MonkeyBusiness Management Secret #28

TURNOVER

Industries that rely on a small store-front building space, such as fast-food or specialty retail, are notorious for rapid turn-over in their ranks.

Those industries also happen to be the same ones that a trained monkey could work in. So what's the connection? Here's the deal: managers at the district level and above know full well that any bozo with half a brain could replace them. The problem, therefore, is how do they protect themselves from better people rising up from below?

The solution is simple -- TURNOVER.

Here's how it goes: work the people underneath you like dogs and give them impossible goals to meet. Then let them get burned out or pissed off and leave. Once they're gone, hire a new sucker (oops) I mean replacement.

It happened to me once when I worked a store management position for a certain dollar-store chain. By the time I realized what had happened I was already kicked to the street in disgrace. Since then, I have observed it happen to almost all of the other store managers I knew at that company. Lately it seems that the manager at the fast food establishment I work at is falling victim to the same scam. The district manager and the franchise owner, from what I can see, are masters at it.

The store manager is running around bugging everyone to achieve service levels that are physically impossible to meet in a real world. The owner and the district manager and pressuring him to meet those numbers, just like they did to all the previous managers before each got fired. I know this because a former manager once told me exactly how they dealt with him, and they are doing the exact same thing to the current manager.

What's worse is that sh* rolls down hill. Store managers who are desperate to keep their jobs work the hell out of their crews, and when the impossible goals aren't met, the store manager simply tells upper management that it's the crew's fault. The manager then replaces the crew.

While all of this is happening, district and regional managers rest at ease, knowing they are secure from any ambitious up-and-coming person who could very easily replace them. The turmoil of turnover keeps them safe.