{"id":680,"date":"2011-05-23T15:51:53","date_gmt":"2011-05-23T15:51:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.peterjohnsononline.com\/?p=680"},"modified":"2011-05-23T15:51:53","modified_gmt":"2011-05-23T15:51:53","slug":"path-resistance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peterjohnsononline.com\/index.php\/path-resistance\/","title":{"rendered":"A path of least resistance….."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The other day I was walking along a footpath and saw the shortcut in the picture. This had been created by people walking from a nearby car park\u00a0to the path. Whilst a little annoying that people had decided to make this unofficial path, because they were not prepared to walk the long way round, it got me thinking. The path did go in a loop and the new path was the shortest distance. And whilst the proper surfaced path only increased the distance walked by a small amount it was clearly sufficient to be enough to make a difference. You may also see in the picture that the people who cut the grass had\u00a0the insights to cut the area to the sides of the new path. This made the route clearer to walk on even though it was not the \u2018official’ path.<\/p>\n

I was interested to see that no signs had been erected directing people to the ‘correct’ route. Nor a small barrier or fence placed to discourage people \u2013 in fact quite the reverse.<\/p>\n

How often have we been somewhere where there is every attempt to dissuade customers from doing things? You know the sort – ‘no cheques accepted here’, ‘no mobile phones’, ‘do not walk on the grass’, ‘please keep to the foot path’.<\/p>\n

This got me thinking about how we treat our customers or clients \u2013 are we telling them what we don\u2019t what them to do, signs screaming out at the behaviours we<\/strong> don\u2019t want. Rather than noticing what they<\/strong> want….and then responding to thier wishes\u00a0in a positive way.<\/p>\n

It also reminded me of the time I was in a restaurant in France when my guest requested fresh fruit for dessert \u2013 the waitress was very brusque saying that there was none on the menu. The desserts on the menu were all complex creations but far too rich. When the chef was eventually asked a wonderful fresh fruit selection was prepared. We were being told what we could not have rather than considering a customer\u2019s request that could be met \u2013 and the teamwork to create a result was not high\u00a0for the\u00a0waitress. I would add that the request was in good French and\u00a0 polite.<\/p>\n