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Ira Smolowitz, Ph.D. Professor of Finance and Dean, Bureau of Business Research and Program Development at the American International College, Springfield, MA.

1. “That’s not my department” (29% in the survey selected this quote as the most annoying)
2. “If it’s not on the rack, we don’t have it.” (25%)
3. “That’s the policy.” (25%)
4. “I’m on break.” (25%) (1)

Discourtesy is not unique to American retail stores. Consider the following: “When Suzanne Boswell, a consultant in Raleigh, NC, surveyed patients nationwide, she found that only 38% agreed that their doctors’ front-office team was “courteous!” Dental offices did better, 59% passed the courtesy test. But many were downright rude!” (2)

An initial examination of front-line personnel rudeness may be attributed to such associated operant conditions as: (a) overworked and multi-tasked personnel (b) salaries that do not accurately reflect job requirements (c) poor morale emanating from a climate of lay-offs and rumors of imminent lay-offs.

In my opinion, staff to customer rudeness is a manifestation of a deep, pervasive problem in American society.

Consider the following:

“Americans’ fast-paced, high-tech existence has taken a toll on civility.

From road rage in the morning commute to high decibel cell-phone conversations that ruin a dinner out, men and women behaving badly have become the hallmark of a hurry-up world. An increasing informality – wearing flip-flops to the White House, even – combined with self-absorbed communication gadgets and a demand for instant gratification have strained common courtesies to the breaking point.

“All of these things lead to a world with more stress, more chances for people to be rude to each other, said Peter Post, a descendent of etiquette expert Emily Post and an instructor on business manners through the Emily Post Institute in Burlington, VT.

In some cases, the harried single parent has replaced the traditional nuclear family and there’s little time to teach the basics of polite living, let alone how to hold a knife and fork, according to Post.

……Peggy Newfield, founder and president of Personal Best, said the generation that came of age in the times-a-changin’ 1960s and 1970s are now parents who don’t stress the importance of manners, such as opening a door for a female.

So it was no surprise to Newfield that those children wouldn’t understand how impolite it was to wear flip-flops to a White House meeting with the president – as some members of the Northwestern women’s lacrosse team did in the summer.”(3)

What are the business implications of the above conditions? They are, it seems to me, as follows:

(1) Specialized employee training in specific procedures does not automatically accompany employee civility to other employees and customers.

(2) In the rush to embrace employee-empowerment, management should not take as a given that civility and empowerment go hand-in-hand.

(3) Management should faithfully monitor employee-customer interaction. Walk around management is, in my opinion, of critical importance. For example, management should check into a corporate-run hotel to learn by proxy, how customers are being treated.

(4) Millions of dollars spent on advertising, promotions, etc., does not have the same impact as specific employee-customer interaction.

References
1. Bulliet, Mark and Fermino, Jennifer “It’s Utter Stupidity – Worst That Store Clerks Can Say” New York Post, October 6, 2005. pg. 27

2. Painter, Kim “Getting Bad Reception?” USA Today October 3, 2005, pg. 6D

3. Cassata, Donna “Americans Get Ruder By the Year” Sunday Republican October 16, 2005, pg. A23

Polaroid was a pioneer in digital imagery, having designed a digital film back for large format cameras in the early 1990s. However, they didn’t bring their invention to market until 1996 because they had been trying to find a way to bundle it with a printer. Polaroid was so caught up in producing instant prints, it never occurred to them that their customer might be willing, indeed happy, to look at images on a computer screen. They had made assumptions based on their then current business model, which had been in place for decades. 1

Assumptions driving patented corporate investment, entering new markets, etc., have to be defended by the associated advocate. This means that subordinates have to be permitted to challenge the assumptions of their superior without fear of recrimination. This requires an organizational culture where meetings are not conducted on a ‘group-think’ basis. It has been said, “if everyone thinks alike – then no one is thinking.”

Avoid a corporate climate that has a culture that eventually says to employees “park your brains at the door”, i.e., the manager does the thinking and the employee merely follows his/her orders. Assumptions will never be challenged in the above climate.

What are some of the erroneous assumptions often made by corporations? Although the list is lengthy, I will, in this article, call attention to three particularly dangerous assumptions.

Dangerous Assumption #1: Firms that are first into a market will end up dominating it. It has been said that “across a whole range of industries, market pioneers end up holding a 30% share of their markets, compared with 13% for latecomers.

…A new paper argues that the above research is flawed. “Gerard Tellis, of the University of Southern California, and Peter Golder, of New York University Stern Business School, say that previous studies are based on surveys of surviving companies and brands, thereby excluding all the pioneers that failed. This helps some companies to look like pioneers even when they were not. Procter & Gamble (P&G) has boasted that it created American’s disposable nappy (diaper business). In fact, a brand called Chux had been launched a quarter of a century before P & G entered the market in 1961.” 2

Dangerous Assumption #2: A rather counter-intuitive, dangerous assumption is to strive to outperform the competition. It’s counter-intuitive because it contradicts American values. Who wins the World Series? Answer: the team that outperformed the competition. Who wins the Super Bowl? Answer: the team that outperformed the competition.

Who wins the gold medal in an Olympic event? Answer: the athlete that outperformed the competition. Why then is it a dangerous assumption to strive to outperform the corporate competition? Answer: two researchers have found that “…less successful companies were stuck in the trap of competing. Their strategic logic centered around building competitive advantages. They benchmarked the competition and focused on outperforming rivals. The result was a perpetual cycle of offering a little more for a little less than competitors. The competition, not the customer, set the parameters of their strategic thinking.” 3

Dangerous Assumption #3: Firms often assume that the more variants of a product they bring to the market, the greater is the probability that the consumer will buy at least one of these products. Consider the research of social psychologist, Dr. Alexander Chernev of Northwestern University’s Kellog School of Management. “…Chernev found that when people were offered variants of the same brand of toothpaste – cavity-prevention, tartar-control and teeth-whitening types, for instance – they tended to switch to another brand that offered a single option.” 4

This is not a comprehensive list of dangerous assumptions. It should, however, provide a useful starting point for evaluating assumptions. Vital corporate decisions such as “(a) resource allocation; (b) marketing strategy; and (c) personnel decisions, etc., are predicated on associated open or tacit assumptions.

Given their importance – corporations must strive to provide an open, non-recriminatory climate to review and assess vital corporate assumptions. If the corporation does not do this today, the marketplace will do it tomorrow!

References
1 Baumgartner, Jeffrey – article appeared in Report 103, July 13, 2004, issue and downloaded (8/17/05) from jpb.com [Destroy your Assumptions”, http://www.jpb.com/articles/article_destroy.php?topic=creative, p.1

2 “Why First May Not Last”, The Economist, March 16, 1996, p. 65.

3 Kim, Chan W. and Mauborgne, Renee, “On the Inside Track,” Financial Times, April 7, 1997, p. 10.

4. DeAngelis, Tori, “Too Many Choices?”, APA Online (downloaded 12/3/04 from http://www.apa.org/monitor/June 04/toomany.html) p. 2.

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Articles printed with the permission of Dr. Ira Smolowitz, Professor of Finance and Dean, Bureau of Business Research and Program Development at American International College, Springfield, MA.