Don’t s**t on the floor!

So many MBAs, textbooks and TED talks are completely out of touch with what happens in the real world of senior management, even when they have been designed and delivered by people with acres of experience. The real world is infinitely more rich, more instructive, and more bizarre. This is the first in a series of real-life management lessons, the stuff you’d never get on a LinkedIn MBA.

A few years ago, the head of facilities at one of my old companies sent me an email saying that someone had left some of the contents of their backside on the floor of the men’s toilets; could I send an email out to all staff, kindly asking them not to s**t on the floor?

I spent some time trying to process both what had happened and what I should do. This was a new one on me, so I talked to my managers.

The immediate reaction was denial: had some ‘toilet tourist’ from another office in the same building come down to express their contempt for our business? The building was occupied by public sector bodies, it could have been an expression of anger over media coverage about the private sector awarding above-inflation pay rises to staff (if that was their motivation, they clearly had not done their homework). We soon abandoned the ‘someone else’ theory.

It’s hard to accept that people who you sit in meetings with, who you chat to over the coffee machine, who you shake hands with (gulp!), might have a problem with some of the basic rules of living. Lots of people hide resentments and express it in different ways, through turning up late, making drive-by comments in meetings, or best of all, making snide comments on ‘anonymous’ staff surveys; but dirty protest was a new one on me, and all of my colleagues (bar one).

Should we see it as a cry for help and employ the help of the mental health first aiders?...OK, we were clearly over-thinking this by now.

We gave up trying to work out who had done this and why and tried to work out what should be done.

Do you just ignore it and hope that it goes away? The Facilities head was clearly upset and annoyed that one of the poor cleaners would have to come in, scrape and clean up the mess, you could not not say anything. It was clear that something needed to be said, at the very least to prevent the men’s toilet turning into a set from Trainspotting.

Communicating difficult things to your colleagues is never easy: redundancies, pay freezes, recruitment freezes, aircon breakdowns, the list is endless. Offices are full of inane signs that remind people to do basic things, ‘please wash your hands’, ‘please close the door’. This wasn’t something that people needed to be reminded not to do. You don’t forget to sit on the bowl.

So how do you tell an entire office that they should refrain from doing something that their parents had taught them to do before going to pre-school? How do you send an email out to all staff saying, “Please do not s**t on the floor?”

In the end, there was no way that we could admonish all staff for the actions of one person, or remind people that the toilet bowl is there for a reason (everyone should know this, it is self-evident), but if people have a problem with their aim, they should let facilities and HR know and we can find a way of ‘accommodating’ them.

What we decided to do was call out the action (shame without the name) so that people were aware that there was a problem, point out that people had to clean up the mess, but make light of the incident at the same time so that people were not too icked-out or angered. After all, offices are meant to be about work and fun…

I don’t know if it was the right way to deal with the situation. I have yet to see a management textbook entitled ‘How to win u-bends and influence people?’, INSEAD MBA programmes named ‘Dealing with Aberrant Defecation in the workplace’, or pop (poop?) management cookbooks called, ‘Who moved my t*rd?’

The incident did not occur again; maybe the perpetrator left soon afterwards; maybe they had attended a toilet management course, or found another outlet for their frustration, like writing sh*t on Glassdoor, rather than dropping it on the toilet floor.

Arguably, we could have just ignored it and it might have gone away. The facilities team were, quite rightly, very upset and it was highly likely that the story would have got out.

When bad or frankly bizarre things happen, people look to leaders to say something.

Here is the thing about communicating in business. If you are a leader, you set the tone. What you might be communicating might be difficult, or downright weird, but you need to be conscious of how people will read it when you send it out. So here are my simple tips on communicating difficult or weird stuff to your teams;

1 Don’t avoid communicating about difficult subjects or bad news. Everyone will know that something is wrong, not saying anything will make you look weak and only there for the good times. But when you do, talk about what you/we have learned.

2 It’s OK to admit mistakes, if anything it shows that you are human and not completely up yourself.

3 Never try to cover up mistakes. You will always be found out.

4 Don’t patronise people. People who work with and for you are skilful and knowledgeable people, not minions.

5 Re-enforce the message that this is great place to work and people take pride in their brands and company; if you don’t believe that yourself, you shouldn’t be there.

6 Include facts and valuable information; make sure that there are practical hints tips and information in there

7 Be authentic and personal. It’s OK to talk about feelings if they’re genuine and honest. If they’re not, don’t. There is nothing worse than seeing and email from a CEO or MD that is littered with insincere hyperbole and adjectives. Teams see right through it.

8 Don’t s**t on the floor!