If you are a U.S. football fan you watched two teams on the verge of going to the ultimate game in the league, the 2012 Super Bowl in Indianapolis, to be broadcast on NBC, fall short specifically due to one individual player on each team.
The owners, the head coach and the players all rallied around their errant team mate on each of these teams and said, “This is a team sport, no one individual wins or loses a game.”
In the last month or so there have been two incidents where a delivery person has been caught on security cameras tossing fragile packages, where in each case the enclosed items were severely damaged.
If you were in charge of these two individuals, what course of action would you take? Is it easier to fire the employee and make an example by saying “This is what happens to you when you do not follow the rules of who we are and what we are about.”
OR…
Instead would you have the employee go through a retraining and potentially become an in house spokesperson and trainer of what not to do for new employees? How powerful would this message be with the video clip and now the talk by the same person from the video who tossed the package?
The way you handle these situations is much larger than the specific incident. When you are in a leadership role and a position of authority, you must have the leadership skills necessary to understand the breadth and the depth of your actions.
In discussions with a number of PIC (people in charge), it was amazing to me the response to both of the stories described. Many said in regard to the football games, that both players should be dropped off their respective teams as they would now be ‘head cases’ for the rest of their playing days. A large number of the PIC stated they would fire the delivery people as they had the proof they needed in the video. The delivery people did not follow their guidelines, rules, customer care, and they should be let go for cause. In following up with questions about the cost to hire good delivery people and the cost of training, wouldn’t it be worth it to retrain and refocus the individual. The overwhelming responses were that these areas were never considered when violations were incurred in the field. Interesting?
What would you do if you were in charge of the football team?
What would you do if you were in charge of the delivery person?
What do you do right now in your company, every single day which supports your decisions stated above?
Want to obtain the leadership skills needed to be a leader? Become more than a PIC (person in charge) become a real leader, go to: www.johnmaxwellgroup.com/mitchtublin.
Thanks for your provoking article, Mitch.
MItch,
The deliver driver story makes me think of luggage handlers….
Wouldn’t it be nice if people really cared about their job, making a difference, doing things the right way. A little integrity goes a long way.
Write on!~
Lisa Manyon