Creating a culture of accountabilityYour biggest customer calls:
“I can’t use any of these shirts. They’re all wrong. You’re going to replace them or I’m going to find another shop!"You hang up the phone. Your blood pressure is through the roof. What happened? How did you not find out about it before the customer did?
This story hits home with far too many screen printing shops.If this has happened to your shop, what happened next? Did you:
- Get angry. Slam the phone down and throw an expletive-laden tantrum in front of your staff
- Assign blame. Call an emergency meeting with all of your department heads and try to figure out who “didn’t do their job”
- Try to fix the system that broke down. Look at yourself as the primary source of accountability and try to understand what led to letting this issue get to the customer
If you said the last one, you’re probably lying – or deluding yourself. The overwhelming majority of print shop owners and managers are prone to the first two reactions: anger and blame-seeking. It’s human instinct!
Instead of focusing on the single issue at hand, the smartest leaders will look at the mistake as part of a system. If you leave the system in place that created the problem, there is a 100% chance that a similar mistake will happen again.
This is where
accountability comes into the picture. Accountability is about more than assigning blame or rooting out what caused mistakes. Though one team member may be responsible for a mistake, all parts of the company are
accountable for mistakes. Since your brand and bottom line suffer when mistakes happen, your entire business is ultimately accountable for what it manufactures.
Teaching your team accountability requires two crucial attitudes:
- Willingness to develop systems for production that encourage accountability across your entire team.
- Accepting that your role as a manager or owner is to create systems for accountability.
As your team’s leader, you create
a culture of accountability with your actions and habits.
Read the full article here:
https://www.printavo.com/blog/managing-screen-printers-accountability
