend to blame the followers of the rules when they 'bust us' before we accept our extension for breaking the rules.
What does this all mean to your business success?
We permit this same process of building tolerance for rules breaking in our business practices. We have fundamental rules to follow to help our businesses perform well. Sometimes we 'skip' the rules and break them. Sometimes it is more convenient for us to 'skip' the rules. It all depends upon how low the degree of offense may be. Once we get used to doing the offense, at a low degree of penalty, we permit the offense to become a regular part of our everyday functions. The more we perform these 'tolerances' the more we ignore their warnings. Eventually, we allow the tolerances to 'stretch' larger and larger until they become a penalty delivered by someone who has the courage to walk into the hardware store and yell out, "Who in here has trouble reading the signs out back that say No Parking Please?!"
What does this all mean to your business success?
Do you sometimes stop at the front of your business to quickly run into the store to grab something you forgot? Taking up a critical parking spot your customers could be using? Does that once-in-awhile fudging of a basic rule get broken to the point that you find yourself sometimes parking in that critical customer parking spot for more than a half day? I see business owners in a tight downtown area do exactly that very thing to their business, and give it no thought. The rule broken does not measure up to a high enough degree to refrain from breaking it. Customers cannot park in front of your business when you are in that space. How stupid? I see it all of the time.
What does this all mean to your business success?
Do you believe you can put off a customer follow-up telephone call on a nasty complaint issue, delaying the call for one more day because you are too busy to do it today? Do you believe calling them later will be better? Do you believe you will escape some kind of customer dissatisfaction? Maybe it will not hurt you every time, but your procrastination will grow to become more frequent and the customers will eventually quit coming to you for solutions. Customers who quit coming to you are customers lost.
What does this all mean to your business success?
Do you believe you do not need to open up on time when your store hours are posted 9 A.M., but once in awhile it does not hurt to break the rules and show up at 9:45? How about when you close up shop early because you have not seen a customer for the last three hours of the day? Nobody will care, right? Rule breaking eventually finds ways to become tolerated. The more the tolerance grows, the worse the results become. It may be a simple rule, but it is in place for a very good reason. Every time you minimize the reason, you 'stretch' the rule breaking tolerance deeper to do. The degree of protection weakens with each time we break the rules of business.
In my last management role of a retail business we had a nasty customer. This customer spent over $1,000 per month, every month of every year I was employed as manager of this outfit. The customer was a grumpy, arrogant sole. I had to convince the sales staff to work through it and serve him as well as they serve any other customer. Some had a tough time with dealing with this persons tough personality. I found one employee who did not mind working with this nasty customer. I suggested everyone shift the referral to this employee every time this nasty customer came in. I gave extra recognition for the one employee who did such a great job serving this nasty customer. The volume this nasty customer spent each month increased. He began to average over $1200 per month. I have since moved on to a different role with a different company. In a recent conversation with that one employee who served that nasty person well, she shared with me that the new manager of that outfit had a 'run-in' with that nasty customer and asked him to never come back again. She said the nasty customers monthly bill last month was $54.13, grand total. Some cardinal rules of business were violated in this case, and tolerated. Be careful to watch our rule breaking activities and make sure we do not become tolerant of them by increasing degrees. Your business will be glad you practiced the rules correctly.
How many rules are we breaking in our business that can lead to sloppy results? Fudging to accept our actions is so normal we do not even catch our self doing it. Check up on yourself. Look to see how many rules we are 'stretching' to break because we do not believe they are having a negative enough effect on the 'degrees' that matters. Are we measuring the breaking of rules by degrees? Are we parking in the prime customer spaces? Are we chasing off customers because they have nasty attitudes? Did you know nasty attitude money deposits the same as friendly attitude money? It is more rewarding to deposit the nasty attitude money...you know you quietly won. Follow the rules.
What rules are we breaking and by what degrees are we excusing them?
Until next time...
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