Month: July 2016

I recently was at a restaurant with a large group of people. We had reservations for 20, which the restaurant gladly accepted, but seemingly gave no further thought to the implications of that decision.

As a result, one waitress not only serviced our entire party, but was responsible for many other tables as well. We waited an hour to order, had food sitting out on trays waiting to be placed on the table (thus it was cold when it was delivered), salads were missed, and in short, our two and a half hour meal was not a stellar experience.

And at the same time, we could have asked no more of the waitress herself. She was in perpetual motion, hurrying between our table and others, serving food, taking orders and tending to requests. There was not much more one individual could have done; it was the restaurant ownership that dropped the ball, not her.

Think about whether you have structures that even occasionally put your employees in impossible situations. Do you put your employees in predicaments like this waitress without additional support at “crunch times?” Have you failed to coordinate what sales promises with what production can deliver? Do you put your reputation on the line by providing sub-par service just to save a little in wages?

The waitress is the face of the restaurant, but no matter how pleasant her smile and how accommodating she tried to be, the overall experience was a bad one. Your front line can only compensate for so much. Their earnest efforts to do the impossible don’t make good service possible. Don’t expect otherwise.

— beth triplett
leadershipdots@blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com

Yesterday I wrote about social listening, a strategy for intentionally being aware of social media exchanges and trends with the intent of appropriately mentioning a brand in the conversation.

One of the biggest insights for me was that the major products that use this have not one but two different teams of people involved in the on-going process. One team is exclusively focused on the listening aspect: they follow high traffic spikes and ascertain the influencers who are driving the conversation. But when they discover something relevant, they pass it along to the response team to craft a message to post. 

I would not have considered that two teams were used in the process, but it makes total sense. The listening team needs to be analytical and technologically savvy, creating algorithms and ascertaining when traffic is noteworthy for its volume or content. The response team members are the communicators: the witty, politically astute word mavens who can drop just the right spin into the conversation. It is rare that the two divergent skill sets are found in the same person, thus the two teams.

Think about the tasks that you ask your employees to perform. Have you thought of the skills required, rather than just the functions that are required? Would you be better off splitting the duties differently to allow strengths to shine in diverse staff members? Do you have one team when you may be better with two? 

Listen to the advice of the professional social listeners and delineate responsibilities in ways that match tasks with talents. I think you’ll “Like” the result.

— beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com