I walked into a nearly-deserted McDonald’s recently and ordered a small McCafe shake with no whipped cream or cherry. The young man behind the counter took my money, inserted a cup into the machine’s cup holder, and pressed the “small” button. The machine filled the cup three-quarters of the way. He snapped a lid on it and handed it to me. I asked him if he would top it off since I wasn’t getting the whipped cream and cherry.
He looked bewildered. He looked at the machine. Then he looked at me again, clearly uncomfortable with this dilemma. What should he do? Should he give me more than the proper amount? Would he be breaking a rule? Might he get in trouble? Wasn’t he supposed to be helping the customer? Hmmm . . .
He glanced at his manager who was occupied with something else. He placed another cup on the machine and pressed the “small” button. When the machine had dispensed three quarters of a cup, he poured some of its contents into my cup. Then he threw the remainder in the trash not realizing that he could have overridden the buttons with the lever on the front of the machine. He replaced the lid on my cup, glanced at the manager once again, and then handed it to be with a look that said, “Don’t tell anyone.”
Was this young man’s actions a result of poor training? Perhaps. Were they a result of a manager’s over emphasis on portion control? Maybe. Were they a result of fear of doing the wrong thing? Yes. Take this situation and add it to the thousands of similar incidents taking place in organizations everyday and you understand the challenges facing front-line managers. At what point do we begin to refocus on employee reasoning rather than provide specific instructions for absolutely every task? We can’t expect them to think if we essentially tell them not to.