This is a management case study for my current gym. I don’t know if you could apply it to other types of enterprises. But I strongly believe it is not a question of could. But it is a question of should. Read on…
The Womb Method
Before we get into the details of the box method, I should mention about the womb method. It was implemented quite successfully in the gym before the previous one. The gym was run by a group of young Sports Academy graduates. The manager was the oldest of them. He converted a not much used space into an office for himself (this is the womb). The door of the office was towards the main entrance, and the back and side walls were (frosted) glass bricks seperating from the main studio. So he sat in his office his face to the door and his back to the gym. When I say he sat there, I mean he sat in that office all the time. He was spatially in the gym, but actually he was never there (hence the womb). The music would stop and he wouldn’t notice (or care?) until I walk over there and tell him to turn it on again. I don’t know what he was doing there, but I guess he was doing something (on his laptop) more important than finding out what was happening in his gym.
I witnessed the conditions degrading over a period of time. There were less and less people working out. At one point only regulars were (me and) a bunch of students living there. Then the so-called instructors’ mocking those young members became more disturbing for me. And did I mention about the music. The music was horrible. I guess they had made a management decision on building new offices instead of investing on an MP3 player. Load a CD with grandmother music, endure tracks sequentially, go remind the manager the CD is finished. This is the womb method for you.
One day I was in his office, we used to get along well actually, chatting about how my business goes and then the ever shrinking member count. I asked him “are you really doing all you can to prevent it?”1, he said “yes, of course”. Two days later I had a new gym membership.2
Is The Box Method Applicable For You?
If you have an hierarchical organization, you can let the information flow from the bottom up to you. This way you get the aggregated information from every branch under your management. Like a birds eye view. This doesn’t necessarily imply lack of detail. But it definitely implies lack of objectivity. If you have the means to measure the performance of a branch accurately, this upwards flow of information in the hierarchy is not a bad thing. For example, a sales branch can’t safely lie about the inventory. Or an advertisement team’s performance can be determined with the help of an expert advisor.
If you are running a gym. The single quantitative indicator is the number of members. More new members doesn’t necessarily mean you are doing good, but not renewed memberships is conclusive that you suck. Therefore it is stupid to try the information flow described above; it will simply be too late when you find out something is wrong. This is where the box method comes to rescue.
The box method in a nutshell is delegating management to a box3. A good manager should know how to delegate, right? But forget about good management. The most powerful selling point of the box method is that it not only doesn’t require good managers, it encourages bad management.
My current gym implements the box method successfully. Whenever something goes wrong, or you have a question you are told to write it down and put it in the box. How well does it work? I haven’t tried it yet. But I am convinced that the results are quite consistent. Pretty much everybody, members and employees alike, tells me they have tried without any results and I should also give it a try. Now, isn’t this a mighty example of how efficiently the box’s capabilites are utilized.
Advantages Of The Box Method Is Numerous
I would like to share a little incident, which happened before I learned about the box method at all. There is this huge machine, one of those total body workout promising complete fitness systems. I think it is called Kinesis or something. Anyway, the point is this thing has a huge wooden frame. So they decided to put it right in the middle of the weight room. In front of the mirrors in the middle, where it will block most the daylight. And it did create a really depressing environment successfully. So, one day so stressed up that I couldn’t contain myself, I stormed upstairs to the customer represantative lady who has taken my registration. I am neither polite nor subtle, especially when I’m pissed of. So I directly said:
"Whoever decied to put that thing in the middle of the weight room, can
not be possibly working out here. Otherwise he would have realized that is
a horrible placement."
She gave me a quick horrified look and then turned to the table at the opposite side. Apparently, that moron, who made the decision was sitting there. I’ll keep what happened afterwards short. I basically took both of them, no I actually only wanted her to see the situation but the instructor come along anyway, and explained why that was a very very bad idea to put a huge wooden frame in front of the main mirrors4 in a room without tall windows. And what happened? The customer represantative lady kept looking at me like a lobotomized monkey and let the instructor defend (well, at least that’s what he would have called it) his decision and find solid arguments (like “oh, there are mats there”, MATS?! Can’t you just MOVE them somewhere else!) against the alternative position I offered for the machine. And the most pathetic thing was he kept on assuring me once the thing is assembled completely, they’ll push it all the way to the mirror so it won’t take that much space. Putting aside the question not being the space but being the concealment of the mirror, it was obvious that it would never ever fit between those two columns. I have seen this with my eyes in a second. How can they possibly fail to realize that it won’t fit with tools and days to work it out. And it didn’t fit of course. Anyway that is not the point. The point is I have learned that my so-called customer representative was just too incompetent and inexperienced to even lie to me saying “OK, I have listened your complaint, I will relay it to management.” The machine is still there. And they turn the lights on even midday, because it is dark. If you have a problem with that, write a letter to the box.
Yes, the box takes care of it all. You can get away with anything! Customer representatives who only know how to say hi very enthusiastically, so-called instructors who can’t even crank out a solid set with proper form themselves, even with tinyier weights, cleaning people who call the person 50 m away (and there is a whole changing room in between with doors closed) yelling and swearing… It all works harmoniously. I hear some people complain. They complain about reception people giving them adjacent lockers where most of them are empty. Fixing all these little problems and keeping track of what is going on in the gym is quite some work. It probably means increased expenses (hiring competent people?) at the same time. The box method alleviates all this burden acting like a filter for customer complaints. Have a complaint? Write a letter and throw it in the box. Very effective.
Does It Really Work
Enough satire for one post I think. Yes, it does work. My current gym is really using the box method. The non-existance of a proper management is so obvious that you, as a member, can’t help notice it. It sucks, period.
What do I do when I have a suggestion or a complaint? I can’t go to the customer representative who is not equipped to carry on an intelligent discussion. Telling the instructors doesn’t produce much better results. In the best case they tell me “we have been trying tell this and that for long time to the management, but nothing happened yet” and encourage me to write to the box. Some of the resons I can come up with for not writing to the box:
- There is no guarantee the letters are read. I make a consious effort in my life to make sure what I say is heard every time.
- If they are read; I have no idea who reads them. It might as well be the janitor. Believe me I wouldn’t be surprised at all in that case. If I am going to write a letter seriously, I’d like to know someone who can make decisions read them.
- Let’s assume someone with the authority to fix things is reading these letters. And she is reading them because she wants to improve conditions of her facility. Then, why can’t she simply show up, see things with her own eyes and maybe talk to people? Why the hell do I have to sit down and write a stupid letter to put in a stupid box? Why do I have to do her job?
This narrows my options to; do nothing or blog about it. I prefer the latter. Writing always helps seeing things in a different point of view. And I would like to hear what you think about this as well.
Both the earlier (womb) gym and this one are still in the business. They are probably getting less memberships than they would if they operated well. But they don’t close up shop. People keep coming. This is one half of the real problem. Because there is no real community, you don’t get to learn, before you sign-up, that this place is not a good choice.
The other half is more dramatic; people don’t know what to expect. This is so sad. Everybody can complain when they blow cold air from outside in (this is called the air conditioning here, it blows instead of sucking). But you should actually complain when they tell you to do side bends with weights, if you are trying to reduce your waist. We don’t know what to expect, therefore we get what we deserve. Maybe this is the perfect management for us. After all a box can’t tell that you will never be able to achieve your goals5 with your current level of determination. But this is a subject for another entry.
1: No, it didn’t tip him up. Yes, they are still in business.
2: Which was a short, but great experience for me. Actually I just went there did my workout. After all that torture at that previous gym, just doing you thing feels great though.
3: Yes, box. As in tip box.
4: What I mean is that almost 70% of the light contributing the room reflects from that single mirror.
5: That you so ambiguously define, yet fail to hide.
