It was a few minutes before 7 a.m. when my car swung into the Dunkin' Donuts parking lot. Shuffling into the store in need of caffeine and a toasted bagel, I ambled into line behind a few other like-minded souls.
You could hear him before you saw him -- rustling paper "to go" bags, dropped utensils and the furious ping of prepared egg patty trays against their steel warmers. It was the 17-year-old Dunkin' guy, working with all his might to fill the flurry of orders coming from the counter and the drive through.
What stuck out was not his determination to meet a new speed record for ham-on-croissant preparation, which was clearly evident. No, it was the way in which he was going about it -- so fast and eager to please his 19-year-old manager that he made two wrong moves for every right one. Bags were dropped, cheese fell to the floor, and the wrong orders were handed to the wrong customer.
He needed to slow his pace, shifting his goal mix more toward accuracy than velocity.
What I saw at Dunkin' occurs in offices across the U.S. every day, and more pointedly for this blog, in communications and advertising agencies at an alarming clip. Newly-minted assistant account executives and interns throw their entire day into warp drive, hoping beyond hope that they score big to attract notice of their peers and their clients. The results aren't pretty -- high stress, higher probabilities of failure, and high turnover.
For some senior practitioners, it's too easy to proffer that such is a right of passage. In an environment where every client dollar has to be stretched further and made to work harder, that's no longer an option. Instead, we have to coach, to mentor, to bring more junior members into the fold as to what it means to work smarter.
A simple solution? Absolutely. So get going, and grab me an egg-and-cheese on a multi-grain while you're at it.
So true! Reminds me of one horrible night at a McDonald's somewhere in PA - a horde of tired, hungry travelers and a busload of high school soccer players all descended at the same time. They kept taking orders at a dizzying pace from the one cash register they had open while those of us waiting for food squeezed together by the second, closed register. The kitchen couldn't keep up. Finally, a woman who identified herself as a high school teacher spoke up and said they needed to stop taking orders until they caught up. What seemed so logical was somehow lost in the panic of trying to process one task - order taking. Great metaphor for processing tactic after tactic too quickly and without enough thought, strategy and attention to client service. I love it! Hope you got your bagel and coffee. Great post.
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