In part one of this two-part executive interview, Bob Kharazmi, Global Officer, Worldwide Operations at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C. sits down with The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center (RCLC) to share his thoughts on employees and mentoring. Mr. Kharazmi has worked at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company over three decades. Throughout his career, he has devoted time to asking employees about their career goals and future with the organization. RCLC: Why should leaders mentor employees? Mr. Kharazmi: When anyone looks back on his or her career, the biggest accomplishment he or she will see is how many lives they impacted in a positive way. That is the best reward we can have. We always get promotions, new job titles and even different jobs. Those things come and go, but what stays is the positive impact that we have made in the lives of other people. That’s what mentoring really means to me and that’s why I truly love mentoring. RCLC: What makes someone a good mentor? Mr. Kharazmi: Mentoring becomes successful when people see that you genuinely care. You create relationships with employees when you acknowledge them for doing the right things as opposed to catching them when they do something wrong. This creates trust, and employees become more comfortable with you. They are less concerned about their failure, and they share their wins with you. They become so close to you that you can help and guide them. You become a nurturing person in their life who facilitates progress. RCLC: How do leaders have time to connect with employees? Mr. Kharazmi: What is priority for a leader? The first and most important priority for a leader is his or her people. No matter where we want to go—no matter what our belief is—no matter what our destination is—we are not going to go alone. We are going with our employees, our Ladies and Gentlemen. So we have to make this a top priority. We have to take time to spend one-on-one time—either in person or over the phone. We have to make sure that we are staying in touch with them. If you segregate yourself from your employees and focus only on strategy, you can go wrong—because the strategy that you put together needs to bubble up from your people. Any strategy that is developed needs to translate into action, and the action will need to be executed by your people. So leaders cannot create strategies in isolation. They need to interact with employees to create good strategies. You must also understand the burden of execution. You might not roll up your sleeves every day and do what your employees do. But you have to know what they do. You have to know the burden of doing it. There can’t be total separation between the people making the decisions and the people who have to execute those decisions. A lot of companies have great strategies. If you look at the airlines in the United States, they have the right leadership in their organizations. They have great strategies. But when you look at the execution part—the service part, you see a lot of complaining about the lack of care. I strongly believe that leadership is not involved in the day-to-day execution. They sit in their offices and put plans together, but they are unaware of how it gets done. You have to connect the dots. You can’t just send the email and define your strategy without knowing how it gets done. If employees don’t buy in, then strategies will not get done. RCLC: Do you lose your edge as an authority figure when you mentor and bond with employees? Mr. Kharazmi: Absolutely not. The 20th century is gone. There was a day when there was a hierarchy between executives, management and employees. There were so many different layers. That is gone. The 21st century is a horizontal line. Any organization should have an environment where leadership is accessible. There should be togetherness. It’s no longer the leaders demanding, "Go do this." Instead we should be collaborating, and leaders should be saying, "Let’s go together to get this done." People do not come to work to do something wrong. They don’t leave their homes and think, "Today I’m going to really mess up a service." The intention is never to make a mistake. No one—not even a disengaged employee—has in mind, "I’m going to do wrong today." They come to do something right, but they don’t get guided on how to do it. They just need to be guided and that’s the leader’s role. A leader can be an executive or vice president of the regional office or a leader can work in room service, the front office or as restaurant manager. All leaders need to guide their people, show them how to do their best and how to create excellence. Leaders will get the best out of their people when they guide them. RCLC: Have you ever experienced employees who are intimidated by you because you are an important person within the company? Mr. Kharazmi: I believe our employees are more important than I am. I really believe that. If I can’t make it to work, meetings get rescheduled. But if a server doesn’t show up in the restaurant, then there’s a problem because there’s no one there to serve the guests. When it comes to serving the guests, our employees are more important than I am. If you create a good relationship, if you are humble, if you are a servant leader, then any nervousness goes away very quickly and people feel comfortable with you. It goes back to trust. When people trust you, then they establish a relationship with you. They speak freely with you. When you are transparent, then you get respect. When you uphold your promises and extend trust, you create an environment where people can be open and discuss their issues with you. RCLC: At The Ritz-Carlton, people are a higher priority than profits. How can a company be profitable but make people a priority? Mr. Kharazmi: Profit is a by-product of having a great concept and having great employees to put the concept in place. Profit truly is a by-product. In our organization, we always, always, always have tried from day one to make sure that we live our value system. What is our value system? Our gold standards. Our gold standards put people first because it is the people who achieve our goal of creating a hotel company where service is our highest mission. The founders of The Ritz-Carlton Company never intended to create just another hotel company—because there were already a lot of hotel companies out there. Their desire was to have a hotel company that redefined service and provided service in a way that had never been experienced by anyone. They developed the three steps of service and put systems in place that drive guest engagement. The Ritz-Carlton was developed out of this passion for service excellence. That passion has been kept alive and continues even today. ∞ The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center offers advisory services, courses and presentations to organizations that wish to benchmark the award-winning business practices of The Ritz-Carlton. Your organization can learn about The Ritz-Carlton methodology for customer service, employee engagement and leadership development. We also guide organizations through a multi-step process in order to achieve sustainable culture transformation. The Blog Post Our Ladies and Gentlemen: Bob Kharazmi (Part 1 - Mentoring) appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

Today, we have a guest post from Morgan Pinney. Currently Morgan is the Environmental Health and Safety Officer for Citrix. He has been with Citrix since 2006. A graduate of UC Santa Barbara, Morgan has been in charge of ergonomics for Citrix and has attended workshops at The Ergonomics Center at NC State and Ergonomic conferences in Las Vegas, Nashville, and New York. The standup desk has been a big hit at Citrix for a few years now. The human body is not conditioned to stand or sit for hours on end. Having the ability to switch between both whenever you wish dramatically reduces the risk of back, neck or shoulder injuries, which can develop gradually over time. To assist us in our ergonomic efforts, we sought out the services of a company called Health Postures. They provide a product called Taskmate that can be easily installed on most desks. Once plugged in, our employees can switch from sitting to standing with the press of a button. The Taskmate has been a huge success with our employees, as you can see for yourself in our photo album on Facebook. One thing to note, though, is once you give an employee one, they will never want to give it back.

"Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish." — Sam Walton, Founder of Walmart and Sam’s Club The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: Think about the last time you looked back and thought, "I can’t believe I did that!" Was there someone you admired who gave you the conviction and courage to take on a project outside your comfort zone? Our confidence enables our successes, but when we face huge challenges, the people who believe in us and cheer us on can provide the extra motivation needed to make it across any finish line. At The Ritz-Carlton, it is the duty of our leaders to strengthen and encourage the Ladies and Gentlemen, the employees of The Ritz-Carlton. Empowered employees who are supported by leaders are naturally more confident and willing to take risks. Which leaders have inspired you to achieve more? ∞ The Blog Post Inspired Thinking: Outstanding Leaders Inspire appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

Today we have a Q&A with Roopam Jain. Roopam is Industry Director of the Conferencing and Collaboration practice at Frost & Sullivan. She is a leading expert in conferencing, unified communications and collaboration technologies. Ms. Jain has 14 years of market analysis and strategic consulting expertise. She has received acclaim for her industry knowledge through quotes in leading publications such as Business Week, New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal. The world of education is changing at a fast pace. Technologies like video, mobile devices and social media will continue to reshape the learning environment by providing easier access to information and lowering the cost of education. For this post, Citrix posed questions about online education market trends and technologies to Frost & Sullivan’s industry director of research, Roopam Jain. Which technologies are newest to the classroom and what’s been the trend that brought them there? Online learning 2.0 is seeing tremendous adoption, which means learning is becoming more mobile, social and accessible. Educators today are increasingly using the latest communication and collaboration technologies, like video, mobile devices and social networks. Consumerization trends are largely driving this adoption of new technologies; students want their choice of communication device in the learning environment and they want the software applications they use in their personal lives to be available for their education experience. Also, the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend is driving mobile learning - where students are increasingly asking for rich content that they can access anytime, anywhere and changing the way teaching and learning is taking place today. How is video being used in learning, and how is its use reshaping the learning environment? Video is becoming highly important in learning today, creating a flexible and more engaging environment for students. This is done primarily by adding the visual element otherwise missing from the online learning experience. Students are using video today in a variety of different ways, ranging from taking classes remotely, connecting with fellow students and learning from teachers and other educational resources virtually. Online video content is also being used in hybrid learning environments where students have the flexibility to view content - video or otherwise - online at their own pace and complement that with in-person or online interactions with peers and instructors. In fact, hybrid learning is preferred by a majority of students today compared to pure eLearning situations. Another interesting trend taking off in recent years is the concept of a flipped classroom where the instruction is delivered through on-demand video and online content at home, and the scheduled classroom time is reserved for activity-based "homework" and hands-on projects. One of the greatest perceived benefits from this model is that it allows teachers to use classroom time for more interactive engagements with their students, elevating the personal attention and level of learning across the board. As educators have been striving for ways to accomplish these exact goals for many years, these are obviously being viewed as notable improvements. How are collaborative technologies and practices being used in the learning environment? Collaboration is a huge part of learning today. In the past, education was more about teacher-to-student communication in a one-to-many setting and structure. Today learning is all about distributed collaboration, whether it is ad hoc or structured, online or in person. The latest collaboration technologies - such as instant messaging, presence, web and video conferencing and social media - are all supporting this evolution and trend. Students today are learning from each other at their own pace and using social networks to find and share information. Everyone learns differently, so providing students this flexibility to learn at their own pace using these collaboration tools is a tremendous development. Download the white paper For a full review of current trends in online learning, read the Frost & Sullivan white paper "Online Learning 2.0: The Technologies and Trends Revolutionizing the Classroom." Photo credit: Stanford Ed Tech

Dear Ritz-Carlton: How do you encourage teamwork and collaboration? Answer from Alexandra Valentin, Corporate Director, Culture Transformation at The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: At The Ritz-Carlton, one of our non-negotiables is Service Value 7: "I create a work environment of teamwork and lateral service so that the needs of our guests and each other are met." This service value emphasizes that each person is responsible for maintaining a nurturing, pleasant and positive work environment. The Ladies and Gentlemen—the employees of The Ritz-Carlton—are each here to serve our guests, but they are not alone. They are a team. They could not accomplish the mission of The Ritz-Carlton without supporting one another. One of the ways they show their commitment to teamwork is through lateral service. Lateral service requires breaking away from regular duties to assist a colleague or to assist another department. It could be as simple as helping a colleague carry a heavy item or watching over a colleague’s work area while he/she escorts a guest to another area of the hotel or handles a guest opportunity. Or it could be a time when extra help is needed by housekeeping on a large check-out day or if help is needed turning a banquet room. These situations do not occur often, but when they do, the Ladies and Gentlemen appreciate the support. Collaboration and teamwork are an integral part of The Ritz-Carlton culture. ∞ On Monday, April 13, 2015, The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center presents "Your Journey to Service Excellence," The Ritz-Carlton approach to legendary service, employee engagement and a customer-centric culture. This special Symposium takes place at The Ritz-Carlton, Dallas. Learn more about the keynote speaker, the presentation speakers, and the members of The Ritz-Carlton Executive Panel. The Blog Post Dear Ritz-Carlton: Encourage Teamwork? appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

Today we have a guest post from Melanie Turek. Melanie is Vice President, Research at Frost & Sullivan. She is a renowned expert in unified communications, collaboration, social networking and content-management technologies in the enterprise. For 20 years, Ms. Turek has worked closely with hundreds of vendors and senior IT executives across a range of industries to track and capture the changes and growth in the fast-moving unified communications market. Ms. Turek graduated cum laude with BA in Anthropology from Harvard College. She currently works from her home office in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Frost & Sullivan research clearly shows that webinars are going mainstream. In a recent survey of more than 200 C-level executives, 41 percent reported that web conferencing is used by their organization - higher than any other unified communications and collaboration tool except instant messaging. And more than three-quarters of those respondents report using the technology on a daily or weekly basis. What that means for marketers is that webinars are a viable alternative to in-person events, since a large percentage of a company’s prospects and customers are familiar with the technology and happy to use it. That’s especially valuable today: In comparison to 2011, marketing budgets are expected to increase moderately, but staffing levels will remain the same, according to a just-released Frost & Sullivan survey of 233 marketing professionals. Needless to say, that puts pressure on marketing teams to do more with less in an increasingly competitive global environment. Webinars have long been a cost-effective way to get a message out to a large audience; generate and qualify leads; add value and thought leadership to the industry overall; and identify areas of interest or concern within your customer base. But now, thanks to three key trends in the web conferencing industry, webinars are becoming an even more effective part of a broader marketing campaign: Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) make integration with marketing and sales automation easy. For webinars to deliver the most value to marketers, they must integrate into the company’s overall marketing and sales best practices and processes, which are often determined and monitored by marketing automation software or CRM applications. With open APIs, companies can easily make webinar registration, attendance and participation part of the process - allowing marketers to capture pertinent information about registrants and attendees (including answers to registration questions, as well as live polls and Q&A sessions during the event itself) and automatically incorporate that data into the marketing automation or CRM program for effective follow up and due diligence. What all this means for marketers? No more manual uploads of webinar data. Webinars are easily customized for niche audiences. Respondents to our recent marketing survey consider "developing segment-specific campaigns" their strongest demand-generation capability, followed by "refining the value proposition" and "reevaluating and identifying target segments." Webinars can help in all three of these areas, since they make it very easy to target key audiences with specific topics based on job roles, industry challenges, company size or location and so on. With the freedom to customize content without regard to cost or location, marketers can develop campaigns based on key segments and improve their overall perception in the market by offering value-added content like best practices for specific user groups. Webinars let marketers target customers’ needs and deepen relationships. By leveraging new capabilities like video content and social-media integration, marketers can ensure their events meet prospects’ and customers’ expectations. That helps boost attendance numbers and improve content effectiveness, but it also deepens relationships and ensures they last well beyond the life of the live event. Social media and customizable registration pages also let webinar producers collect valuable information from their registrant about their pain points needs in order to address or answer those issues in the live event.

In part two of this two-part executive interview, Bob Kharazmi, Global Officer, Worldwide Operations at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C. sits down with The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center (RCLC) to share his thoughts on leadership. Mr. Kharazmi has worked at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company over three decades. RCLC: What is your perspective of leadership? Mr. Kharazmi: Leadership is about effectiveness, and effectiveness comes when you create relationships with your team. Your influence is dependent upon the relationship you have with your team. To create good relationships, leaders must be involved. A good leader does not just sit behind a desk and send emails. A good leader works shoulder-to-shoulder with his or her team. Leaders need to care and create an environment of trust within their team. They need to be inspirational, and they can only inspire if they have a strong passion in their heart for what the company believes. RCLC: What do you think are the most important qualities of leadership? Mr. Kharazmi: These are the fundamentals of being a good, effective leader: Number one is trust. If you are not trusted, you cannot lead. And to be trustworthy, you have to give trust first. You have to be transparent. Whatever you say in front of your employees has to be exactly the same as what you say when they are not around. Leaders must sometimes share difficult news, but it is good to be transparent. People appreciate transparency. You have to keep your promises. You cannot promise something and then not deliver. You have to have humility and give credit where credit is due. People will respect and care for you more. You need to be in the heart of soul of your people rather than creating an environment where they are intimidated. You should surround yourself with people that are smarter and more talented than you. The people around you will determine your success as a leader. RCLC: Why should leaders establish relationships with their teams? Mr. Kharazmi: There is formal authority and moral authority. Formal authority is when I am in the office, and my administrative assistant stays until five or six because I am sitting here. If I’m not in the office, my administrative assistant might stay until five or not. There is a question mark. When I visit properties and I ask the staff to do something, they say, "yes, sir" and write it down to remember to get it done. Now after I leave, they may do it or not. Again, there is a question mark. When the trust isn’t there and you have to check up on your employees—that’s formal authority. If you don’t create relationships with your team, then you are using formal authority. When you have a relationship and there is trust, then you have moral authority. This means your administrative assistant will sit in the office until five whether you are there or not. When you ask for something to be done, it will get done because you have a relationship and there is a connection. The employees will believe in what you say and do. When you are using moral authority, you don’t need to follow up on what you have said or check on people to make sure they are doing the right thing. Formal authority gets the job done to some degree, but it does not get the job 100% done. Moral authority gets the job 100% done. I practice moral authority because if I have relationships, then I have earned trust and then I only need to say something once. That’s it. Also, the vice presidents who report to me feel more comfortable because of this trust, and they tell me when they don’t agree with a decision. This allows us to work more collaboratively and more effectively. RCLC: How do you relate leadership to customer service? Mr. Kharazmi: Focus. Employees notice what issues are important to leaders and what they focus on. If leaders focus on customer service, then employees will focus on customer service as well. Leaders need to walk their talk. If I talk about cleanliness, I need to follow through. When I’m walking with my general manager around a property and I see something on the floor, I pick it up. It could be a cigarette butt or a napkin or something people might not want to pick up, but I pick it up and put it in the trash. We all serve the guests. It is up to leadership to keep that focus. This is true for the big picture as well. Sometimes we have guests that try to take advantage, and there are times when the guest is wrong. But you have to keep your focus. We serve the guests. We know that a small percentage of guests take advantage of who we are, but we never change. We remain committed to customer service because that is our focus. RCLC: Is there a time as a leader when you came up with a better way to manage people? Mr. Kharazmi: We don’t manage people. We lead people. Both are important, and one is not better than the other. Management is about efficiency. You manage your expenses; you manage your sales; you manage your hours; you manage things. Leadership is about effectiveness. It’s about how you can get the best out of your employees. Leadership is about people. The management part is relatively easy, but the leadership part is relatively difficult. This is because there’s not just one solution for unleashing the talent of your employees. It can be different for each person. I constantly learn as a leader. I learn from my people. I learn from the decisions that we have made collectively. I learn from the decisions I have made. I learn from all the feedback I get. One of the important issues for any person in a leadership role—or in a non-leadership role—is being open to learn. You can’t think that just because you have been in your position for 10, 20 or even 30 years that you know it all. Thinking that way is the first step to failure. If we constantly listen and learn, we will improve our performance. This is easier said than done because sometimes we believe we have all the answers—which is wrong. We don’t. RCLC: Was there a leader who was a particularly good role model for you? Mr. Kharazmi: Hervé Humler and Simon Cooper are both fantastic leaders and have been important role models for me. From outside the hotel company, I would say the former chairman of IBM, Louis Gerstner, is one of my role models. If you look at his leadership and what he did at IBM, it’s remarkable. IBM basically became obsolete when they stuck to their big frame computers. They didn’t move fast enough with the changes of the marketplace and the consumer. But Louis Gerstner jumped in and turned it around. He is one of the great leaders. RCLC: What is your leadership advice for others? Mr. Kharazmi: Human beings are generally not good at listening—and that’s true in both our personal and professional lives. When people come to me with issues, I try to really truly understand by using good listening skills. I don’t jump in and ask questions too early. Once they are finished talking, if I’m not totally clear, then I will ask questions. After I completely understand the issue, I ask them what they think the best solution is—and only after listening to their solution will I provide my advice. It’s interesting. Sometimes when they explain the situation to you, and you ask questions, then they come up with the solutions themselves. I strongly believe in collaboration. I don’t think I’m the smartest guy just because I’m sitting behind this desk. I know our people are extremely bright and smart and engaged. So I think their ideas can be better than my ideas. By listening, asking questions and then providing my guidance—we find solutions in a collaborative way. ∞ The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center offers advisory services, courses and presentations to organizations that wish to benchmark the award-winning business practices of The Ritz-Carlton. Your organization can learn about The Ritz-Carlton methodology for customer service, employee engagement and leadership development. We also guide organizations through a multi-step process in order to achieve sustainable culture transformation. The Blog Post Our Ladies and Gentlemen: Bob Kharazmi (Part 2 - Leadership) appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

In today’s tough operating environment, flexible working offers exciting opportunities for charities and non-profits in the UK. The role played by volunteers in making the London Games such a success is a reminder of how the third sector, which includes voluntary associations as well as social enterprises and community groups, makes Britain a better place. It is likely that many Team GB Paralympians, poised to spring into action this week, have already benefitted from the support provided by such organisations.  However, the third sector faces an increasingly tough operating environment. During the recession, charities saw their average financial surplus drop by 60 per cent, while research carried out by the Charity Commission suggests that, on average, 15-20 per cent of funds raised by charities are spent on operating costs. This got me thinking about how flexible working tools can help maximise the value of every pound raised. Save time With so many third sector organisations only able to afford dedicated part-time staff in key roles, why waste time on long commutes or travelling to and from meetings? Being able to work remotely, whether from home or an external site, is a simple way to save on travel costs and business downtime.   Extend reach Video conferencing can enable organisations to neatly sidestep the costly and inconvenient barrier of geographic location by allowing members to connect with volunteers, supporters or staff wherever they happen to be. Similarly, such tools have now made it possible to present a face-to-face pitch to distant potential funders or working partners in the time it would normally take to get to the office.    Build consistency As customers, we trust the businesses that are reliable. This is no less true of the third sector. High-achieving organisations have become skilled at building consistency into their business practices, reducing costs resulting from poor communication and inefficiency. By supporting effective project management and providing access to up-to-the-minute business information, flexible working tools are the perfect way to drive such improvements. One such example is Twestival, a single-day worldwide movement that uses the power of social media and web collaboration tools to organise offline events in support of global and local charities. In just over two years, Twestival has organised four such campaigns across more than 200 cities, raising $1.75 million. I believe that the third sector organisations that thrive in the future will be those that embrace this new world of work. The race is on.  Get goosebumps On the subject of the Paralympics, Channel 4’s video teaser is a goosebump-inducing masterpiece. Watch it if you haven’t already! I, for one, can’t wait until the opening ceremony on Wednesday.  Photo credit: Cornwall Twestival 2011

"Motivation is everything. You can do the work of two people, but you can’t be two people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his people." — Lee Iacocca, former president of Ford Motor Company and former chairman of Chrysler The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: Leaders who are effective at motivating employees in the workplace are the ones who take the time to understand what drives individuals. We all work to fulfill a desire in our lives—it could be a hobby, a passion or even a way of life. When you are able to genuinely tap into the very core of your workforce they will go above and beyond for you every time! Authentic inspiration, the foundation for any high-performance team, is contagious. Imagine the results of creating an environment where the entire team felt responsible and committed to inspiring each other. The Ritz-Carlton encourages leaders at each property to build strong and lasting relationships with all the Ladies and Gentlemen. How well do you know the passions that drive your workforce? ∞ The Blog Post Inspired Thinking: Motivating Employees in the Workplace appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

Today we have a guest post from Jay Cross. Jay is the Johnny Appleseed of informal learning. The Internet Time Alliance, which he chairs, helps corporations and governments use networks to accelerate performance. Jay has challenged conventional wisdom about how adults learn since designing the first business degree program offered by the University of Phoenix. He is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Business School. Jay and his wife Uta live with their miniature longhaired dachshund in the hills of Berkeley, California. The world of corporate training has changed. What worked 20 years ago doesn’t work well in the social, always-on, networked world of business we now inhabit. These days, traditional training departments cannot build courses fast enough to keep up with the speed of change, and the Internet is our greatest source of information.  The Industrial Age is giving way to the Network Era. In the Industrial Age, workers were cogs in a machine. They were rewarded for efficiency and for meshing smoothly with their fellow cogs. In the Network Era, workers replace the machine; workers create the value. They are rewarded for delighting customers in innovative and non-routine ways. Collaborative organizations thrive in the Network Era. Trust that your employees will succeed when given the autonomy and freedom to work the way they want to is fundamental to becoming a collaborative organization. You don’t collaborate with people you don’t trust. Managers in collaborative organizations trust workers to be guided by corporate values and mission. Trust drives out micro-management. When management has high expectations of workers, they generally live up to them. When expectations are low, workers live down to them. Collaborative motivation dispenses with the concept that managers control workers. Instead, managers should inspire workers, set expectations and get out of the way. Collaborative infrastructure is the circuitry that connects workers with what they need to work and learn: co-workers, information, customers, news, models, plans, directives, gossip and more. Our paper calls these the "knows." The knows define the infrastructure required to support them: The "Know" Supporting Infrastructure Know who Profiles, expertise locators Know how Conversations, network Know why Purpose, aspiration, motivation Know what Content management systems, wikis, blogs, curation Know now Feeds, tweets, streams Know where Search, tags, indexes, rankings Know when Project management, shared calendar Collaborative learning is learning without borders, and it’s what the Network Era demands of companies that want to develop and retain their talent. Organizations improve learning by removing obstacles, seeding communities, increasing bandwidth, encouraging conversation and growing networks. It’s a natural way to learn and grow. Learning is now a critical daily activity; learning on the job is more effective than learning outside of the job. Learning must be embedded in work. As a result, work and learning are becoming indistinguishable. Experiment with bringing work and learning together by: Focusing on helping high performers work smarter; novices aren’t the only people who need to learn. No longer punishing people for failed experiments; if you never fail, you’re not innovating. Applying the 80/20 rule to critical functions and seeding communities of practice around them. Encouraging people to narrate their work, documenting what they do to share with others. Rooting out information hoarding; make sharing the norm. Some companies fire hoarders. For more on this topic, download the white paper: Why Corporate Training Is Broken and How to Fix It. Photo credit: nesster

Dear Ritz-Carlton: How do you encourage employee retention? Aren’t employees always looking for a bigger paycheck? Answer from Jeff Hargett, Senior Corporate Director, Culture Transformation at The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: While I don’t believe I’ve ever heard an employee turning down a raise—or claim that they are paid too much for their work—money does not lead to happiness or the assurance of a long-term employee. We’ve all heard, "Employees join companies and leave people (typically their managers)." There are many ways to retain employees, but the most effective is through Employee Engagement. When staff members feel they are part of the larger organization, they are more committed to success—not only theirs, but their department’s and the entire company’s. They want more than just performing a task that results in a paycheck. If that is their goal, when your competition tempts them with a higher wage, you’ll soon find their letter of resignation on your desk. To encourage employee retention, you should assist employees to not only improve their performance in their role, but also increase their education through training, encourage participation in Quality Improvement Teams and build community through your company’s social responsibility network. Keep your employees happy, keep them engaged and don’t just "throw money at the problem." ∞ On Monday, April 13, 2015, The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center presents "Your Journey to Service Excellence," The Ritz-Carlton approach to legendary service, employee engagement and a customer-centric culture. This special Symposium takes place at The Ritz-Carlton, Dallas. Learn more about the keynote speaker, the presentation speakers, and the members of The Ritz-Carlton Executive Panel. The Blog Post Dear Ritz-Carlton: Employee Retention? appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

While getting ready to watch the Paralympics Opening Ceremony on Wednesday evening, I found myself re-watching some of the many highlights from the Olympic Games. Perhaps I’m biased, but track and field produced the most iconic celebration poses: an ecstatic Mo Farah, arms aloft in the shape of an M, and Usain Bolt’s now legendary "lightning bolt". What strikes me about these moments is the way in which they have become highly identifiable. At first, they stand out because they are so different from anything we’ve seen before. Later, the gestures become synonymous with the success of the individual. That is, they become familiar, recognisable - even expected - a shared reference point that we all "get". Now, I think innovation in business follows a similar path. Original thinkers often come out of nowhere. Hurtling down the track, they suddenly and unexpectedly take the lead. Think Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson. As with Mo Farah and Usain Bolt, our eyes are drawn to their victories and their winning ways. Eventually, the methods they use become familiar. The competition steps up a gear and attempts to emulate them. I believe we’re at this stage now with flexible working. A recent survey suggested a 50 per cent increase of flexible working during the 2012 Games. Those determined to move ahead of competitors will embrace flexible working. Others will hold back, perhaps biding their time while noting their opponents’ progress. To many, this new mode of work may seem unusual or even unnecessary. But as more businesses unlock increased productivity and a capacity to cope with disruption, my prediction is that flexible working will soon become an easily recognisable indicator of high performance - as well known as any victory pose. If you are a business owner or employee, which side of the divide is your business on? Photo credit: nickwebb

The Italian poet, Cesare Pavese, noted that: "We do not remember days; we remember moments." Some milestones are especially memorable—like your wedding day, the arrival of your children or a special birthday. At The Ritz-Carlton, we often have the opportunity to help with these momentous occasions. The story below exemplifies how the Ladies and Gentlemen—the employees—of The Ritz-Carlton provide meaningful and memorable service. An Owner at The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Los Angeles was planning to ask his girlfriend to marry him. He wanted to plan a special, over-the-top proposal, and approached the Director of Residences for assistance. The Director of Residences was delighted to be involved in the planning of the surprise, and presented several ideas to the Owner. After walking through the suggestions, the Owner fell in love with The Director of Residences’ idea of proposing on the helipad at the top of The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Los Angeles. At a height of 676 feet, the helicopter landing strip provides unbelievable views of the Los Angeles skyline, San Bernardino Mountains, the Hollywood Hills and the Pacific Ocean—a perfect place for a romantic proposal. The Director of Residences prepared all of the logistics. In order to get the girlfriend to the helipad without spoiling the surprise, The Director of Residences created and delivered a fake invitation to an "Owner’s Cocktail Reception" on the top of the building. On the day of the proposal, The Director of Residences solicited the help of the Residences’ houseman and team members from Safety and Security and Engineering to set up a special space on the helipad. They arranged furniture, hundreds of flowers and champagne, and even a rug with rose petals sewn into it saying: "I love you ―will you marry me?" In addition to setting the stage for the proposal on the helipad, The Director of Residences also hired a photographer and videographer to capture the special moment. When the Owner proposed, the girlfriend immediately said "yes," with tears of joy in her eyes. While the happy couple celebrated with champagne and enjoyed the magnificent view, The Director of Residences made arrangements for one more surprise. The Owner had flown in all of the girlfriend’s family from New York to surprise her and to celebrate their engagement, and they were waiting to surprise her in the Owner’s residence. The Director of Residences sent the photographer and videographer down to the residence where they were able to capture the special moment when the girlfriend—now fiancée—realized her entire family was there to celebrate with her. After the reunion, the group enjoyed an excellent dinner together in the private dining room of the hotel restaurant, WP24. The next day, The Director of Residences delivered the video and photographs from the event to the delighted couple so they could remember the special proposal for a lifetime. ∞ The Ritz-Carlton Residences® and The Ritz-Carlton Destination Club® offer the opportunity to own a home operated by The Ritz-Carlton. The Ritz-Carlton Residences provides whole-ownership, luxury living in many of the world’s most vibrant cities and stunning resort destinations. For customers looking to own a partial share of a vacation home, they have the option to purchase a number of days per year at one of our Ritz-Carlton operated Destination Clubs. The Blog Post Guest Story: Memorable Service appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

If you’re reading this blog, you’ve either already implemented remote support tools into your service program or started thinking about it very seriously. So I’m probably preaching to the choir when I talk about the benefits of remote versus in-person support. Still, it’s nice to be thorough. If you’re already a believer of how cloud-based tools make the job of support easier, just consider this as confirmation of your good judgment. Here’s 5 big reasons your remote support tool delivers an immediate return on investment: Improved first-call resolutions Support organizations that adopt remote support tools consistently report improved first-call resolution rates - by as much as 70%. Support reps are able to securely connect to the customer’s system to share their desktop, upload patches, resolve the issue and provide product training quickly and easily close the issue the first time. Reps are able able to conduct up to 8 support sessions simultaneously, resolving issues quicker and ultimately supporting more customers within their day. CCH Wolters Kluwer, for example, reached 80% first-call resolutions using GoToAssist Corporate. Increase in customer satisfaction What if you could boost customer satisfaction just by resolving their issues quickly and easily the first time with tools like chat, screen sharing, computer diagnostics, support team collaboration and more? You would more than likely see CSAT rates jump as high as 90 to 97%. Read how Flir Systems is able to please customers by resolving issues faster with immediate "hands-on" remote support using GoToAssist Decrease in call volumes & call-handling times Lower total call volumes due to fewer repeat calls is another benefit of remote support technology. Your support reps will be able to resolve issues the first time, so customers do not have to call back time after time. Using team collaboration tools like session transfer and escalation helps resolve customer issues faster and facilitates new support rep training by leveraging the expertise of your entire support team. Most remote support organizations are able to reduce call-handling times by 50%. Improved customer retention & employee satisfaction Improved first-call resolutions, increased customer satisfaction and decrease in call volumes help with both customer retention and employee satisfaction.  Using remote support tools helps boost customer retention — your customers stay with you longer because your support team is able to deliver an outstanding customer support experience from start to finish.  Customer retention is more than giving the customer what they expect; it’s about exceeding their expectations, so they become loyal advocates for your brand.Today’s support organizations are motivated about raising the bar on performance. They often look to easy-to-use remote support tools to ensure adoption among support reps and to make the job of support easier. In addition, many companies ask their customers to provide feedback on the support experience using post-session surveys. The feedback and metrics can then be channeled into a unique program to recognize and reward employees. See how Ultimate Software maintains 97% customer retention and rewards support reps based on customer surveys and performance reports using GoToAssist Corporate. Overall cost savings Using remote support tools to resolve technical issues quickly saves money in several ways. Shorter resolution times, fewer calls combined with happier customers equals  higher customer lifetime values. You’ll also see a boost in support staff productivity, which saves time and money and fosters best practices.  In addition, since your teams are able to resolve issues over the internet, there’s no need to travel from location to location fixing things. Remote support tools let you support people and machines all over the globe in the same day (or even the same hour). That equates to thousands of dollars saved in travel costs too. Not sure what remote support tool to purchase? Rest assured, GoToAssist is the preferred choice in remote support, the worldwide bestseller according to IDC*, and scored highest among its competitors in customer satisfaction (4.29 out of 5) in TSIA’s 2011 survey of users of remote support products**. GoToAssist by Citrix provides essential cloud-based tools for supporting people and technology. With GoToAssist, IT managers, consultants/MSPs, help desks and contact centers can deliver secure remote support and IT infrastructure monitoring (if needed). GoToAssist’s easy-to-use and easy-to-deploy business solutions enable organizations of all sizes to connect with customers, employees and machines online from anywhere, anytime. Find out what GoToAssist product is right for your organization today! Photo credit: ironrodart * IDC, "Worldwide Clientless Remote Support Services 2010 Top 6 Market Share Leaders," Doc # 228728, June 2011. **TSIA, Technology Services Industry Association, "Measuring the Business Impact of Collaboration Tools within Remote Support Platform," Report # TSIA-EI-11-028, January 2012.

"We are at our very best, and we are happiest, when we are fully engaged in work we enjoy on the journey toward the goal we’ve established for ourselves. It gives meaning to our time off and comfort to our sleep. It makes everything else in life so wonderful, so worthwhile." — Earl Nightingale, an American Self-help Speaker and Author The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: The impact of disengaged employees extends beyond the office. People who are unhappy at work often carry their discontent home. They share frustrations with family and friends, and their unhappiness can prevent them from relaxing and having fun. Dreading Mondays and worrying about work also contributes to poor sleeping habits. Considering we spend 40 hours of a week at work, we should strive to find happiness at our jobs. As Mr. Nightingale points out, our goal should be to find work that fully engages us. The Ritz-Carlton measures employee engagement to ensure that we are providing our Ladies and Gentlemen—the employees of The Ritz-Carlton—with the resources that will support workplace happiness. What makes you happy at work?  ∞ The Blog Post Inspired Thinking: Disengaged Employees appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

In a world of international meetings and flexible working, IT support is no longer a 9-5 job. Yet the structures most businesses have in place often fail to allow for this and instead restrict both IT workers and the people who rely on them. More and more companies are giving their employees the opportunity to work away from their desk. While this should be applauded, it means we need to rethink how we structure our offices. Not only are IT workers having to support workers who are away from their desk, they are also having to support a range of platforms that were unimaginable even five years ago. Gone are the days when everyone worked on a desktop computer and could only use software approved by the IT department. Now, employees are working with their own laptops, smartphones and tablets, often using their own software. The way IT departments function needs to reflect the diversity of this Bring Your Own Device culture. Going Remote With more business than ever taking place remotely via the Internet, it’s only logical for the support structure to also exist remotely. Freeing up IT professionals to work remotely will provide a sounder support structure for your business, while increasing your employees’ quality of life. A recent survey by IT Manager Daily found that a third of IT employees would give up 10 percent of their salary in exchange for the option to work full-time from home. Currently less than 1 percent of IT workers are given this option, but tools such as GoToAssist, which allows IT workers to use their iPad to connect remotely to a network and provide real-time diagnostics and support, make it easier than ever before. Coupling GoToAssist with other remote working tools means you can have a fully functioning IT desk without the need for an actual desk. Imagine a world without the frustration of only being able to get help with a technology problem when the relevant support worker is at their desk. The new generation of workshifting tools offer that world today.   Photo credit: H Sterling Cross

Dear Ritz-Carlton: How do you handle employee burnout or engage employees who have lost their passion? Answer from Diana Oreck, Vice President at The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: The best leaders know how to inspire their employees to get out of bed every day and bring their passion to work and volunteer their best. They can even do this with employees who seem burnt out and have lost their passion. Here are some techniques that can work: Give the employee specific examples of when they have excelled and gone above and beyond in the past. Share recent examples of when the employee has appeared disengaged. Ask if something is bothering the employee because you would like to help. Your intent is not to criticize but to assist in motivating the person to attain their former passion. Remind the employee of their purpose versus their function. Examples: An Environmental Services (EVS) staff member in a hospital is not just cleaning a patient’s room. They are looking carefully at the patient. If something appears wrong they can run to get a nurse. This can save lives. A financial advisor is not just giving tips about how to grow money. They are providing security and peace of mind. Explain to the employee that he/she is a member of the "A" team. When everyone is not pulling his or her weight, it lets down the team. Motivating disengaged employees is not easy, but it can be done. It is also time consuming, but you should invest the time. Disengaged team members exhaust their colleagues and that is not fair to anyone. ∞ The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center offers advisory services, courses and presentations to organizations that wish to benchmark the award-winning business practices of The Ritz-Carlton. Your organization can learn about The Ritz-Carlton methodology for customer service, employee engagement and leadership development. We also guide organizations through a multi-step process in order to achieve sustainable culture transformation. The Blog Post Dear Ritz-Carlton: Employee Burnout? appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

In business, as in sport, we should relish competition - even when we come second best.  It’s been fascinating to watch the intense rivalries on display during the Olympics and Paralympics: Tyson Gay and Usain Bolt in the 100m, Team GB’s Victoria Pendleton and Anna Meares in women’s track cycling, Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte in swimming - and most recently, sprinters Oscar Pistorius and Alan Oliveira, who went head to head in the men’s 200m Paralympics final.  Such rivalries have always been interesting for me. Over the past couple of years, I’ve followed the Brownlee brothers, Alistair and Jonathan, and their rise to the top of the triathlon world. It’s clear that fierce competition has inspired both men to train harder and smarter in an attempt to get the better of the other. Rather than shying away from competing against each other, they have confronted the challenge head on, and this surely played a part in their medal-winning efforts at the Olympics. In the world of business, we can learn a lot from these rivalries. Competition forces us to innovate and develop more efficient techniques. It follows that the most successful businesses are those that are never satisfied. The constant search for competitive advantage is why we are seeing more businesses than ever before using flexible working to increase productivity and responsiveness. If you can hold a face-to-face meeting with a potential client or business partner virtually, this gives you a clear advantage over a competitor who may have to wait several days or even weeks to arrange a similar meeting in person. However, implementing new business processes is never an easy feat. So how do you find the motivation? Imagine the sting of defeat. The feeling of defeat is something we all have shared at some point. Even Bolt has come second before. Pistorius experienced this most recently when he lost to Oliveira. His outraged reaction seemed out of character, and he later apologised for the timing of his remarks. True competitors use defeat productively, turning it into a force that drives them to return even stronger than before. Yes, it hurts being beaten. But it’s what we do with defeat that defines our success. I have no doubt Pistorius will train even harder, more determined now to win when he next races Oliveira.  How will you and your business rise to the challenge?   Photo credit: Telegraph UK / Getty Images

Today we have a guest post from Jay Cross. Jay is the Johnny Appleseed of informal learning. The Internet Time Alliance, which he chairs, helps corporations and governments use networks to accelerate performance. Jay has challenged conventional wisdom about how adults learn since designing the first business degree program offered by the University of Phoenix. He is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Business School. Jay and his wife Uta live with their miniature longhaired dachshund in the hills of Berkeley, California. Businesses around the world are transforming into modern enterprise networks, but their training departments are stuck in the previous century. In the pursuit of fixing what’s broken, let’s imagine what ideal corporate learning would look like if we could start over from scratch. To keep things simple, let’s call the industrial-age companies Hierarchical and the network-era companies Collaborative. Control in Hierarchical companies resides at the top. Orders and instructions are pushed down through the organization. Alternatively, control in Collaborative companies is distributed throughout the organization. Workers and supervisors have a large say in what they do, and they pull in the resources they need for themselves.  Where should we focus to improve learning? It’s a matter of People and Infrastructure. People Who should be involved? Experienced workers in addition to new hires and novices Part-timers, partners, contractors and distributors Recruits and former employees Customers Whether on your payroll or not, people who learn with you bond with you, and performance and profits improve. People are at their best when they’re doing things for themselves, when they pull what they need rather than have things pushed on them. Collaborative organizations outpace Hierarchies when the future is unpredictable and change is rampant. These modern organizations provide a variety of means for workers to get the information they need. Instead of rigid training sessions, the organization supplies a platform that nurtures self-directed learning. Companies successfully transition from Hierarchical to Collaboration by handing more control over to those that are closest to the customer. This may seem radical and unsettling, but it’s a key to becoming a Collaborative organization. Infrastructure What do we need? Technology to support collaborative learning Internet functions worth replicating in-house Learning platforms and networks Together, the above form workscapes - the infrastructure for working smarter. But bear this in mind: it’s not about the technology. People come first. But you can’t do without the technology either. To improve your workscape, look at consumer applications to get a good idea of what’s required in a collaborative learning environment. Some of those consumer applications are simple to replicate in-house. Others are not. You can’t afford to create your own Facebook or Google behind your firewall. That said, there are lots of applications you can implement at reasonable cost. Podio is just one of many examples. Be skeptical if your collaborative infrastructure doesn’t include these minimal functions: profiles, activity streams, wikis, virtual meetings, blogs, bookmarks, mobile access and social network. Is your business ready for collaborative learning? Answer the 9 questions posed by our survey to find out. After, download the white paper to learn how to make the transition. Photo credit: erpcenter

Many organizations think they have a strong culture. They may have a mission, vision and values. They may even have some posters on the walls to remind employees about those mission, vision and values. But unless your culture is lived by your leaders and your employees—it’s nothing more than a bunch of nice words. Diana Oreck, Vice President of The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center, emphasizes that "Your culture must be enlivened every day. It’s not enough to talk about your organizational culture when your P&L has gone south." You must find a way for your culture to go from employees’ heads to their hearts. When they internalize the culture they then "live" the culture consistently. You know you have a timeless culture when the company President moves on, but the culture lives on. To check the vital signs of your organizational culture, consider these 10 questions: 1) Is your culture visible? At The Ritz-Carlton, every employee has a Credo card (includes the Credo, the Motto, Employee Promise, Three Steps of Service and the Service Values), and a Pyramid (includes the foundation, Key Success Factors, Mission and Vision of The Ritz-Carlton). In addition, posters of the Motto, Credo and Employee Promise can be found at every Ritz-Carlton hotel. 2) When are new employees introduced to your culture? New employees at The Ritz-Carlton learn about the mission, vision and values throughout orientation. They are given Credo cards on the first day and are asked to memorize the Credo. On the third day of orientation, new employees are asked to recite the Credo in front of the group. 3) Do your employees talk about "we" or "us" vs. "them"? Do your employees feel like management and the front line are working together to fulfill your mission? Or do your employees feel a disconnect? Two Service Values at The Ritz-Carlton that foster a collaborative atmosphere are: "I am involved in the planning of the work that affects me" and "I create a work environment of teamwork and lateral service so that the needs of our guests and each other are met." 4) Do employees understand their role in upholding your culture? The Service Values at The Ritz-Carlton establish accountability because they all start with "I." The Service Values carefully and concisely spell out each person’s role in enlivening and living the culture of The Ritz-Carlton. 5) Are your employees engaged? The Ritz-Carlton not only measures employee engagement, but also conducts follow-up meetings to ensure that any shortcomings are being addressed. When employees see that their feedback results in improvements, they feel valued. This makes employees more vested in your organization and more committed to upholding your culture. 6) Is leadership walking its talk? One of the primary ways that The Ritz-Carlton enlivens its culture is through a morning meeting called Daily Line-up. This meeting happens at every Ritz-Carlton around the world, and leaders—including Hervé Humler, the President and Chief Operations Officer (COO) at The Ritz-Carlton—participate in this daily meeting. 7) Do employees know the difference between their function and their purpose? The Ladies and Gentlemen—the employees of The Ritz-Carlton—understand that their highest mission is the "genuine care and comfort of our guests." Their job function may be bellman, server or housekeeper, but their purpose is to provide legendary service. Having a common purpose unifies your team and strengthens your culture. 8) Does management create strategic plans without any employee input? Each year, The Ritz-Carlton creates a SWOT (Strengths, Opportunities, Weaknesses and Threats) that feeds into the strategic plans. The Ladies and Gentlemen all participate in this SWOT process. This collaboration reinforces that we are all responsible for the maintenance and development of The Ritz-Carlton. 9) When creating long-term plans, does your organizational culture impact decisions? When The Ritz-Carlton develops long-term plans, the Key Success Factors—the five goals that we focus on to support our culture and brand—guide the decision-making process. The Ladies and Gentlemen are encouraged to weigh every decision against the Key Success Factors to ensure that the organization remains true to its mission. 10) When you open a new branch or new location, how is your culture being shared at the new facility? When The Ritz-Carlton opens a new hotel, Hervé Humler, the President and COO at The Ritz-Carlton, or Bob Kharazmi, Global Officer, Worldwide Operations at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C.— fly to the new hotel and introduce the culture to the new employees. They believe that the best way to maintain a strong culture is to have the founders share the inspiration and impetus behind the culture. The Ladies and Gentlemen at The Ritz-Carlton live the Service Values. A phrase that is commonly used is: "That’s not Ritz-Carlton." This is not used to police colleagues. Rather it’s used to invoke a common goal of upholding a culture that is maintained, preserved and enlivened by every employee. When you have a well-articulated culture that is enlivened, you will find more clarity and unity within your organization, and you will set yourself up for greater success. ∞ The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center offers advisory services, courses and presentations to organizations that wish to benchmark the award-winning business practices of The Ritz-Carlton. Your organization can learn about The Ritz-Carlton methodology for customer service, employee engagement and leadership development. We also guide organizations through a multi-step process in order to achieve sustainable culture transformation. The Blog Post Organizational Culture Must Be Lived Every Day appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

Today we have a guest post from Jill Konrath. Jill is the author of SNAP Selling and Selling to Big Companies. Ten years ago, Jill was a quiet, unknown consultant who did great work for her clients. Today, she is an internationally recognized expert known for her fresh sales strategies and game-changing approaches. For more, visit www.jillkonrath.com. Getting through to today’s crazy-busy prospects requires fresh strategies. But, as you’ll learn from the interchange below, not everyone is up to speed on what it takes to be successful. See how Kate the Prospecting Ninja tries to enlighten her manager about what’s actually working today. "Will you stop staring at that computer and make some calls!" demanded Kate’s boss. "But, boss," answered Kate, a sales rep for a growing company. "It’s why I’m doing so well." "You could do even better if you’d pick up the phone and start dialing." "I know you keep saying that," replied Kate. "But the truth is, you should be asking me why I’m so much more successful than my colleagues when I make fewer calls." "That’s sales heresy. Everyone knows that sales is a numbers game." "Okay," said Kate. "Try these numbers out. You know Hoopla Restaurants, the company I just closed a big deal with last week?" "Yup! Nice order too - and very profitable." "I tracked them online for about six months," Kate continued. "Then, about 10 weeks ago, they announced a new health-food initiative. That got me thinking they’d need new menus. So I went to their website to take a quick look at their current ones and see if I could discover any ways to help them." "Kate, stop right now. Why in the world didn’t you just call their printing people to see if we could bid on their new menus?" "That wouldn’t work," she explained. "We’d just be another printer. All they’d focus on would be price. I needed to get to their VP of marketing with some fresh ideas. Specifically, I focused on how to redesign the menus to reflect their new image and increase order size at the same time." "You know that’s what our graphics people are for, Kate. It drives me crazy that you’re wasting all that time when you could be calling or setting up meetings…" "But, boss," Kate interrupted. "You wanted numbers, so I’m going to give you some. You needed to know the context first. "Once I knew that I could provide value, I put together a 10-touch prospecting campaign using the phone, email and social media. Each message was slightly different, but essentially the focus was on their strategy, industry challenges and my ideas for how to achieve their goals. "It took about three weeks, but the VP of marketing finally agreed to a quick video conference. We talked, and he liked what I said. Then he asked me to meet with Terry, the project manager, to flush it out more and get the pricing. "All told, I made eight contacts to get the business. I had a one-out-of-eight hit rate. And, because I didn’t go to purchasing, I didn’t get into any price wars either - which is why our margins were so good." "Kate, you could do so much better if you’d make more calls. I’ll let you keep doing it this way, because it seems to be working - but don’t tell the others. I’m holding them to the activity goals." As he walked off to "motivate" another rep, Kate the Prospecting Ninja rolled her eyes and thought, "He’s going to be a tough nut to crack, but I’ll keep working on him till he gets it." To learn more about Kate’s success strategies, download "7 Secrets of a Prospecting Ninja."    Photo credit: mbeo52

"Imagine the impact if every single person working for a company were able to be a creator and innovator. Team members should be enabled, empowered, and challenged to unleash their entrepreneurial energy and their creativity to help improve their team, store and company." — John Mackey, co-CEO of Whole Foods Market The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: We all have our strengths, we all excel in certain areas and each person brings their experiences to the table when a group is tasked with a project. Every member of your team is creative in one way or another; your responsibility as the leader is to find where each individual thrives. What would happen if you asked a Sales expert to design the "look and feel" of your product? When we focus on the individual strengths of our workforce the creativity and ingenuity of the entire team grows together and great things are created. The Ritz-Carlton believes so strongly that our Ladies and Gentlemen are all individually creative and innovative that we made it one of our Gold Standards, which reads, "I continuously seek opportunities to innovate and improve The Ritz-Carlton experience." It is important to note that we are not asking our employees—our Ladies and Gentlemen—to invent electricity. Even small innovations like shaving a minute off check-in or check-out time can have a significant impact. How do you enliven the creativity and innovation of your workforce? ∞ The Blog Post Inspired Thinking: Creativity and Innovation appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

In the opening episode of Mad Men, we see top marketing executive Don Draper sitting in a bar, furiously scribbling on a napkin. If you’re familiar with the series, you’ll know Draper is not without flaws, but his decision to leave work so he can focus on a vital product pitch is inspiring. Throughout the series (and on Twitter) when important deadlines loom, his first instinct is to escape the daily distractions of the office.   Of course, escaping from the interruptions of work isn’t just something highly effective fictional characters do. Jon Favreau, the precocious young speechwriter of a certain Barack Obama, wrote the first draft of the U.S. president’s inaugural address in a Washington café, insulated from the distractions of a highly charged office. Although Favreau probably used a laptop or even a smartphone rather than a napkin to capture and shape the key points of Obama’s historic address, the same principle applies. Needing to get something crucial done, he left the workplace behind.  Here’s what I think we can learn from this.  Question the old. Like Favreau, many of today’s successful flexible workers are likely to be found in a café or co-working space with coffee, laptop and smartphone in tow. Others work from their kitchen table or a park bench. In a sense, regardless of location, they have all broken with convention. A common assumption is that we’re more easily distracted outside of the office - that real work doesn’t happen there. In fact, as recent research suggests, the classic office environment is full of its own distractions, each of which can be an obstacle to productivity. Question the prevailing wisdom and new possibilities present themselves.    Use the technology.  Using flexible working applications, it’s now incredibly easy to create a digital office environment that is instantly accessible via laptop or smart device, giving every employee in an organization the option to work and collaborate from where they feel most productive. Meetings can be hosted remotely and projects can be shared and managed in collaborative online work spaces. The simple fact is that we don’t have to be in the same space, or even in the same time zone, to produce our best work, whether individually or as part of a team.   Change it up. New to flexible working? Unlock your potential by carrying out your own flexible working experiment. This month, try working flexibly for a few days and see if it helps with your productivity. I’m confident it will. Photo credit: simplybike

Dear Ritz-Carlton: Do daily meetings get a little boring when you do them every day? Answer from Joseph Quitoni, Corporate Director, Culture Transformation at The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: Our company’s values and successes are the by-product of our well-defined Gold Standards and the disciplines that allow every one of us to live those standards, every day. Our Gold Standards are what separates us from the competition and ensures sustainable growth for each individual and the company! Our daily meeting, better known as Daily Line-Up, was created to align us as a company and reinforce our philosophy that helps sustain our culture. This 15-minute meeting happens every day at every Ritz-Carlton location around the world—including the corporate office. While the Gold Standards never change and that message is the same, Daily Line-up gives us an opportunity to create and communicate new ways of delivering the Gold Standards that are inspirational. Through new, innovative and positive storytelling and role modeling by leaders and employees, Daily Line-up is never repetitious or even worse, boring. This consistent approach to enlivening culture not only creates habitual behaviors for our employees—the Ladies and Gentlemen of The Ritz-Carlton, but also helps them create unique, memorable and personalized experiences for our guests! ∞ The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center offers advisory services, courses and presentations to organizations that wish to benchmark the award-winning business practices of The Ritz-Carlton. Your organization can learn about The Ritz-Carlton methodology for customer service, employee engagement and leadership development. We also guide organizations through a multi-step process in order to achieve sustainable culture transformation. The Blog Post Dear Ritz-Carlton: Are Daily Meetings Boring? appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.