Yesterday I flew back to Birchrunville from St Barth. Luckily I managed to snag a first class ticket. Soon after the flight took off, I experienced the most amazing exhibit of irrationality and customer insensitivity. As many such things do, it got me thinking about leadership…or lack thereof.
My seatmate, a lovely young lady of 81 years, and I got talking while we settled in. We were having a great time talking about St Barth and Anguilla, where she had recently sold a vacation house she owned there for over 20 years. This got us talking about places we visited, so I mentioned my trips to Africa and the projects I work on there.
She got excited and mentioned she and her husband had owned a company that made private label clothes for major labels, Talbots being one of them. Their daughter had run the company for a few years before they sold it off. Looking around for something to do now that the company was sold, the daughter…Ellen…somehow wound up starting a non profit called Pagus:Africa that helps children in Ghana by building schools and providing related community building services.
And Ellen just happened to be sitting in the first coach row since they could only get one first class seat. So my seatmate went back to get Ellen and introduce her to me. Then they were going to trade seats so Ellen and myself could discuss how we might work together.
So off she goes and returns in a minute. Ellen sits down, mom starts to leave, and all hell breaks loose. The flight attendant goes ballistic. It seems that Homeland Security has decreed that it is a huge terror threat for a coach customer to trade seats with a first class customer. We’re all amazed…Ellen most of all since it was actually her seat in first class that she had given her mother.
There is no talking to the flight attendent. She is so terrified that Homeland Security will find out that seats were switched that she doesn’t hear that it’s actually Ellen’s seat. So Ellen goes back to coach and mom and I spend the next half hour discussing the insanity that has enveloped our dysfunctional leaders, and how their fear blinds them to the cost of what they do…and it’s uselessness.
After all, we all came through the same security. Coach passengers get seated in first class all the time…it’s called upgrading. There is a heavy duty locked door into the cockpit. The concept that there is any security risk from allowing two passengers to switch seats it so bizarre and irrational that it defies logic.
Which leads me to why I share this story with you. It got me wondering. What’s going on in your company that is just as stupid, antagonizes your customers…and employees, and causes them to think of you as less than rational and competent…and hardly a leader to respect.
Ellen and Enoch