Leadership rules should promote common sense thinking.

Yesterday I was speaking to a group about leadership and I was asked an excellent "rule" question.  "How do you get employees to set aside rules designed to guide the employee in favor of using common sense to solve a customer problem."  I believe a customer was trying to return something a day or two past the store's 10-day return policy and the ensuing customer confrontation was not worth the rigid position the store clerk had taken.

Give someone a hammer, nails and some boards and guess what will happen?  If you give a left-brain, analytical type a rule with a specific 10-day period, you get what you asked for.  This is the kind of rule the leader should kill and if they set that rule I'll bet they have many others that should die a quick death so that creativity and original thinking can flourish at their place of business. 

What is magical about a 10-day return policy?  By being specific with the "10 days" you have given the worker permission not to think.  He has no more responsibility.  Worker says to self, "Read rule and implement policy and my job is safe for one more day."  That is the way most analytical types think.  Why would they possibly use common sense and good judgment if you told them 10 days? 

Why not set up a return policy that places the "control" in the hands of the work force you carefully hired and screened especially for their judgment and customer service orientation.  They should take into consideration a multitude of customer issues: Is it a good store customer who has done business with us before and never abused our generosity?  Was the product itself abused in any way?   Does it make common sense that the product didn't perform up to expectations? 

The idea is to trust the worker to make the decision and to error in favor of your valuable customers whom you want returning often to your store with smiles on their faces.  A breakdown in product performance is usually an opportunity to make it right with the customer and turn a negative into a positive and demonstrate you are the place they should do all of their shopping for the rest of their lives.  If you do it right you can turn a good customer into a raving fan.  But get rid of rigid, specific rules that merely serve to stifle common sense thinking.