Going the Distance

Why don’t people flush the toilet? And if they don’t flush the toilet, does that mean they also don’t wash their hands before exiting the restroom?

Why don’t people put their unwanted mail into the trash receptacle sitting right beside the bank of mailboxes instead of discarding it casually on the ground?

Why don’t people bother to scrape more than a small hole in the ice on their frosted over windshields in the middle of winter BEFORE they pull out of the driveway?

Why don’t people pick up their dog’s poop?

After reading so many blog posts recently about relationship selling and customer service, I am intrigued by the concept of why people do what they do. I have always been fascinated by this and perhaps missed my calling (except that in property management we all know putting on your shrink hat is commonplace. :-)) Coaching our teams is the first step in helping our residents to stop their laziness. That's what it is - simple laziness - when people so obviously ignore the right thing to do.

Flashback to high school. I was always a fairly proficient runner and enjoyed the short distance race. I excelled and often finished, if not first, then in the top three. One day after the spring season had already started my Coach told me he was pulling me from the short races and entering me in the long distance races. I protested. I whined that I wasn’t good at the long distances, that I would let the team down, that I plain ol’ didn’t want to run the long distances.

His response? I need you in the long distances, so that is where you will run. I was mad and pouted but did it. I never won the mile or even finished in the top three. However, by placing in the top five or even ten – heck, just for having someone competing – brought enough overall points to our team’s total to qualify us for Sectionals. My meager point count contributed to our total success and our ability to keep competing.

Flash forward to real life. At some point in our lives, we have to ask someone on our team to do something he or she does not want to do. If our residents continue to ignore the obvious, we may have to do it for them until we can train them to do it for themselves. Educating residents to do the right thing means we have learned what it takes to go the distance and we are up to the challenge.

And, I doubt we will ever get people to scrape their whole windshields before pulling out of the driveway. But I won't give up trying to convince them to take that little extra time so they can actually see where they are going and get there a bit more safely.