Ideas for my keynote presentations come from a variety of sources. Recently at my gym (LA Fitness), while hopefully making my waist smaller and my biceps bigger, I recognized a problem faced by a lot of organizations:
People notice the stuff you do, even when you may think they don?t.
I had a front row seat to see one of the cleaning crew in action. He was walking around the gym holding a pole that was at least 15 feet long. The man was using the pole to dust around the ceiling vents.
While I was glad to see the cleaning process, I was also a little disturbed.
All the worker was doing was dislodging the dust from the ceiling. From there it was just falling, like snow, onto the gym.
There was no effort to either vacuum it on the ceiling or when it reached the ground. If anything, I was now coming more in contact with the dust than before. That’s kind of gross.
While I applaud keeping the vents clean, this is not a process that should take place while customers are in the gym. A room should not be made less healthy when people are around.
This may be a case where the cleaning staff has been given instructions (clean the vents) without any context (do this before or after business hours). The worker probably fell into tunnel vision and thought like he was doing a great job without considering his actions. I’m glad he wasn’t told to clean the toilet, otherwise he might have tried to do it while some unlucky soul was using it.
All of this sends a message to customers: We don?t care about you. That?s not the kind of thing that produces undying loyalty.
Some tasks that need to be done at a job should never happen in front of your customers. Here are a few more:
1. Complain about the shortcomings of another part of your organization. People don?t care about this. People want you to find solutions to challenges and not define a problem to them.
2. Argue with a coworker in front of customers. Unless you?re serving popcorn, don?t put on a show, unless you?re prepared for bad reviews.
3. The company isn?t paying you to get dressed, dry and style your hair, or paint your nails. Show up for your job properly groomed.
Let me know if there are any other mistakes I should add to this list.
Your customers are always watching you. Whether it?s dust or some other kind of distraction, they will remember what you did.
