How To Get Thrown Out Of An Expensive Italian Restaurant

On Filter-Free Fridays™ you get the opportunity to tell businesses, organizations and people how they are doing - in a non-hurtful way.
Last Friday, my wife and I headed out for some Italian at one of the city’s most expensive Italian restaurants. We had never been to this particular restaurant before but the reviews showed well.
We ordered a glass of red wine, the Caprese salad to start and my wife ordered the House Specialty Lasagna and I ordered the Veal-stuffed Cannelloni. They brought fresh bruschetta on crostinis as their welcome. Delicious - well as delicious as you can make tomatoes in December but well spiced and flavorful. The Caprese was alright I suppose - but again made with out-of-season tomatoes - it was good.
Then the main courses arrived straight from the oven in the same dishes. We had to wait several minutes before we could taste since it was piping hot. When we did, my wife thought the bechamel/tomato sauce (which the pastas were swimming in) tasted more like Campbell’s Cream of Tomato soup, both pasta dishes were overcooked (disintegrated when touched) and there seemed to be a lack of any sort of seasoning. Have you ever tasted veal or lasagna without seasoning? Well it’s tastes like … uh … nothing.
The “pepper girl” came by a few minutes later and asked if we wanted fresh pepper. I simply replied, “I don’t think that’s going to fix it.”
She immediately summoned our server (turns out he was the owner) and when asked, we simply said that the sauce tasted like tomato soup, the pasta was overdone, there was no seasoning and therefore no taste and perhaps it was the worst pasta I have ever had in an upscale restaurant (true).
“Well then this place is not for you,” he barked and angrily gathered up the dishes. “I will pay for what you’ve eaten. You can leave at any time,” he barked and then threw the dishes into a tub in the kitchen (really he threw them). And we left.
If it doesn’t taste good, don’t eat it anyway and then pay for it. Say something. The worst that happens is they ask you to leave. I suppose I could have said everything was “fine” but then I would have been lying and the next customer who ordered the same dish would get an expensive mouthful of nothing.
On Filter-Free Fridays™, you’re not just helping the business get better, you’re making it better for the next person. Tell the truth. They need to hear it.

How To Deal With Bad Parkers At The Mall

It’s the Holiday season. I know this because the malls are full and so are their respective parking lots. The problem is that there could be more parking available if not for the selfish displays of a few drivers who could care less how they park.

Strange isn’t it that people can go to the mall to buy a beautiful gift for a loved one while at the same time thumbing their noses at everyone else. They don’t care how they park, they don’t care that they take up two spaces and they certainly don’t care that they inconvenience you. No because they’re selfish, self-absorbed little idiots who, if they understood the spirit of the season, would park respectfully to allow others to have a happy holiday season as well.

So here’s my solution: it’s Filter-Free Fridays™ so the gloves are off. Right now, cut and paste the following and put it into a Word document four or five times on a page. Make it 16-point type and a bold font and when you print them out, cut them into strips:

• Hey selfish jerk, thanks for parking with such lack of courtesy during this Holiday season. It’s obvious that whatever gift you bought today won’t matter because the Spirit of the Season is apparently lost on you. The truth is, I left you this note because you parked liked a selfish jerk. I didn’t damage your car but you might not be so lucky the next time you don’t think about others. Wake up - oh and Happy Holidays. (www.filterfreefridays.com)

Carry a bunch of these in your car this Holiday Season. You’re going to need them. It’ll take the edge off when you place one under a windshield wiper. Then you can go shopping smiling - with the full Holiday Spirit inside of you. And if you see someone parking like a jerk, correct them before they walk away from their car. I’ll bet most sheepishly return to their cars and park properly. Embarrassment works.

How Speaking Up Saves Your Money

I received my American Express bill last month as usual. The amount owing was a few thousand dollars - so I paid it, in full. Even though I charged nothing to card for the next month, I still received my American Express bill this time with an interest charge of $7.80 owing.

Huh? But I paid it all off last month.

I called American Express where they happily explained to me that the interest had accrued a few months prior and that was the reason that $7.80 in interest was still owing.

"Well then you sent a bill that wasn't complete," I offered, "and if you send me a bill and it shows an amount owing on it and I pay it before the due date, then we should be square. You sent me a bill that was not complete and I don't think I should have to pay more than you billed me for."

I was asked to hold for a moment. The clerk then returned telling me that he had waived the interest owing.

How many people would have simply accepted the convoluted excuse about interest accruing months previous and simply given up. If every month, 100,000 people were to do that worldwide, then the credit card company would generate $780,000.00 of new income monthly.

The first excuse is to test to see if you'll go along with it. When you don't go along, you get rewarded.

Speak up. It's Filter-Free Fridays™ - a day when you speak the truth - to help, not to hurt. Stop being taken advantage of. Stand up for yourself. Use your voice.

How Managers Get Labeled Racist and Bigot

It would so easy to blame your life circumstances on your mediocre teachers of your childhood. Hey, if they had no real understanding of success and how to achieve it, how could they possibly prepare you to be successful right?

So why is it that people are so quick to blame their bosses for not getting ahead at work? Nothing irks me more than hearing that incessant whining of "not being recognized" or "my boss plays favorites and I'm not it" or "it's because I'm (gender, sexual orientation, race, age, weight, etc.)."

Those comments are the result of owning an "entitlement" mentality: you think you are entitled to be further than you are and now you are blaming others for not just giving it to you. Truth is, you are also entitled to be unemployed.

Managers who give credence to the people playing this game for fear of being labeled as a bigot, racist, etc., are just as guilty of keeping this entitlement mentality going.

Look, people who say this stuff do so because no one has told them any different. If they are not being promoted because they aren't competent, then they deserve to be told they are not competent. Saying nothing for fear of offending allows employees to pull stuff out of the air, to make stuff up in the absence of information - and then you have twice the work to do in straightening it out.

If you speak with your people every single day (and that really IS your job - not paperwork and management meetings, contrary to what you might think) and let them know how they are doing in simple ten-second conversations, you end up eliminating a lot of the backlash that could come later. People want to know how they are doing and in the absence of information, they will make stuff up based on what they THINK is the truth. My Tweak™ - The Future of Management program addresses exactly this.

If this is happening to you as a manager then you're not managing, you're defending. And you can't help your people get any better if you're constantly defending yourself. When this happens, you are in the way of your people getting any better. Now you need a new manager to start over. Maybe you should have just told them the truth: that their work is mediocre and not worthy of promotion.

“Service Postponement” Is Rampant

So let’s say you had a bad meal in a restaurant. You call over your waitress and you tell her that the meal is not satisfactory. She apologizes and offers to make it right.

When your waitress appears at the table again she presents you with your bill. You notice that you are being charged full price for a meal you had already told them was not satisfactory but you find attached to your bill is a $10 off coupon good for your next visit.

Offer to fix my problem at some point in the future and you won’t have a problem to fix in the future because I won’t be back. But I will make sure that none of my friends come to visit you either.

Trust me, this happens more often than it should. Why is it that restaurants want to wait until sometime in the future before they fix the problems you had today? But it’s not just restaurants who do this. This same service abdication happens across all industries. This is what I call, “Service Postponement.”

How ridiculous is it that you think that you will be able to solve a problem at some point in the future if you are not prepared to solve that problem today?

A customer who is having a problem today needs to have that problem fixed today. And if you are that customer who is having that problem today, then you need to address it today. Do not let businesses wait until sometime in the future before they fix the problem today.

Remember, on Filter-Free Fridays™ you take off the filters that prevent you from telling the truth and you say something in an effort to help them serve you better.

Leave me your comments about your “Service Postponement” experience below.

How To Handle Arrogant Businesses

I can admit when I am wrong. It just doesn't happen very often - the "being wrong" part, not the admitting it part.

Last week, for Filter-Free Fridays™, I blogged about how you can't just lie to businesses by saying everything was fine when it wasn't and then go home and trash them on the Internet. In fact, I said, "Businesses want to be better. They want to serve you better. They want to offer you better products and service. They want to offer you innovative new ways of improving what they do to make your experience that much better."

And I was wrong.

Not every business wants to be better. In fact, some businesses are so full of themselves that no matter what you say, they will treat you like an idiot and make you feel as though they're doing you a favor by allowing you to do business with them. Those are the businesses that need a swift kick in the revenues.

I encountered one of those businesses this week. After dealing with a constant turnover of sales reps over a seven-month period, my frustration got the better of me. The new sales rep was more concerned about looking good than serving us well. So, I was honest and forthcoming. I told them face-to-face what I thought they might improve but they refused to listen. I told them directly how disappointed I was with their service but they refused to listen. I told them what we initially agreed on but they attempted to arbitrarily change the contract by adding items and clauses not previously spelled out. I did this in-person, in writing and in telephone conversations. And still, they feel that I need to pay more money than what we agreed so that I can be served less.

So now, I will warn others to keep clear of dealing with banquet staff at a particular hotel in the Ottawa area (and if you are an Ottawa area meeting planner or are considering hosting a Ottawa area conference or event, I would be pleased to offer you the name of the hotel and all of the awful salespeople on the inside. Just shoot me an email). I just know that this expereince will become a story in one of my presentations that I will end up sharing with thousands of people. Whoops.

When businesses refuse to pay attention to professional customers, then maybe they'll pay attention when they are forced to see the (dis)satisfaction of their customers telling their stories on the Internet or in other public forums. But then again, maybe not. There comes a time when you are forced to use the court of public opinion if you want to warn others. And that should be the spirit of your efforts: to warn others - not to be vindictive.

Arrogant businesses need to be knocked a peg or two and you are just the person to do it - especially on Filter-Free Fridays™.

You Big, Fat, Two-Faced Liar

You've seen it. I know you have. There are a lot of businesses, especially restaurants, who specifically ask, no make that "plead" with you, to tell them how they are doing. (See photo)

Businesses want to be better. They want to serve you better. They want to offer you better products and service. They want to offer you innovative new ways of improving what they do to make your experience that much better.

So they ask important questions like, how was your experience today? And do you know what you do as they attempt to access your expertise as a customer to improve themselves? You lie right to their faces and say everything was "fine."

Even when they print it on their menus how much your feedback means to them, you still lie to them and tell them everything was fine. Then you go home, tell your friends to never go there. You tell your followers on Facebook and Twitter not to go there. You trash them. Even when they come right to you and try to get an honest conversation going, you lie to their faces. And then, when you are a safe distance away and know that they have turned their backs, you ruin their business.

On Filter-Free Fridays™ you tell them exactly how it was. Don't be a jerk about it. Just be honest. Offer something constructive so they can be better at what they do. On Filter-Free Fridays™ you grow a pair and HELP them - don't hurt them.

Or just stay out of their place of business and stop ruining a business. You are not entitled to ruin them just because they had a little too much salt in their soup and you didn't have the courage to say something.

Harsh? It's Filter-Free Fridays™ - get over it.

Cowards Write Online Reviews

... when they don't bring their concerns either by telephone or face-to-face first to those they are trashing.

Look, anyone can write a bad review and many do - especially the cowards who refuse to voice their opinions to the businesses they trash online. It's so easy to hide behind anonymity. Businesses serve you face-to-face. Businesses ask you how they did face-to-face. What bothers me is when people repond "fine" when asked how everything was and then go home and trash them on the Internet, trash them on Facebook and Twitter and tell their friends to stay away - all unbeknownst to the people who could have corrected the situation, had only something been said.

Filter-Free Fridays™ are the days you step up, grow a spine and honestly (not hurtfully) tell a business how they are doing. If the restaurant meal isn't right, send it back, don't lie and pretend everything is OK.

How can a business improve if you won't tell them what is wrong? Not saying anything and pretending everything is OK is selfish. Yes, I said it is selfish. Because the people who are about to follow you: to order that same meal, to hire that same contractor, to buy from that same car dealer or whatever will now experience the same poor service or product because you were too afraid to tell them it was wrong.

Is it the fault of the business when they get trashed in their reviews? Sure, sometimes it is. But I'm willing to bet money that the vast majority of problems could have been solved if only someone hadn't grown feathers (turned chicken) and instead offered up an honest critique - face-to-face.

Do it differently starting on Filter-Free Fridays™.

When Managers Suffer Upward Bullying

A bully is a bully and it doesn't matter who the victim of their efforts is: co-worker, subordinate or manager. According to a Chartered Management Institute (CMI-UK) Bullying At Work report:

• 39% of all managers have been bullied in the past three years
• 49% of middle managers said they had been bullied, making them the most bullied among the UK management population
• 70% of respondents said misuse of power or position was the number one form of bullying
• 17% of bullying was through physical intimidation or violence, making it the least used form of harassment
• 54% of women said they had been victims of bullying compared to 35% of men
• Only 5% said they would talk to HR first if they were bullied

Add to that the fact that this year, women accounted for 51% of management positions in the workplace and you can see where the real threat is to see the numbers of upward bullying incidents rise.

To create positive corporate cultures, senior management needs to become aware that upward bullying is on the upswing and must take immediate action to do 2 things:

1. to initiate bullying awareness campaigns throughout their workplaces (remember bullying can run both upwards and downwards so managers also need to take the training), and
2. to institute tough guidelines that bullying, either up or down, are immediate grounds for dismissal - and to stick to it no matter what

The problem is when middle managers approach senior managers to discuss issues of being upward bullied, they may be seen as unfit to manage or, at least, not capable of reigning in their staff causing many issues of upward bullying to go unreported - allowing the bullying to continue. A senior manager turning a blind eye to a mid-manager's cry for help could be interpreted as a misuse of power or position - another incident of bullying.

It's these types of sensitive issues which can decide whether you have a strong corporate culture capable of attracting high-performers and top talent or whether yours is just another mediocre (possibly awful) place to work masquerading as a professional organization that cares about its people. Great thing is that you get to decide.

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Consider Kevin to address this issue at your next meeting. Call us toll-free in North America 1-877-287-6711 or visit us at www.kevburns.com

What Managers Need To Be Afraid Of

I fly home from Whitehorse, Yukon today. Whitehorse is a small airport and you can see the runways from the baggage area - which, according to research would make people unhappy. Arriving in Calgary, it's a five-minute walk to the baggage carousel to wait for another 10 minutes before bags arrive. I hate that wait too. Now, I manage to fly with only carry-on so waiting at the carousel is a thing of the past for me.

People in airports, when forced to wait 15 minutes for their luggage tend to become unahppy. But give those same passengers a 15 minute walk to get their baggage and they are fine with it and much happier.

In essence, when you have time on your hands, you have time to think. Managers need to be very aware of this: the chances that you will be viewed as a bad manager increase substantially if there is not enough work and plenty of time to think. But you also risk looking like a bad boss if you pile the work on too much. You have to strike that balance. (By the way, pointless meetings are "think time" and can be detrimental to how your people view you).

When people have time to think because of boredom, your people don't usually think positively about their workplaces and their jobs. The tendency is to nitpick about little things. Give them time to think and those little things become big things.

Don't be afraid to give your people a little extra work. You need to be more afraid of them not having enough work. You are a better manager building a better Culture if you can find the right balance between not overtaxing your people and keeping them busy.

How Whiners Can Kill Corporate Culture

In politics, the candidate who shakes the most hands and kisses the most babies usually wins.

From personal experience in radio, the DJ who attends more events, shakes hands with more people and then talks about those same people on the radio next day usually wins the ratings.

In corporate organizations, the person who speaks to employees most often usually wins the hearts and minds of the employee.

Now you might think that the person speaking most often is a manager - but you would be wrong. The person who speaks most often in any organization is usually the one who complains the most because the managers are afraid to stand up to whiners and publicly take them on. They're either waiting for an OK from upper management or hoping that a series of memos will eradicate a vocal dissenter.

Huh, what color is the sky in your world?

Misery loves company. So complainers will talk incessantly until someone agrees with them about how "bad" the workplace is. A single complainer can infect an organization so badly that it can affect the Culture of the workplace and consequently how the organization serves it customers.

The problem is that most managers feel they have to run every little thing through upper management and Legal because they don't feel like they are supported to handle something like this themselves - at least that's been their experience. You see, that's the wrong attitude because in the absence of any message from management, an employee will follow any voice, even a dissenting voice - because it's the only one speaking.

So here's how you take on the whiner: you speak positively to each individual member of your team every single day and you compliment something specific they do individually - and do it with meaning. A ten-second encounter between manager and employee each and every day will do more to create a workable Culture of trust and an engaged employee than any formal performance review.

Once an employee is engaged, no complainer is going to be able to pull them off of their game.

The person who speaks most often with the best heart and best intentions will usually win the war for hearts and minds.

The F-word And Filter Free Friday™

The reason why Filter-Free Friday™ has become necessary is because people don't tell the truth if it makes them look like a complainer or if it will create animosity. So I believe that it is imperative that we all get used to speaking the truth (in a non-hurtful way) that helps individuals and organizations get better - whether they want to or not. Hence the strategy behind Filter-Free Friday™.

"Fine" is a four-letter F-word that people use to politely describe something - but really say nothing - in the hopes of avoiding a confrontation or hurting someone's feelings.

Ask any serious restauranteur or any corporate manager what it's like to hearing "fine" as a customer descriptor of their service experience and they will cringe.

"I get concerned when patrons describe their dining experience as "fine," one restaurant owner said to me. "We don't have anything to go on. Did we just do okay or did we really mess up and they're too afraid to say something? I would never argue with a customer if they told me the truth and it wasn't a great experience. We can't fix what we don't know is broken."

Most serious managers and business owners want honest feedback. The good ones, no, the excellent ones want to hear exactly how they're doing from the customer perspective. It helps them identify their weak areas and build solutions for them. But then there are the mediocre orgnaizations who want to be right more than they want you to be happy. These are the folks I encourage you to give honest feedback.

Stop being a pushover customer - one who just lays down and takes it and then pays hard-earned money for it. If the experience lacks, say so. You don'have to be a jerk about it. Just be honest. If you were disappointed, say something. The good organizations will fall all over themselves making it right for you. The bad ones, well you'll know the bad ones by the way they handle a complaint. Then you can tell your friends how they either made it right or didn't bother.
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Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Subscribe to Kevin's Managing with Attitude Blog by Email

Stop 360° Performance Feedback Now

For those not familiar with 360° Performance Feedback, here's how it works in a nutshell: 360° Performance Feedback is feedback that comes from all around an employee. "360" refers to the 360 degrees in a circle, with an individual figuratively in the center of the circle. Feedback is provided by subordinates, peers, and supervisors. It also includes a self-assessment and, in some cases, feedback from external sources such as customers and suppliers or other interested stakeholders. The results from 360-degree feedback are often used by the person receiving the feedback to plan training and development. (Source: Wikipedia)

But here's my problem with it: if a co-worker is too afraid to send back a salty bowl of soup in a restaurant because they don't want to seem like a complainer, they can't just all-of-a-sudden be able to grow a pair and be able to offer honest, no-holds-barred feedback for a co-worker. No way. They'd be scared to death of creating animosity.

The 360° Performance Feedback model is based on the premise that people will tell the truth. But you know you don't. You don't address someone who parks like an ass and takes up part of a second space. You don't speak up when you get poor service - you whine about it to your friends though - lot of good that does. You won't even talk to the guy with really bad body odor because you don't want to hurt his feelings.

You're so afraid to hurt someone else's feelings that you swallow your own. That's cowardly and cowards are liars. They will say only that which makes people like them. They will not be honest for fear of being confrontational. Worst of all, they don't want people to criticize them so they say everything is fine. A co-worker's performance is fine. Not getting the promotion is fine. Annoyed by disruptive behavior? Nope it's fine too. Everything is fine (unless you get a one-on-one with the boss and then you secretly tell her that you're annoyed). But you go home and whine to your spouse and friends about how bad it is.

So now do you really believe your co-workers when they say that you're doing a great job?

Stop the 360° Performance Feedback now. It fosters lying, deceit and withholding the truth - and it's killing your corporate culture.
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Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Subscribe to Kevin's Managing with Attitude Blog by Email

Managers Showing Their Laziness

What's with so many managers bashing the Gen Y work ethic? That complaint comes mostly from Baby Boomers - the same people who raised a lot of the Gen Y's. Do you see the irony here? Boomers raise them and then complain that they don't work as hard as Boomers. Huh?

TRUTH: you will NOT be able to convince millions of new workers to give up everything they know just because it's easier for you. (Who's the selfish one now?) And if you try to make them change the way they think, their values and their ethics, then you will end up with an empty space to fill.

You had just better figure out that the workforce is changing - and either you, as a manager, keep up or get left behind. Asking a whole generation of competent (and incredibly fast with a propensity for technology) workers to stop doing what they've been doing their whole short lives and start doing it your way seems sort of one-sided. Maybe it's that you just don't want to change the way YOU'VE been doing things for the past 25 years because it seems like a lot of work. Think about what you're asking them to do. It sure sounds like laziness to me - and not from Gen Y.

Think of it this way: if you were dropped into a management job in Poland, would you expect all of your workers to learn English or would you attempt to learn to speak enough Polish to communicate effectively? The same rules apply here. You had better learn the language (and the ways and ideas) of your workers if you want to effectively manage them. Complaining about it is lazy. It's what mediocre managers do.

Excellent managers do whatever is necessary to manage effectively - even if that means learning a new language - oh, and how to send a text message.
--
Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Rice Pudding on Filter-Free Friday™

Last weekend, Mother's Day weekend, a restaurant had a new dessert feature on the menu: rice pudding. Now granted, rice pudding can be a tough sell. You either like it or you don't. But a good rice pudding is sweet, creamy deliciousness for fans of it.

Six people over the course of the supper hours ordered the rice pudding and ate every bite of it. The problem though, is that the rice pudding wasn't rice pudding. It was risotto base - creamed Italian rice with no flavoring.

And not a single customer complained or spoke a word about risotto masquerading as rice pudding. Whaaaaaat?

As customers, these six people suck. These are not customers I would want in my restaurant. I want my customers to at least say something. By the way, each customer was asked how their meal was and also asked how the "rice pudding" was tasting? And still, no one said a thing.

On Filter-Free Fridays™ you say something. Cripes, on any day you say something. How are businesses supposed to serve you better if you lie to them? How are organizations supposed to improve if you just lay down and take it? And worst of all, what about the people who will follow you and will be subject to poor service or poor quality or, gasp, risotto masquerading as rice pudding? Come on. You have a voice. Use it. Speak up. Say something. You don't have to be mean and trust me, companies will always welcome honest feedback. It's how you build a service-focused organization. But they can't improve if you say everything was "fine."

Stop being a pushover customer and then complaining to your friends and family after you've left the business. A lot of good that does. Voice your opinions immediately. Let them fawn all over you and make things right. Send back bad food. Tell the blowhard at the staff meeting that maybe it's time others had a chance to voice their ideas. Tell your neighbor to knock off mowing the lawn at 7 am on a Saturday. You live here too.

Filter-Free Friday™ is the day you take off the filters that seemingly prevent you from telling the truth and you say something that helps others get better - helps them approach excellence. And you do it in a non-hurtful way. Simply plant your feet, stiffen your spine and speak your truth - in an effort to make it better for others who will follow. The selfish thing to do is keep it yourself. The generous thing to do is to help make life better for others. Speak up.
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Kevin Burns - Follow Me on my new Facebook Fan Page
Excellence Attitude/Culture Strategist
Speaking Web Site http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

$240B Lost Productivity by Waiting

If you arrived for your noon meeting on time and the sales rep you were supposed to meet didn't show until 1:45 pm with no apology, no reason, no information and seemingly no remorse, would you still buy? Would you respect them ever again?

So how come this has become an acceptable practice at a doctor's office? Why do you lay down and take it and not say anything? Your time is just as valuable as the doctor's time. The doctor runs a practice which is a business. If enough people complain about unacceptable wait times, the doctor, in good conscience, will stop triple-booking appointments and start informing you when they're running two hours behind so you don't have to sit there un-respected for two hours.

Waiting in doctor's offices accounts for $240 billion a year in lost productivity (Source: Alan B. Krueger, Economics Professor, Princeton University) from waiting 847 million hours in waiting rooms unnecessarily.

Airlines have found a way to inform you when your flight is going to be late (phone calls, email and text updates) and delayed flights impact hundreds of passengers at a time. I got a call yesterday that the Simon and Garfunkel show I have tickets for Sunday has been rescheduled. There were 20,000 tickets sold and 20,000 people were notified by phone. So how come doctor's offices can't tell 6 people the doctor is running an hour late? It wouldn't take 5 minutes to inform an hours worth of patients by text message, phone call or email that the doctor is running an hour late. All it would take is a small dose of respect for the patient.

If you are scheduled to visit a doctor today, make him or her accountable to your scheduled time (15-20 minutes late is acceptable). Say something. Complain. You have a right. It may be that the doctor is not even aware of how the office staff is scheduling and stacking patients. Make the doctor aware. Tell the doctor that you don't feel respected. And if you've been hit financially because of the wait, send the doctor an invoice for your lost time.

Filter-Free Friday™ is the day you speak up, get the respect you deserve and help others become better at what they do. Sitting in a waiting room for hours needlessly is not acceptable so don't pretend that it is. Speak up and say something.
--
Kevin Burns - Excellence Attitude/Culture Strategist
Speaking Web Site http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

Disinfect Workplace Bullies

In walking through the hospital today, I noticed a janitor sweeping up fallen leaves from some of the large plants in the common area. He was addressing the things that visitors to the hospital could see, not the things they can't see - like those who were sick enough to be admitted to hospital who had touched door handles, arms of chairs, vending machine buttons, elevator buttons and counter-tops. How often do you see janitors wiping down the coffee vending machine with disinfectant spray? How many dirty hands touch the daily-mopped floor versus how many flu-infected hands touch the elevator buttons or touch the arms of a chair in the Emergency room?

Now before you go thinking I'm some sort of weird germophobe, let me explain why I point this out.

Every single business and organization runs like this hospital: they spend an inordinate amount of time on things that might address how they are perceived but little or no effort on things that might affect their customers and clients profoundly. A poorly disinfected waiting room could result in a patient's second trip to Emergency in a few days. But if there's litter on the floor, one might perceive the hospital to be unclean. So you clean what they can see and ignore what they can't.

Think about when an organization offers their people a chance to air their griefs as a team-building exercise - but no one does because the staffer they want to complain about is sitting beside them. What about organizations whose front lobbies are immaculate but their shipping department can't seem to get a delivery done on time to save themselves. Then there are organizations who preach a safe and happy workplace but refuse to reprimand workplace bullies for fear of the employee union.

Management's failure to address a workplace's silent issues is no different than a hospital janitor rarely wiping down bacterial surfaces. Either way, someone will end up not well enough to come into work.

And then you have absenteeism which costs you money; big money. Soon it becomes a lousy place to work because your standards are lax. Your culture suffers and your new-hire candidates become more mediocre. If only you had just wiped the doors more often, enforced the rules and dealt with the bullies, you could have kept your good people.

A germ is a germ. Disinfect it before it makes your whole organization sick. 
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Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


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How To Deal With Disappointment

Everyone gets disappointed at some point. Moms express their disappointment at the actions of their 6 year-old when they hit another boy. Fathers express their disappointment to teenage daughters in the hopes that the outward expression becomes a lesson to make better choices. Bosses express their disappointment on performance reviews in the hopes of motivating the affected employee. Teachers express their diappointment because they know the student isn't applying him or herself.

These are all expressions of outward disappointment in someone else. But what happens when disappointment is focused inward - when things don't turn out the way we had hoped?

There are some things in life that you just don't have any control over and there are other things that are within your control. Understanding which is which will help you to bounce back quicker from disappointment - to develop a resilience attitude.

Planning for months to visit the Grand Canyon only to be turned back by a snowstorm, a rained out family picnic, a power outage during your wedding reception or a cancelled flight to an important meeting are all things out of your control. You have no control over the weather, the electric company or the airlines. It's fine to feel disappointed for a short while but it isn't the end of your life. You can try again tomorrow.

However, disappointment about how much you get paid, your job-performance review, your golf score, that promotion you really want, your relationships at home and how your money is budgeted are all within your control. Only you determine how valuable you are to the company, how well you do your job, how much you practice at golf, how you self-improve to be the logical choice to be promoted, how hard you work at your relationship and how you spend your money. No one else is to blame for your results.

You have no control over other people, things or events outside of yourself. But you have complete control over your reaction to those things. You also have ALL of the control over every part of your life that involves YOU and your results.

--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
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Make A Decision To Make A Decision

Louise Hay’s book, “You Can Heal Your Life” is a bit of a mind-bender when it comes to understanding that every disease or physical ailment has a psychological root. I first read this book about eight years ago and it opened my eyes to the possibility that physical ailments are nothing more than the manifestation of psychological problems – not that I'm saying you have mental health issues but instead it's about the stuff you have been thinking about but done nothing about.

Now before you go off and think that the reason you have a bad back is because you’re crazy, let me explain what Hay is offering.

A nagging sore lower back, according to Hay, is the result of experiencing financial problems. A sore upper back comes from difficulty in your current relationship (that doesn’t give you the right to tell your partner to get off your back). Colds and the flu are the result of too much going on – too many balls being juggled. A toothache is the result of not making decisions. A stiff and sore neck comes from not being willing to be flexible.

If you follow the logic, you can use your body to assess what is going on in your head at any given time and to adjust your attitude accordingly.

In essence, from what I read, Hay is saying that if you start making decisions on the unresolved issues in your head, you can start moving forward with a solutions-based focus and that many of your physical ailments that manifest as a result of a current crisis can be lessened in their severity.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Nagging thoughts, indecision, analysis paralysis (not making any decisions for fear it may be the wrong one) and worrying about change and not embracing it may be the reason you’ve got little aches and pains. Trying to treat the symptoms and not the root cause of aches and pains will leave you in a long battle with that stuff that just never seems to go away. Putting a heating pad on your lower back may bring you some short-term relief but tomorrow you're likely to still have the same sore back because you didn't deal with the underlying issue.

Make a decision to make a decision. That’s the answer. If there is an issue that you have been resisting making a decision on, simply set a date and time for when you will make the decision. For example, you could declare, “I will make my final decision next Thursday at eleven o’clock in the morning on whether or not to pursue that job opportunity I’ve been thinking about.”

I can almost guarantee that the missing piece of information that you need to make the final decision will show up between now and then. When you make a decision to make a decision, you set the wheels in motion that attracts the answers and information you require.

Now before you go off half-cocked thinking this is some sort of new-age fluff, why not test your attitude on it and give it a try first. After all, you’ve been putting up with aches and pains from not making decisions. Why not give this a try. Worst case scenario: nothing changes – you still have pain – but you’ve finally made a decision on something you’ve been avoiding and can move to the next step. Honestly? This process has worked for me for eight years now so I thought I'd bring you a little relief too.

Hope I Didn't Complain Too Much

I spent a little time with Bill recently. He’s in his eighties now and lives alone. He spends most of his days in front of the TV as he needs a walker to get around. He has a boarder who lives downstairs and she is supposed to fix his meals and keep him company in exchange for a substantial reduction on her rent. Meals are mostly frozen prepared dinners from the grocery store. She never spends more than five minutes at a time with Bill and he complains about it. And I understand that. For a man in his eighties, he’s being taken advantage of.

Our conversation lasted about an hour. We covered a lot of things including some regrets he has in his life, his loneliness, his estranged family and his quality of life. There’s no one to talk to. His meals come out of a microwave. He can’t drive anymore. He’s bound to his house. It’s kind of tough to be upbeat about life when those are the results you have near the end of it.

As I was walking down the front walk after our visit, he simply yelled out, “Hope I didn’t complain too much.”

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Perhaps Bill’s last words to me that day should be the last words you leave people with. Instead of saying, “goodbye” or “so long” perhaps you should close with, “hope I didn’t complain too much.”

What different conversations you’d end up having with others if you knew you were going to end the conversation with, “hope I didn’t complain too much.”

In fact, I think ending a conversation with “hope I didn’t complain too much” would actually cement the conversation you had with someone else. Both of the talk partners would be forced to reflect on the conversation to see if one or the other did complain too much.

But it will never fly. People just don’t want to be accountable for their conversations. People just want to complain. They want to whine and moan about how tough their lives are and use it as an excuse for not doing better. They don’t want to get out of their ruts and routines and enjoy something better. They don’t want to improve their circumstances or their lives because, well, it’s hard work and they already work hard enough. No. You’ll never hear those words at the end of a conversation because no one really would mean it.

So I guess life will just go on the same way, getting the same results and complaining about the same things. It’s easier to be lazy and complain than it is to fix a sorry life. So feel free to make your choice. It probably won’t be any different anyway.

Hope I didn’t complain too much.