CenterCafe.com Opens up it's Forums
As of this week CallCenterCafe.com's forums are now open to all
visitors to the site. Our forums contain interesting information and
interactions and we look forward to seeing them grow. Topics include
job postings, quality monitoring questions, staffing challenges and
more. We invite all Call Center Professionals to visit http://www.callcentercafe.com/forums/
and get involved in the conversations.
Members of CallCenterCafe.com will enjoy greater functionality of
the forums and all the quality resources available to members. To
become a member of the Cafe visit www.callcentercafe.com.
CEOs say how you treat a waiter can predict a lot about
character
Our Cafe staff found this article and thought you might enjoy
it. The original was published on usatoday.com
and was written by Del Jones.
Office Depot CEO Steve Odland remembers like it was yesterday
working in an upscale French restaurant in Denver. The purple sorbet
in cut glass he was serving tumbled onto the expensive white gown of
an obviously rich and important woman. "I watched in slow motion
ruining her dress for the evening," Odland says. "I thought I would
be shot on sight."
Thirty years have passed, but Odland can't get the stain out of
his mind, nor the woman's kind reaction. She was startled, regained
composure and, in a reassuring voice, told the teenage Odland, "It's
OK. It wasn't your fault." When she left the restaurant, she also
left the future Fortune 500 CEO with a life lesson: You can tell
a lot about a person by the way he or she treats the waiter.
Odland isn't the only CEO to have made this discovery. Rather, it
seems to be one of those rare laws of the land that every CEO
learns on the way up. It's hard to get a dozen CEOs to agree about
anything, but all interviewed agree with the Waiter Rule.
They acknowledge that CEOs live in a Lake Wobegon world where
every dinner or lunch partner is above average in their deference.
How others treat the CEO says nothing, they say. But how others
treat the waiter is like a magical window into the soul.
And beware of anyone who pulls out the power card to say
something like, "I could buy this place and fire you," or "I know
the owner and I could have you fired." Those who say such things
have revealed more about their character than about their wealth
and power.
Whoever came up with the waiter observation "is bang spot
on," says BMW North America President Tom Purves, a native of
Scotland, a citizen of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, who
lives in New York City with his Norwegian wife, Hilde, and works for
a German company. That makes him qualified to speak on different
cultures, and he says the waiter theory is true everywhere.
The CEO who came up with it, or at least first wrote it down, is
Raytheon CEO Bill Swanson. He wrote a booklet of 33 short leadership
observations called Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management .
Raytheon has given away 250,000 of the books.
Among those 33 rules is only one that Swanson says never fails:
"A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter, or to
others, is not a nice person."
Swanson says he first noticed this in the 1970s when he was
eating with a man who became "absolutely obnoxious" to a waiter
because the restaurant did not stock a particular wine.
"Watch out for people who have a situational value system, who
can turn the charm on and off depending on the status of the person
they are interacting with," Swanson writes. "Be especially wary of
those who are rude to people perceived to be in subordinate
roles."
The Waiter Rule also applies to the way people treat hotel maids,
mailroom clerks, bellmen and security guards. Au Bon Pain co-founder
Ron Shaich, now CEO of Panera Bread, says he was interviewing a
candidate for general counsel in St. Louis. She was "sweet" to
Shaich but turned "amazingly rude" to someone cleaning the tables,
Shaich says. She didn't get the job.
Shaich says any time candidates are being considered for
executive positions at Panera Bread, he asks his assistant, Laura
Parisi, how they treated her, because some applicants are "pushy,
self- absorbed and rude" to her before she transfers the call to
him.
Just about every CEO has a waiter story to tell. Dave Gould, CEO
of Witness Systems, experienced the rule firsthand when a waitress
dumped a full glass of red wine on the expensive suit of another CEO
during a contract negotiation. The victim CEO put her at ease with a
joke about not having had time to shower that morning. A few days
later, when there was an apparent impasse during negotiations, Gould
trusted that CEO to have the character to work out any
differences.
CEOs who blow up at waiters have an ego out of control, Gould
says. "They're saying, 'I'm better. I'm smarter.' Those people tend
not to be collaborative."
"To some people, speaking in a condescending manner makes them
feel important, which to me is a total turnoff," says Seymour
Holtzman, chairman of Casual Male Retail Group, which operates
big-and-tall men's clothing stores including Casual Male XL.
How people were raised
Such behavior is an accurate predictor of character because it
isn't easily learned or unlearned but rather speaks to how people
were raised, says Siki Giunta, CEO of U.S. technology company
Managed Objects, a native of Rome who once worked as a London
bartender.
More recently, she had a boss who would not speak directly to the
waiter but would tell his assistant what he wanted to eat, and the
assistant would tell the waiter in a comical three-way display of
pomposity. What did Giunta learn about his character? "That he was
demanding and could not function well without a lot of hand-holding
from his support system," she said.
It's somewhat telling, Giunta says, that the more elegant the
restaurant, the more distant and invisible the wait staff is. As if
the more important the customer, the less the wait staff matters.
People view waiters as their temporary personal employees.
Therefore, how executives treat waiters probably demonstrates how
they treat their actual employees, says Sara Lee CEO Brenda Barnes,
a former waitress and postal clerk, who says she is a demanding boss
but never shouts at or demeans an employee.
"Sitting in the chair of CEO makes me no better of a person than
the forklift operator in our plant," she says. "If you treat the
waiter, or a subordinate, like garbage, guess what? Are they going
to give it their all? I don't think so."
CEOs aren't the only ones who have discovered the Waiter Rule. A
November survey of 2,500 by It's Just Lunch, a dating service for
professionals, found that being rude to waiters ranks No. 1 as the
worst in dining etiquette, at 52%, way ahead of blowing your nose at
the table, at 35%.
Waiters say that early in a relationship, women will pull them
aside to see how much their dates tipped, to get a read on their
frugality and other tendencies. They are increasingly discussing
boorish behavior by important customers at www.waiterrant.net and
other blogs. They don't seem to mind the demanding customer, such as
those who want meals prepared differently because of high blood
pressure. But they have contempt for the arrogant customer.
SWANSON'S UNWRITTEN RULES:
1. Learn to
say, "I don't know." If used when appropriate, it will be used
often.
2: It is easier to get into something than to get out
of it.
3: If you are not criticized, you may not be doing
much
4: Look for what is missing. Many know how to improve
what's there; few can see what isn't there.
5: Presentation
rule: When something appears on a slide presentation, assume the
world knows about it and deal with it accordingly.
6. Work
for a boss to whom you can tell it like it is. Remember, you can't
pick your family, but you can pick your boss.
7: Constantly
review developments to make sure that the actual benefits are what
they were supposed to be. Avoid Newton's Law.
8: However
menial and trivial your early assignments may appear, give them your
best effort.
9: Persistence or tenacity is the disposition
to persevere in spite of difficulties, discouragement or
indifference. Don't be known as a good starter but a poor finisher!
10: In doing your project, don't wait for others; go after
them and make sure it gets done.
11: Confirm the
instructions you give others, and their commitments, in writing.
Don't assume it will get done.
12: Don't be timid: Speak up,
express yourself and promote your ideas.
13: Practice shows
that those who speak the most knowingly and confidently often end up
with the assignment to get the job done.
14: Strive for
brevity and clarity in oral and written reports.
15: Be
extremely careful in the accuracy of your statements.
16:
Don't overlook the fact that you are working for a boss. Keep him or
her informed. Whatever the boss wants, within the bounds of
integrity, takes top priority.
17: Promises, schedules and
estimates are important instruments in a well-run business. You must
make promises — don't lean on the often-used phrase: "I can't
estimate it because it depends on many uncertain factors."
18: Never direct a complaint to the top; a serious offense
is to "cc" a person's boss on a copy of a complaint before the
person has a chance to respond to the complaint.
19: When
interacting with people outside the company, remember that you are
always representing the company. Be especially careful of your
commitments.
20: Cultivate the habit of boiling matters down
to the simplest terms: the proverbial "elevator speech" is the best
way.
21: Don't get excited in engineering emergencies: Keep
your feet on the ground.
22: Cultivate the habit of making
quick, clean- cut decisions.
23: When making decisions, the
"pros" are much easier to deal with than the "cons." Your boss wants
to see both.
24: Don't ever lose your sense of humor.
25: Have fun at what you do. It will be reflected in you
work. No one likes a grump except another grump!
26: Treat
the name of you company as if it were your own.
27: Beg for
the bad news.
28: You remember 1/3 of what you read, 1/2 of
what people tell you, but 100% of what you feel.
29: You
can't polish a sneaker.
30: When facing issues or problems
that are becoming drawn-out, "short them to the ground."
31:
When faced with decisions, try to look at them as if you were one
level up in the organization. Your perspective will change quickly.
32: A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter, or
to others, is not a nice person. (This rule never fails).
33: Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, an
amateur built an ark that survived a flood while a large group of
professionals built the Titanic!
Postscript: The qualities of leadership boil down to
confidence, dedication, integrity and love
