My wife hates banks.
She doesn’t like them…
She doesn’t trust them…
And without asking, she is provided with a good reason not to use a bank over and over again.
Earlier this week, she walked into her bank to deposit a check.
In the middle of the deposit, the teller proceeded to ask her something like…
“What is this money from?”
My wife said, “Excuse me? I don’t believe that’s any of your business.”
The teller says, “Well in order to get past this screen, I need to answer that question. Otherwise I’ll have to put a hold on the funds.”
My wife said, “It’s still none of your business. Put a hold on the funds.”
The surprising thing isn’t that a big corporation hires human beings and then systematically removes their ability to think for themselves… it’s that enough people on the other side of the counter TAKE it.
But that’s what we’ve all been taught to do. Follow instructions. Don’t challenge authority.
I want to be clear that this is NOT the teller’s issue. I do not believe that humans are wired to treat other people like this on their own.
She was probably doing her best to follow directions.
The issue here is a systemic failure of an institution (more like an entire industry) to treat its customers like PEOPLE.
In the real business world, you don’t stay in business too long when you act like that.
So how do banks get away with it?
It seems the banking industry does not really follow traditional rules of business. Its relationship with the government pretty much exempts it from that.
The funny thing is, I used to WORK at a bank.
It’s terrible. You basically show up and follow a rule book for 8 hours. No thinking required. Heck, no thinking allowed!
It’s one of the most fear-based and “play NOT to lose places” I can think of.
It’s pretty much the anti-entrepreneur way of life.
The reason I don’t work there anymore is because I realized that FEAR is not an acceptable thing to have running any part of my life.
Of course, the bank will give you many, many rationalizations that make their level of fear sound completely justified.
I’m looking forward to the entrepreneur who creates something that makes banks obsolete. Or at least makes them more human.
Until then, it’s going to pretty much take a whole lot of people to force any sort of temporary change.
A whole lot of people who simply won’t tolerate service at such a poor level any longer.
It seems to me that this whole idea of “systems thinking” is a bit out of hand in certain places.
When the system trumps the people, I think your days are numbered.
While I’m not holding my breath for the banking industry to wake up and change, this whole encounter can still create something good. I can learn from this.
Here are my takeaways:
“Jason, please be sure you aren’t treating anyone in any of your businesses this way.”
“Jason, when you work with other people, make sure you do everything in your power to EMPOWER them. Don’t try to control them, intimidate them or dehumanize them. That will work against you in the long run. Because at some level, it’s in our nature to resent being treated that way.”
“Jason, if you ever hire an employee, make sure you’re smart enough to figure out how to create business “systems” that let people think for themselves.”
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