It's a great question - what does that even mean?! It’s really like saying from the beginning to the end of something. In fast food restaurants (and heck – maybe other places too – who knows!) it literally means from the time you put the hamburger on the grill to the time it’s cooked and you place it in the bun to go out to the customer. My husband and his family have been in the fast food business for over 30 years so the first time he used that phrase I was like – whoa! Hold on! I really like that! There are a lot of different processes that I could have used – let’s face it – perhaps from car to couch? Or, from laundry to body? Personally – I think the fast food guys have the best version so that’s what I’m sticking with! So, since I’m on the whole hamburger rant – one thing I think we could all do a bit better is give a
great feedback sandwich! Let’s face it, giving feedback or coaching a direct report, peer (spouse!) can be really hard to do and even worse if it isn’t something you do often!
The company I work for has this super cool culture shaping workshop that ALL associates have to go through and, I know what your thinking, total kumbayah session. I'm not going to lie - there may be a little of that! But, of all the great parts of the day one of my favorite was the segment about coaching and feedback.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together and if we are to live together we have to talk." So true. But something a lot of us shy away from is "conversations". There just aren't enough of them - I am totally in this camp as well. If something is going to get ugly I don't go running full-speed towards it and say - yeah! let's go! If AT ALL possible I avoid it - kind of like that crazy end of term english lit paper in college - there are a million other things I would rather do!
So what do you do with all that frustration? In my world it all goes to the hubby - totally lucky guy that he is! Or maybe to a friend, right? What's funny is that a lot of people are taking that conversation they won't have (or can't have) and bringing it to the blogosphere or their MySpace or FaceBook friends - so much so that
a recent study actually attempted to quantify the affect of customer service "venting" on brands that they impacted - so cool! 59% of the respondents claimed to use social media to vent about negative service experiences even though only about a third of them felt like the company they were talking about would actually take their complaint seriously - granted I'm guessing that those who use social media in general were more likely to respond to the survey, but still - almost 60% with no real faith that it would impact future service.
I'm not against putting your thoughts out there into the websphere - but let's face it - once it's out there, it's OUT there! Just a thought, but maybe if we had more conversations - gave more coaching/feedback BEFORE we got totally pissed off at whomever we wouldn't have to spend so much of our time venting. What is it they say - look at it through someone else's eyes first before you react? Don't judge too quickly before you truly understand the situation? I'm amazed at how many times, when I really take the time to understand what someone is saying, I get a new perspective just by taking the time to talk about it. Truth be told, I always feel better when I'm NOT pissed off :-)
