GALT Consulting LLC

I took my family out to dinner recently and our waitress was really struggling.  She clearly was not the type of person that should be a waitress.  She struggled remembering details and had no concept of customer service.  I have been watching employees for a long time, and I am getting pretty good at spotting the difference between a lack of experience and simply not being hard wired the right way for a job.  This poor gal was not going to get much better. 

I found myself thinking about the impact of that single waitress who was making mistake after mistake.  The most obvious impact was that it had a negative impact on our dinner.  My 4-year old got her food a good 10 minutes after the rest of us (parents out there know what that is like!).  Another obvious impact was on the restaurant itself.  I won't be as quick to suggest dining at that particular restaurant again in the future.  

Think about the other, less obvious impacts of having the wrong person in the wrong place within an organization.  The waitress herself was absolutely miserable.  She hates her job.  She was pretty young, so this experience will also likely carry on to her next job.  She is getting programmed to dislike work and expect very little out of herself. 

What about the impact on her coworkers?  I noticed that she got very little help from her coworkers as she struggled around.  They were clearly tired of having to help her out.  The morale of the entire restaurant was undoubtedly impacted by this one employee.

The challenge to management is to not EVER allow this to happen.  Most managers would say, "yeah... I don't think she is going to work out" and leave her in the position to fail miserably.  I consider this pathetic.  Managers should move every day to find out the strengths and skills of their employees and constantly work to put them in a position where they can succeed, even if that means working for another organization. 

Last point... don't blame the waitress.  While we each have a responsibility to put ourselves in a position to succeed, I wouldn't expect a young waitress to know better.  I would expect the manager to know better.  Putting people in a position to fail puts everyone in a position to fail!

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