Preparing to depart Nashville, recently, I sat back in my Southwest Airlines seat, looking forward to speaking at a conference in New Orleans. Our flight attendants were busy securing the cabin, and began going through their procedures. This time, with more than a little HUMOR!
Soon, one flight attendant took to a microphone and began speaking to passengers. At the same time, two other attendants demonstrated how to operate the seat belt, oxygen mask, life vest for emergency water landing, etc.
WATER LANDING????
But, no worries, almost no one was paying the slightest bit of attention!
You Know The Routine
The airlines follows a certain strict, written procedure every time a plane prepares to take off. Some consider these pre-flight instructions tedious, but not THIS time!
With each demonstration, the mic-wielding attendant (who no doubt missed her calling as a stand-up comic) drew much laughter from her captive audience. Us! Any nervous-Nelly fliers should have, no doubt, been put to complete rest!
My wife Susan and I especially loved the attendant’s finale…
“This plane’s capacity is 165, but we have only 72 aboard this flight, so you have plenty of room to stretch out.
“Now, for those 19 of you who paid attention to our pre-flight demonstration, we thank you! You’ll know what to do in case of emergency. For those who were NOT paying attention… GOOD LUCK!”
Immediately, my wife and I, still laughing, turned to each other saying, “That would make a good blog!”
Do We Have Your Attention?
Yes, for the “Ten Thoses” out there in the business world, I would like to remind you that every frustration in your business is due to a lack of a SYSTEM!
When someone comes into your office for the tenth time in a month, saying, “We had to re-do a job, due to a stupid error”… That’s frustrating!
Or when someone stops you as you’re walking through the production area, to say, “Did anyone ever order that part I needed? Now our machine is down and the job will be late.” Yes, frustrating!
How about this? You’re having a nice lunch with a potential client, and you get a call on your mobile phone with bad news back at the office, concerning an irate customer… AGAIN!
When Does The Frustration End?
How many times, how much pain, how much waste are you willing to endure, until you decide to end these exasperating events?
Time for you to make a commitment… on-mic, if necessary!
Say it with me: “At all cost, I will stop this maddening waste-of-my-time frustration, and organize my business by putting in written procedures. And we will do and practice those written procedures every time we open our doors for business—for our clients, our employees, our families, not to mention ourselves!”
For those who are paying attention, there are some good books and websites (including MINE!) out there, that are loaded with information on how to stop these frustrations that are nothing but costly waste.
For those who are NOT paying attention… GOOD LUCK!
Did I mention? Great systems work!
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