By Chen Chunhua

The Longest Toe Learns Pain First

By Chen Chunhua

One winter morning, I could not start my car engine.The hotel guard asked me if I needed any help, and said that he could call the hotel fleet for help.

I said,“It’s early and cold. Will they come to help?”

His answer was really interesting,“I am authorized to call the general manager as long as a guest needs help.”

This is the reason why this 5-star hotel in Qingdao can be ranked as first class. Most problems guests experience can be well solved here,because the hotel has authorized its front-line staff to utilize any resources necessary.

“The longest toe learns pain first.”The front-line staff know the guests’needs best because they are in direct contact with guests.

Being a manager, if you can give the front-line staff easy access to resources when complaints are received, they will be able to give timely solutions.

Hierarchical differences are inevitable for most companies in the process of their development. On one hand, the management layer, which is insensitive to the guests’ needs controls the resources and has the authority of decision-making. On the other hand, though the executive layer knows much better about guests’demands and desires, they have neither access to resources nor the power of decision.

One important reason for the employees’ poor executive ability is that they don’t understand the concepts of administration. The lack of resources or authority makes them unable to realize their own solutions. They have to spend time communicating and negotiating with superiors; this not only leads to a worse customer experience, but also decreases real achievements and end results.

The gap between resources and guests is extremely dangerous.Therefore, administrators should either get closer to guests themselves or decentralize their authorities.

冬天的一个清晨，我的汽车无法启动，酒店的门卫于是上前询问我是否需要帮助。我问他怎么帮忙，他说可以打电话让车队里的人来帮忙。

我说：“这么早，这么冷，你能叫得动他们吗？”

他的回答非常有意思：“只要是客人的问题，总经理我都可以叫来。”

这就是这家青岛五星级酒店服务堪称一流的原因了。它能够为顾客解决问题，因为它的一线员工有调动酒店任何资源的权力。

“最长的脚趾最先知道疼。”一线员工，因为处在和顾客直接接触的最前线，因而他们最清楚顾客的所想所需。

作为管理者，如果你能够给一线员工充分的资源使用权，他们就能够在第一时间为顾客解决问题。

我们很多公司在规模壮的过程中，不可避免地产生了层级。一方面，管理层不能感受到顾客的需要，却拥有最多的资源和决策权；另一方面，一线员工最清楚顾客的所想所需，却没有决策的资源和权力。

员工的执行力差，一个很重要的原因就是，员工不了解管理者的想法，也没有足够的资源和决策权来实现自己的想法，最后只能把大量的时间花在频繁的上下级反复沟通和协调上，不仅牺牲了客户的感受，能够真正创造成果的时间也少之又少。

要么，管理者去贴近客户，要么，管理者把权力资源下放，资源和客户脱节是非常危险的事情。

有一次，我与一个公司的片区总经理一起到基层做完市场调研之后，分公司经理和业务员希望这位总经理能抽出时间与当地的一个大客户见面。

因为他们一直力图与这个大客户合作，但是谈判进行了八个多月，还没有打动对方，所以，分公司希望片区总经理能够亲自出面帮忙。于是，我和这位总经理一起去见了这位大客户。

极富戏剧性的是，当片区总经理了解这个大客户的需求后，当场就答应了对方的要求，并在20分钟内就签下合同。大家一片欢呼，称赞总经理能力过人，而我却非常难过。

我在想，如果这个片区总经理能及早地贴近客户，或者放权给下属，就不会白白浪费大家8个月的宝贵时间了。

Once I served as a consultant and conducted some grass roots marketing research with an area general manager. When the research was done, the branch manager and the salesmen said that they hoped that the area manager could arrange to meet with a potential big customer.Our local team couldn’t impress the customer and negotiations had continued for more than eight months. The general manager granted their request and I went along with him.

It was a dramatic event when the contract was signed within twenty minutes after our area general manager had understood and satisfied the demands of this major customer.Everybody cheered and praised him for his excellent ability;however, I felt sad about it.

I was just wondering: if the general manager of this area could have gotten closer to the guests earlier, or if he could have delegated some of his powers to subordinates,those precious eight months could have been saved.

Many managers stay at the leadership level, analyzing financial statements and other data forever.They have no substantial feeling of the market. On the other hand,our marketing staff just stays at the performance analysis level.Concentrating on their salary and the relevant policies, they actually care little about the guests’ real needs as well.

Such a situation is very dangerous to an enterprise’s survival and development. The key to managing an organization is to make the authorityequivalent to the responsibility, and combine the workers with the resources. If you make your employees responsible for something without giving them corresponding powers, you will only find that they have seemingly poor executive abilities.

According to Sam Walton, you should share whatever you know with your employees. The more they know, the more they will pay attention to; and once they do that, they will become unstoppable.

It is crucial for an organization to transform its advantages on professional operations into healthy competition involving its employees.

Many enterprises think highly of talents, especially “the super salesmen”. This was a good concept in the early stages of marketing; however, in the fierce competition nowadays, any speci fic super salesman no longer exists. Instead of counting on the personal capabilities of the salesmen, an enterprise would better off exploiting its organizational ability to help its front-line staff.

(From Business, issue 5, 2017. Translation: Wang Xiaoke)

很多企业的经理人员常常停留在财务领导层面，总是在不断地分析财务报表，不断地进行数据分析，对于市场却没有实质性的感觉。而我们的营销人员又只是停留在提成管理层面，只关心销售收入和销售政策，只关心提成管理而不关心顾客需求。

这对企业长期生存与发展是非常危险的。组织管理的关键就在于，把权责对等，把员工和资源做组合。如果你仅仅给了员工责任，却没有授予他对应的权力，极有可能会造成员工执行力差的表象局面。

山姆·沃尔顿曾经说过：“与你的员工分享你所知道的一切，他们知道得越多，就越会去关注；一旦他们去关注了，就没有什么力量能阻止他们了。”

让组织的专业运作优势成为员工的竞争力，这是一个企业非常关键的能力。

很多企业非常在意能人，非常在意超级营销员，这在早期营销中是一种好方法，但是在现在非常激烈的竞争中，并不存在特定的超级营销员，更不能够过分依赖业务员自身的能力，一定要传递组织能力来帮助一线员工。

（摘自《商界》2017年第5期）

最长的脚趾先知疼

文|陈春花