But the thing that impressed me the very most was to see an employee, on
his own, admit a mistake to his boss. We ordered room service, and were told
when it would be delivered to the room. On the way to our room, the room
service person spilled the hot chocolate, and it took a few extra minutes to go
back and change the linen on the tray and replace the drink. So the room service
was about fifteen minutes late, which was really not that important to us.
Nevertheless, the next morning the room service manager phoned us to
apologize and invited us to have either the buffet breakfast or a room service
breakfast, compliments of the hotel, to in some way compensate for the
inconvenience.
What does it say about the culture of an organization when an employee
admits his own mistake, unknown to anyone else, to the manager so that
customer or guest is better taken care of!
As I told the manager of the first hotel I visited, I know a lot of companies
with impressive mission statements. But there is a real difference, all the
difference in the world, in the effectiveness of a mission statement created by
everyone involved in the organization and one written by a few top executives
behind a mahogany wall.
One of the fundamental problems in organizations, including families, is that
people are not committed to the determinations of other people for their lives.
They simply don't buy into them.
Many times as I work with organizations, I find people whose goals are
totally different from the goals of the enterprise. I commonly find reward
systems completely out of alignment with stated value systems.
When I begin work with companies that have already developed some kind
of mission statement, I ask them, “How many of the people here know that you
have a mission statement? How many of you know what it contains? How many
were involved in creating it? How many really buy into it and use it as your
frame of reference in making decisions?”
Without involvement, there is no commitment. Mark it down, asterisk it,
circle it, underline it.
No involvement, no commitment.
Now, in the early stages -- when a person is new to an organization or when a
child in the family is young -- you can pretty well give them a goal and they'll
buy it, particularly if the relationship, orientation, and training are good.
But when people become more mature and their own lives take on a separate
meaning, they want involvement, significant involvement. And if they don't have
that involvement, they don't buy it. Then you have a significant motivational
problem which cannot be solved at the same level of thinking that created it.
joyce
(Joyce)
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