When Howard Schultz ran a meeting at Starbucks, he mentally added two seats to the table for people who usually didn’t have a regular seat there: One for a Starbucks employee and one for a customer. Both seats were given a voice when a decision was about to be made. They were being asked: “Would that particular decision make our people and our customers proud?”
If the answer wasn’t a loud “yes” from both then there was a need for further discussion.
It’s easy to increase the short-term profit by reducing the level of service, by squeezing out an extra hour, by demanding more and delivering less.
But in the long-run, if our employees stop being proud working with us, the customers will take notice. If our decision doesn’t make the customers proud, sooner or later someone will come along who does make their customer proud.
How did your last decision make your employees proud? How did it make your customers proud?
