Decisions, decisions.

During the management class in my college the professor gave us a chance to improve our midterm grades by completing a simple task: we all had to make a decision on how we were going to fix the grade. The only condition was given: every single person in our class should vote for the decision. After a long process of the decision making, we  made up a solution – the professor would give us an extra credit assignment, plus the grade after the extra assignment would be curved. Although decision was made and everybody voted for it, we had a hard time making it.

As we know there are several behavior models during the decision making process:

“Compete to win” behavior. There were several students in our class (I would say one or two) who very actively and , may I say, aggressively promoted their ideas.

Avoidance behavior. Some students, including me, didn’t participate in the decision making at all.

Compromise behavior.  Most of the students worked as mediators, trying to get at least any result (if we wouldn’t have agreed, the professor wouldn’t give us any extra points for the test at all).

Accommodation behavior. Probably some students who get the highest grades in the exam didn’t really care about the decision, so they didn’t actively participate.

Collaboration behavior. Those were real negotiators who provided us with their ideas and respectfully listen ideas of the other students. I think it was the second larger group of people in the class after the compromise behavior.

As I mentioned above, personally I chose the avoidance behavior. Well firstly because I was really not in the mood of talking and negotiating. Secondly, I feel really uncomfortable negotiating the ideas in the large groups (30-40 people are too much for me). I am sure I would have feelt morally better had we discussed this in the small groups (3-5 people). I would have probably used collaboration behavior , or maybe even “compete to win” one. Also, as the theory says, on the subconscious level I felt that it would be hard to proceed with the idea that everyone liked. Personally, I would have voted for the standard multiple choice question, I am actually shocked that the class decided to keep the test almost the same way it was before! But, oh well, can’t change anything now.

Difference in Cultures.

When I moved to America I wasn’t shocked or surprised anyhow. But I can see some differences in the cultures. You see, in Russia people are seem to be more rude. Russian people don’t say “Excuse me”, “Thank You”, “I am sorry”, and other nice words as often as Americans. It  doesn’t mean Russians are bad. I can see two explanations of this effect. The first one is related to the historical past. The second one is related to… I don’t even know how to say it…. The culture?

Let’s start with the first one.   Although a lot of things changed since communism, the quality of service in business is still quite poor. Before 1991 it was much worse. I was a little kid at that time and I don’t remember much, but based on what I have seen in movies, read in books, and heard from other people, people felt like they are going to a battle when they were going shopping. It was almost impossible to go out to, let’s say, a grocery store and not to get into a verbal fight with a salesperson or sometimes even fellow shoppers. The definition of “customer service” simple didn’t exist and people were so angry so they always verbally fight with each other: customers with salespeople, customers with customers, sales people with sales people, and so on.

After 1991 when privately held businesses started to appear, the situation was still the same, if not even worse. Because in addition to bad customer service and angry people, organized crime, which tried to control the businesses, started to appear. It was like a Wild West in America. People know a little (if know anything) about management, marketing, and other business related subjects. And only after 2000 things are started to change. Now, although situation has changed, if you go to a modern Russia you still can see some examples of poor customer service and bad management.

The second reason why Russia people don’t say polite words as often as Americans, is that a lot of people think that when you say a polite word, such as “Thank You”, you need to really mean it. In other words, you should say polite words only in a very special situations, which really means something for you. I read some discussions in Russian forums, and people say there that Americans say the polite words just because they use to it, almost automatically, and it doesn’t really mean a lot to them.

 What’s is the moral of the story? Well, it is obvious, management of a company should pay close attention when working with people from different cultures.

Speaking about bad management, power of social media, and delivery people.

Yesterday evening I just ordered a pizza online and didn’t even think to write a new post. Well, everything had changed when the delivery person buzzed my door. He was very rude and made me upset. Now I am an angry customer. I just put a negative review on Yelp! I am going to copy it below so you can read it.


In the meantime I just want to say that we all live in the era of social media, so one little management mistake (like forgetting to train delivery personnel) can worth a company big bucks. Just look, I posted a negative review on Yelp! I wrote a post in my blog, I shared it with all my contacts on Facebook and Twitter. And it is only me – one little angry customer! Who knows how many more customers this delivery person made upset?

Here is the link to the reviews of this place on Yelp!: http://www.yelp.com/biz/giorgios-brick-oven-and-wine-bar-new-york#hrid:YhsypFaEMPwliL37NJGwQg

And here is the copy of my review:

I review my delivery experience with this place.

I ordered online and the delivery person was very rude. Vet very very rude. He buzzed the door like 6 times. When I finally opened the door he looked really angry and upset. He almost threw 2 pizza boxes to me and told me in an angry tone “Come on, faster, I am very busy!”. I could barely catch the bag with the drinks and 2 boxes with pizza. After this he immediately run away. I didn’t even have time to realized what had happened.

I think it is management problem. If the management can’t properly train and instruct the delivery persons and give them basics of a good customer service, well, obviously something wrong with the management.

You invested big money to open the place, you invested time to build your social media presence. One wrong delivery can ruin it all. But wait, that delivery man was working the full day, and I am sure not the first (and not the last) day, which means more than one delivery. How many more clients will be offended by him?

Thank to the review sites like Yelp! Now all the angry customers can post their reviews. Thanks to all social media websites. Now customers who are not satisfied can share their experience with thousands of prospective clients of the establishment. And a special thanks to the managers of the business for a good case of a bad management.

Note for the owners, managers of the business: It happened on September 12, between 7:30 and 8 pm.