V*(1+I+P) = Superior results
A lot of people labor their day away without much thought at what they do. They don’t take a particular interest in what they do, nor are they particularly proud on what they do. They exchange time for money.
What a waste of time, talent and work.
Example: on many Swiss trains there is a Minibar service. A little trolley serving coffee, tea, croissants in the morning, sandwiches later in the day. A steward accompanies the trolley. And these folks often look like a sheepdog on the sixth day of rain. Not a faint smile; not a hello when passing; conversation is reduced to basics: customer “Coffee”, the reply after serving “3.80 please”. Not an experience to repeat (even though the coffee served got remarkably better – and a lot more expensive).
There is the odd man out: a steward often doing the Lucerne Zurich line. He comes singing and praising the day and any of his customers. He wishes everyone a nice day whether you buy something or not, and if you buy a coffee the croissant is just a smile away. A superb steward with satisfaction in what he’s doing and pride in his work.
Why this difference between him and the rest of the stewards?
In the days when international rail travel still counted for something, the company was called SSG – Schweizerische Speisewagengesellschaft. Starting in the 90ties a series of mergers, acquisitions and rebranding followed. There was a co-operation with the railway restaurant owners, a rebranding as Passagio Rail together with a take-over by Autogrill, an Italian company, a merger with the Swiss part of Mitropa, a rebranding as Elvetino, recently it was folded back into the federal railways, and I probably miss an act or two of this saga.
Over a countless number of management changes the company has probably been reduced to a set of Excel sheets without spirit. People up in management simply pressed and press the lemon ever more based on tour reports and other filtered information. I am a regular train passenger. In the past years I never saw a manager accompanying a steward to get street (better: train) smart.
The consequences: shrinking turnover, increasing personal turnover, shrinking results, increasing management stress, evaporating company spirit, and at the end a devalued and run down company with a notable exception or two. No wonder that the company has been reshuffled about every three to four years.
It needs not to be that way.
A vocation can be more than just a work (V). Active interest in what you do and pride on what you do will change everything. Run the equation. Set interest or appeal in your work (I) and pride (P) each to zero and you have just work. Invest in both and the same amount of work will produce far superior results. No matter how you measure interest and pride, any value above zero will do the trick.
You say, tedious work like running a Minibar up and down a train can neither be interesting nor particularly satisfactory? Wrong. As student I earned my living doing exactly this: running Minibars up and down trains. At the time we had some superiors who knew how to instill a certain sense of mission in us stewards. We took a keen interest in what we did and were proud working for the railway. From time to time a superior accompanied us, improving our steward skills and praising us on our achievements. Success was celebrated and it was a fun atmosphere. Even on the fully packed Sunday evening Zurich to Geneva Intercity train Müller III and myself had much excitement working the aisles. On arriving at midnight in Geneva, we regularly booked record revenues. Something that counts, if you’re just paid by commission.
It boils down to a simple management ground rule: focus on people, not on numbers.
A more academic but exciting view on the same subject was Barry Schwartz’s talk at this year’s TED conference: let people do the right thing - focus on virtue, character and practical wisdom instead of rules, bureaucracy and incentives.
Comments
SA
@ 09.04.2009 19:47 CESTNice posting. Do you find that you are applying the same techniques in the running of Nektoon?
BTW, I teach a course on process management & innovation and use a textbook case study on GateGourmet (Osterloh & Frost). Surprisingly enough, even though I was using the latest edition, no reference was made to the impact on employee strikes based on spreadsheet economics applied to the business. A quick search online will show you how GateGourmet treated their UK employees. Your Minibar story reminded me of this case study. How detached sometimes "management" as a science can be from from human(e) behavior -- and for that matter common sense: motivated employees = happy customers = happy business outcome.
Christian
@ 21.04.2009 12:18 CESTGood story and true people are what ultimately matters, but modern corporate culture couldn`t care less.
A good story of the kind of spirit we live in today is here:
http://exiledonline.com/class-war-101-meet-the-reptiles-who-are-making-meat-out-of-you/#more-6960
Excerpt:
"In 1978, American CEOs made more than 30 times the average salary of their company’s employees; by the early 2000s, CEOs made more than 500 times the average salary of their employees. Workers weren’t losing just a portion of the wealth, but also their pensions, health care, vacation time and job security."
Some more cultural stuff by D. Rushkoff at the Web 2.0 Expo:
http://blip.tv/file/1951387/
