Why Don’t Employees Care About Customers?

I once did some work in a technology firm and discovered two programmers that had an adversarial relationship so intense it was making it impossible for the two to work together. They happened to be key to the future success of the company, so I decided to check them out.

After finding the office of one of the programmers, I sat down to talk with him. He shared his frustrations with me about the other guy showing me pages and pages of scathing emails the two of them had passed back and forth. They must have shredded hours each day in this ego exercise. I asked him if the two of them ever talked. He said, “No. We just send emails.” I asked where the other programmer’s office was located. He said it was next door. I leaned back in my chair craning my neck to peek out the door of his tiny office and see how far it was to his neighbor’s desk. I estimated it to be about an 8-step walk for someone with an average stride—maybe 10 for him. I pulled myself back into the room refocusing on him and he must have read the look on my face because before I could speak he blurted out, “I guess this all looks pretty crazy, doesn’t it?”

Let’s see. You’re no more than 10 steps from your teammate and you never talk. Your work is critical to the success of the business, which is struggling, and instead of working together to create a breakthrough for the business, you chew up hours every day in a flame-throwing email activity that fuels mutual hate and uncooperativeness. Yes, I think this meets the definition of crazy.

What makes otherwise decent, rational people engage in this kind of self-destructive behavior? Why, when they say they care about the customer and the business, do they do things that hurt both?

In my experience, there are usually three principles at work. One is the principle of affinity. When we personally commit to and choose accountability for the overarching goals of the organization—specifically, the needs of the customer—we are better able to overcome petty disagreements and tend to our bigger purpose. We subjugate our selfish wants for the greater good in what I call whole systems orientation. It’s what happens when basketball players work as a team setting up plays and willingly passing the ball instead of hogging the ball or trying to take all the shots.

Second is the principle of service. When we seek ways to serve others to help them contribute to satisfying the customer and achieving overarching goals, our own demands of others diminish. We see this occur regularly in community service particularly when disaster strikes and people come together to help each other. Instead of demanding others do things their way, helpers offer to help each other and serve without asking permission in a spirit of mutual support, respect, and appreciation.

The third is the principle of familiarity. Things we say to people when we can hide behind a computer, phone, text message, and so on are often less responsible than the words we would use in person. It’s the difference between what happens when we call our neighbor to complain about the third time her dog messed up on our lawn versus when we have a neighborly chat about it over the fence. There is something innate that compels us to be more responsible and compassionate and maintain important relationships when we feel we will be held accountable for our actions by fellow human beings.

Customers are our reason for being in business. If we do anything that takes our eyes off that ball, we are threatening our ability to provide what our customers need or want and our ability to succeed as a business. While there are other reasons employees bicker, refuse to cooperate, and otherwise detract from the work, these three principles almost always apply. And employing them can catalyze a powerful customer experience. It’s remarkable how much more employees care about customers and business success when they are committed to working together to help the customer as they enthusiastically serve each other to that end and they communicate with an eye on building and maintaining critical team relationships.

Kevin Herring is co-author of Practical Guide for Internal Consultants, and President of Ascent Management Consulting. Kevin can be contacted at kevinh@ascentmgt.com.

Ascent Management Consulting is found at www.ascentmgt.com and specializes in performance turnarounds, leadership coaching, and appraisal-less performance management.