Company Blog
Because I Say So
by Adam Zack — August 10, 2016
Rolled our eyes and whined “Whyyyyy????!!”
When my brothers and I were kids we were cute, inquisitive rapscallions who often – innocently and very politely posed the question “Why?” to our mother and father. Well, maybe it wasn’t quite like that. We were rambunctious mountain boys hell bent on having fun with our friends. When directed by our parents to do something we didn’t want to do, we often (as in probably 95% of the time) rolled our eyes and whined “Whyyyyy????!!” And more likely than not the answer from Mom and/or Dad was “Because I said so!” If we persisted in questioning their directive, we often got the “When you have your own kids, you can give the orders! Now go rake the yard before I get the belt out!” Authority is a designation that comes with a certain amount of power to tell other people what to do without question. Why anyone, when confronted by a police officer wouldn’t do EXACTLY as the officer commands is a mile beyond logic to me. After all, he has a gun, handcuffs and if I turn into the smart –mouthed brat that questions him and defies his directives I deserve to be in trouble, right? Well that’s how I see it.
So how do you deal with employees who defy your directives? In our grocery world there are a lot of instances where employees just ignore directives and rules, and we make the mistake of not enforcing them, or looking the other way. The kid who comes to work with his once white shirt wrinkled and gray from washing it (too infrequently, by the way) with the dark colors says “Uhhh, uummmm, sorry.” Consequences? “Well, don’t do it again.” Great companies clearly communicate their basic rules and requests to their employees (I often thought of myself as the Dad to our company’s 400 “kids”) and they fairly and consistently enforce them. It’s not easy and you often think “Why do I have to remind this kid every goddamn day to shave?” It’s part of being the Dad.
Read More – Enforcement Choice
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