I received a package in the mail this week. With 20 cents postage due on the envelope.
There is a leadershp lesson here, and it’s not about the Postal Service or the 20 cents.
Watch this video to learn the lesson and take my challenge.
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About Kevin Eikenberry
Kevin Eikenberry is a recognized world expert on leadership development and learning and is the Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group. He has spent over 30 years helping organizations across North America, and leaders from around the world, on leadership, learning, teams and teamwork, communication and more.
Twice he has been named by Inc.com as one of the Top 100 Leadership and Management Experts in the World and 100 Great Leadership Speakers for Your Next Conference. The American Management Association named him a “Leaders to Watch” and he has been twice named as one of the World's Top 30 Leadership Professionals by Global Gurus. Top Sales World has named him a Top Sales & Marketing Influencer several times, and his blog has been named on many “best of” lists. LeadersHum has named him one of the 200 Biggest Voices in Leadership in 2023.
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Wow, USPS shows us how “not to” once again! Unbelievable — but not surprising, considering the source. It was clear to most of us at about 3 minutes in that this makes no sense; what a gross misuse of resources.
What if that person were retasked to evaluate what the fair market value of the transport of media is? The entire pricing structure should probably be re-evaluated. They could very likely get back into profitability by using some of your leadership principles.
Thanks Sandra – your comments mean perhaps my video was too long! If so sorry about that. I do think the message, while usefl to the USPS applies to all of us. . . I’m confident it applies for my team, which means it is time to get to work!
Kevin 🙂
Well Kevin, I guess I owe you twenty cents! Wow, I wonder how many other book packages I’ve sent from the post office, by the postal clerk have also been opened prior to delivery?
Your point on policy and procedures are well taken. Every organization needs some guide lines, but they also need to be evaluated from time to time for their real value to the organization. This is clearly a police action that costs a great deal of the postal services assets.
Keep up the great work Kevin!
Thanks Harlan…. and again, it’s not about the 20 cents!
K 🙂
Great example! Aside from a couple of Office Space references it drives home that there is such a thing as diminishing returns on bureaucracy.
Here’s another brief example of this type of thing in a different industry, a for-profit one (assuming you collect anecdotes like this). I recently had a smartphone go belly up with 9 mos. to go before I could refresh. My cell provider (for the past nearly 15 years, who I also purchase a landline and digital TV from) said I’d have to pay an early upgrade fee, plus the cost of a new phone. They said this was because they’d had people do early upgrades and sell the new phones on eBay.
A strong competitor of theirs had the same phone I wanted, and the early termination fee from my current provider was $15 LESS than a new contract, with phone, at the competitor. Only after some cajoling was the early upgrade fee waived, though in retrospect if someone wants to save me $15 by losing almost $200 of my recurring monthly business, I suppose I should make them happy and comply.
As with the post office example, it does raise eyebrows to find that someone actually sat there and came up with these policies that led to negative consequences. Interesting that so much is spent to prop up and expand revenues when there’s actually a beaver’s dam of conflicting and counter-productive flotsam choking off what could already be used.
Great story Charles! And as you said, it makes the same basic point. thanks for sharing. Do so anytime!
K 🙂
Great lesson, Kevin! All too often, it is the little things like postage due that customers remember. When leaders take the time to be certain the simple things are covered, their businesses can flourish. As this article (http://www.upyourservice.com/learning-library/customer-service-improvement/tweak-your-customer-or-tweak-your-system) points out, sometimes minor tweaks make a big difference.
Kevin,
I invite you to re-examine your motive on this. In my point of view, you are projecting something into this that isn’t there. Consider that the cost of the inspection is included in the price of all the packages to afford inspecting a percentage of media mailings. The cost for inspecting your package, the dunning letter inserted, the stamping of postage due, and the collection by the Carrier is all covered in the postage paid for the mailings.
I invite you to read the rules on media mail closely. What your video argues is that the insert is meaningless. It does meet the regulations measure of “personal” and therefore, First Class postage is due. For me, it’s not the amount due, it’s the fact that there is an amount due.
Who gets to judge the policies and procedures of a 500 year old business who has legions of rules, regs, policies developed by their Leaders to enforce their requirements? And apparently, they not only make sense, they work. The cost of goods sold includes everything to provide a deliverable plus, breakage (a letter mailed, unstamped?), loss, damage, forwarding, overhead, quality control, quality assurance, defects, and replacement. What was done with your package I categorize to be quality control.
What are the unintended consequences of the book’s author thanking you for your support in a personal letter? Don’t misunderstand that question. I do believe that the author would have paid First Class postage had he spent his energy to read the specific items, burried in all the documents the USPS publishes, that spell out the character of what can be included in the media shipping. The unintended consequences of his actions are your paying the 20 cent postage due.
I would ask you to take a look at your video admonishment of the USPS. Your judgment of the USPS’ intention makes me angry. I see you discrediting the humanity of the hard working people inside an American institution. If you can’t own see and own that, I have to project that you are seeing your own ineffectuality and humanness somewhere in that scenario. I think they do a damn good job. I have to inquire, would a true Leader take this 20¢ collection on?
Yeah, I think the USPS is solid on there effort and collection of the 20¢. The unintended consequence might be your posting a retraction of this video. Or not. I leave you at that choice.
Kyle – thanks for your comments – I appreciate your passion and insight. I do believe however, that my point was missed here. This wasn’t really about the USPS, they were just the example. The point was meant for all of us – that policies, procedures and regulations do need to be reviewed, considered and changed when appropriate. I’m not even necessarily saying this particular rule should be changed, only that we, as leaders, not develop tunnel vision or worse in relationship to creating and enforcing policies.
Hopefully in our companies, like on this blog, we can nurture healthy dialogue on a subject.
Thanks again for your comments – and I apologize that my thoughts made you angry – that was the furthest thing from my intentions.
Kevin 🙂
Kevin, streamlining processes and procedures is right minded and energetically makes a lot of sense on many fronts. Your offered example to support your point is at best an unfortunate one. That procedure can easily be measured with simple S.M,A.R.T paradigms.
I would be suprised if there aren’t KPIs thrown at that particular process to support and validate the value received. For each detractor on this there are probably two who are on the otherside who would blow whistles looking to point out how patrons could cheat the system and there is nothing in place to “catch them.” It then probably does come down to the USPS and the 20 cents triggering a shot at by way of pretentious processes causing “excesses in government and quasi-government.” Would you have written your article if only a courtesy notice was put in your package?
I am not clear what brings an assertion that I am angry. It is OK to passionately disagree with a flawed premise asserted as an example. For me, had you posited this experience as one where the exception defines the rule, it might have made more sense … to me.
I am all about healthy dialogue. I am also not willing to accept another’s projection as a sublime truth.
Ciao
Thanks for your followup comments Kyle. As for my assertion that you are angry, it isn’t an assertion at all, it comes directly from your initial comment, “Your judgment of the USPS’ intention makes me angry.”
Perhaps I could have made the point more clearly that I was using the 20 cents as an example, not to pounce on to denigrate the Postal Service. If that is what you heard, again, I apologize.
Thanks again for for your thoughts, input and engagement on an older post on my blog.
Kevin 🙂