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September 2009
A Waitress and a Pint of Guinness, Without Customer Focus

I asked Anya, our waitress, what had happened, and her answer illustrates an important point about leadership.

Anya was pulling me a free pint of Guinness at a family reunion in Ireland. All 23 of us were entitled to a free drink, to make up for some terrible service at dinner.

Service had been atrocious, with the worst part being that my brother-in-law had waited almost two hours for his meal. So the drinks on the house were the banquet manager’s way of trying to make it up to us.

When I asked what the problem had been, Anya, the waitress, explained that they were short staffed in the kitchen, and when she had gone to the cook to get him to speed it up, he grumbled that he wouldn’t.

So, she told him, “Look you have to, because I’m the one who’s out there and has to deal with the customers and their angry complaints.”

Wrong response, because it’s focused on Anya, not the
customers. In these situations, effective leaders focus on the customer. It’s never about you, or me, or anyone else in the organization. It’s about the customer.

But Anya is, in effect, saying, “It’s about me. Cook
faster so I don’t have to deal with angry customers.”
Remember, she’s trying to get the cook to do something he doesn’t want to do.

With this approach, making it about herself, how will the cook probably respond? Something like, “Why should I care about you? I don’t like you. You don’t get the orders right, you’re always late for work….”

Then Anya will respond in kind, and while they’re sounding like Serena Williams arguing a foot fault, my poor brother-in-law is quickly losing body mass. (An infusion of Guinness seemed to take the edge off his hunger.)

Even if the cook isn’t saying those things, you can bet
he’s thinking them. And thinking about how ticked off he is at Anya probably won’t improve his cooking speed. It could even reduce it, if he chooses the passive aggression strategy.

It’s always about the customer, and Anya’s response should have focused on the customer: “I know we’re short staffed, but we’re here to serve our customers, and you need to step it up so we provide the service they deserve at this restaurant.”

People frequently use a personal reason (about you, or me, or someone else) in making a request or complaint:
“You have to do this so Joe can save face.” “You
shouldn’t have brought that up in the meeting because it made Sue look bad.” “Stop bad-mouthing my department because it hurts morale.”

You need to focus on the customer, and figure out how bad morale in the department has an adverse effect on the customer, or the teamwork needed to serve the customer better.

Remember it’s never about you or anyone else. It’s always about the customer. How well are you focusing on the customer in similar situations?

Until next edition, keep leading the way!

Copyright (C) 2009 by Terry Wall

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