What does your door say?


There was story about a man who checked into a hotel for the first time in his life, and goes up to his room.
Five minutes later he called the reception desk and said: "You've given me a room with no exit. How do I leave?"
The desk clerk said, "Sir, that's absurd. Have you looked for the door?"
The man said, "Well, there's one door that leads to the bathroom. There's a second door that goes into the closet. And there's a door I haven't tried, but it has a “DO NOT DISTURB” sign on it."


When reading the story, I thought about how our company culture can give out signals that say, “DO NOT DISTURB.” Like the man checking into a hotel for the first time, we have new driver employees aimlessly wondering around terminal facilities because our work environment gives out signals that say, “DO NOT DISTURB.” This DO NOT DISTURB message is given out by:

  1. closed doors
  2. lack of eye contact
  3. short answers
  4. and other non- verbal demonstrations

This is rather confusing to the new driver employee, because the recruiter was very enthusiastic during the selection process and spoke of how friendly the company was. Unfortunately, this lack of recognition may create a feeling of unrealized expectations and eventually a voluntary turnover statistic for the Carrier.


How can this happenWhile many companies may have a vision that includes a mission statement, critical success factors, goals and action steps; this only tells us WHAT course of action to take to achieve our results and does not tell us how to do it. How to do it comes from our values and it’s the values that determine our behavior on HOW we are going to go about achieving our objectives.    

Vision without values may give us a detailed process on what to do to achieve the desired result; but it doesn’t necessarily address the spirit in which we achieve the result. Values that are aligned horizontally and vertically within an organization provide guiding principles or a moral compass that govern our behavior when engaging with both customers and fellow employees. More importantly, Values with a clear vision draw people with like minds to your organization.

So if you get a chance, exchange that “DO NOT DISTURB SIGN” for a “WECLOME SIGN” and start building sustainable relationships today.