Controlling & Leading

I have never understood this technique of regional or executive management visits. If you want to truly see how people are working and experience what customers are experiencing it would seem to me that an un-announced visit would be the best way to do this.

When I studied psychology we were looking at the effects of positive and negative reinforcement. Research has shown that people respond better to random acts of positive reinforcement. If you give a positive award on the same day every week employees will make sure and show up and give there all that day because they want to get paid. Whereas if you gave positive awards once a week but the day was random employees will show up every day and work because they want to be there to get paid whenever it happens. Too bad we can't do pay days this way or people would show up every day to work not just on the payday.

With my leadership experience and training in staff development / team building I have been asked to consult on guest experiences. I have always asked that I not be announced or introduced ahead of time so that I can get the true experience of what the environment and guest interaction. Tough to do sometimes but I feel it is a much better representation of the function of an organization.