When I asked him where my table was, he said in a very annoyed tone of voice that someone had stored it incorrectly and he couldn’t find it. I then asked why my pick up showed completed and he said he had turned it off because it was not his fault that the table was not in the wrong place. Before I could say anything else, he walked away from me and went into the store presumably to find my table.

After waiting a few minutes, I decided to go into the store and after wandering around a bit, someone asked if they could help me—it was the Customer Service Manager for the store. I told her my situation and she took my receipt and went off to solve the problem. 10 minutes later, my table and receipt appeared along with a $10 gift certificate for my wait.

The process made me curious about the accuracy of Sears’ process measurement process and how the data is used. The 15+ minutes it took for me to get my table is recorded as a having been completed in 4:27. By the employee’s actions, it seems as though he will get punished for failing to complete the delivery of the merchandise in less than five minutes even if the product is not where it is supposed to be.

Measuring process performance is the right thing to do, but if you don’t get accurate data, it defeats the purpose. Giving front line employees the ability to shut down the system when things go wrong undoubtedly leads to results that are better than they actually are and potentially hides problems from management. Getting your shipment quickly is certainly a key measure of process effectiveness and customer satisfaction, but it is not the only one. Speed of delivery when accomplished without regard for friendly and attentive customer service, will not delight your customers.

Two things make this story unique: (1) the blatant lack of concern that a parent showed for his child’s safety and (2) the lack of action taken by the soccer leagues for which this team plays. Here is the situation.

Okay, I know what you are thinking. Either (A) it is none of my business how the child’s father treats him or (B) his dad just got caught up in the heat of the moment or (C) it was a one-time situation so cut the guy a break. I was thinking the same things until Monday’s game when we played this child’s team.

During our match, the same child was hurt again during a hard tackle by one of our defenders. He lay on the ground from a few minutes as his coaches tended to him. Eventually, his father left the sidelines, seemingly to check on his son, but made a detour toward the official and asked if the foul would result in a penalty kick. As a coach carried the player off the field, his father, now approaching the sidelines to confront a parent from our team, yelled at his son, “Are you going to let someone else take your penalty kick?”

To make matters worse, as the child’s father approached the referee he was walking directly toward the player who had committed the foul. This player later told his mother that he was, “Very scared when the man came onto the field yelling and walking quickly towards him. The guy looked at him so mean that he thought he was going to hit him.” As he relived he story to him mother, he began to cry. Two days later, his was still so upset about the incident that he was worried about what was going happen when the teams faced each other two weeks later.

When the local soccer organizations were informed about the incident, their leaders failed to act in any meaningful way. The President of the team did not respond to any emails about the incident. The VP refused to comment about the behavior of child’s father and chose to divert attention to the verbal exchange on the sideline that occurred between parents. The Treasurer of the league said that they acted swiftly on the issue and that the parent would not be on the sidelines for a while and he would be there to see to it. The Chairman of the league said nothing in response to emails. The Discipline Chairman said that he had received all communications regarding the matter, was collecting additional information, and to be patient. And during the rematch, the child’s father lurked on the sidelines during the first half of Saturday’s rematch, protected by his friends in an insular soccer club.

The actions of leaders of team and the league mirror what the cynical among us have come to expect from corporate and, dare I say, political leaders. When the going gets tough, leaders divert attention to other issues, blame others, say what they think people want to hear regardless of whether they mean it, or just hide and hope the problem goes away. And the result from this behavior is leaders that are not trusted. Their lack of action can be as damaging to customer and employee relationships as any mistake they make.

In our work lives, we know the impact that this type of leadership action has on morale and productivity and trust. It leads to increased employee cynicism, cries of favoritism and lunchroom chatter that encourages employees to look for other jobs. As damaging as this is to our work lives, imagine the implications for our children when this type of behavior goes unchecked in youth sports leagues.

So two children live in fear. One child looks over his shoulder waiting for an overzealous parent to take the field to challenge a call. The other child, with tears streaming down his face, cries out in pain as he struggles up the field to avoid the wrath of his father. Their fear is our failure. Somewhere Bobby Knight and Woody Hayes are smiling.

It would be easy to think that if one employee leaves, you can just go hire a free agent from one of your competitors. This may be true, but it is a costly strategy because research has shown that it costs about 25% of an employee’s total compensation to hire a new person. The turnover costs include accrued vacation/benefits, signing bonuses, recruiting fees, and training costs among others. For example, if you need to replace a person making $50,000 per year including benefits, you can project that it will cost you about $12,500 to replace this person when all out of pocket costs are considered. If you want to get really scared about the impact of turnover on your business, look at the impact of losing a key employee on customer relationships, team dynamics, and mentoring employees.

Why is development so important to employees? With no guarantee of employment, an employee’s safety net is the set of skills and qualifications that have attained in their career. The greater the set of accomplishments and experiences, the more marketable they are (and the more valuable they are to you!).

If you want to keep your employees, make sure you pay attention to how work assignments fit with the developmental needs and interest of your employees—for you it’s about getting the job done and for them it’s about what they will learn and how they will develop while doing the work. But avoid “sink or swim” assignments and provide employees with the mentoring and coaching they need to be successful.

What about training programs? Training has its place, but is only one tool to use in developing employees. In fact, over 85% of the development that takes place does not happen in traditional training settings. Development happens on the job, working on real projects, learning from peers, and using systems that both support the work and reinforce the desired process and behaviors. Training is appropriate when the skills learned are aligned with the company’s business strategy and an employee’s developmental needs.

What are your employees hearing when they tune into WIIFM? Are you meeting their developmental needs in a way that keeps them productive and committed? If you don’t know, you better find out now before you hear about it during an exit interview.

It used to be that the person in an organization that employees trusted the most was their direct manager. This may still hold true, but the overall levels of trust seem to be declining to the point where the word “trust” should not be used to describe company/employee relationships. This is particularly true during times of significant change within an organization when the rumor mill fills the void left by sterile announcements from senior management.

Dear Staffers:

Together, we will march forward into the future! Please call me if you have any questions.

Is this a little dark humor to get through the day? Perhaps. Or is this an indictment of the quality of management decisions and the impact they have on the lives of employees?

In times of change, organizations often rely on the HR function to help manage the change process and employee communications. Unfortunately for this organization, a Senior HR person sent this email to his colleagues!

Not surprisingly, people are not completely engaged at work. Employees have no confidence in management and do not trust what they are being told. The rumor mill has more information and more accurate data than emails from management. Most employees are looking for new jobs, even in business units that are not being impacting by the restructuring. And the cost cutting has done nothing for the company’s share price.

What can be learned from this situation? Here are a few things to consider:

· Tell employees what you know when you know it. Don’t expect “confidential plans” to remain that way for long.

· Engage employees in creating the solution . . . even those that will be impacted by the changes. Employees are talking with one another about the quality of management decisions, what will work and what will fail miserably. Given that they are closest to the work, you might learn something from them that will help you make a better decision about making the change work.

· When senior management talks, say something of interest to employees. Please don’t insult their intelligence with double talk and vagaries that lead employees to distrust what management says and put more faith in rumor mill than management communication

· Mine the rumor mill. Management should be listening to what employees are hearing on the grapevine so that they can confirm or deny things that they know employees have heard . . . and management better tell the truth if they want to maintain their credibility. Employees may like the message but at least they will respect the messenger.

In the quest for simplicity and comparative data, organizations fall into the trap of comparing their peformance to other companies and making value judgments and action plans based on this data. They do this without conducting internal studies to verify if the generic model for superior performance actually holds true in their organization.

A classic example of this is the notion that employee loyalty and productivity is enhanced when people work with close friends. While CDCI would not say this is unimportant, we do question how important it is relative to other issues.

In a study we did of employee loyalty factors, we tested 41 items to determine the impact certain factors had on employee intent to remain with an organization. What we found was that of the 41 items that had a positive and significant relationship with likelihood to remain, having a close friend at work was number 41 in importance. Clearly this item was less important for our customer given the nature of its work and employees, but would this hold true in your organization?

CDCI believes that external norm bases need to validated relative to the business strategy and conditions facing an organization rather than being accepted based solely on external research. Understanding what is required for high performance from both an internal and external perspective is a better way to make appropriate decisions about improvement priorities and objectives.

Not surprisingly, the organization was nervous about what the changes meant for them. A climate of fear was pervasive as employees saw Grant’s male friends being moved into positions of power. Many employees began looking for new jobs as they tried to figure out whether Grant liked them or not.

As a result of the reorganization, Connie got a new boss who, at Grant’s direction, instituted a more rigid schedule. Be at your desk by 8:00am, a 15 minute break at 10:00am, lunch from 12:00pm to 1:00pm, a 15 minute break at 3:00pm, leave after 5:00pm. Never mind that the work did not require this type of scheduling, these were the new rules.

50% of you should be able to anticipate what one of Connie’s concerns was about the schedule. Being three months pregnant, nature is working on its own schedule and that does not always cooperate with one’s work schedule. Connie was afraid that she was going to get fired if she had to take additional breaks beyond what was allowed in the new schedule.

Come on! You have got to be kidding, right? Nope, I am not kidding. The story is true. Connie’s fear may seem irrational to us, but her fear is real. And the organization, in the way they have managed the change process, has done nothing to allay her concerns or those of other employees.

In managing the change process, the organization has failed to do an adequate job of understanding the consequences of its actions on employee perceptions. When senior women leave the organization or get moved into jobs with lesser responsibility it does not send a positive message to the other 300 women that remain (over 50% of the workforce). If you think people in organizations don’t notice these changes and interpret what it means for them, get real!

If every action has an equal and opposite reaction, organizations would be wise to anticipate what the reactions to a change might be and have a plan for dealing with them. In the absence of credible communication from trusted leaders, employees will make up their own stories about what the truth is and what they should fear. Without safe places where employees can raise their questions and express their concerns without fear of retribution, they will gossip with their peers and update their resumes.

Some of the policies, compensation strategies, benefits, and services offered are as follows:

Benefits
• Subsidized child care
• Tuition reimbursement
• $3,000 credit for purchasing a hybrid car
• Full health insurance premiums paid for employees and dependents
• Reimbursements for adoption expenses and fertility treatments

Customer Focus
• Clear passion and focus on the customer
• Reputation for customer excellence allows company to pay employees 5-7% less than competition

Career Advancement
• Promotions from within
• Broad non discrimination policy

Employee Recognition
• Week long employee appreciation event
• Employee recognition of one another
• Incentive vacations

Community Involvement
• Employees paid for up to 40 hours of volunteer work per year

Onsite Services
• Concierge service for employees
• Free hair and nail salon onsite
• 24-hour subsidized fitness center
• Onsite medical center
• Game rooms

Training
• Mentoring for new employees
• Commitment to training—spend 2.5% of payroll
• Culture training for new employees
• College credit for training programs
• Free English as second language classes
• Citizenship clinics (for employees who want to become US citizens)
• Reimbursement for GMAT and GRE prep classes

Health
• Onsite clinics
• Free screening exams
• Reimbursement for Weight Watchers
• Company sponsored exercise/healthy eating programs

Leadership and Communication
• CEO meets all new employees
• CEO leads regular town meetings
• CEO makes calls every week to thank employees for their contributions
• Prospective hires are interviewed to ensure fit with culture
• Continuous communication via daily online newsletter
• Board of directors selected by employees
• Salespeople empowered to make decisions about refunds and exchanges

Employee Input
• Employee opinions solicited via intranet that can be accessed remotely
• Monthly online employee surveys
• Employees encouraged to raise issues

Flextime
• “Mom’s hours”—mothers can work while children are in school and have summers off
• Flex time arrangements ranging from one day a week to 80 hours in 9 days

Vacation/Leave
• Paid sabbaticals
• 16 paid holidays per year

Part-time Workers
• Part time workers can select weekend programs and compressed work weeks
• Bonuses for part timers
• Part timers eligible for stock options
• Tuition reimbursement for part-timers

While no one company offers all of these benefits to their employees, this list serves as a helpful guide to evaluate the impact and creativity of your employee retention strategies.

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So, here is a little history for you.

The very first Christmas gifts were simple items such as twigs from a sacred grove as good luck emblems. Soon that escalated to food, small items of jewelry, candles, and statues of gods. To the early Church, gift giving at this time was a pagan holdover and therefore severely frowned upon. However, people would not part with it, and some justification was found in the original gift giving of the Magi, and from figures such as St. Nicholas. By the middle ages gift giving was accepted.

These early gifts were meant as signs of homage and tribute regardless of religious beliefs. With that in mind, what can today’s organizations do during the holiday season to capture the initial spirit of the season and pay homage to their employees? Here are some ideas:

· Give your employees some real feedback—let them know that they are valued and be specific about why. Thank them for their specific contributions for the year.

· Ask them about their desires and goals for the coming year. Hear their hopes and dreams and fears, but don’t rush to judgment or make promises. Make it a new year’s resolution to work with them to develop a plan to make their hopes and dreams come true.

· If you plan on exchanging gifts, give gifts from the heart instead of the store. For example, give employees an allowance to donate money to charitable organizations that have personal meaning to them rather than selecting one organization for the company as a whole.

· If you are set on having a Secret Santa at your party, instead of buying gifts, have employees write “Thank You Cards” to the person they draw to show appreciation for their contributions during the year. Post the cards on a wall for everyone to see. During the party, employees need to find their Secret Santa and, in the process, read their colleagues cards and add their thanks and good wishes.

I hope this triggers a few ideas for making the holiday season at work a meaningful one. I look forward to your thoughts and feedback. Have a safe and happy holiday season.

Clearly the Nordstrom’s manager went above and beyond the call of duty to solve this problem. Why? The simple answer would seem to be that my colleague was an important customer of Nordstrom’s so they made every effort to keep her happy. But that was not the case—it was her first time in the store.

This manager was empowered to use his judgment on how to best handle customer situations. Most organizations, however, don’t put in place all of the necessary elements to make it work for them. Three things that often go wrong are:

·Lack of clear policies and procedures for dealing with customers
·Policies and procedures are not aligned with customer focused behaviors/initiatives resulting in confusion and punishment
·Employees become fearful of taking action

In order to make empowerment work, the following things must be done correctly:

·Develop clear service strategies by customer segment
·Set clear boundaries around what must be done, can be done, and cannot be done in serving customers
·Review policies and procedures to ensure support of required behaviors or service initiatives
·Provide employees with information about business situations that affect the customer and their daily work
·Reward and recognize people for doing good work for customers
·Use overzealous service initiatives/actions as learning/coaching opportunities

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So how did the manager get a new camera for my colleague? Turns out the manager had a friend who ran a camera store. His friend carried the camera line and was able to take the defective camera and exchange it for a working one at no cost. The manager’s initiative turned an unhappy Macy’s customer into a loyal Nordstrom’s shopper. It also created significant positive word of mouth for Nordstrom’s as my colleague, by her own estimation, has told this story to over 1,000 people in the customer service and management training programs she has taught since then.

A little initiative goes a long way. Since it is difficult to judge which prospects will turn out to be long term loyal customers and passionate advocates for your company when they first walk through the door, you are better off assuming that everyone has the potential to be an important customer and treat them with the same care that you treat your best customers. You never know how many people they will tell about the experience.

Gary was talking about the challenges of getting his sons ready for school to his assistant, Louise, a mother of two children herself. “With my wife out of town, I am going to leave each day at 3:30PM for the next two weeks to get my boys out of school and to their after school activities,” Gary announced to Louise. “I can’t wait for my wife to get back so I don’t have to do this.”

Louise was more amused by Gary’s frustration than sympathetic to him because he was the person, after all, who yelled at her when she was a few minutes late to work one day when she was dropping her kids off at school. At some level she was also furious that Gary was able to simply announce that he was cutting his workday short by 90 minutes for two weeks to deal with his family issues because of his position. She was sure no one was yelling at him for not being at work for the full day.

Louise decided to share this information with Pamela who worked for one of Gary’s peers. Pamela was also furious that it was so easy for Gary to adjust his schedule for child care concerns when Pamela, who was one level below Gary, was not allowed to come to work 30 minutes late and leave 30 minutes early for her own child care considerations in return for not taking a lunch break, because her boss insisted that she be in the office from 8-5 to serve as role model for others. She wondered, somewhat cynically, why it was so important for her to act as a “role model” at the expense of being with her family when it was clearly not important in this case for one of the senior managers to do so.

As Louise and Pamela talked about the situation, they wondered aloud how much of this freedom Gary had was due to his position in the business. Was being a VP enough to come and go as you please? Or was his position less of an issue than his gender? Of the twelve person management team in the business, only one was a woman. And as you moved higher in the organization, there were fewer women executives to be found in positions of power.

Not wanting to be paranoid or hyper sensitive on gender issues, Pamela decided to examine the company’s work/life balance policy. After all, being known as one of the best places to work, this company must have addressed this issue. Well if they had a work/life balance policy, it wasn’t documented in the HR handbook or on the intranet. It seems as though the work/life balance “policy” was created on a department by department basis and subject to interpretation by managers as they review the specific circumstances facing their employees. The policy for Gary’s department was that employees are allowed to adjust their working hours to accommodate personal matters three times a year, subject to prior approval by one’s manager. Maybe Gary was able to negotiate that this 10-day adjustment to his schedule only counted as one of the three times he was eligible for, but neither Pamela nor Louise were buying that they would be given such a liberal interpretation of the policy for their family considerations.

Not surprisingly, the lack of a clear and fairly applied policy has led to a climate problem in the company, particularly with women employees with small children. They see more flexible work arrangements being negotiated in different departments and at different levels. In some cases, they have seen work schedules changed simply because a new manager has been put in place and decided not to honor the previously agreed to work schedules.

The lack trust between employees and management has made women with children afraid to raise this issue. There are very few “role models” for them to talk to that are in positions of power and the HR function is perceived to be ineffective in dealing with these issues. The annual climate survey does not ask specific questions about work/life balance or gender fairness issues and does not provide for meaningful open ended comments.

So while Gary has created a schedule to his liking, Pamela and Louise do their best to manage the balance between family demands and working a full time job. Woody Allen once said that 95% of life is about showing up. Clearly Pamela and Louise have got this covered. Maybe if they were male senior executives, they could master life and show up a little bit less.

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Nick’s management philosophy was strongly influenced by his military background. He believed in following process, respecting the management hierarchy, and following the orders of his superiors without question. He prided himself on getting things done.

When Nick believed that his job as head of communications was at risk due to some organizational changes, he went to Steve with a proposal to broaden his role to include organization change efforts, in addition to his communication responsibilities. This would mean that training, which previously reported to the site manager, would report to him. Nick felt he was competent to manage this function because of his training experience in the military.

When the organizational change was made, the training team was shocked by the decision given Nick’s experience and the loss of a direct seat on the management committee for the site. This was particularly troubling to Pamela, the head of training, who had previously reported to the site manager and had significantly more training experience than Nick. (Pamela was a late 30’s training professional who has 15 years of experience working for money center banks and consulting firms. Over the years she had designed, developed and delivered training for mid- and senior-level executives in North America, South America, Australia, Europe and Asia. She had also managed a team of 50 trainers with an annual budget of over $10 million.)

The perception in the organization was that Nick got the job for two reasons: (1) his past relationship with Steve and (2) he was a man. (Only one member of the 12-person management team is a woman.) Whether these were the reasons or not, Nick was put in place and began to change the way in which the team operated with its internal customers.

One of Nick’s first changes was to change Pamela’s work schedule. While working for the site manager, Pamela had the flexibility to come into work 30 minutes late and leave 30 minutes early in return for not taking a lunch break. This was important to her because she had young children to get to and from school. Despite the quality of her work and her overall productivity, Nick made her change her schedule because he thought her face time at work was important to serve as a model for others.

With the change in the management structure, Pamela was no longer a peer of the members of management team. Because Nick believed in hierarchy, he became the mouthpiece for the training function in the management committee. He also began to attend meetings with his peers to discuss their training needs without members of the training team. This created two problems:

· His explanations of the customer needs to the training team were often incomplete, thus making it difficult for the team to create an appropriate solution.

· His peers sensed his lack of technical expertise, so after meeting with Nick, they would call Pamela, who they had been happy working with before the reorganization, to discuss training needs directly with her.

Nick seemed to believe that, despite the fact that his team was more experienced in the training field that he was, he new better. While promising that he would not do the job of his training team leaders, he constantly challenged their decisions to run training programs for their clients on the basis of allocating resources to their highest and best use, without asking his people about the business case for the training. He incorrectly assumed that they did not factor this into their decisions.

Over time, Nick has gotten more involved in the technical aspects of training despite having not practical experience or training. On occasion, he will review design documents in detail and require changes to be made that do not make sense for the audience or are not effective for learning styles that were different from his own.

To make matters worse, despite a corporate emphasis on customer focus, Nick thinks it is a waste of time to adapt corporate programs to meet the needs of their local clients. He believes it is more important to get the training done rather than make sure it is on target for the client. (Much to their credit, the training team has rejected this idea and done what was right for the client.)

He has even begun to get involved in the smallest minutiae like sending out invitations to his peers to attend training kickoffs when the design of the program called for them to attend later in the program. He should have known this given that he had been invited to attend the program over 20 times before he took his new job, but he always sent his assistant instead!

Communication with the team has gotten worse. The team often gets more information about pending changes in business structure and strategy from their colleagues on the West Coast than they do from Nick directly. In protecting the confidentiality (or perceived power of having information) of management team discussions when others do not, he has left his team feeling ill informed and speculating on the worst possible outcomes.

Given this situation, the morale in the department has declined significantly. Nick’s desire to focus on hierarchy and politics rather than technical expertise, and emphasis on face time rather than performance, have had a negative impact on the team’s morale. And, not surprisingly, all the team members are looking for new jobs.
Politics driving organizational decisions is an everyday occurrence. The question is not so much how to eliminate this reality, but how to do it in a productive way so that performance is not compromised. Given the mess that has been created, what advice would you give Nick and Pamela?

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We arrived about 4:00 in the afternoon and were greeted by delightfully professional staff, a glass of champagne and an efficient and friendly check in process. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the front desk staff had clearly been trained to serve international guests (which we were not) as evidenced by the way they politely handed me my credit card using two hands (standard operating procedure for service providers in Asia). According to Michelle Valle, the Marketing Manager for the hotel, the front desk staff is trained in this technique to comply with a company-wide standard even though they have a relatively small percentage of customers from Asia.

Upon completion of the check-in process, the clerk came out from behind the counter to us point us towards the elevator and wish us an enjoyable stay. When we arrived in our room our 470 square foot deluxe, lake front room turned out to be a 700+ square foot executive suite with two balconies, two televisions, 1 ½ baths, but no partridge in a pear tree.

I was curious as to why I had been upgraded to an executive suite. Was it the non-discounted rate I was paying or something else? Ms. Valle said that staff members empowered to WOW their guests. They are trained to discreetly profile customers to determine customer preferences and special occasions, and the hotel has well defined policies on what staff members can do to delight customers in the moment without management approval. By determining that my wife and I were here for our anniversary (customer profiling during the check in process) and empowering staff to upgrade guests to the next higher category of rooms (clear policy), the front desk staff were able to provide my wife and I with an unexpected surprise.

The guest profiling goes into even greater detail. For example, a question about wine might lead to a welcome gift of a bottle of chardonnay as opposes to merlot. This attention to detail and customization of the service experience is in stark contrast to other hotels that may have a standard welcome gift (like chocolates) for frequent guests that may not be appealing to everyone.

Staff members capture customer preference data in a CRM system. This allows for preferences to be viewed from hotel to hotel. For example, the CRM allows customer preferences to be tracked at such a level of detail that a guest staying at another Ritz-Carlton might receive a soda without ice upon seating for dinner without asking for it based on preferences learned in a previous service encounter at a different hotel.

We had 3 hours to wait before our dinner reservation so we took a walk around the property and decided to have a drink and a snack by the pool. The bartender was quite friendly and having a good time doing his job, but needed work on his jump shot because in the process of throwing away a piece of fruit his shot was a little off and it hit the rim of the trashcan and splattered a bit of liquid on the bar. Nothing hit us or the other guests at the bar (nor was anyone offended by his actions), but he paid for our drinks anyway.

Ms. Valle explained that the service recovery philosophy of the Ritz-Carlton is that in order to justify charging premium rates, they must deliver a superior customer experience. For them, this means giving staff the latitude to do what they believe is appropriate to turn a potentially negative experience into a pleasant one. Said in the language of customer loyalty, they focus on converting potentially negative word of mouth about an experience into positive word of mouth about the service recovery effort.

Every service recovery incident is documented in a Commitment to Quality Report. The staff member is responsible for completing this report at the end of his/her shift in which he/she explains the incident and the recovery action taken. The next morning the reports are shared with the entire hotel shift! They use these incidents as learning opportunities for the entire staff to discuss ways to prevent these incidents from happening in the future.

Part of the reason I decided to stay at the Ritz-Carlton was the restaurant, Normans’s. Norman Van Aken is one of North America’s super chefs and was voted as the best chef in Florida by the New York Times. As my wife and I were wandering around the hotel, we stopped to look at the menu. It had a fascinating variety of flavors and fresh seafood, but what jumped out at us was the Foie Gras terrine with brioche. Yum!

Our light snack by the pool turned out to be a bit too filling thus the idea of putting on a suit for dinner and leaving our suite lost out to having room service so we did not get to enjoy the cuisine at Norman’s. Believing that if you don’t ask, the answer is no, I decided to call Norman’s to see if the were willing to deliver the Foie Gras to our suite. Norman’s menu, mind you, is not the room service menu, but I figured I had nothing to lose. “Absolutely, sir”, was their response to my request.

What struck me about this was that Norman’s approach to service was at the same level as the Ritz-Carlton. Norman’s leases space in the hotel and has its own selection process, but, buy contract, their staff members must attend service training provided by the Ritz-Carlton—a brilliant way to help ensure similar quality of service. The hotel tracks guest satisfaction with the Norman’s to ensure that the restaurant maintains the same high quality standards as the hotel and regularly provides this feedback to the restaurant.

My impression of the Ritz-Carlton’s motto of “Ladies and Gentlemen Serving Ladies and Gentlemen” is that it is more that a tag line. It is an operating philosophy that is driven through every aspect of the hotel’s processes ranging from hiring to training to customer service to performance management and measurement. It is this comprehensive integration of the philosophy into the day-to-day actions of management and staff that creates and sustains a differentiated customer experience.

Our day escape ended far too quickly yet in less than 24 hours the Ritz-Carlton Orlando left a lasting impression on me for their quality of service and attention to detail in seemingly every aspect of the customer experience. I never thought $400 dollars could be a bargain. If you are planning to travel to Orlando, I encourage you to check out the Ritz-Carlton. A truly exceptional service experience awaits your arrival.

As I read her article, I was struck by how prevalent the use of labels are and I was troubled by the biases and inaccuracies that are inevitably linked to the labels. I invite you to read her story and reflect upon the language that you and your organization use to label people and the unintended consequences of these actions.

Despite the fact that universities and the media have created their own list of "standard" terminology, usage has changed over time and probably will continue to evolve, leaving us with no list we can be sure of. Historically, controlling groups have had the authority to label or name other groups. Today, ethnic and cultural groups demand the power to name themselves.

What makes this hard is that people don't fit neatly into one box. This is becoming even more apparent as our country becomes more multicultural and multiethnic. The 2000 Census reported that 5.5% of respondents checked "multiracial." Individuals in the focus groups we conduct are more sensitive than ever about being categorized and then labeled.

In the early 1980s, someone somewhere decided that in order to be inclusive and avoid the negativity associated with the term "minority," "people of color" should be adopted. This allowed us to be okay about "clumping" everyone together. But even with this terminology, corporations divide "people of color" into various affinity groups and employee resource and network groups to learn about and understand the communities they represent. Then, they count people by demographic group to show progress in diversity. Difficult, isn't it?

I was struck by this dilemma even more as I listened to Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole, president of Bennett College for Women, close the Chief Diversity Officer's Summit earlier this spring. In her inspiring style and thoughtful commentary, Dr. Cole asked us to consider how very different we are within our differences. She challenged us not to try to make things too easy by putting people in Column A or Column B and believing that everyone in that column has the same attributes. To illustrate her point, Dr. Cole referred to one of the presenters, Bonnie St. John, who is a Paralympic Medal-winning skier. She asked us, "In what column would you put 'our sister' Bonnie, who is one-legged, black, a woman, and an athlete?" Dr. Cole asked us to get beyond trying to categorize people and recognize that we are all unique individuals with unique characteristics and distinct perspectives.

In the office recently, ProGroup's ever popular and talented vice president, Tony Orange, was telling us about a training session he conducted where a male participant-a manager-followed him during a break and asked him, "Tony, what do I call you? Do I refer to you as black? Do I say Tony is the black guy in the group? I don't want to be offensive. I just don't know." As always, Tony exhibited great understanding and demonstrated Change Agent behavior. He discussed how you would start by referring to him by name. "I'm Tony." Tony went on to say, "Then, you might ask the individual, as you have done today, what is your preference? Everyone will be different." During the course of this conversation, Tony explained that for him it would be okay to refer to him as black if he was in a crowd and you wanted to point him out to others. "But," Tony continued coaching, "the real issue is whether you treat me differently because of the label." The manager wanted a rule from Tony and an easy answer. Instead, the manager got wisdom. There is no rulebook.

We work with several clients who are actively recruiting to increase their diversity representation. In their process, they refer to "diversity applicants," "underrepresented minorities," "diversity hires," and "minority candidates," and they are resistant to change this practice because they believe they won't be able to measure their progress. Consider what it would be like to be hired carrying one of these descriptors, these labels. You may not know you even have a label on . . . or, would you? I remember an old training exercise that I experienced where an adhesive label with the name of a category of people was placed on my forehead. I couldn't see what it said. I had to wear the label all afternoon as people reacted positively or negatively toward me. When I finally peeled it off, I could still feel it hours later.

Human nature . . . fascinating isn't it? I was with some people at dinner recently and we noticed that our waiter's name on his nametag was 16 letters long. A colleague asked, "How do you say your name?" The waiter proudly pronounced his full name and then apologetically said, "Just call me 'Dickey.' That is what they call me here." We asked, "Do you like the shortened name?" He replied, "No, but it is easier for them. I'm getting used to it."

It's not easy anymore. One day soon, "people of color" will be replaced by someone's new preferred label. As we try to exhibit behaviors of respect and appreciation, let's be conscious of how we use labels and names in our desire to make things simple.

ProGroup's best advice on using labels and name:

· Resist "clumping." It's tempting, but if you consciously work to learn about the whole person and get beyond putting that individual in a group, you may be surprised. All (fill in the blank) are not alike.

· Put the extra energy into learning about people, especially their names. One researcher said that your name is the most important word in the English language. Multiply that by all the languages around the world. When you pronounce someone's name correctly, it means a lot-and that's coming from someone whose last name, "Marofsky," has been pronounced and spelled in some pretty crazy ways.

· Notice how individuals refer to themselves and use their term. Then, don't assume that the next person will prefer the same label.

· Give yourself grace. You won't always know what is correct and you may make a mistake in someone's eyes. Apologize with appreciation and then ask what term the individual prefers.

· Ask in order to learn. What a great way to make human connections that make a difference around diversity! Go back to our wise man, Tony, and get beyond the surface stuff to really understand whom others are and what they need. In case you don't know, there is no such thing as political correctness.

Printed with the permission of Myrna Marofsky, President of ProGroup Inc. (www.progroupinc.com), a leading Diversity training company based in Minneapolis. Myrna can be reached at 1-800-651-4093.

What struck me about the meeting was the story that one senior manager (let’s call him Joe) told about the interaction he had with one of his managers (let’s call him Dom) about the importance of treating all members of his staff equally. Joe said that Dom was agreeable to concept but said that this would be difficult to do because some of the members of his team were “different” from him. Joe then went on to say that no matter how much you work with some people you are not going to get them to change their attitudes towards treating all employees fairly.

I wish I had asked Joe why he hadn’t removed Dom from his managerial role. Since I didn’t ask, I can only assume that Joe felt that by raising the issue, his obligation had been met, and given that Dom did not have any other performance issues, there was no reason to move him to a different role.

What I am curious about is the impact that Joe’s inaction had on the minority staff. Were they aware of Dom’s feelings towards them relative to other employees? Did these feelings impact their work assignments? Did they feel left out of the communication loop? Did they feel that the company didn’t value them as much as other employees? Did they feel like equal performance would lead to equal pay and promotion opportunities at this company? Did they feel like they were working on a level playing field?

Employees look at what managers say and the values statements that organization make and compare it to their actions. A picture is worth a thousand words. They also look at what managers and organizations don’t do to judge the sincerity of the organizations words and assess the gap between the stated values of the organization (what the organization says it believes in) and their operating values (what the organization actually values based on what it chooses to reward). The wider the gap is between stated and operating values, the greater the cynicism and distrust in the organization.

Organizations need to make sure their stated values and operating values are aligned. They also need to measure the extent to which people are living these values on a daily basis and hold them accountable for doing so. Making this happen is critical to keeping your entire workforce fully engaged.

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Miranda was the second person hired by the company’s Hong Kong office in 1992. She was hired to be the office manager. By the time I got to know Miranda in 2000, she managed all of the administrative staff, suppliers, contracts, and finances for the business.

After nearly a decade with the company, Miranda wanted to move from being a jack-of-all-trades to becoming a salesperson. As the first step in this process, we hired a business manager to relieve her of the contracts and financial management parts of the job. We then put her in charge of all global accounts requiring delivery support from the Hong Kong office. All was going well with the plan until the company’s 2002 “near death experience” led to the sale of the company and the SARS epidemic led to a severe contraction of the Asian business.

After the sale was completed, it was decided that a new sales position would be added in the Hong Kong office. Miranda seemed like a likely choice for it given her experience with the business and he role she was already playing with global accounts. It seemed natural that she would be given a shot at the job despite her lack of formal training as a salesperson.

Well as the circumstances would have it, Miranda did not get an opportunity to interview for the sales job. To make matters worse, she was taken out of the business when her position was eliminated due to cost issues. She was prevented from interviewing for the sales job and had her current position eliminated by the very same person to whom she had remained so loyal to in 1993!

While I am not questioning whether Miranda was the best qualified person for a sales job, I am curious as to what obligation a company has to give employees the opportunities to change careers internally. It would seem that if any employee had earned the right to try something new, Miranda would have been that employee. What do you think?

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