Borders—a study in integrity

[Kerry]

Borders—a study in integrity

The following is written as resource material for The Communication Skills Tutorial for Managers.

Subject: The effects of the leadership-communication model used by the CEO of Borders
Author: Kerrith H. (Kerry) King, Leadership-Communication Skills Coach

Part of what prompts me to write is that a year ago I sent valuable feedback to George Jones, the CEO of Borders. It was not forwarded to George, instead it was summarily dismissed with a boilerplate reply. Margaret, Borders Rewards Customer Care, replied that there is no way for a customer to contact the CEO via email/Internet. She didn’t offer a suggestion about getting my feedback to her CEO nor did she assure me that she would see to it that George got my communication. In essence, certain communications to the boss are filtered/screened by the very people who are responsible for its problems.

For example: No staff member is going to tell the CEO, “I just received feedback from a customer who happens to be a communication skills coach; he writes that a leaky urinal in the Hilo Hawaii Borders store reveals that you’re hiring unqualified managers who are not supervising me and all the other employees correctly (continue reading).

Margaret’s boilerplate (one pre-written reply fits many letters) reply to my feedback:

“Your suggestion will be included in our regular reporting to our various departments and in information presented to the executives at Borders. While I cannot guarantee that a change will be made, we appreciate your sending us your ideas."

Note: It’s now April 28, 2009, a year since I wrote George and the problem, ostensibly a leaky urinal, has not been addressed. I say ostensibly because the leak is merely a symptom of a larger problem.

The CEO’s present leadership-communication skills train execs to hide (both consciously and unconsciously) the information that would reveal that they, the execs, are not being supervised correctly. Ironically, the CEO’s communication model, his way of communicating, precludes employees from giving honest valuable feedback; many experience as did I that he would ignore them, that it’s hopeless.

We begin with the premise that when a manager has gone unconscious (not doing complete work) that he/she is not being supervised correctly. This is the case with the manager of the Hilo branch of Borders. I cannot not emphasize strongly enough that the problem is not the Hilo store manager nor its employees.

Case in point: More than a year ago (’07) the urinal in the men’s room wasn’t working correctly. Over a period of months it's assumed that employees had mentioned the problem to their manager and failed to effect a repair; so I reported it. It took several months for the manager to get it fixed. To this very day (’09) the flushing handle and plumbing is crooked. Because of this the chrome water pipe goes into the porcelain at the top of the urinal at a slight angle. This causes a small leak around the rubber washer. The water seeps from under the washer into the urinal below. The constant trickle for the past year has left a stain on the porcelain.

The problem: The manger uses the urinal several times a day. He cannot but see the crooked plumbing and the leak. He knew at first glance after the repair that the plumber he hired did sloppy work yet he did not call the plumber and have him correct the situation, to do complete work. In other words, because the manager is unconscious, isn’t committed to doing complete work, he also supported the plumber in doing sloppy work. It’s even worse. All the male employees at the Hilo Borders can see that the manager is not committed to doing complete work. Daily he reinforces the commitment to mediocrity; employees see the leak and don’t report it (possible one or more have) because they intuit that nothing will be done. They have in fact have compromised their integrity out of fear. He supports both his own employees and the plumber in doing incomplete work. Can it get worse? Continue reading.

At first glance you might judge that the manager is simply stuck in-the-process-of-becoming-a-manager, that in truth he is not qualified to be a manager, but you would be wrong. The source of the problem is not the store manager but his Regional Supervisor. You see, the supervisor visits the store regularly and inspects everything, and, uses the very same urinal. The problem is that the Regional Supervisor is not doing his job correctly; he is filling a position for which he is not qualified. Now we ask, who hired the Regional Supervisor? Who supervises him/her? Well, you can see where this is going. Executives and supervisors always mirror the leadership communication skills of its CEO. The manager of the Hilo branch of Borders has no choice but to mirror his superiors.

Perhaps you can see now why my “suggestion” to Customer Care did not solve the problem. Even if Margaret was extremely responsible (extremely here is redundant) and had called the Hilo manager and reported that a customer had reported that the urinal was leaking, and that the manager had fixed it, it would not effect a transformation within Borders. Even if George fired the Regional Supervisor and the Hilo Manager his staff would only hire more of the same. George himself must engage the services of a communication skills coach. Presently he can only attract people less committed to excellence than himself. If he were to attract a genuine manager, he'd soon train him/her to surrender to mediocrity.

The moral of the story: We’ve messed with every management variable possible except integrity. The level of integrity we’ve been operating at will only produce more of the same. Employees mirror the integrity of management who in turn must mirror the integrity of the boss.

Addendum:

I have addressed another, more serious, integrity problem at Borders. I write because I believe silence to be tantamount to sabotage. I predict that unless the integrity problem is addressed it will contribute to failure (possibly bankruptcy).

Update: On 12/17/09 the leaky urinal has been fixed but not the pipe alignment problem.  I don't know if this post prompted the fix because there is no acknowledgment here. Note: It's important to acknowledge support, it completes the interaction.

Update: 7/19/10 the urinal is gone. Apparently broken beyond repair. Coincidentally Borders of Hilo has announced they are closing. This is consistent with my prediction (see more serious).