surfer dudes, janitors and the ritz-carlton - lessons in leadership and business culture

Surfer dudes, janitors and the

Ritz-Carlton Lessons in leadership and business culture

http://www.jpabusiness.com.au/

Table of Contents

Introduction ........................................................................................................... 3

Chapter 1: You can do better – the power of feedback ........................................... 5

Chapter 2: A surgeon and janitor teach us leadership and team-‐building ............... 8

Chapter 3: The best sales advice I ever got was from a surfer dude ....................... 11

Chapter 4: What makes a good business leader? ................................................... 14

Chapter 5: How can I build a positive business culture? ......................................... 18

Disclaimer: The information contained in this eBook is general in nature and should not be taken as personal, professional advice. Readers should make their own inquiries and

obtain independent advice before making any decisions or taking any action.


jpabusiness.com.au +61 2 6360 0360 3

Introduction Comments by James Price JPAbusiness Pty Ltd

I consider one of the biggest challenges for business leaders is understanding how to build and sustain a culture amongst their people that goes well beyond mere employment or ‘just a job’, but rather is a culture of care, respect, openness and consistent motivation.

Someone who I believe has a very good handle on this issue is leadership consultant Kevin Catlin from Insight Strategies, Inc. in California.

Kevin, his business partner Teri Fisher and the team at Insight Strategies, Inc. provide management consultancy and training services to a wide range of organisations and also share their expertise via their Insight IQ blog, IS-IQ coaching tips and LinkedIn posts.

I discovered Kevin’s posts on LinkedIn about six months ago and was impressed by his ability to recount real experiences and insights that resonated deeply with me in terms of identifying the key ingredients that make ‘people interactions’ within a business so valuable (or otherwise!)

With over 30 years of owning, leading and managing four different companies, Kevin’s depth of experience cannot be questioned, but I believe it is his superior ability to communicate all he has learned – and is still learning – that sets him apart in the consulting world.

A special guest contributor…

Kevin Catlin is known for his inspirational and often humorous speaking style and, luckily for us all the way over here in Australia, those qualities come through just as clearly in his writing.



http://www.insightstrategies.com/

http://www.insightstrategies.com/who-we-are/principals/35-teri-fisher

http://www.insightstrategies.com/blog

http://www.insightstrategies.com/what-we-do-2/isiq-tips

http://www.insightstrategies.com/what-we-do-2/isiq-tips


We are delighted that Kevin has agreed to share some of his past blogs in this JPAbusiness eBook, as well as answer some practical questions about leadership and how to build and maintain a positive business culture.

What Kevin’s blogs teach us

Over the next three chapters we will share three of Kevin’s blogs:

1. You can do better – the power of feedback 2. A surgeon and janitor teach us leadership and team-building 3. The best sales advice I ever got was from a surfer dude.

The first two blogs share insights and lessons about leadership, team-building and developing a positive business culture.

The third, while providing an obvious lesson for salespeople, is about the gentle art of persuasion and is actually applicable to everyone, in business and in life.




Chapter 1: You can do better – the power of feedback By Kevin Catlin Insight Strategies, Inc.

I joined the army in July of 1976 but had to wait four months to turn 18 before I could be shipped off to basic. I was not a great soldier...

Sure I could manage my job as a Crew Chief for a UH-1H, ‘Huey’ helicopter. Sure, I was a pretty good door gunner and qualified every year by shooting an M60 machine gun while hanging from the bird in a chicken strap. It’s just that I wasn’t a very good overall soldier.

In many ways I resented the army. I often felt that by joining I had lessened my value in the world; that maybe I was above being an enlisted man in a peacetime army. In high school I saw myself going to college and then into business, but my average grades, poor attitude and the military being a family tradition all led to me joining. So I trudged through. Not a good soldier.

Three months before I was to be discharged I was ordered to meet with the company CO (Commanding Officer) Captain Roth.




When most of us think of soldiers, we think of big, strong, rowdy, bad-asses and many are, but just as many are cerebral, thoughtful and quietly powerful. That second type was Captain Roth; he was a quiet man, not that big physically, but still an airborne ranger, Vietnam vet, pilot, the whole package. While he was always a bit distant, he had a way about him that was compelling and admirable… the quiet leader.

At the time (and to this day) I struggled with absolute authority, which was a problem in the army, but I secretly admired Roth despite this.

When I was called into Roth’s office he had me stand ‘at rest’ for a while, while he shuffled papers. After a bit he looked up at me and asked quietly: “Catlin, what is your problem?”

I was confused. “My problem, sir?”

He raised his voice slightly. “You heard me son, I didn’t stutter… as far as I can tell you have not given the 10th CAV an honest day’s work since you have been here. So again, what is your problem?”

I thought for a moment, then answered, “I'm short, sir”, while holding my hand out with thumb and pointer finger an inch apart. Being ‘short’ meant that I was due to get out soon and consequently I was saying, in army slang: “F-U, I am outta here and there isn't much you can do about it at this point.”

He looked at me for a long moment before saying: "Son, I have been watching you. You have friends who care about you. You score off the charts in your aptitude tests. I read your jacket and the army offered you three different schools which would have made you an officer. Instead, you slide through, you do the least amount possible and have not grown as a soldier, at all, in two years.”

He paused, then finished with: “You can do better.” He then looked me straight in the eye for a few moments before saying, “now get out of here”.

As I turned away, my ears started to burn. Even as I write this, 36 years later, or if I’m telling this story in front of a class, during a coaching session, or sitting in my living room, my ears burn. Roth had called me out. He gave me feedback that stung, and I knew it to be true. And yet this feedback could be the greatest gift I have ever been given, in life and in business.




I didn’t change my ways immediately, that’s too simple for me. I need a lot more brick walls to bang my head against before stuff sinks in. But, because of Roth’s feedback I never delivered a half-day’s work to an employer again.

Roth knew I was ‘short’; he did not have to take his time to deal with a smartass 19-year-old kid heading down the wrong path. Why then?

Answer: He cared. He was a pro. He accepted that as a leader (manager) it was his duty to his soldiers (employees) to give them the hard truth. He loved his people enough to not allow them to simply fail because they didn’t know where they stood.

What if he hadn’t? I get spooked sometimes thinking about that. What happens to your team if you are unwilling to display the courage first, and compassion second, of a Captain Roth and all the best managers, and give that pivotal feedback?

I understand that in business today we can’t be as direct as Roth, but is that a reasonable excuse for letting people falter because we are unwilling to lead?

Who needs you to be a Captain Roth? Who needs you to hold the bar for them until they do it themselves?

Whether we accept it as a calling, or accept it as why we get paid, just accept it.

I owe you one Captain Roth. Thank you.

While this story was not my ‘biggest seller’, I often think it’s my most important.

Leadership is not passive. Great leaders/managers manage ‘things’ – they make sense out of chaos through controls and processes and, well, they manage that. Leaders also move people. They generate a universal understanding and provide direction.

How are we as leaders to provide this direction if we abdicate the responsibility to give candid, focused coaching and feedback? It’s not easy but it is what we are paid and, I hope, driven to do.




Chapter 2: A surgeon and janitor teach us leadership and team-building By Kevin Catlin Insight Strategies, Inc.

A top surgeon was being interviewed by the local news. He was famous for his surgical skills, and becoming even more so as the go-to guy for turning around struggling hospitals. His success rate was at 100% for taking non-performing hospital properties and getting them executing and effective.

His secret? ABC news wanted to find out.

As he hustled along the hallways from office to office, stopping briefly here and there, he was an obvious hands-on leader. He had warned the news crew wanting the interview that, if they wanted to spend a day with him, there would be no time for sit-down talks. They would do the interview in real time and on their feet. They agreed.

Let’s backtrack and appreciate the problem of running a hospital. Sick, hurt or physically broken people come by the hundreds a day. Some are expected; many are emergencies with no prior warning, and life or death in the balance.

In between they feed, bathe, nurse, operate on, check in, check up, check out, pay bills, staff, manage suppliers by the hundreds, maintain the facilities, the buildings, the garbage, both benign and hazardous… all-day, every day, 24/7... you get the idea.




Difficult to run as a business is a gross understatement. So why did this one surgeon, not highly trained in business nuance, have such a high success rate? ABC wanted to know and felt its audience would as well.

During the interview as they moved through the halls and discussed his basic philosophies the surgeon held his hand up to halt the entourage of cameras and reporters. He then approached and addressed what looked to be a janitor. Uniform, old-school bucket and mop, keys and spray bottles.

The surgeon and the janitor huddled for a bit, talked and listened and with a handshake and shared laugh, both moved on.

Seeing this, a junior reporter sensed an opportunity for a little extra data for the story, peeled off from the pack and approached the janitor. He asked what he and the head of the entire hospital were talking about and the janitor simply said “saving lives”.

The reporter was visibly startled by the answer, seeing as the janitor was spraying and cleaning a windowsill at the time. He asked the janitor to elaborate, so he did. The janitor politely explained, as if to a student, that “this hospital is teeming with germs”.

“It is the nature of the business,” he explained. “Every time a child touches this windowsill as she walks past, puts her hand to her own mouth as children often do and kisses Grandma in her sick bed, she can literally kill her with the germs.




“That is not happening on my floor. I am helping to save lives like the doctors, cooks, drivers and accountants.”

It seems the surgeon had convinced everyone that their jobs, their purpose, the reason they did what they do, was more than it might appear. Each job was connected to saving lives. Each member of the team, as they went about the business of cleaning, curing and feeding, held saving lives as their ultimate goal. Everyone knew, from the top of the organisation to the person cleaning the windowsills, that what they did mattered and was critical to this core mission.

The reporter felt a pang of jealousy. The clarity of purpose, this connection to the centre of the hospital (company) that this janitor had was powerful and motivating. The reporter silently wished his company spent more time clarifying its goals and his own part in them.

Meanwhile the surgeon and the TV crew were long gone with the surgeon checking in, chatting, and giving direction as needed, when the head reporter asked the surgeon a question: “A bit ago you stopped and talked at length with a janitor. What did you speak about?”

Without hesitating, the surgeon said, “saving lives”.

Does your organisation, team or even individual workgroups enjoy this kind of clarity of purpose?

Are your goals cascaded from the top all the way to the people answering the phones?

Is everyone aware of these goals and know how they contribute? If they did, would they be more effective in their daily work?

Your answers inform your mission and your purpose as a leader.




Chapter 3: The best sales advice I ever got was from a surfer dude By Kevin Catlin Insight Strategies, Inc.

I have always loved the outdoors. Hiking, camping, rafting, the ocean sports, all of it, I’m in. I see a Bass Pro Shop or REI and can’t help stopping to check things out.

One day I did just that and ended up relearning a crucial lesson on selling and the art of persuasion in general.

My local REI store is in Manhattan Beach, California and on this particular day I did my usual and stopped in to ‘look around’. The problem with me and ‘looking around’ is that I’m like a kid in a candy store and always end up buying something.

So there I am, looking at an entire wall of backpacks and thinking about my last experience hiking, when I hear a voice behind me ask: “Looking at backpacks?” I gave a slightly snide answer of “why yes, I am”.

Mr Eager Beaver sales associate then said: “Well, let me show you what we got.” He then pointed out a beautiful external frame pack and began to explain its features: several cubic feet of storage, incredibly light exoskeleton, waterproof compartment, lumbar pad, self-tightening shoulder straps, and on and on.




As my eyes glazed over I realised I did not want to listen to this guy anymore and cut him short with a “let me look around a bit”, then left. No purchase, no sale.

A few days later I stop into a much smaller, specialty hiking store in Redondo Beach. I stood looking at the wall of six or seven models of packs when I heard a voice from behind: “Looking at backpacks, huh?” Truth is, I smelled him coming. Ocean, patchouli, a clear hint of marijuana; his scent announced him before he got there.

I was about to send Mr Obvious on his way when he said: “Dude, I love to hike. You too?” The voice called me dude. I was 40 years old at the time so it gave me a chuckle. So I turn around to see a youngish, quintessential California surfer guy.

“Where do you go?” he asked.

“Well,” I told him, “my last trip was to Yosemite.” I told him how beautiful I thought it was and about the many bears I saw, and the story about them raiding my camp when I made the rookie mistake of leaving beef jerky in my backpack.

“Dude, I love Yosemite, they have some gnarly hikes.”

So we talked about what I liked, where I went, how my equipment fared and, finally, why I was in his store.

“My backpack shifted all over the place when we were bouldering. I could never get comfortable when I was using my hands and feet to climb,” I explained.

“Dude, I get it. You have an external frame right?” he asked.

“Yep,” I said.

Then he said “check this out” and took out a backpack that was shaped like a taco and didn’t appear to have a frame. “This is the s**t, fits like a glove and moves with you when you boulder,” he explained.

He was right and before you knew it I had dropped a cool $250 on a new pack.




As I was checking out I said to the surfer dude “you’re good at this”.

“Good at what?” he asked.

“Selling!” I said. “I have been selling for years and you are really good.”

He smiled. “I don’t sell,” he said. “I just took my father’s advice and find out what people want, what they love about hiking or the outdoors, what their interests are, then I show ’em things that work for what they want.”

Boom, there it was.

I realised, in that moment, that I had forgotten one of the oldest and most important tenets of sales, persuasion and even of leadership. How could I, a guy that owned two businesses that relied on client sales, have forgotten something so elemental? It honestly freaked me out.

What we think, feel or say about our idea, product, or anything is largely irrelevant. We do not convince people to buy an idea or thing, but rather we simply uncover and relate to their needs and their needs only.

What I had forgotten is that, whether you’re selling backpacks, advice or fractional ownership of a jet, people buy emotionally, then use facts and data to back up the decision to buy.

I never forgot it again.




Chapter 4: What makes a good business leader? Comments by Kevin Catlin Insight Strategies, Inc.

In the following chapters Kevin answers JPAbusiness’ questions about leadership and building a positive business culture.

Q. What makes a good business leader?

The great leaders truly care about their people as much as they care about the output their people produce.

The most astute leaders, in my opinion, understand something that seems a little counterintuitive, and that is that if you’re checking daily on the output of your company – on what it is ‘doing’ – then you’re wasting time.

What you’re company is ‘doing’ is really a lagging indicator of what you’re people are capable of. Whether you are measuring how much fish you sold that day, or how delighted the guests are at your hotel, or how satisfied your riders are on your buses, they are all lagging indicators.

Leading indicators include:

• how connected to your company’s wellbeing people are feeling • how they feel about their connectedness to the company • how they feel they are making a difference.

I ask leaders to be very clear on caring about the wellbeing of their people. It sounds a little worn, but it is a very important aspect of what great leaders do.




Q. In your blog You can do better, Captain Roth obviously cared about you and all the people in his command. Can a business leader be ‘taught to care’ about their people?

Yes and no, but I am not certain they have to in most organisations. Let me clarify…

If it is true that to coach you have to care – and it is – it is not true that to get results you have to care.

There are a lot of managers out there who are productive without caring about their people very much. They mix up mental toughness and drive, which are compelling and honourable, with squeezing the lifeblood out of their people. Short-term gain, long-term pain in terms of staff turnover, uninspired 9-to-5 employee mentalities and poorly functioning teams.

People quit their managers far more than they quit their companies. Companies don’t even know the costs, they just remain less viable and less profitable.

In their defence, I often see managers who are simply unaware of how they impact people. Once they find out, and are taught how to ‘care’, they can flourish.

Also, intelligent or especially driven individuals can be tricky in that they have been given kudos their entire lives for their ability to produce, or for their personal intelligence and capabilities. Put these guys in a situation where they have to produce through others and it can be a train wreck. They reach their limits because they are incapable of moving people. They are incapable of making others trust them. They get to a certain point, and then they get found out.

If they want to learn to care, they can, but if they don’t want to change there is nothing you can do.




Q. As a leader, if there was only one thing I could do to engender a positive culture in my organisation, what should that be?

I’m going to steal the answer from my friend John Catoe, who recently retired after many years in the transit industry, working with major transit properties in the US. John, in turn, learned this lesson from business educators Stephen Covey and Tom Peters.

The ‘one thing’ you should do is adopt the principle of leading and managing by walking around – that is to say, by being visible and available.

It doesn’t mean you don’t shut your door occasionally or that you have to be available every moment, but every single leader I have met that has moved me and has been successful wherever they go, has embodied this idea.

It’s an idea illustrated by the story of the surgeon and the janitor (Chapter 2). That surgeon would be successful in any organisation because he made sure everyone in the organisation understood the goal, and that this goal was more important than any title or role. In this case, the goal was to save lives whether they were an accountant, an administrator, a janitor or a surgeon. The story speaks to organisational clarity.

The reason they all understood was that he was actively sharing that message all day, every day. He clearly engendered a culture that ensured everyone who came into the organisation learned “this is what we do”. That kind of clarity is priceless.

Small companies, large or in between – it doesn’t matter. When every human in the building knows they have a central core value and mission, decision making becomes much easier.

Q. When walking around, being a ‘visible and available’ leader, should I talk or listen?

By walking around I mean ‘communicating’, which usually means a combination of both talking and listening.




As an employee, I want to be inspired by the words and actions of my leaders.

As a leader, I know for a fact I’m going to learn a lot more if I allow people to tell me what is going on. For instance, the person in the back office taking complaint calls knows what is going on in that business – they know what is not working. I don’t need a whole lot of time to listen to them and find out what we need to change to give us a tangible bump in our ability to serve our clients.

So you communicate by both inspiring through your words and actions, and doing a lot of listening.

Q. The title of your Surfer dude blog refers to sales advice, but the lesson he delivered was actually much broader. How does the surfer dude’s advice apply to leadership?

I wrote this funny little story two years ago about an experience I had buying backpacks. I still receive hundreds of hits a week and have friends from all over the world because of it.

The surfer dude was genuinely interested in my wellbeing. He said “this backpack is the s**t and won’t move while you are bouldering”. He knew I bouldered because he cared enough to listen before offering advice. As Stephen Covey said, “seek first to understand, then to be understood”.

The surfer dude was authentic, passionate, optimistic, told a hell of a story, listened and communicated well. Would these characteristics help most leaders? I think so.




Chapter 5: How can I build a positive business culture? Comments by Kevin Catlin Insight Strategies, Inc.

Q. What is the key ingredient in a successful business culture?

Some will disagree with me, but I believe culture starts at the top.

You cannot, in my opinion, create a great company culture if the owners and the senior managers are not living it themselves.

Q. What are some first steps for changing a business’ culture?

This may sound a little simplistic but step one is desire. Culture shift is not possible without a true aspiration to do so.

Step two is to get some measurements of where you are now and an idea of how to measure where you are trying to go. It’s important to place a quantitative measure on that knowledge so you have a baseline to work from.

(There are a variety of methods used to measure a business’ culture and oftentimes you will need help to do this. It may involve staff surveys, anonymous testing, analysis of staff turnover rates and exit interview feedback, and so on.)

Step three and beyond changes so radically from organisation to organisation it cannot be packaged into a specific process. Each company will have very different ways to move its culture – no cookie cutter here.

It is also vital to make sure that as your culture improves, so does your bottom line. I’m not a mercenary, but I don’t believe in improving culture just for an exercise – I want it to translate to an identifiable jump in profitability and quantifiable wellness indicators of the company as a whole.




Q. What are some examples of businesses with a positive culture and how do they do it?

The Ritz-Carlton

I have spent a lot of time studying the culture of hotel company Ritz-Carlton.

These people are crazy about how much they guard and value and teach toward their culture of excellence – and it works.

Their motto is: ‘We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.’ I’m such a management geek it gives me goose bumps to hear a great motto like that, because I realise these people get it. ‘We are the best, serving the best!’ Then they set about daily reinforcing that ideal.

At the beginning of each shift all employees spend 15 minutes in a ‘huddle’ – which they call the Daily Line-Up – where the values of the organisation are discussed and dissected. ‘Ladies and gentlemen’ who are living the values are honoured and held up for doing things ‘the Ritz-Carlton way’. This is happening all over the world and on every property and is part of the reason when you check into a Ritz (assuming you’re willing to pay) you are in an environment that feels like home. Don’t be surprised if your favourite wine is in your room, or a special dessert is prepared because it was your birthday last month. From San Francisco to Sydney – an incredible devotion to culture.

The upshot is that as well as having a great business culture, Ritz-Carlton also has a great bottom line.

Pike Place Fish Market

The Pike Place Fish Market is a fish market in Seattle, Washington. I spent my high school days in Seattle and worked about a mile from this place. For many years it was just a fish market – you would go there and buy fish.

In 1986 the owner and his team, with the help of a business consultant, decided Pike Place Fish Market was going to become ‘the world famous Pike Place Fish Market’.




They determined what they would have to do, how they would have to look, act, breathe and whatever, to achieve this.

They came up with four things:

1. We will create a place where play is prevalent 2. We will be there for every one of our customers 3. We will make their day 4. Choose your attitude.

The result was that Pike Place Fish Market became, and remains, hugely successful. They sell more fish than you can shake a stick at and are featured as experts on culture transformation. How?

Well, they have taken a decidedly unglamorous job, like selling fish, and made it fun. Made it feel important and bigger than selling fish. Made each of these young people believe that by living the culture of ‘play, be there, make their day and choose your attitude’, they were special. All by buying into the culture and throwing some fish around while hooting and hollering.

They also hire toward these ideals so, if you can’t ‘buy in’ to these ideals, maybe working at Pike Place is not for you. But for the next guy, who likes to connect with people and will buy in, it’s perfect.

My company has shown these guys at work as a way to explain self-sustaining culture to everyone from Microsoft to the CIA. Brilliant!

Pike Place Fish Market figured out where they wanted their culture to go and did a great job of making it happen. I still shake my head… a fish market, no less.

Q. How do I know if I've made it?

You’ve never ‘made it’ because culture needs to be fed and consistently guarded.

At the same time, the beauty of culture is that once it truly takes off you have hit a kind of corporate paradise, in that it self-propagates.




You stop babysitting and are afforded time to become more strategic. I mean, what’s it going to be?

People in the military can appreciate this. For instance, you can have two units operating side by side, with the same amount of men and women, doing the same training. Company A is operating like a well-oiled machine, to use a cliché, but Company B is not. Why is this so?

When a new recruit is brought into Company B, the unspoken rule they learn is “we try… kind of”. How long before that guy tries hard… kind of?

Company A, on the other hand, demands excellence, tells stories about its excellence, honours and promotes excellence. Is it any wonder that a new recruit in that environment quickly perceives excellence as the norm?

It’s pretty simple stuff really. It’s always leadership that starts the culture and then the unit that propagates it. The unit begins to believe its own stories and embody its culture – whether positive or negative.

In the case of a positive culture, the unit starts to regulate itself and display a continuity of behaviours that you can trust and understand. You’ll see less squabbling, less backbiting and better communication. When there are disagreements, and there will be, they get resolved, rather than fester. These are all hallmarks of units – or businesses – with strong cultures that are driven from the top and from within.

Whether you’re a bus company, a fish market or an army unit, if your culture is really syncing, you’re monitoring a wellness indicator of your people that clearly translates into improved performance. You are close to having it licked.

Q. How does a positive culture contribute to business value?

Directly! If I’m buying a business I’m either buying a dysfunctional business that I can get for pennies on the dollar and I’m going to fix its culture, or I’ll pay through the nose for a company that already has a strong culture in place and, hopefully, not mess it up.




Most mergers or purchases that fail do so due to a clash of cultures. I see companies merge because they see opportunities to create synergies that will create a sum worth more than the parts. What tends to happen, though, is that potential value is not fully realised because of a clash of cultures.

Companies that spend time understanding not only the numbers of the organisations they’re buying or merging with, but also spend real time on how to merge the cultures, do far, far better.

If you would like to learn more about the issues covered in this eBook or about the business advice, valuation and transaction services offered by the team at JPAbusiness, visit www.jpabusiness.com.au or call 02 6360 0360.

JPAbusiness would like to thank Kevin Catlin for his valuable contribution to this eBook. For more information on Insight Strategies, Inc. go to

www.insightstrategies.com



http://www.insightstrategies.com/

surfer dudes, janitors and the ritz-carlton - lessons in leadership and business culture

Business