When I start writing about subjects that come from good experience I hope they go to those who can use them well. We all need to make a certain amount of healthy mistakes in order for us to develop a good gauge in how things should or should not go. Most of the time, it is in the mistakes we make that our best lessons arrive. Without those gauges of comparison we might not discover a better way to do some of the things we need to do. Our mistakes provide the accurate view that shows us the way we ought not to go. Although mistakes do not always reveal which way is the right way to go, they certainly help us determine which ways are wrong. I am one of those leaders who hates making mistakes. I am also one of those long time operators who knows how valuable a mistake can become. I do not wish them upon anyone. However, I am glad they arrive once in awhile. In most cases, correction was needed.
Many years ago I remember coming into my office and discovering one of my employees alone sitting in my desk chair. She was kicked back with her feet on the desk while she was reading some literature. It looked like a comedy scene from Saturday Night Live. It actually startled me a little bit. I played along with the situation and put my stuff away as I usually do when I enter my office to go to work. I calmly asked her, "What are you doing?" She was giggling a little bit about the stuff she had been reading. She said with all sincerity, "I am reading all the personnel files. There is some really funny stuff in here." My response was, "Excuse, me?"
We experience some of the most interesting adventures in our leadership lives. Some of the best stuff cannot be made up. Some of the most shocking events arrive with no warning. I have always felt it would be good reading to produce a book that is composed of all of the interesting and weird stuff that business owners have experienced and endured. Write a book much like a journal that reports all of the unreal events and happenings that owners have witnessed in their long trail of leadership work. It would become one of the more funny books filled with truthful material that will shock one reader after another. People never cease to amaze me. Thank goodness for people. We make life very interesting.
Pay closer attention to these smaller business details. It matters more than anyone of us can imagine.
This young lady, sitting in my desk, did not care if I had arrived. She did not seem to blink with my arrival on the scene. She truly did not know this kind of stuff was not her business to be pulling out to read. She had the oak drawer of the personnel file pulled wide open and a couple of folders laying on my desk. I suspect the ones on my desk were the ones she had already finished reading. Keep in mind, I am an owner who actually performs routine performance reviews. I document those events. I keep them placed in each employees personal files. They are stored in my private office. She was tucked away comfortably in my private office, smack dab sitting in my office chair reading those files. No big deal in her mind. She even had a file open in her hand with the pages out while she was describing to me what I wrote about that particular employee. I was stunned beyond words. At first, I thought it was a joke. As I stood there in shock long enough I discovered how serious she really was. She truthfully did not appear to know how wrong this process was while she shared with me what the file in her hand revealed. I tried to move my jaw back to its original place on my face. I could not budge it.
My next words that came out were on the order, "What...(with a long pause)...are you DOING?"
My jaw was still parked in the lower position on my face. My eyebrows were standing at their highest attention. I looked much like the look we all know that is represented by the deer in the headlights expression. I did not know how to respond to what I was seeing. She caught me off guard. I could not hide that fact. It was written all over my face and emotions. I started to slowly shake my head back and forth in total amazement. I then closed my eyes and began shaking my head back and forth in quick, sudden movements telling myself, "No, no, no."
"Put those file away!" I said. "Those are private files!" I continued to lecture her about how wrong this kind of stuff was to do. I began my firm description about how wrong this kind of action was on her part. I described how wrong it was in several ways. She got up and said she did not know it was wrong to read about the people she knows. She described how she agreed with a lot of the stuff I wrote about each one of them. She described how she thought some of the stuff was some really funny stuff. I still had trouble keeping my jaw lifted up to its original position on my face. I was still shaking my head slowly back and forth. She seemed to not care about the seriousness of the position I was trying to express. We all make some simple mistakes that can come back to bite our work. This was one of those simple days. I gradually removed that young lady away from her employment in my company. I still bump into her once in awhile out in the community where we both live. Each time she says hello to me I recall that special day. I still walk by her with some special amazement still in my mind. I can still see my jaw parked in its lower garage. That was over 25 years ago. That experience was one of those lessons that has me not only lock, but today, password protect every personnel file I ever post. I do not want to witness that kind of jaw work ever again.
We need to pay closer attention to these smaller business details.
We all have these wonderful experiences filed away in our minds of lessons and business turns. Some of the simple ones can hurt our efforts the most, and do. I have had employees miss a stop sign in our company delivery truck and "t-bone" another vehicle in a serious crash. Both drivers turned out fine with their health recovery. Even though that wreck was a serious event, I have had other kinds of simple experiences do more damage and create a far greater tragedy. Some of the simple errors I have permitted to occur have come back to haunt my business models with deeply wrong outcomes of trial. It does not always take a major wrong event to bring down the profitable efforts you work so hard to produce. High levels of destruction can become big damages to endure. Some of those big damages can come from something so simple and small. Pay closer attention to the few little things that can injure your future in a much bigger way. Seriousness about those smaller things must be recognized and promoted in every business nook and corner. Pay closer attention to these smaller business details. They can matter more than you may ever really think.
I have seen store clerks take a phone call from a customer who offers to order something over the phone. I have seen those same sales clerks jot down the credit card information on a casual counter top note pad. I have seen them process the sale with that information on the credit card machine. Being busy, they repeat the authorization code to the customer on the phone. After the transaction is done they hang up as they move on to the next customer standing in line. They lay the note pad with the credit card information down onto the counter top in a casual way to free up their hands to do the next transaction on the register machine. I have watched that credit card information sit on a counter top for hours upon end. If it is ever discovered by the wrong person in passing, trust me, that credit card just became a life problem for one of your trusting customers. Your business model will be to blame. That life tragedy will be strictly placed onto your shoulders for error management. Simple things can become very serious management errors. It is your job to anticipate where to head off as many of these potentials as you can mentally define. You must arrange your model to address these imaginary concerns. You need to recognize where your business model can go terribly wrong.
It does not need to be a massive flame to burn a big fire. Business owners need to recognize this truth in how they design what their model decides to do. It can be very serious business. We live in a day and age whereby many new things of critical interest have drifted onto the scene of business importance. The way we design our models to address these issues of new concern will often times determine how our outcomes will be limited to small pains. I lock my wares. I protect my work. I am careful in how I run the private things my business performs. We teach our staff and the people we serve how to respect the new concerns that are evident in this fast paced, ever-changing world. These are simple responsibilities that can grow up big if we do not heed their ability to damage what we own. Sometimes the worst things can crop up from the smallest little details. We can avoid some tragic results by paying closer attention to the little things that can sneak up and hurt our future efforts.
I have had my share of jaw dropping experiences in my business career. Each one has helped me re-develop how I do what I do. My library of jaw dropping events can fill up the pages of a wonderful book. I might write that book one of these days. I am just glad the results I lived through did not amount to enough pain and trouble to bring my business model down. I personally know of a few cases where that kind of tragedy has wiped out the models they attacked. I am one of those who has escaped that kind of terrible news. Although I have stood close to the edge of a few of them, I have not had to endure the full brunt of the damage they could have eventually done. Pay closer attention to these smaller business details. They might not seem to matter as much as they can hurt your future. Anticipate where the best wrongs need to be removed the most. That is part of your package of responsibilities that comes with business ownership.
Ain't it fun? Keep your jaw tightly closed and enjoy finding out where the problems may occur.
Until next time...
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