I was in line at the airport this week to buy a sandwich from my favorite shop on the concourse. Everyone behind the counter was scurrying around like ants in a colony. In the midst of this activity, the supervisor suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. “Alright!” she said, getting everyone’s attention. “Who didn’t clean the Panini machine? If food gets burned onto the griddle, it’s a terrible pain to get it off. Remember,” she continued, “You are being recorded and WILL be charged for any maintenance costs to fix the machine!”
Her assembled crew studied their shoes for a moment. Then they went back to work making sandwiches and salads.
The customers in line all looked at each other. “You are being recorded and will be charged,” some of us quietly mimicked. For the life of me, I can’t figure out how anyone could enforce a policy like the one she espoused. After all, if it sounds like a silly rule, it probably is. But more to the point, I have to wonder what this kind of practice is doing to morale and productivity.
In a fast-paced environment like a sandwich shop, everyone screws up. I can’t tell you, for instance, the number of dishes I burned or dropped when I worked for a restaurant chain years ago, but it was a lot. When you’re feeding 1500 people in one evening, stuff happens. Should we have slowed down to be more precise? Maybe. But then what impact would that have had on customer service? Give most people the incentive to a good job and reason will prevail. If you’re going to make a lot of money in a fast-paced environment, a percentage of it will be lost to mistakes.
Are we beginning to see an atmosphere of rules and regulations that crowd out common sense? It would seem that way in many instances. Sure, there need to be guidelines and consequences to focus the work. But when we remove a worker’s opportunity to use her judgment in prioritizing what’s important, we create an atmosphere of compliance rather than creativity and productivity. Look around your environment. Are the rules getting the better of the common sense? If so, what can you do about it?