Mark Branson’s Post

Dumb & Dumber Companies have bad ideas all the time You must be better than the process or your employees will disengage There is a trick to Emotional Intelligence that opens up opportunities to introduce your own ideas The more you embrace the process, the more you control the process The more you resist the bad idea, the more you look like the problem Embracing the bad idea allows you to focus on the solution Most processes are not spelled out in the SOP, but processes in place long before you got there will be there long after you leave There is a solution but it is not easy You must be smarter than the process, and your employees must know it The Eyemart Express I took over was run just like the DMV, with the little numbered ‘pull’ tabs and everything The store was 10 years old and customers used to come to my slow Visionworks because the Eyemart across the street was out of control I changed the customer service standards the first week. I got rid of the pull tabs, and took over dispenses and repairs while limiting my employees’ focus to sales The store was back in control within weeks The Visionworks of America I ran had a problem. His name was Steve What are you going to do about Steve? How are you going to handle Steve? I heard these questions before even meeting Steve Steve was taking out trash and making three trips to do it. I showed Steve a trick using only a dolly, an empty box, and a trash can Having been in the store for 23 years, Steve was flabbergasted that I showed him something new my 1st week Steve quickly became my greatest champion because I was smarter than the process The Eyemart I took over didn't even have a dolly. I bought one the 1st week There, 3 lab associates, Larry, Curly, and Moe, took the trash out together I showed them the same trick I showed Steve, allowing 1 employee to take out the trash alone I showed employees everywhere I worked a productivity hack that included a dolly and an empty box I created The Standard Alignment, the most advanced Dispense, Repair, and Adjustment program in the optical industry because the optical industry is so bad at these processes Any employee learning my dispensing system is automatically better at eyeglass adjustments than those that don't know the system, regardless of experience I used this system to successfully mail hundreds of pairs of glasses to MyEyeDr. patients during Covid Myeyedr discontinued mailing glasses because customers inundated the stores with eyeglass fitting needs My store mailed 300 prs a month with less than a 10% return to store rate The Three Tenets of Employee Engagement Make their job easier Make them better at their job Personal Sacrifice When you improve processes that your employees didn't realize needed improvement, you are well on your way to creating a high performing team Personal Sacrifice? That's another post Unified Leadership The Strategy of Engagement

Full Circle I was talking to a young lady about the things that Unified Leadership doesn't focus on Empathy was at the top of the list Why don't you teach empathy? Because I can't fill a cup with empathy. I can't tell you how much is in the cup to start with or how much empathy must be added to the cup I can't even tell you what a pitcher of empathy looks like So, you just work with the empathy they have? I don't worry about how much empathy they have because the amount they have is all they will ever have As I like to say, If I have to teach you to care, we’ve got bigger problems If I’ve got to tell you to be nice, maybe you shouldn't be working for me So, you don't care if they are nice? Unified Leadership makes certain assumptions. Namely, you are as empathetic as you'll ever be, as nice as you’ll ever be As such, Unified Leadership does not spend time trying to improve something that cannot be measured The nature of Leadership If it can't be quantified, qualify it, then tell others they don't have enough It’s not that I don't care about your emotional intelligence, it's that I think Emotional Intelligence is a ‘perception based’ construct used to isolate some while promoting others How so? Those saying your level of emotional intelligence is lacking are saying by their nature that they have more emotional intelligence than yourself How do they know that If you can't quantify it You qualify it Exactly Unified Leadership The Strategy of Engagement