So the other day I’m doing a little bit of shopping at Wal-Mart trying to figure out how I can save money and live better, when I realize I have no idea where I am. I mean, I knew I was somewhere between desk chairs and cat food, but since I was looking for cotton balls—for a project—I wasn’t sure if I should turn left at the beanbags, or right. I decided to ask Barry for help; he looked nice enough.
Me: Hi, Barry. Do you have cotton balls?
Barry: Uh…
Me: They’re for a project…
Barry: If they were here, they’d be in aisle six.
Me: (sensing Barry didn’t know where aisle six was) Okay, thanks, Barry. I’ll go look.
Well, Barry was right. The cotton balls were in aisle six! Unfortunately, they were sold out. Drats! So off to Target I went. Now, I’m not sure if I just don’t know my way around a store, or if there’s some sort of inter-retail conspiracy to make cotton balls really hard to find, but once again, I found myself at the mercy of an employee. This time, however, instead of me having to ask for help, Juanita approached me.
Juanita: Are you finding everything alright today, sir?
Me: (Loving to be called “Sir”) I am, Juanita. Thank you. But could you tell me where the cotton balls are?
Juanita: (Without batting an eye, God bless her) Of course, they’re right this way.
Me: Oh, okay, great!
Juanita: (As we were walking!) Is there any particular kind you need? I have a few different brands and styles…
Me: (Not realizing there were different “styles” of cotton balls and beginning to question why I ever agreed to such a complex project in the first place) Just…ya know…the regular?
Juanita: (God bless her!) Oh, well I’m sure I have some of those!
And boy did she! Thanks to Juanita, I made the perfect purchase in record time. I left Target (God bless it) feeling like a million bucks…but I was thirsty. With the ten minutes or so I had to kill before my next appointment, I decided to get myself a delicious grande chai frappuccino from Starbucks. As I waited patiently in line, recalling the delightful Target experience I just had, the Barista behind the counter (Jaiymee) asked me the perfect question: “What can I get started for you?”
And then it hit me: Juanita. Jaiymee. Barry. Cotton balls are cotton balls, and a moderately priced coffee is a moderately priced coffee. But what made Jaiymee and Juanita so much more pleasant than Barry was the ownership they took over their experience.
Ownership! It was that easy! And it was all just in the words they used.
When Juanita told me that she had the cotton balls, I believed her. I trusted her. And I knew that no matter what happened, she would take care of me because they were her cotton balls, and she wanted to share them with me. Barry’s phrasing of “if they were here, they’d be in aisle six,” reeked of uncertainty, laziness, and detachment. He didn’t own his product, and therefore had no investment in whether or not I bought it. “There’ll be other customers,” Barry probably thought to himself. “Them balls’ll get snatched up someday…”
What made Jaiymee’s phrasing particularly enticing was the idea that making coffee is a process. Her question implied that my drink will have a starting point, a midpoint, and an eventual completion point; she’s not going to the back room to just pull out my already-made drink. She’s making it from scratch. And that expressed creation made all the difference.
Well, apartments are a process too, and one over which we must take ownership. People don’t just move into apartments; that’s an event, a moment in time—“move-in day.” Instead, people start living in our apartments. Signing the lease is the start to the process, not the end. And most importantly, these people aren’t just moving into any apartments, like the ones off the interstate or on aisle six; they’re moving into your apartments. The ones you have, at the community where you work. The Juanitas and Jaiymees of the world win not because their products are better, but because they don’t treat them as products or brands at all. They treat them as creations made especially for us. What processes are you creating in your community, and how are you sharing this creation with the world?