Acronym

I’m going to share an advance tidbit from the 2007 Leadership Issue of Associations Now with you: In a feature story, William C. Taylor, co-author of Mavericks at Work, shares an anecdote about Commerce Bank. Apparently Commerce has a number of idiosyncratic terms and sayings—to the extent that they provide new employees with a specialized “Commerce Lingo” dictionary.

One term that struck me as particularly powerful is “One to Say Yes, Two to Say No.” In other words, every employee is empowered to say yes to a customer, but to say no, the employee must first check with his or her supervisor.

This slogan was still in my mind when I came upon this interesting story in Seth Godin’s blog, about an airline crew’s efforts to reduce their passengers’ misery while waiting for an extended flight delay to end. The crew decided to order pizza for the whole plane (and since delivery isn’t available on a runway, one crew member volunteered to go pick up the pizzas). Once the food arrived, everyone from the captain to the flight attendants came out to serve the passengers. I'd be willing to bet that this extra effort on the part of the crew was a very pleasant surprise for everyone on board.

Many association staff members may have ideas that could turn a member’s whole day around. But if they don’t feel empowered to act on their inspirations—if you have a “two to say yes” culture, or worse, a “committee to say yes” culture—those ideas will never get off the ground.

And I’d bet the staff member who does get to act on his or her idea, and sees the positive reaction, will be that much more motivated to act again to improve members’ experiences in the future.