Clued up employees use common sense and don’t just apply the rules

Tommy Weir: Standing in the way of applying common sense, especially in our region, is the obsession with following rules.

Applying common sense pays real benefits in serving customers — internal and external. But common sense comes with a huge risk, as it is not so common, meaning not everyone’s common sense is what is desired.

As an example, on a recent Emirates Airline flight, an IO (invitation-only) customer, which is Emirates’ greater than platinum level and very secretive, requested an on-flight upgrade from business to first class. This seems easy enough, as there is a rule in place.

On this particular flight, no passengers were booked into first class, so the plane did not have catering service available in the cabin. When informed of this, the IO passenger replied: “That’s fine. All I want to do is sleep. So if you dim the lights all will be good.” Then the bursar, the highest-ranking person in the passenger cabin, said it would cost 12,000 miles for the upgrade.

The miles were not an issue to this passenger as he has more than he can spend. The rule of collecting the miles has a purpose, but given that there is no service being offered — no meal, just sleep — common sense would be to give a complimentary upgrade. After all, it is rumoured that there are less than 250 IOs. This little gesture would go a long way to giving him something else to praise Emirates about.

Standing in the way of applying common sense, especially in our region, is the obsession with following rules. Many times, what is needed to create the perfect service moment falls slightly outside the limits of the rule. But instead of using common sense, employees settle for the security of the rule and choose to play it safe.

This safety, the security found in the rule, creates frustration for the customer who is thinking if the employee would just use common sense, they will know it is OK to make this exception. Not only can following the rules affect the customer experience; it can also affect organisational performance. Too many stories are told of employees who know better, but keep quiet because the rule does not support them speaking up.

I want to highlight that I am not arguing against rules. They have a role to play in business and they should provide consistency, but the rules should be the minimum standard, not the ultimate outcome.

Listening to the IO passenger’s story is a perfect example of an employee not following common sense.

Following the rules provides a sense of security. The logic holds that if I do what my boss says, even if there is a better way to do it, he cannot yell at me. At least I followed directions and did what was asked. It feels more secure and removes the real or even false fear of what will happen if a mistake is made. For many people, following the rules removes the risk of repercussion.

A prevailing educational model — rote memorisation, also known as drill-n-kill — conditioned many students to only give back what the teacher asked for — not to think through how to apply the content, just to regurgitate it. When these students enter the workforce, they are conditioned to do what the boss says: follow the rules — nothing more, nothing less.

The other prevailing educational approach is critical thinking, which gives thought to the meaning of what is learnt. Students are taught to conceptualise, apply, analyse, synthesise, and/or evaluate information.

There is greater understanding when committing a formula to memory through exercises that use the formula rather than through rote repetition. Employees who learn with understanding are able to transfer their knowledge to tasks requiring problem-solving with greater success than those who learn only by rote.

If you want your employees to employ common sense, then you need to create an environment in which they feel safe doing so. Security stands above everything else when asking people to use common sense; if they don’t feel safe, they won’t use it.

Once you’ve created the feeling of safety, you will have to recondition the learnt behaviour to arrive at the solution. The shift in approach is to give the outcome versus the specificity of the process — the rule.

Personally speaking, I would like to see more common sense used. It is nice to know the baseline of the rule, but the ultimate experiences come when an employee acts with the logic of the rule in mind and positively creates a better outcome by acting with common sense.

Tommy Weir is a leadership adviser and author of 10 Tips for Leading in the Middle East and other leadership writings. Follow him on Twitter: @tommyweir

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