The First Traffic Ticket

By Eric F. Nusbaum, PhD, CHA

As you think about how to become a more effective manager and improve your business, I want to relate an incident that happened a few years ago. We used to live in the country on a main road. About a mile down that road was a farm stand that had grown, by hard work and good service, into a seasonal restaurant and ice cream stand. On one of the last days of fall my two sons came home from taking a bicycle ride to the farm stand with a babysitter, a very competent and responsible young woman. As they got off their bikes and removed their helmets my youngest breathlessly announced, “We got stopped by the Police Chief and got tickets!” You may be able to appreciate the instantaneous horror I felt and the fear that perhaps they had been riding too far out in the road, riding in the wrong direction, or somehow endangering themselves and others. My next thought was, “When did the police start ticketing eight and ten year olds?”

Pulling myself together as quickly as I could, I asked the sitter if indeed the police had stopped the boys. She replied that the Police Chief had stopped the boys and talked to them. Them my youngest handed me something. “What is it?” I asked. “It’s the ticket!” he said. Looking down I saw a reflective piece of soft plastic which said BIKE SAFETY and had clips on either end so that it could be attached to the spokes of a bicycle wheel.

While getting an ice cream cone himself, the Police Chief had seen the boys put on their helmets before getting on their bikes and seen the safety reflectors on the front wheels. He stopped them to reward them for their safe operating practices.

Before this event I had to constantly nag my sons to wear their helmets and had to fight with them about having safety reflectors on the wheels – “They look geeky, Dad.” Well, they were the ones who insisted on clipping their BIKE SAFETY reflectors to their rear wheels, and they were the ones who started putting on their helmets even before taking their bikes out of the garage.

My nagging about bike safety and wearing a helmet did not motivate my sons to act safely. My setting the example and wearing my helmet may have had some effect, but what really turned the tide was the recognition my sons received for doing something right. It helped that the authority figure who recognized their actions was an outsider, but the fact remains that – People do what they get rewarded for doing. Sometimes the rewards are simple, straight forward, and inexpensive. A little positive reinforcement can go a long way.

As you try to bring out the best in your people, let me ask you:

When was the last time you tried to catch your people doing it right?
When was the last time you gave your employees a silent and unexpected “thank you” such as brining in pizza for them?

Managerial systems and years of tradition have set up managers up as babysitters who have to make sure that their staff doesn’t go too far out in the road or ride on the wrong side of the road, or go to work without the proper uniform. We sometimes get more involved in correcting improper behaviors than in rewarding or reinforcing proper behaviors. The resulting climate in your business may be one of fear and resentment leading to employees who do their jobs with marginal enthusiasm and without commitment.

Perhaps it is time to reinvent the model. Rather than treating our employees as children who need babysitters, perhaps we could treat our employees as adults and thank them with something more than their paycheck – thank them with respect. Past experience shows that even those employees who have been repetitively beaten down by other managers will generally rise to the level of respect that they are given and will perform at or above expectation. Catch your people doing ‘it” right and watch how their performance soars and your business grows.

Eric F. Nusbaum is a hospitality management consultant with experience in clubs, hotels, restaurants, and senior feeding. He has taught hospitality management in the United States and Switzerland and is a CRA member. He can be reached at (413) 774-2786. www.wheelwrightconsultants.com

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