Do they really care?

Do people actually care out there?

Are we all so busy that pride, focus, detail don’t matter any more? I know i have better days than others at taking care of the important details but the more places I look the more I see less attention to detail not more.

Is that what good – no I mean – really fantastic – service is? Just attention to detail? Is that what a good product is – something that has good attention to details and focus.

We are in the business of software, and it’s many intangibles, so I know how hard it can be to really make something fool proof, perfect and the best. In online speak there can’t be any perfect tool or product because as soon as our latest widget is released someone out there in cyber space has already hacked up a better product or widget.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try or care to do the best? Of course we should – we must!

What’s my point… well back on the road again the last few weeks and here is my summary of some of the things that ireckon could / should be different (in my mind anyway):

a) 5 star hotel in Sydney – downtown – arrive late from travel – they don’t do room service after 9.00pm. (opportunity to collaborate with an external provider so customers at least get a choice). I am sure there are a million reasons why not to provide this service, maybe everyone goes out to eat, but late on a Tuesday evening in downtown Sydney there is no place to eat! So much for Brisbane being asleep!
b) Newly refurbished small hotel in Hobart – bathroom door does not close. (i) who was the carpenter (ii) who checked the room to say it was ready for customers? Beautiful combined phone radio, doesn’t work. Again – attention to detail. All it needed was someone to actually check!

Do these things matter? To me they do.

This is a question as an employer, a developer and a community member that i struggle with. Is / Are we any different in this age of information in our focus. Is it acceptable to use the phrase ‘i am busy‘ as an excuse to not doing the job well.

Has wanting a cheaper cost of production taken levels of quality to the point where most quality is below what it should be as an acceptable base standard.

Maybe it is because I have been reading Tom Peters RE-imagine, while traveling, and have an affinity to his demand for personal excellence in every person / every department in a business. I admit it touches a point – a sore point – in me that agrees. I know at times I have chest beaten to my staff (over the years) about how we all have to be our best all the time.

But what if this is people’s best. What if generational change and approaches that have fueled this age have also sacrificed craftsmen/women and raving lunatics of excellence. Not corporate excellence – not organised excellence, just being excellent at what you do. Surely the carpenters still need to make the door close?

Just caring. Caring enough to do better – better than those who don’t give a damn. What happened to merit and quality. What happened to you give me something worth buying and i will pay for it. Maybe full unemployment means people doing jobs because they are there and there is no need to give a damn.

I prefer to have the staff working for us who volunteer at their kids schools, or coach or umpire sports as their hobby. These people have a passion for their kids or other peoples kids, or others. A passion for something they like to do! I love finding people who know what it means to live passionately and who actually care more about what they do first then what they get rewarded second.

I love walking into a hotel and being greeted warmly – not fakely – and having my issues taken care of. Yes I have a preferred newspaper, and yes if you asked I would tell you and yes if you really cared you would help me get it in the morning.

Yes I love taxi drivers who know where they are going, or use a GPS navigator and make sure they key it in before they start on their way (even I know no one can know every street). I enjoy the happy chirpy staffing Virgin Blue way more that the officious Qantas staff, even if the planes sometimes seem smaller and there is no business class. These are just great everyday people who care.
But to me I don’t think it is the company you work for or your education that helps you care. Ireckon it comes from 1 of 3 places.

1) genetics – you are born with it

2) environment – your home – your parents instill it in you

3) career 1 – your first job – you learned what matters there

I don’t know where I learned to care. But I know service is something I do care about, even to the point that when we aren’t providing the right service to someone I suggest they find a provider better suited to them than us. But my worst working days are when we let someone down by not providing what we were supposed to. My best are when someone in our team did something special and a customer noticed and thanked them.

I wish i had a formula to add to the water everywhere i went to change people to caring enough for their own sake. Caring for their wife / Husband / kids, caring for why they get out of bed everyday, caring for the people whose paths they cross in a day. Caring about the job they do no matter how small it may seem.

Right now I wish the carpenter had cared enough to make my bathroom door shut or the project manager or the hotel manager… anyone really…

Maybe they were too busy. Maybe they didn’t get paid enough. Maybe they just had a bad day. I don’t know, but I think i need to find a way to measure in my team how much do they care. In themselves, in us, in our customers, in life. Ireckon that matters!

1 thing I know is our new recruitment site (see post about all that dog food) is making a huge difference in attracting people who care. And I care about that! Because if we only employ people who already care we can only get better!

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