The Case of the Shattered Coffee Pot in the Ice Machine

It was a hot summer Saturday back in 1987. I had recently been transferred to the North Rangeline (North) McDonald's Store. I was moved there because I had earned a reputation as a powerful motivator and great teacher. And, to put it simply, North needed that -- desperately. On my third Saturday there (a scorcher), we were just finishing the breakfast rush and getting ready to transition to lunch (always a chaotic time). One of the employees came running over to me with a cup full of ice (she was about to fill a drink order for the drive thru). She frantically pointed out the quarter-sized piece of glass in the ice. I quickly checked our ice machine and saw the remnants of a shattered glass coffee pot. One of the crew had done it. (Luckily, this was our first soda of the day so no customers were affected.)

The first thing we had to do was shut down the machine and pull all of the ice out of the ice bin stations in both the drive thru and the front line. Those had to be thoroughly and carefully cleaned. I pulled out petty cash and sent an employee to the grocery store to buy up bags of ice. I called other McDonald's nearby and arranged to have an employee come by with plastic bins to collect some ice. Once the immediate situation was taken care of, I knew that I had to handle the more difficult part of it: taking care of the employees who did it.

Although there were no witnesses, I had a strong suspicion of who had done it, as did all the other employees. There were three employees who were extremely disgruntled and unhappy. They were also the three most knowledgeable and potentially best employees that I had ever worked with. I sent them on break together to give myself time to collect my thoughts. I grabbed a cup of coffee and headed back to the break room. As I entered the break room, they all looked up at me, expectantly and not without some hostility. I asked them if they would mind if I sat down with them for a minute. I could tell that was not what they were expecting! Then, I asked them if they'd be willing to talk for a few minutes and I assured them that I would add that time onto their break time. Then I said, "I wonder if you guys could help me out. About what just happened with the ice -- to me, that is a clear symptom of what's going on in this store. You guys have been here a long time, you know the store and you know your jobs. What do you think the real problems are?"

About 15 minutes later, they stopped talking. I had taken notes. I summarized the points they had made (for the most part, they were all valid) and then I said "Thank you for taking the time to be so upfront with me. I am going to work my hardest to bring about changes. I am going to work my tail off to make things better. I won't be able to do that overnight, but I will work to bring about changes as quickly as possible. I hope that you will be with me in making these changes." Then I stood up and said "So, I'll see you up front in about 20 minutes or so?" All three stood up and said "No, we will go back with you now."

In all the hard work that was before me, these three employees worked as hard and as loyally as anyone else. The fact that I listened to them spread throughout the store, among all the different shifts, and I became the manager that people trusted enough to talk to. That was essential. I needed to hear what was really going on. Of course, I also had to do something as well, otherwise I would have lost that trust. Together we turned that store into a place where employees worked with pride. Within three months, we turned the reputation of the store around. As a direct result of my hard work at North, I was awarded the opportunity to become a Store Manager at another nearby McDonalds. I gladly welcomed that challenge. When I announced that I would be leaving and going to the other store, about half of the employees at North put in their request to be transferred to the store I was going to (and, the same thing happened at the Main Street Store (the store I had been at before North)!). Sadly, the regional supervisor limited the amount of transfers I could accept. One of those that wanted to transfer -- and one I accepted -- was one of the women who, I believe, broke the coffee pot in the ice machine. From that day on, she was one of the best and most loyal employees that I ever worked with.

Manage the results, not the actions

The older I get, the wiser my parents get. I've come to realize that my Dad was a master teacher and motivator. Whenever I had some new skill to learn or job to do, my Dad would explain it (and why it was important), he would explain the result or outcome we wanted, he would demonstrate how it was done, he would watch me as I did it, he would provide feedback on my performance, and then, when I looked liked I had a handle on it, he would walk away and leave me to do my job. Of course, he always said, "If you run into trouble or if you have any questions, just come get me." By walking away, he turned the responsibility of the outcome over to me.

When I was first became a store manager at McDonalds back in the 1980s, other store managers warned me that since I was working with primarily kids, I would need to become a micro manager; I would need to be looking over their shoulder every step of the way. This didn't seem realistic to me. How could I be looking over everybody's shoulder all the time?

I didn't want to manage actions; I wanted to manage results. I trained my team as my Dad had trained me. Confident that they knew what to do, how to do it, and the result we were looking for, I walked away. Well, I walked away to the front line where I had a birds-eye view of the results: I could see the product, I could see the service, I could see and interact with customers. If there was a problem (which was rare), I knew it almost instantly and could deal with it immediately -- usually well before it reached a customer.

It isn't simply a coincidence that I had the lowest employee turnover, the highest PAC (profit after controllables), and tremendous customer loyalty. Best of all, to me, is that we had an environment where my team got to shine. One of the best compliments I ever received was from a 17 year-old young man who had worked for me for over a year (he was a star performer!). One day he told me, "You're the only adult I know who trusts me to be responsible. That's why I love my job."

Assume Positive Intent

Fortune Magazine had their "Best Advice" issue (May 12, 2008). While there were many great pieces of advice, one really stood out for me. It was by Indra Nooyi (Chairman and CEO of Pepsi): "Whatever anybody says or does, assume positive intent . . . . When you assume negative intent, you're angry."

This is a behavior that I need to improve on. It's so easy to see a behavior and assume the worst -- or even just assume that we know that person's motivation. However, by following Nooyi's advice and assuming positive intent, we allow ourselves room to explore (and, at the very least, we save ourselves from some unnecessary anger).

When I was in Missouri when my mom was dying, my sisters and I took shifts at the hospital with mom. I had left the hospital around four in the morning. At 7:30 that morning, my sister called and told me that I needed to get back -- mom had taken a sharp turn for the worse. I jumped in the car and started driving. As luck would have it, the town was having it's city-wide garage sale. This meant that a number of the streets were blocked off and that people were driving very slow so that they could peruse the different sales from their cars. I was frantic! I had the misfortune of getting behind one pick-up truck who was going very, very slow and who was driving in the center of the road. I tried tapping the horn and trying to signal that I needed to get around him. That just made him slow down. It's entirely possible that he thought I was just being an impatient, obnoxious driver. He had no way of knowing that I was desperately trying to get to my mother's side before she died. I am remembering that as I am driving in the city: when someone cuts me off or is driving impatiently, I remind myself that I don't know where they are going or what their circumstances are. It allows me to be a little more patient, a little more forgiving. It also saves me from expending -- and wasting -- energy on being angry.

You need more than a hammer

Several years ago I read a book called In Harm's Way by Doug Stanton. It's the story of the USS Indianapolis and is a fascinating and horrifying read. One of the stories is about two survivors, McCoy and Brundige, who, along with several others, floated in a damaged life boat for over four days waiting to be rescued. As the hours went by, they watched the sharks attack others and they watched their friends die. They didn't have any food or water and the sun, during the day, was blistering their skin. At night, the temperature dipped and their core body temperatures fell dangerously low. As the hours turned into days, other boys would give up, take off their life jackets and dive into the water, knowing that the sharks would come for them and end their pain. When the third day rolled around and they were both severely dehydrated and burned, they started betting each other who would die first. They each swore that it would be the other one because they each claimed that they were the toughest and strongest. From that point on, giving up wasn't an option. They had something to prove, something to live for. Mercifully, they were rescued on the fourth day.

This story is a powerful reminder that in communication, in relationships, in leadership, there is never just one way to do anything all the time. Whereas early on in the disaster, McCoy would seek to reassure the other boys that help was on the way, there came a point where reassurance and comfort wasn't going to work anymore. That was the time to challenge their pride or their toughness. Too often we rely on what we know best or what feels best and we fail to recognize that we need to use a different tool.

This is when our empathy makes a massive difference. We need to able to understand what the other person is going through and what they need to hear at the time, instead of simply saying what we need to say. Sometimes that might be support, sometimes it might be comfort and sometimes it might be a challenge. The key is that we have to pay attention. We don't get to operate on autopilot. I know we've probably all heard this quote by Abraham Maslow, but it is extremely wise and bears repeating:"If the only tool you have is a hammer, you will see every problem as a nail."

Yesterday's War

I have been reading Who Says Elephants Can't Dance by Louis Gerstner, Jr. It's the story of how he turned IBM around. It is a fascinating book. He discusses the strategy that they used and something he said caught my eye: he said that they had to stop fighting yesterday's war, they had already lost that and it was time to move on. How many times do we do that in both our personal and professional lives?

It might be some injustice that we suffered or some hurt that someone caused us. Months and even years after the event, we sometimes find ourselves still suffering or fighting that war. It's over. There is nothing to be gained by continuing to fight once you've lost the battle. As George Patton once said, "When the horse is dead, dismount." So, why do we continue the battle? I think that it's because we can't stand that someone hurt us or treated us unfairly and we weren't able to prevent it. For me, I've often wondered who I was more upset with: the person who trespassed or myself for not preventing it?

I remember a conversation I had with my Mom years ago. She had been deeply hurt by her sisters. She held on to that pain for decades. That didn't hurt her sisters -- it only hurt her. One day (years after the event) she was worked up about it and obviously in pain over it. I took her hand and I said, "Mom, let it go. You are only hurting yourself. Yes, what they did was wrong and I know that it hurt you. But now you are hurting yourself." I am sure that there was probably a more skilled way of saying that and I don't think I helped her at all. But I remember witnessing her turmoil and seeing that while her sisters had perpetrated the first offense, she had continued to cause pain to herself by holding onto it. It was a really sad example of yesterday's war being lost but not over -- and she was the only one still fighting it. I try to remember this incident and use it as a yellow flag to myself when I find myself ruminating over stuff that is in the past.

It's your life, not a movie!

We have probably all been horrified by the U-Tube video of the cheerleader beating. I saw an interview with an expert who said that this is a problem that psychologists are seeing more and more. People are disconnected with reality. It's not that they are mentally ill; it's just that they see themselves as actors in some movie, not as real people in their own lives. This ties back to one of the key principles of Emotional Intelligence (EQ): consequential thinking. Consequential thinking is the critical ability to understand what you are feeling and what actions you are about to take and then analyze the likely results and outcomes you will get from those actions. In general, you can see this lack of consequential thinking in many areas of our society: the CEO who steals or misdirects the use of funds; the out-of-control driver who endangers the lives of others; hockey parents who get into fights in the stands; students who plot to kill their teachers. These, of course, are easy to spot. What about the less obvious? What about the person walking down the street, listening to their I-Pod (or texting on their phone), who walks out into an intersection without first looking both ways? What about the driver who is talking on their cellphone, changing the DVD for their kid, and fiddling with the GPS device? And even more basic, what about the person who, time and time and time again, just can't help themselves when they get frustrated or when they get angry and yet is surprised to find that people don't like working with them? Our actions have consequences -- and very real ones at that. This isn't some movie that we get to stumble through and then rewind and return if we don't like it. What are some examples of the absence of consequential thinking that you've seen in your life/business? What about some examples of the presence of consequential thinking that are admirable and inspiring?

Running amok

I read an article in Fortune (March 31, 2008) regarding Eliot Spitzer. The author talked about Spitzer's complete lack of self-restraint, his temper, and his "schoolyard behavior." As I read the article, I couldn't help but think that here is a guy that clearly had the IQ to be successful, but what he lacked -- and what contributed to his demise -- was Emotional Intelligence (EQ). He had no idea how to, in the author's words, "behave like a grownup." If all the research on EQ hasn't convinced us how important it is to a person's success, Spitzer provides a terrific and convincing anecdotal case. Self-awareness and self-management are two of the cornerstones to EQ. In other words, "What am I feeling?" and "What should I do about it?" While both are important and you can't have self-management without self-awareness, think about that second question for a minute: What should I do about it? There is an implicit statement in that question: we have the power to choose how to respond. While this takes discipline and commitment, it is possible. When I read Team of Rivals about the cabinet that Abraham Lincoln assembled, I was completely inspired and humbled by the greatness Lincoln displayed by his choices in responding to those around him. When those closest to him wanted him to lash out at his detractors, Lincoln displayed wisdom, savvy, and utter greatness.

Cheering for others

I am a volunteer coach in a wonderful program for young girls called Girls on the Run. It teaches girls about running, healthy diet and lifestyle, self-esteem and leadership. I have noticed something interesting with the girls. There are about three girls who run significantly faster and farther than the other girls. They are very diligent and serious about their running. Near the end of the session, we always ask the girls who have completed their run, to stand near the finish line and cheer in the other girls. For the three girls who are always the fastest, this is when they become the most animated! They come alive cheering for the other girls. Out of the entire session, this is when they appear to be most engaged. And, for the girls who are struggling to finish, just having others cheer for them inspires them! They run a little faster, they hold their heads up a little higher, and they have big smiles on their faces as they cross the finish line. Of course, as soon as they cross that finish line, what do you think they start to do? That's right -- they start cheering for the girls who have yet to finish! It is my favorite part of the program. It makes me wonder how this very basic human connection -- cheering for others -- might be used in our families and workplaces? Is there a place for it? How could it work?