Common Sense: What's That?

Thirty years ago, my first corporate HR assignment was in foodservice labor relations, answering “what if?” employee relations inquiries from around our branches around the nation. On one occasion, after information I’d sought in our employee handbook eluded me I complained of the book’s inadequacy to my boss, a tough and highly talented labor negotiator with a knack for getting right to the point.

“Do we need to tell employees everything?” he asked, annoyed. Who would ever require something more than a general guide to conduct? Instead of asking me these questions, he added, use your common sense. Figure it out.

One’s intuition, our so-called “gut feeling” about situations and people is really the sum of our ever-growing appreciation of what we have observed in life. Our virtual file cabinet contains a massive list of variations on how choices affected outcomes. This nifty compendium, honed over time by our triumphs, flubs and mishaps requires for maintenance an only average intellect. Perhaps that’s why our acquired knowledge of how to make our way in the world is known as our “common” sense whereas our study of, say, how to erect a 110-story office tower, requires more specialized knowledge.

Over 165 years ago the poet and philosopher Henry David Thoreau observed rather wryly that, “There is no such thing as common sense; it is common nonsense.” More recently, in The Death of Common Sense: How the Law is Suffocating America, attorney Philip Howard says that our overregulated society and bloated bureaucracies are the cause of the cobwebs in our otherwise logical minds. Surely the wizards of the Internet are at fault as well; having crafted indispensible tools such as Google® they failed to realize that many would accept blindly whatever material they located there. Even when the answers prove wildly illogical their mere existence is proof of their validity. For example, did you know that Martians really did visit New Jersey in War of the Worlds, and that Orson Welles, the radio script narrator, died during the invasion?

In the hospitality industry we have sometimes lost our way where common sense is a factor. Have you witnessed any of the training programs that have been deconstructed to the point of, well, nonsense? Methinks the hand of a defense attorney is at work here: “First, shut off the coffee spigot. Then place the lid on the coffee cup, pressing hard to ensure a good seal.” Following a celebrated case where Starbucks was sued by a customer burned by its coffee, the company headed off the common sense cliff by adding a printed warning to its cups: “Caution; this beverage is very hot.” Many good attorneys I know argue convincingly that such “dumbing down” is, while unfortunate, a necessary protection given the lack of common sense their clients’ employees exhibit.

While attorneys are understandably doing their part to protect clients, shouldn’t we shoulder more of the burden? Some employers get it, and see to it that their employees are assigned a mentoring co-worker from day one, someone who shadows the newbie and will listen for clues on any understanding the new employee lacks. Think common sense cannot be taught? My old boss had it right: “With practice,” he said,”most people will figure out how things work.” If we reward common sense thinking, that is, and don’t add to the problem with training that assumes most employees are idiots.

Clearly there are those who will not benefit from a common sense primer. Some people refuse to see the oncoming locomotive until it has run them down. A friend relayed to me a follow-up story about that Burger King employee who recently and infamously climbed naked into his restaurant’s potsink to take a bath; soon thereafter video evidence of his lark appeared on YouTube®. By the time he and his videographer were fired his prank’s audience had gone “viral”, registering over 170,000 views in a matter of days. The kicker? When the store manager called to say “bye bye” the gangly bather is said to have good-naturedly inquired whether he might receive a second chance.

Be honest and be well.


Copyright 2009 by Charles A. Conine and Hospitality HR Solutions

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