Who Killed Problem Solving?

Recently, my wife and I went to one of our favorite breakfast spots.  We enjoy the menu, the decor, and the excellent service we always receive.  As we stepped inside the door, the sign by the cash register said, “Please seat yourself,” so we headed for an empty table near a window.  About half way across the dining room we heard a voice say, “Please wait for someone to seat you.”  I turned to see a familiar waitress motioning us back to the register area.  “Well, this is unusual,” I thought to myself, “but no big deal.  We like this place.”  I offhandedly said, “Sure.  You might want to change the sign by the register though. It says to seat yourself.”  With a perfectly straight face the waitress responded, “The hostess changes it, and she hasn’t come in yet.”

We took our seat, got our coffee, ordered, and went about eating our breakfast.  However, to the annoyance of my wife, the consultant side of my brain had kicked in, and I couldn’t help observing what was unfolding in the dining room.  Customers continued to seat themselves just as we had, and were told to please return to the register and wait.  There were five waitresses on duty, all of them young but with several months to more than a year’s experience, each chasing after customers and redirecting them rather than dealing with the root of the problem.  Finally, after 20 minutes, (yes, I was actually keeping track of the time) one waitress walked over to the sign and turned it around so it read, “Please wait to be seated.”

 Since all of the wait staff on duty appeared to be in their late teens and twenties, it would have been very easy to launch into a rant about Generation Y, and how “they” can’t think for themselves or take responsibility.  The fix was so obvious and so easy, what kept them from taking the necessary action?  As I pondered this, a few passages from John Maxwell’s book, “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership” popped into my head. I started wondering whether the real reason no one did anything was that they might have felt they didn’t have the authority to do a simple task that was normally assigned to someone else.

One of Maxwell’s laws is The Law of Empowerment.   Simply put, Maxwell says, “People’s capacity to achieve is determined by their leader’s ability to empower.” To illustrate his point, Maxwell tells a story about Henry Ford, the legendary industrialist who is credited with developing mass production.  Ford is often heralded as a model entrepreneur, but Maxwell reveals a lesser–known chapter of the story. 

 The Model T was a huge success, and for nearly 20 years, it was the only car the company made.  Ford had personally developed it, and he would not tolerate any to changes to his beloved creation.  However, other makers were offering new products that had features the Model T lacked. 

 Concerned about the future of the company in an increasingly competitive industry, a group of his designers built a prototype of an improved model.  This infuriated Ford, who actually destroyed the car with his bare hands.  You can rest assured that from that day on, no one offered a new idea or took any initiative. Clearly, it was only safe to do exactly what Henry Ford told you to do.  Ford Motor Company continued to lose its position as an industry leader, and by the time Henry Ford II took the reigns, not only had it not made a profit in 15 years, it was losing a million dollars a day. 

 Maxwell concludes the story by saying that Ford failed to follow the Law of Empowerment.  Rather than building people up, giving them responsibility, and turning them loose to achieve, he states that Ford undermined his best people because of his own insecurity.  His failure to trust his own employees brought the company to the brink of financial ruin.

 The remedy, says Maxwell, is this:  “[The] key to empowering others is high belief in people….The truth is that empowerment is powerful – not only for the person being developed, but also for the mentor. Enlarging others makes you larger.”