My husband is the Director of Golf at a golf club in a small community outside of the city.  I sometimes help out as a temporary staff member when they have larger than usual events.  I always enjoy myself and love his staff.

A few weeks ago they hosted a double shot-gun with a large group of people calling for two separate banquets – one lunch and the other dinner.   Unfortunately, there were quite a few of us caught and trapped on the wrong side of  the barricades due to the town parade.  This town has only one road through town that leads to the road to the golf course and it was frustrating to sit and wait.

There sat a visiting Executive Chef, Chef, Front of House Supervisor, two servers and myself all tapping our toes (except for me who was voicing the ridiculousness of the one way in and one way out situation) waiting for a town parade to end so we could get to work to serve the people attending the event.

Service is HUGE for me, and this whole situation frustrated me as I thought about all that needed to be done to ensure customers had a smashingly fabulous time.  Having a good part of your staff unavailable certainly must cut into your confidence.  The Food and Beverage manager was gracious as always at our late arrival, the event went off without any visible hitches and the customers were happy.

This made me think long and hard about One Way In One Way Out scenarios companies set themselves up for.

  • A single sales person who shares no information with the rest of the organization
  • No successors identified for key executive positions, nor knowledge transferred
  • Single individuals working in technical specialties who deliver directly to the customer

A simple and great solution to this problem is to assign Primary and Secondary leads in your most important key positions.  Primary owns the title, Secondary owns enough of the knowledge to cover for the Primary in the event their world turns up-side-down and they cannot be at the office.

Companies who understand Primary and Secondary work teams experience

  • lower training costs,
  • fewer efficiency issues
  • job knowledge transfer
  • less individual burn-out

This can be managed well but it takes effort on behalf of the leader to ensure the teams are effectively utilizing tag-team philosophy.

One way in and one way out is a rickety road to travel and opens doors for delays, stress and frustration among employees.  Remember, “Happy Workplaces Succeed”.

Patti is a strategic adviser in Leadership, Customer Service and Small business. You can book her to speak at her Speakers Page.

Need Strategic Sense for your business? We train leaders and employees in strategies for making workplaces happy for it is then that customers love to work with them, refer them to others, and keep coming back for more. – Hire us if you prefer to rise above the status-quo, care deeply about employee and customer experiences and truly believe in living and performing with excellence.