Who Owns the Problem?

What happens when something goes wrong at work, and it repeatedly goes wrong? As in all day long? How do we change a systemic lack of ownership? 

The law in TN states that there are certain days that liquor can’t be sold in retail stores. Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas to be specific. Where you notice an operational failure is at the cash registers. 

True story from my local Walmart: Shoppers pick up their wine on Easter and head to check out. When the bottle is scanned, they are told they can’t purchase it. The cash register screen flashed a message to the sales associate that the sale is not allowed and something about underage and some sort of long cryptic message.

New cashiers are baffled that somehow the system knew this shopper is underage without having given up their ID. The customer doesn’t look underage so they make some excuse that the customer can’t purchase the item. They set the bottles aside.

They may make time to ask what the deal is when this happens again. They are told by those who have been through this before about the law. After a few hours, there are shopping carts full of wine bottles to return to the shelf. This goes on all day and then happens again on the next holiday.

I’m not making this up.  Lack of communication. Lack of training. Lack of ownership of the problem happened at every level of the organization. No one seemed to see it coming. There is no system that triggers a change. Shoppers (and employees) are somehow supposed to know. No one thought to put up signs where the wine is sold that they can’t make this purchase today because of the law. No one informed the cashiers. In short, no one owned the problem.  

No one seemed to see it coming. There is no system that triggers a change.

Admittedly it is management’s problem but all too often no employee says anything to management. Word of mouth from one cashier to another; they dutifully set the bottles aside and apologize to the customer.

You may think this is crazy but If you look, there is probably something like this that happens where you work. It is infrequent but knowable. Simple solutions may be available. The default is to let it run its course. A few people may make a mental note to change things next time. But it gets lost in the business of the day-to-day. It is not put on a calendar to trigger a change. There is no urgency. It only happens a few times a year.