How to get people to follow instructions – part 1

Ruefully, I don’t think I know of a really great book anywhere in the libraries of the world (although there possibly is) that explains how to get people to do what you want them to do time-after-time-after-time. Nonetheless, McDonalds and a couple of other shining examples manage to get 16 year olds to do it.

So how is it that they can, I ask myself?

And the answer is probably that they are very effective in four areas… systems, training, measurement and reward and, at the risk of boring you, let me comment briefly on each.

1. Systems

You’ve probably heard me say that systems are scripts and checklists and what I probably don’t emphasise enough is that they are written down to that there can never be any doubt as to what people should do. All too often, in smaller businesses, we tend to “show and tell” and after a few repeat performances what the team are doing varies hugely from what they were originally told and shown.