We’ve all left a grocery store and saw someone pushing a shopping cart. One group pushes the shopping cart into cart corrals or marches over to the store employee who is collecting carts in the area. The other group pushes the shopping cart far enough away from them to be able to back their car out of the parking space and drive away. The latter group couldn’t care less whether the wind moves that cart along, denting someone else’s car, running over someone’s foot or causing a car accident by an unsuspecting driver. They’ve gotten what they needed, and they’re going about their day. In their mind, it’s the store employee’s problem to fix the shopping cart havoc. Observers watching this person are often participating in the shopping cart theory, judging those who don’t return carts as vigilantes who don’t care about others.
How Does The Shopping Cart Theory Relate To A Business Owner Or Employee?
The shopping cart theory is often brought up with the phrase, “If no one was looking.” In business, sometimes people will act a certain way because they know someone is monitoring them. They know that they’ll get an annual work evaluation from their boss. They know that they’ll have to submit something to the project manager by a specified deadline. Furthermore, they know that they’ll have to respond to a client’s feedback in order to get paid. Rockwell’s song “Somebody’s Watching Me” is playing on constant rotation in their heads.
For business owners who are flippant about transparency and project management, this can also set the tone for a workspace. In a white-collar environment, with an employee who works in a busy office space where there is no streamlined operation, repeated errors can be made without getting caught. In a blue-collar work environment that isn’t meticulous about following OSHA requirements, safety rules may be ignored. Leadership sets the example for what they can get away with.
Why Is The Abandoned Shopping Cart Such A Bad Thing?
The person who returns the cart, whether someone is looking or not, is categorized as a good person who thinks of others. The person who abandons the cart anywhere, expecting someone else to take care of it, is categorized as a not-so-good person. However, there’s been considerable debate about the latter person. Maybe this person was in a hurry for a family emergency. Maybe this person was distracted by bad news while talking on a smartphone. Maybe this person made eye contact with the cart attendant, who waved them away and planned to get the cart anyway. Maybe this person has a disability and cannot take the cart all the way to the cart corral.
An onlooker can judge a situation without knowing the whole story. However, the onlooker could also double down and discredit all of those points. Just as the distracted shopper could manage to get in the car, reverse the car, drive the car and get to the destination, this shopper’s arms can push the cart into a safe place. Those same arms and legs worked enough to get this shopping cart around the store, so why does the parking lot make any difference?
The same rules can apply at work. A journalist who missed a deadline can try to blame the editor for not rushing through to get the article to print on time. A Realtor who was already running late to meet a prospective homebuyer can try to blame the homeowner for putting the keys in a new place. The CEO can blame the receptionist for missing a flight, even if the receptionist left detailed travel instructions. These three are the distracted shopper, the person who always has a reason why everyone else is wrong, and it’s OK for this person to neglect something that could help the company run smoother.
How Can The Shopping Cart Theory Help A Business Run Smoother?
Using restaurant franchises as an example, there are some companies that require future franchisees (owners of a restaurant franchise location) to start from the bottom: McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Dunkin’. The started-from-the-bottom theory is that if you know how to do all the jobs in a restaurant before you own it, you’ll be that much more familiar with how to do it smoothly. You’ll have an idea of the best way to clean Example A as a maintenance person or cook Example B as a chef or count Example C as a cashier. So when questions come up about streamlining, the franchisee already knows how everything should work. (Additionally, investors should review the Franchise Disclosure Document, a document that contains information about franchise fees, expenses, performance expectations and any other key operating details.)
By learning about all positions, the franchisee can usually identify where the weakest link (i.e., abandoned shopping cart) is and return it where it’s needed to get the business running smoothly again. And if this “shopping cart” is repeatedly abandoned, then it may be time to look at the “distracted shopper” for an evaluation. However, a business owner (for any company even outside of a franchise) must be able to identify where all of the missing shopping carts are. Blaming one person when two other people are equally at fault will more than likely result in a defensive employee. And either that employee will have to point out the other weak links at work or quietly stew while trying to “return the cart” even if the others don’t, potentially leading to one person doing the work of three.
Prioritizing The Shopping Cart Theory From Day One
Proven behavior is the best way to let other employees (and even business partners) know how a company should be run. Every day may not be perfect, and there may be one day when even the most perfect employee abandons a cart. This is why team meetings, email reminders, virtual meetings or Human Resources manuals may be required. This is a way to avoid blaming one person while telling the whole team, “There’s a shopping cart missing. Let’s all work together to find it, and let’s make sure we all keep them in the cart corral moving forward.” If done correctly (and with a little grace because life happens), employees may feel that much more inspired to want to be the person who is apathetic and does well even when no one is looking.
