In an experiment in the USA, two identical cars of the same make, model and color were left abandoned on the street. One in a violent neighborhood (Bronx/New York) and the other in a quiet neighborhood (Palo Alto/California).
Two identical abandoned cars and two neighborhoods with very different populations.
The abandoned car in the Bronx began to be vandalized within hours. The wheels were stolen, then the engine, mirrors, radio, etc. They took everything usable and what they couldn't take, they destroyed.
Meanwhile, the abandoned car in Palo Alto remained intact.
So the researchers broke a window of this car, from Palo Alto.
Soon after, the same process was unleashed as in the Bronx. Theft, violence and vandalism reduced the vehicle to the same situation as the one left behind in the poor neighborhood.
Why was the broken glass in the abandoned car in a supposedly safe neighborhood able to trigger a whole criminal process?
Of course, it was not because of poverty. It is something to do with human psychology and social relations.
A broken glass conveys an idea of deterioration, of disinterest, of unconcern.
It makes you break the codes of coexistence, it makes you assume that the law is absent, that there are no norms or rules in that place.
A broken glass induces "anything goes". Each new depredatory attack reaffirms and multiplies this idea, until the escalation of worse and worse acts becomes uncontrollable, leading to irrational violence.
Based on this and similar experiences, the "Theory of Broken Windows" was developed.
His conclusion is that crime is higher in areas where neglect, filth, disorder and mistreatment are greater.
If for some reason the glass in one window of a building cracks and nobody repairs it, very quickly all the others will be broken.
The same thing is attributed to moral conduct. Our own conduct.
If you allow yourself small transgressions and lose respect for yourself, the tendency is for your strengths to deteriorate.
This is why we need a conduct, a personal code that protects us from breakdowns and has little tolerance for abusers.
Let's take a trivial example.
A public cafeteria. If many people leave their used trays on the tables, others tend to do so. If, on the other hand, everyone cleans their tables at the end, the tendency is that new users will maintain the protocol.
The same goes for your thoughts. If you allow aggressors to your morals to penetrate your daily life and manifest their hatred in the same environment you live in, others will tend to do the same.
Discipline is in you purging every initiative that will "break your first window".
You need to list the situations that pose this threat and make a mural of your main enemies and look at them every day.
Examples of such threatening "public enemies" in your business area:
1. Do not adopt approved procedures
When one person on your team stops doing something procedural, that is part of a procedure booklet, little by little the other members of the team will also stop following that same or other processes. Then you will find yourself in chaos.
2. Not serving customers and leads immediately
If your rule is to return leads within 24 hours, reduce it to 24 minutes. Delay and leniency with return deadlines puts your conversion in the background, showing the market that you don't have that much appetite. The market goes to the one who is hungriest.
3. Not reading and interpreting the reports and results
Worse than not having sales reports is not reading them. Little by little they become obsolete and nobody understands why they exist anymore. Keep a few good numbers on the radar every day and week, and be sure to interpret what is happening for decision making.
4. Thinking that your products/services are the best in the market
It is that situation where the company thinks that it dominates its market and that its products are the best. It is the beginning of the downfall. This kind of thinking takes over internal agendas and arrogance takes over. Meanwhile, you can be sure, someone else is creating something better and cheaper than you. When you wake up, it will be too late.
At the slightest sign that one of these four "enemies" is lurking in your business area, act immediately, reaping by the head.
If you allow it to encroach bit by bit, you will have your business operation decayed, corrupted, and with little possibility of reversal short of a general cleanup.
The broken windows theory teaches us that big bad things, start small.
Discipline in surveillance is vital.
