Rules Of Management

RULE 98 - Don’t cut corners – you’ll get found out

“Do you ever compromise in service? Do you cut corners, only partially fulfill, or even forget commitments? Exceptional service means keeping every commitment you make to customers. Period.”

Mark Sanborn, motivational speaker

Maybe you make aeroplanes – are you going to cut corners? Maybe use substandard metal in the wings? Replace the engines with junkyard replacements? I don’t think so. You’d get found out pretty quick. Hey, there is an increasing trend of taking managers to court if they have been responsible for injury to anyone using one of their products which has been found to be faulty (by way of design or manufacture or cost cutting). Quite right too. If we are all made to be personally responsible for what we do in our working lives maybe things would get a whole lot better. Rant over.

Maybe you don’t make aeroplanes. Maybe you don’t make anything. Maybe you just program computers. Nice and safe. Can’t hurt anyone there can you? No” Sure? Think things through. Work out worst-case scenarios and be prepared for the fact that whatever we do as managers, we are responsible for someone or something that could get damaged, hurt, wounded, upset, impaired, killed – you name it.

Cutting corners ain’t worth it – you’ll always get found out. Sod’s law. I know you get caught between the devil and the deep blue sea at times, with your boss telling you to do something and your principles telling you it is madness, but you need the job and the mortgage has to be paid and it’s easier to shut up and pretend it’s all alright. But it ain’t. you get found out.

“If we are all made to be personally responsible for what we do in our working lives maybe things would get a whole lot better.”

And you have to move heaven and earth to prove to your boss that cutting corners is a real waste of time. The old, “But what would the media/auditors make of this if they got hold of it?’ argument often works wonders. As does asking about what insurance we carry or how the legal department has viewed this cist-cutting exercise. If you get told, ‘I haven’t bothered running it past them’. You can clap you hand to your head and shriek, ‘Oh, no, I ‘m working with a mad person.’ Using humor can get someone else to realize they have overstepped the mark and need to think.

posted by Right Ranger @ 9:48 PM