Broken People Create Broken Windows

In the comments section, Mark Lewis shares how Employees cause broken windows. While my theory synopsis didn’t touch upon the Employee variable in causing broken windows, Michael Levine, author of BROKEN WINDOWS BROKEN BUSINESS, dedicates a chapter to this issue and has some pointed advice for repairing broken windows caused by Employees.

Levine says employees often create the worst broken windows by writing,

“When an employee – any employee – becomes a detriment to the company, for any reason, that employee has become a broken window, and the ripple effect from his or her failure, however slight, can be devastating to your business.”

Levine continues his smart thinking,

“Your employees are human beings, and as such, they are given to human frailty. They will make mistakes, and those are not broken windows. Employees who learn from their mistakes, who become better at their jobs because of those errors, are the best possible workers you can employ.”

It is Levine’s contention that businesses are too slow to fire employees who continuously create broken windows. He advocates the quick dismissal of employees who can’t do their job properly because if left unchecked, poor-performing employees act as a sign to other employees that careless work behavior will be tolerated and accepted. Since broken windows are telltale signs that a business doesn’t care, poor performing employees can make for the worst, most destructive broken windows within a business.

Comments

[olivier blanchard]

I once met with the manager of a very popular restaurant in Greenville, SC to discuss some complaints that he had gotten about his kitchen and waitstaff. (Customers were increasingly complaining about being treated rudely.) We went over the specific complaints and some of the situations that had led to them.

At the end of the meeting, the manager just shrugged and explained that it was pretty typical of the foodservice business to have to hire people who didn't really care about being professional, and that it was pointless to even try to force them to be.

(Huh?)

His words: "If I say anything to them, they'll either quit or make my life miserable. I'm not going to risk mutiny in my kitchen, and I can't afford to be short four or five waiters either. It isn't worth it. Customers complain all the time. It goes with the territory. It'll blow over, eventually."

Lousy managers breed lousy employees.

[xavier]

Maybe all these "broken window" employees simply don't give a shit because they are underpaid, underappreciated, and treated like disposable tools? A theory that advises managers to fire people the moment they become a "broken window" is not exactly going to improve that dynamic.

[johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy)]

Xavier ... what will improve that agnst-ridden dymanic is if businesses fix their broken windows of under-paying and under-appreciating employees.