Chief Learning Officer - October 2008 - (Page 25)

IN PRACTICE HAMPTON HOTELS: DON’T UNDERESTIMATE THE ‘B’ PLAYERS hen leaders at Hampton Hotels wanted to recharge its 100 percent guarantee of satisfaction with every team member at its more than 1,000 hotels, they were concerned. Would people below the leadership level be able to comprehend the details and importance of the information? After all, many team members weren’t college educated, not all spoke English as a ﬁrst language and few had business training. “We tested a learning tool at a hotel in Chicago that employed some savvy frontline associates, and it went quite well,” said Gina Valenti, senior director of Brand Program Development and Integration at Hampton Hotels. “But one of our leaders said, ‘Yes, but this doesn’t represent a typical Hampton. It will never work in more rural areas.’ “So that’s exactly where we went next. We tried holding the same discussion about the business in a less ‘savvy’ locale and were surprised to hear the same kinds of conversations, just with a slightly different accent. Our managers at these hotels were a little worried; they didn’t want to set their people up for failure. If anything, the conversations were even more rich, deep and passionate. As we listened to frontline people tell each other what they did every day and why they needed each other, our leaders learned a lot. “We realized that these team members know more about our 100 percent guarantee than anybody else — even the leaders. As they spoke, they were learning from each other, sharing their contributions. It was like they were singing with one voice, with the same words.” What Hampton had done was appeal to a higher level of thinking in its employees. When leaders do this, employees almost always respond in kind. When they’re encouraged to think and talk about the business, it quietly raises the bar on their expectations of themselves, and the organization beneﬁts. “When you ask people a question and just listen to them, you may ﬁnd that you learn more from the ‘ordinary’ people than from leaders, who seldom see customers,” Valenti said. “And the respect levels were raised notches on both sides.” CLO W – Jim Haudan After the employees left the room, the CEO turned to me and said, “I’ve spent the last 10 months listening to highly paid consultants, specialized analysts and great speech writers. Today, I heard more and better ideas, securely grounded in what needs to be done day-to-day in the business. I’ve learned more from these supposedly ‘green’ customer associates than I have from all the so-called experts who charged us millions of dollars! I’m absolutely astounded at the untapped knowledge and intelligence of our people and their ability to grasp exactly what we need to do to turn our business around.” Certainly, in every company, there are worthy A players in terms of position — those weight-bearing walls. But just as certainly, there are other players in every organization waiting to be given a chance, to be challenged to understand the business and their role in it and to transform that knowledge into an A-plus performance, regardless of the team they play on. CLO Jim Haudan is CEO of Root Learning and author of the book, The Art of Engagement: Bridging the Gap Between People and Possibilities. He can be reached at editor@clomedia.com. http://www.c-c-connection.com http://www.c-c-connection.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Chief Learning Officer - October 2008

Chief Learning Officer - October 2008 Editor’s Letter Connections Business Impact Best Practices Effectiveness Guest Editorial How Fast Is Your ‘B’ Team? Hampton Hotels CLO Profile Save the World, Make a Buck: Seven Ideas From the Nonprofit Sector Developing Leaders at Amnesty International Learning Measurements: It’s Time to Align Aligning Measurement to Business Success Training Employees With Special Needs How to Reach Disabled Learners Hands Off: Facilitating Informal Learning Who Owns Informal Learning? Case Study Business Intelligence Advertisers’ Index Editorial Resources In Conclusion

Chief Learning Officer - October 2008

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