Before we move too far in believing we fully understand the behaviors and values that are important to our organization, let's consider two examples.
The first is one that almost everyone can relate to, being that of a restaurant. Whether you operate one or not, most of us patronize one or more a week. What we will not consider in this short journey will be physical characteristics such as parking availability, overall attractiveness of the facility, and so forth. What we will concentrate on are those things that require humans to behave a certain way and values that humans identify with.
As we enter the building, how are we greeted? I would bet your experience has been much like mine; the variations about equal the number of visits, whether it is to the same establishment or not. What would you like to see as a customer, and how would you really like to be treated? Do you value the fact that the receptionist really is glad to see you? How immediately and how friendly are you dispositioned? Does the person behind the counter really look like they are glad to be there and that they really understand how to manage the seating within the restaurant. If you have to wait, is it for the amount of time that you were told, and if not, were you updated or just left hanging?
When you were told that your table was ready, were you escorted by someone that made you feel welcome, or did you look around trying to figure out whom to follow where? When you arrived at your table, was it clean and orderly, or was it still wet and half-cleaned, or not cleaned at all? How about around the table? If it wasn't perfect, how did it make you feel, especially about the food you were about to eat?
How did the wait staff perform? Did you feel like you were their most important customer, or where you lost to the masses? Was the service timely? Were they able to answer your questions? Did you ever run out of something to drink, or if your meal came with such things as chips and dip, did it run out before your meal arrived? Most importantly, did you get what you ordered, just like you expected? How was the quality of the food? If you had eaten at this establishment and had ordered this meal before, was it exactly like the time before? When your meal was complete, what was the overall experience that you took with you, communicated to others, and that formed your future frame of reference?
If you operate a restaurant, would you be afraid to have the guests see the kitchen? Have you personally visited the restrooms? The one comment I hear more often than not from folks that eat out is, "The restrooms were awful!" If they are not clean, how do you think they feel about the remainder of your facility that they haven't seen, like the kitchen for example?
This little journey through a restaurant is familiar to all of us, whether the experience was good or bad. The behaviors and values that were exhibited, or not, would include such things as: friendliness, attention to detail, quality, consistency, adaptability, being quick to take advantage of opportunities, taking individual responsibility, being rule-oriented, being team-oriented, being people-oriented, tolerance, decisiveness, being highly organized, having a clear guiding philosophy, being results-oriented, having high performance expectations, being supportive, being calm, enthusiasm for the job, having a good reputation, an emphasis on quality, respect, and so forth.
As you look at each of these behaviors or values, you can easily place them in several places in the example we just walked through. It is difficult to determine whether a human has these positive traits just from an employment interview, and almost impossible to fully train. We will discuss this more in detail later.
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