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Archive for July, 2008
The New Gold Standard
Jul 9
I stayed at my first Ritz-Carlton when I was 22 years old. I was sent on a 3-day business trip at Laguna Nigel. Just go take a peek at the pictures in this link and you’ll get the idea. Stunning. I was told before I went on the trip that I would need to “dress,” even in the lobby. That meant I would have to wear, at minimum, a sport coat at all times. I did, and when I arrived and checked in, a Gentleman wearing white gloves escorted me to my room overlooking the Pacific Ocean and gave me an orientation to the property. I’ve been hooked on Ritz-Carlton ever since.
It’s why I was so fascinated by Joseph Michelli’s look at how Ritz-Carlton works so elegantly. In The New Gold Standard, Michelli talks about how “Ladies and Gentlemen Serving Ladies and Gentlemen” is a motto that still works in 2008.
Throughout the book, which is filled with inspiring stories of staff making the Ritz-Carlton experience the best it can be, Michelli outlines two components that have particular interest for HR practitioners.
Inspire staff to focus on purpose and outcomes, not fulfillment and procedures. From the onset of their employee selection process, leadership at Ritz-Carlton looks for underlying talent in service characteristics. They then train and certify the skills necessary for the new hires to do their jobs while constantly linking job function to the overarching purpose of the business – namely to provide for “the genuine care and comfort” of their guest.
Empowering the front-line saves money. While many business leaders talk about their empowered workforce, few put money behind the hype. At Ritz-Carlton, staff members are given the authority to spend up to $2,000 per day per guest, without seeking the approval of their supervisors. This authority allows front-line workers to immediately resolve service breakdowns for guests or simply engage guests by doing something unexpected that will make the hotel stay memorable. Essentially, empowered employees consistently transform otherwise satisfied customers into fully-engaged brand loyalists that spend more and refer family and friends to the business.
I’ve stayed in many Ritz-Carlton hotels since I stayed at that first one in Laguna Nigel. (Note to self: You live a charmed life.) I’ve been lucky enough to stay 50 or 60 times in Ritz-Cartlon Buckhead when we were working on a project in Atlanta. I stayed for a week at Ritz-Carlton’s Hotel Arts in Barcelona. Singapore. Coconut Grove. Madrid. Ritz Paris. I can say that I had an excellent experience at every one. The New Gold Standard is a great inside look at why.
THE NEW GOLD STANDARD: 5 Leadership Principles for Creating a Legendary Customer Experience
Joseph A. Michelli, Ph.D.
McGraw-Hill; July 2008
ISBN-10: 0-07-154833-5; ISBN-13: 978-0-07-154833-5.
Tim Russert, Katie Couric and a Chance to Save a Life
Jul 8Like many guys of “a certain age,” I was laid low by the sudden death of Tim Russert. Just last winter I had a complete physical, including a colonoscopy, and came out clean as a whistle. In fact, my doctor told me, “You’re the fittest fat man in Philly.”
It’s cruel. My doctor said, “I have 110 pound women coming in here who do yoga every day. The watch what they eat. They exercise. And they have high cholesterol and high blood pressure. You? Your tests show that you’re as healthy as a guy half your age.”
How ’bout dat? But all those good tests don’t mean a thing if the old ticker goes haywire. I read “Not a Moment Too Soon, I Thought About Tim Russert” in the NYT this morning. Writer Michael Bicks talks about his shortness of breath and nausea that made him, over his embarrassment, go to the hospital.
As in Tim Russert’s case, there were no warning signs. No sign I was suffering from coronary artery disease. A piece of plaque in one of my arteries just broke off and created a massive blood clot. When it did, I suffered a severe heart attack. If I had not gone to the hospital, I might very well have died.
Because at the right moment I thought of Tim Russert, I am one of the lucky ones. I get to hug my wife and my kids, understand how wonderful my friends are and realize exactly how much I love my life. It is a debt I can never repay.
He was saved by overcoming his hesitation and fear. That’s the good part. Katie Couric recently did a piece about using defibrillators in the office. The video is below.
“Trust me, they are a lot easier to use than they are to pronounce, and they can save a life,” she says.
More than a million people have a heart attack a year, but only 300,000 have sudden cardiac arrest and of those half of them have never had any previous history of heart decreases. Nationally, if you go down and no one is around, there is only a 4 – 6 percent survival rate. If you have CPR it can go up to 15 percent and with a defibrillator the survival rate can be 30 – 40 percent, even higher.
Second Law of HR Dynamics
Jul 7You don’t get anything clean without getting something else dirty.
– Cecil Baxter
That quote could a variant of the Second Law of HR Dynamics. I’ve been talking a lot lately about what happens when we implement HR policies. Sure, we clean up one area, but do we dirty something else? What happens when we write a policy that says employees can’t take partial sick days? Does that make sick day occurrences go down? Or what happens when we put in one of those 70-30-10 performance plans that kicks the bottom 10% of employees out of the company each year? Are the 10% who go the worst 10%? (Don’t get me started on performance management processes…not on Monday morning.)
Think before you act. That’s what my dad used to say to me. What else he should have said was, “Think 10 steps ahead.” The Second Law of HR Dynamics is, “The acceleration of an unintended consequence depends on the net popularity of a program and how long it’s been around.” Take away a “little” gainsharing program that’s been around 30 years and find out what I mean. And fast.
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