Many moons ago David was promoted by one of the UK’s leading retailers and became the proud manager of his own supermarket. After spending a decade climbing the ladder and learning from all the good, the great (and the decidedly pants) people he worked with and for, this was his big chance to finally put all the learning into practice. David was bursting with ideas about how he was going to manage people and how to make the store a success.
Having heard many people talk about ‘open door’ policies and agreeing with the principle, David wanted to make a statement about this to the staff on the first day.
“I arrived at the store on the first morning and after going round to meet everyone set about my iconic gesture…instead of an ‘open door’ policy I would have a ‘no door’ policy….beat that I thought to myself as I unscrewed the manager’s office door from its hinges and lumbered downstairs to lay it to rest in the skip outside the loading bay.”
“Some of the staff watched curiously and some looked very shocked but none were as shocked as me when, at 3am with me sound asleep at home, there was a knock on the house door. It was the store nightshift manager. He had look on his face that I can only describe as apologetic anger when he told me he was sorry to get me out of bed but had been ringing me for two hours and had finally phoned head office to get my home address. ‘What’s the problem?’ I said (thinking that the store had burned down or something of that nature). ‘Can you tell me what you have done with the door from the manager’s office because we cannot set the store alarm without that door being shut and locked? I was supposed to go home at midnight!’ ”
The ‘no door’ policy had failed but the story was told and retold so many times that it became a store legend (David’s boss never found out thankfully) so even with a door the message that he was open and approachable had hit home.

This taught David a powerful lesson about the myths and legends that surround leaders and just how important they are. It also taught him that PDIFM (please do it for me) was a much better option than trying DIY…a lesson he has consistently used ever since.