Comments

The best restaurateur I ever knew, a fellow named Jerry, owned several Bonanza steakhouses in Tennessee. Just lowly old Bonanzas, you know, nothing fancy.

Those places were packed. ALL the time. And Jerry was everywhere: ringing up orders, carrying trays for diners, bussing tables, mopping up spills, or talking with you friend-to-friend at your table.

ALL of his employees hustled, because the by-now-multimillionaire boss hustled. Jerry hired people with his same kind of drive to please the customer, and modeled the behavior he wanted every single day.

I never considered it an accident - or even possibly an accident - that those restaurants stayed so full of customers all the time.

Posted by Tim Walker at March 24, 2008 12:15 PM

I remember reading in a TP book about how store managers can do exactly this when things got crazy... plus entertain the crowd. (I had vision of a manager donning a red clown nose and polka dotted hat to do so when I read the passage originally).

The world is learning... to entertain customers and to support the front-liners... the people who make the difference... day in day out.

Posted by s g at March 24, 2008 12:16 PM

I remember reading in a TP book about how store managers can do exactly this when things got crazy... plus entertain the crowd. (I had visions of a manager donning a red clown nose and polka dotted hat to do so when I read the passage originally).

The world is learning... to entertain customers and to support the front-liners... the people who make the difference... day in day out.

Posted by s g at March 24, 2008 12:16 PM

I remember reading in a TP book about how store managers can do exactly this when things got crazy... plus entertain the crowd. (I had visions of a manager donning a red clown nose and polka dotted hat to do so when I read the passage originally).

The world is learning... to entertain customers and to support the front-liners... the people who make the difference... day in day out.

Posted by s g at March 24, 2008 12:16 PM

Great comments Tim and s g - I agree 100% with you both

As my late beloved Dad used to say 'When you need them, the best leaders are there - among the muck and bullets'

That has always good advice Dad - thanks :-)

Posted by Trevor Gay at March 24, 2008 1:07 PM

Great to hear, indeed alas so rare.
I am afraid in my local Tesco supermarket here in the UK, 'management' tend to treat customers like part of the store's fixtures and fittings rather than the lifeblood of their success. The 'Tesco Suits' I see are forever whizzing through customers without a courtesy or standing in groups talking about issues and seemingly regarding the trolley-pushing customer as some kind of obstacle. I hope this isn't the culture in all Tesco stores, but they have yet to embrace that hands-on, can-do mindset. That said, the rest of the shop-floor staff are pretty good.

Posted by Ian Sanders at March 24, 2008 1:10 PM

Rare indeed. Here's a link to a post on my blog that describes quite the opposite. It's called "Leading by Example."

http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2008/02/26/setting-the-example.aspx

Posted by Wally Bock at March 24, 2008 3:19 PM

here in Brazil we say:

"serve well, serve always"

service is surely the future, its rare to have good service if you are not "exclusive", this Sir-Manager knows his consumers are going to come back soon.

we need to re-plan and re-do everything on earth. society got into a crazy schema, day after day all we all do is to burn stuff and mess up our sons future.

nowadays few people wants to "get hands to work", God Men will show the future built of time-waste-free work and common-opinion, future belongs to workers and is shinny.

Posted by Leyo! at March 24, 2008 4:00 PM

This a great example of leadership. There's a great quote from John Quincy Adams that says, "If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader". We need more leaders today who live the leadership they are leading.

Posted by Kaplan Mobray at March 24, 2008 4:51 PM

It is often the smallest deeds that are so admirable, so beautiful. Thank you TP for this.

Posted by Judith Ellis at March 24, 2008 5:21 PM

Mr. Peters,
Welcome to Zagreb in June!

Regards from Croatia,
Ina Matijevic

Gopi Where quality becomes reality

Posted by Ina Matijevic at March 25, 2008 6:08 AM

It's not all that unusual in suburban
Atlanta
Or maybe we're just very picky down here.

Posted by fromAtlana at March 25, 2008 8:35 AM

In the US, at least, grocery store managers seem much more involved in customer service than their counterparts at other kinds of retailers, who often seem to think their job descriptions shouldn't involve customer contact.

Chain bookstore, especially, seem to have a culture of management uninvolvement.

Posted by david foster at March 25, 2008 9:29 AM

Bravo, Atlanta! Cosmopolitan as the city is, maybe a little of the old Southern charm is hanging in! In my example, I am "taken" with the ""being there" bit--but in love with the "bagging" job, as low as it gets on the totem pole.

Posted by tom peters at March 25, 2008 10:21 AM

In Atlanta that would probably be the regional chain based in FL. The front service staff is supposed to bag and carry it out for you. You might be asked 3-4 times about carrying it out. One Saturday before Easter I was cashiering on an express register and the store manager was bagging for me and the assistant managers were in the parking lot carrying out groceries and trying to find carts, trollies, buggies or whatever you call them. And no tipping, please. Just part of the service.

Posted by MikeC at March 25, 2008 11:14 AM

I bet you're thinking of Publix -

Posted by fromAtlanta at March 25, 2008 11:18 AM

I bet on Publix too. They are "one of those rare ones" that haven't lost the touch. I drooled over them in A Passion for Excellence in 1985.

Posted by tom peters at March 25, 2008 12:01 PM

Wally Bock....a good example of a bad example. For an executive who took a very different approach, see this story:
http://photoncourier.blogspot.com/2004_05_01_photoncourier_archive.html#108593687763389475

Posted by david foster at March 25, 2008 12:58 PM

Even lower than bagging- cleaning out the fat trap behind the butchers' counter. And that's where you'll find the owner of our local store after hours- you know- the one with the condo in Hawaii and the big boat. Leading by example indeed!

Never any problem finding a manager- they stock the shelves and bag groceries too.

Posted by Lois Gory at March 25, 2008 1:20 PM

That’s a great story Wally - thanks for sharing it. Too many front liners are treated that way by out of touch, aloof managers who would rather be writing reports that no one reads. Things are changing but there is still far too much snobbishness among managers. I love it when managers get stuck in with front liners and customers. Actually I think most managers love it too – the question is – why don’t they do it as matter of course?

In healthcare the CEO’s and Senior Managers who are doctors - and still see patients - are always significantly more credible than managers who are not clinicians. It may be unfair to some brilliant non-clinician managers but hey it’s the real world.

Posted by Trevor Gay at March 25, 2008 1:51 PM

I agree that leaders should muck in and help in emergencies. It does have to be balanced though I have come across many managers who have trouble letting go of the day to day and mucking in. Consequently they are not able to move the org forward.

Posted by PaulH at March 26, 2008 5:53 AM

Lois, that can be a great way to get an employee's attention. One of the people I worked with was manager a store that had a refrigerated case for milk. Cleaning that case was reserved for him. Probably as unlikable as cleaning the fat trap. If an employee mentioned how they didn't like a job they had, he would ask if they wanted to clean the milk case a few times instead.

Posted by MikeC at March 26, 2008 10:54 AM

Once when business was really really slow, I took a job at a local upscale grocery store chain wheeling large industrial floor machines, cleaning about thousands of square feet of floor nightly.

Yes, this very well-educated, well- traveled, rather sophisticated lady cleaned floors, where my counterparts at the other 14 stores were brawny tatooted Harley Davidson biking-driving men. You can imagine how fun that first meeting was. I mean it. It really was fun! We were indeed quite different, but there was an innate similarity that being brings that was embracable. They adjusted to me and I to them.

I must boost that my stores for the nine months that I worked there, despite the brawn of my counterparts, got the highest marks consistently and employees and patrons alike made remarks about my floor, even in a tough Michigan winter. I got the hang of the job so quickly that it took me much less than my scheduled 8 hour shift to clean the floors.

The remaining hours were spent in volunteering for the dirtiest job: cleaning the public bathrooms and the employee bathrooms. Both did not seem assigned to anyone, as they were often in need of cleaning. You can only imagine what cleaning public bathrooms are like. But I got over it really quickly and in the process positively affected, not only the store managers, other employees, the employees of the other 14 stores, and the owners.

Within no time I was summoned to headquarters by the owners who wanted to know the secret of my job success and how I had bonded so well with the other employees in such a short amount of time. (I was given a party with lots of food and gifts when I left.) The owners were hearing about this female floor cleaner in a certain store that wears headphones, sings nightly, smiles easily, and addresses everyone directly. And this came not only from my store, but from the other stores as well.

The summoning to headquarters began a relationship with the owners which resulted in a very lucrative proposal to hire a crew to clean all of their stores. Unfortunately, I could not fulfill the proposal, I needed to travel abroad for an extended period. I tried to place one of my brothers who was in the corporate cleaning business in charge while I travelled but this was not acceptable to the owners. No problem.

When I went to the grocery chain in search of 3rd shift employment so I could run my business during the day, I did not expect that my tenture there would include meeting the owners and writing a lucrative proposal. But I did, however, go in, as I always do, with the purpose of affecting positive change.

I recount this story to say that not only can managers affect positive change, but each employee can do the same. This is so very important. Both managers and employees arise!

Posted by Judith Ellis at March 26, 2008 12:25 PM