State of the Federation

Let's see if I have this straight. In our battle with the Borg, we put the enemy to sleep and thus defeated them. Later we captured one of them, gave it an identity (Hugh), had the option of introducing a destructive suggestion/virus into their collective consciousness, but chose to do the "moral" thing and let Hugh go and be re-assimilated. Now led by the Syoon(sp?) brothers, Data and his evil twin, Lor, the Borg have learned to think of themselves as individuals. They no longer wish to assimilate other species, just destroy inferior beings, which includes the Federation.

This has major implications for thsoe of us in the customer service industry. Recently Denny's restaurants have come under criticism because one of their locations had the tendency to serve their white customers before their black customers.

It's doubtful that the Denny's coprorate offices sent a memo to their franchises identifying the order in which different races should be served. This particular incident probably was determined by the one location, maybe even by one or two employees. But the end result was that the entire company got a huge black eye. NOw socially conscious consumers will think twice before they go to any Denny's restaurant.

What is the lesson behind the problems Denny's has faced? Is it that the best companies are the one's that act in a uniform, collective, consistent Borg like manner? That the best run companies may be the ones who have well defined policies, that don't have loose cannons acting on their own so that anarchy doesn't give way to bad customer perception?

I don't think so. There seems to be room for creativity in a successful business. Nobody wants to deal with an organization of uninspired drones, who spout company policy as the reason they won't do any thinking on their own. Our old VIP program operated on the philosophy that employees are the ones who can cmoe up with the ideas that will improve the company (and thus are the ones who should be rewarded for their suggestions).

We should seek individual creativity but at the same time define those ideas in a collective way. Customer perception is based on individual actions, but those perceptions are then applied to the entire company.

A response to Sarah: I for one would choose Dr. Crusher over Dr. Pulaski any day. Yes, the color of her hair changes more often than my moods; and yes, she was at least half responsblve for bringing that weenie, the Mozart of the stars, Wesley into the universe (my sister has an interesting theory that Cap'n Picard is really Wes' father), but she is so easy on the eyes. A space babe.

Next week will be another newsletter with a theme. It will deal with the topic of 'health' so if any of you have anything to contribute, pelase do so. What is the correlation between a good diet, plenty of rest and exercise with the way you perform your job?