Perceptionicity

ONE Discover Perceptionicity

“Why do employees do what they do?  If you have ever asked yourself that question even once, you probably have asked it a hundred times.” ~ Perceptionicity


An office clerk was alone in the office, it was after hours and she was getting ready to leave.  The phone rang.  She hesitated answering but thought it might be her husband calling to see when she would get home.  After picking up the phone she heard the anxious voice of one of the company’s newest truck drivers.  Before she could get a word out, he immediately went into his story.

His 18-wheel tractor-trailer had a full-load that needed to be delivered by 8 a.m. the next day.  He was on the New Jersey Turnpike and had apparently lost his wallet at a previous stop.  Stranded without money, credit cards or any way to pay the tolls, he needed help.

Ask yourself, what would you do if you were the clerk?

Sitting back reading this book it’s easy to answer that question.  Common sense says that if you were the clerk you would have found a way to help him.  You may have called your manager or taken it upon yourself to forward some money to a Flying J or Pilot Truck Stop where the driver could get enough money to deliver the load on time.  On the other hand, the clerk could just do nothing.  She could easily say I am sorry it’s after hours and no one is here who can help you.

Now ask yourself, “If you were the CEO of this company are you 100% sure that every one of your employees would exercise the same common sense as you?”  This is a much more complicated question.  Its answer could have an enormous economic impact on your company even the entire U.S. economy, as you will see when we expand this example across the transportation industry.

Here’s what I mean. Virtually every commodity you eat, drink, or buy travels by truck.  According to the American Trucking Association, “More than 80 percent of U.S. commodities companies depend on trucking for delivery of their goods and commodities.”  There are 3.5 million truck drivers who move these goods to their respective markets.

Think about this; is 90 to 99% good enough?

If your answer to the question is yes, 90 to 99 percent is good enough, that would mean that 50 to 500 of say 5,000 trucks could be sitting at the side of the road because of incidents similar to this one.  A singular tractor-trailer produces $125,000 dollars in revenues per year for a transport company.  At this rate of productivity a transport company would lose $60 for every hour the truck is sidelined; this means that 50 sidelined trucks will cost $3,000 per hour of lost productivity and 500 sidelined trucks would cost $30,000 per hour.  Ouch!

If this or similar incidents occur throughout the trucking industry at rates of 1 to 10% per year, what does it mean to our economy’s productivity?  Think about this, one of every 15 people working in the United States, a total of 8.7 million people, work in the transportation industry.  Fortunately, most trucking companies have systems in place that support their drivers.  If, this was a true incident it could have a bad ending.

There are many reasons employees do what they do but fundamental to everything they do is that they make decisions based on their personal perceptions.  Their realities may not necessarily be your realities or the realties of the company’s beliefs, principles, values, vision and/or policies.

Irrespective of the industry your business is in, you are in the people business.  How people behave on the job depends on their perceptions.  Specifically I am talking about their perceptions of their jobs, their job-performance; as well as, the linkage between what they do inside and outside their job roles.  At the end of the day, it is all about their perceptions of their companies, their company’s vision, their management, their fellow workers, products, services, industry and customers, particularly if they are alone.

Your company is branded by how your people behave.

What do you suppose are the perceptions of our story’s truck driver, or the customers whose products were not delivered on time?  Once anyone experiences your company, their perceptions are formed and embedded in their minds.  Experience with company people has more impact than anything an advertising copywriter can produce.

John Wanamaker, the father of modern advertising once said, “In writing advertising it must be kept in mind that the customer often knows more about the goods than the advertising writers because they have experience in buying them.”

Ask yourself; if, Wanamaker’s statement about advertising is true what is the most important thing to do?  Your employees’ behavior influenced by their perceptions of your...