Seven habits of highly effective people - Stephen R. Covey [62]
I arrived quite late, checked in, and asked if room service were available. The man at the desk said,
"No, Mr. Covey, but if you're interested, I could go back and get a sandwich or a salad or whatever you'd like that we have in the kitchen." His attitude was one of total concern about my comfort and welfare. "Would you like to see your convention room?" he continued. "Do you have everything you need? What can I do for you? I'm here to serve you."
There was no supervisor there checking up. This man was sincere.
The next day I was in the middle of a presentation when I discovered that I didn't have all the colored markers I needed. So I went out into the hall during the brief break and found a bellboy running to another convention. "I've got a problem," I said. "I'm here training a group of managers and I only have a short break. I need some more colored pens.
He whipped around and almost came to attention. He glanced at my name tag and said, "Mr. Covey, I will solve your problem."
He didn't say, "I don't know where to go" or "well, go and check the front desk." He just took care of it. And he made me feel like it was his privilege to do so.
Later, I was in the side lobby, looking at some of the art objects. Someone from the hotel came up to me and said, "Mr. Covey, would you like to see a book that describes the art objects in this hotel?" How anticipatory! How service-oriented!
I next observed one of the employees high up on a ladder cleaning windows in the lobby. From his vantage point he saw a woman having a little difficulty in the garden with a walker. She hadn't really fallen, and she was with other people. But he climbed down that ladder, went outside, helped the woman into the lobby and saw that she was properly taken care of. Then he went back and finished cleaning the windows.
I wanted to find out how this organization had created a culture where people bought so deeply into the value of customer service. I interviewed housekeepers, waitresses, bellboys in that hotel and found that this attitude had impregnated the minds, hearts, and attitudes of every employee there. I went through the back door into the kitchen, where I saw the central value: "Uncompromising personalized service." I finally went to the manager and said, "My business is helping organizations develop a powerful team character, a team culture. I am amazed at what you have here."
"Do you want to know the real key?" he inquired. He pulled out the mission statement for the hotel chain.
After reading it, I acknowledged, "That's an impressive statement. But I know many companies that have impressive mission statements."
"Do you want to see the one for this hotel?" he asked.
"Do you mean you developed one just for this hotel?"
"Yes."
"Different from the one for the hotel chain?"
"Yes. It's in harmony with that statement, but this one pertains to our situation, our environment, our time." He handed me another paper.
"Who developed this mission statement?" I asked.
"Everybody," he replied.
"Everybody? Really, everybody?"
"Yes."
"Housekeepers?"
"Yes."
"Waitresses?"
"Yes."
"Desk clerks?"
"Yes. Do you want to see the mission statement written by the people who greeted you last night?" He pulled out a mission statement that they, themselves, had written that was interwoven with all the other mission statements. Everyone, at every level, was involved.
The mission statement for that hotel was the hub of a great wheel. It spawned the thoughtful, more specialized mission statements of particular groups of employees. It was used as the criterion for every decision that was made. It clarified what those people stood for --how they related to the customer, how they related to each other. It affected the style of