While at school I worked at a local shopping centre and one of the many ways to irritate managers was to park in the spots closest to the shops.
“If the staff take all the spaces near the shops” said the store manager, “then customers have to walk further and might go somewhere else. The customers alway comes before the staff.”
That’s true and one of the surest signs of a poorly run business is the location of the staff parking spots, particularly when they are reserved for management.
Similarly the type of company cars management award themselves with can be a warning sign for wary partners.
If customers, staff and suppliers have to walk past an array of expensive prestige cars in the shady and sheltered executive parking spots they can be pretty certain they are not going to be the number one priority at that business.
While running PC Rescue I quickly learned this when visiting potential customers, one client in particular invited me to review their network and make recommendations.
On arriving, I had to feed a parking meter in the street before picking my way past a series of high end Mercedes, two Porsches and a Maserati.
After looking at their network, which hadn’t had a cent spent on it for the best part of a decade, I gave the Managing Director a ballpark figure of what he was looking at to bring his systems into this century.
“That’s way too much!” he thundered and proceeded to lecture me on why my rates were extortionate – all the while I politely listened while thinking I’d driven to the job in a base model Holden Barina and was paying for parking.
Needless to say we didn’t get the job.
One of the worst, most soul destroying things in business is dealing with entitled customers and this client was a classic example. I genuinely feel sorry for whoever landed the job.
Who parks where and what they drive is a good measure for the calibre of a business’ leadership and the egos of management. It’s a good starting place for deciding who you’re going to do business with.
“entitlement” is a good description. RHP (rank has privilege) is a pretty pathetic attitude to view as an outsider.
Conversely, we can view a lot of the trappings of success with jealously an confuse the two things.
A recent example comes to mind; at one client, all capital purchases were stopped for several months and a round of redundancies were implemented. At the same time, two C-level Execs went to Madrid for a week of global software conferences, unrelated to the core business they were in.
They obviously knew it wasn’t a good look as they instructed their PAs to keep it quiet, but that’s impossible in an age of electronic diaries.
So, as a result of one poorly-hidden corporate junket, they lost any moral support for the required cutbacks and austerity measures. Amateurish.
I think that really comes down to leadership – one of the hallmarks of modern managerialism is those occupying the corner offices want the perks don’t want the responsibilities that go with their positions. We see the same in politics.