Process is not your staff's job

(upbeat music) - If I've heard it once, I've heard it a hundred times. A manager will say to me, my people don't think. I'll tell you what that makes me think. That makes me think when do you give your people an opportunity to think? And when they do think, and vary from their process, how do you react? How do you coach them? What do you do to encourage them? The issue here is that managers will mistake following process with someone's job. Let me tell you a story about me going to a bank where that issue was very, very obvious. I had an unusual request for the bank. Now, to be clear, it didn't involve a mask and any sort of a note, but it was a different request. So, I wait and I end up going into the customer representative's office. I was immediately encouraged. There's not one, not two, four customer service awards on her desk. I'm thinking all right, we might be able to get this done. She immediately says yes, I get it, I understand what you're doing, and that makes sense. Let me…