Eight Lessons From the Front -- #5 Think Small

From my commencement address to the graduating classes of University Center Cesar Ritz in Brig, CH.

Working for a chain, there is strong pressure to think about regions or brands or centralized yield management or employee policies and so on. But remember, ours is a transaction business, one person at a time dealing with one employee -- one person picking a restaurant or selecting a hotel or making a reservation or arriving or checking out. Always frame the system or policy or procedure you are considering or developing in terms of one person – think small.

Don’t think about the chain; think about one hotel or one restaurant -- its own strengths and weaknesses, its available potential customers, and its local competitors. Those three elements compose its marketing situation – and every marketing situation is unique.

Don’t think categorically about “labor” or “market segments” or ad “targets” of people “35 to 54” or whatever. Challenge yourself to think persons, to think small, and test against your “small think” the plans, procedures, systems and policies being urged on you for the good of the chain. Optimize each unit and each transaction, and your chain will grow itself.

Small think keeps you focused and grounded.

Eight Lessons From the Front -- #4 Be Forward Looking

From my commencement address to the graduating classes of the hospitality colleges of University Center Cesar Ritz, in Brig, CH.

We (i.e., the hotel industry) are awash in data – monthly statements, daily operating ratios, even in the US, data on how one’s set of competitors did last night in rate, occupancy, and revpar (revenue per available room, a standard yardstick in the industry.) Arm an accountant with a computer and you will be up to your ass in data before you can get to your desk.

And what do we do with that data? We analyze it, we report it, bosses review it and the accountant projects it. In other words, we all stand on the observation platform at the rear of the train, looking back down the tracks and assume we know where we’re going.

Two things you must know about accountants' projections: first, they are always wrong; second, they are never right.

If you’re going to lead, get up in the engine and look ahead. Yes, it’s necessary to know where you are, but the question to ask of the data is “What does this suggest given what I know and don’t know about the future?” Forecast. Cast forward your thoughts and intentions.

Forecasts differ from projections. Projections are just extensions of the past. They don’t tell you when there is a block in the track or when a switch decision is coming. Forecasts are judgments and educated guesses of what is likely. And don’t just forecast a single future. Forecast a best, worst, foreseeable, likely, conceivable… and intentional futures. See what they suggest as a prudent leader you do.

The best CEO I ever worked for was Bill Marriott. He had coupled an amazing attention to detail with a keen gift of anticipating. One day in 1983 he called me to his office to discuss airline crew contracts which we had been beating the bushes to get during the recession with great success; we’d garnered the lion’s share of crews at every airport and metro market in which we operated. So, I gathered up my books and steeled myself to get examined about why we didn’t have Eastern in Salt Lake or Continental in Miami or whatever. I was thunderstruck when Bill said “start dumping the airlines. This economy is about to turn and business travelers will be heading out onto the road. We have to be ready for that high-rated demand, so get rid of the discounted crew contracts.” That was looking ahead -- and 1984 turned out to be a barn-burner for pent-up business travel demand.

Be curious. Don’t just solve the problem in front of you, but ask why is it that we’ve been short of banquet waiters three times this month? What does that mean about our waiter pool, or labor rates, or what’s changing in the local hiring market? Look up from the data and look around, as Bill Marriott did while I had my nose buried in the airline contract prospect books.

One more word on looking ahead: it’s amazing to me how few operators attend to demographics. Operators know a lot about their current customers (never enough, but a lot,) but don’t look at what's already known to foresee their future customers. For example, with women making up half or more of business school graduating classes in the mid '80’s, should it have been a surprise to encounter a rising tide of women business travelers ten to fifteen years later, when they were reaching middle management and taking more trips? It shouldn’t have been, but most of the industry was totally unprepared to cater to the needs and want of women diners and women guests. “How come all this damn demand for hair dryers” said housekeeping; “where are all these room service orders coming from” groused the food and beverage manager. They had all been standing at the back looking down the tracks, and nobody had been looking ahead.

Use data, of course, but be forward looking.

Eight Lessons From the Front -- #3

This is a serialization of a commencement address I was honored to give to the graduating classes of University Center Cesar Ritz, in Brig, CH. These lessons came mainly from mistakes I made along the by-ways of my career: #1-- Find work you love. #2 -- Choose the right people with whom to associate. #3 -- Don't manage. Lead. #4 -- Be forward looking. #5 -- Think small. #6 -- Empathize. #7 -- Execute relentlessly. #8 -- Be of Service.

#3 Don't Manage. Lead

(At the commencement, I asked all who intended to manage others to stand; after a hesitation, nearly all the 200-some graduates rose to their feet.” Well, sit down,” I admonished,) ...”good people don’t want to be managed.”

I recall coming home one night frustrated by my Marriott team. “They are just unmanageable” I fumed. My wife burst out laughing. “So when were you ever Mr. Manageable” she chided. She was right; I had driven bosses to distraction at times with my restless attempts to short-cut, do things better/cheaper/differently, always seeking some new new thing.

No, good people don’t want to be managed, and don’t need to be. What do they want? What do they need? Leadership. Given a vision to share, clear-cut goals and accountabilities, and the direction to go, good people will produce. Stand back and let them be good people to work with.

Manage yourself and your boss, not them. Given good leadership, your people will manage themselves -- and you.

Don’t manage. Lead.

Eight Lessons From the Front -- Part 2

This is a serialization of a commencement address I was honored to give to the graduating classes of University Center Cesar Ritz, in Brig, CH. These lessons came mainly from mistakes I made along the by-ways of my career: 1) Find work you love. 2) Choose the right people with whom to associate. 3) Don't manage; lead. 4) Be forward looking. 5) Think small. 6) Empathize. 7) Execute relentlessly. 8) Serve.

#2: Choose the right people with whom to associate .

Years ago, while debating the merits of centralized vs. de-centralized R&D with Bill Anklam, my first boss at GMI, he good-humoredly listened to the impassioned, newly-minted MBA and finally said “Fletch, it doesn’t matter. The most important decision in business isn’t your structure or even your strategy; it’s the people you choose to go into business with.” His words were prophetic and came back to haunt me several times as I made my people mistakes.

An early bad choice was the guy whose venture team I joined. Driven by his competitive ego and desire for personal glory rather than by the mission of the larger organization, he suspended sound judgment and ignored good advice. And to compound the error, I went along – arrogantly confident I could make things right from within. I committed this error of ignoring personnel danger signs three more times – twice in hospitality -- always by ignoring my gut instincts and accepting the wrong people to work for me. I had perfectly rational reasons to justify the compromises, but in these compromises were the seeds of troubles.

Who are good people? Those who love their work, who share sound values and are able to embrace with you a common mission.

Choose to be with good people. Choosing the wrong people with whom to associate , no matter how expedient it may be at the time, is to handicap yourself with two strikes as you come up to the plate.

Eight Lessons From The Front

A few years back, I was honored to give the commencement address to the classes of 2005 being graduated from University Center Cesar Ritz, an group of international hospitality and travel colleges in Brig, Switzerland, which I served as an adjunct faculty member in the hotel school. The address was well received, even by jaded faculty who had sat through many a commencement drone.

Telling a friend about it recently, he urged me to reproduce the talk here, on Northwest Ruminations. I will serialize what I call my "eight lessons from the front," being mainly a recounting of what I learned the hard way, from making mistakes -- sometimes repeatedly to my chagrin -- but to my eventual benefit.

I. Find Work You Love
There is no one sadder than the person stuck in a job they do not like. Over time, that job will just grind them down. Loving what one does is the prime ingredient of success. It endows enthusiasm, energy, and interest – those extras that distinguish the comer from the also-ran, the person whose career will blossom into multiple options and rewards.

I’ve always loved my work. First, doing market assessments of new products in the development labs of General Mills; then introducing and marketing new packaged foods; then helping plan and manage a diversification venture into toys and games; then managing a diverse group of marketing and advertising services; installing and managing a marketing process in hotel and resort businesses; and finally consulting on and teaching marketing process management.

Only once did I stick in a job I didn't love; I was doing no one any good -- me, my family, the organization. I badgered my way out of it after a couple of years, but I learned the anchor not loving one 's work can be.

I made my share of mistakes along the way but -- save for that one exception when I compromised -- I loved getting up and going to work, wrestling with work problems in off hours, and challenging conventional approaches to the job.

If you don’t love the work you find yourself in and can't force a change, then drop the job and search until you find work you can love.

Frozen, Then Thawed ... Ain't Love Strange?

I haven’t blogged in some time, not since helping care for Mom in Vermont in August. I drafted a piece on the tyranny of infirmity, the mutual dependency that locks care giver and receiver into a tyrannical circle, each lovingly imposing on the other. But that hit too close to home and love and regret shut me down for weeks.

Last night love opened me up again.

Ann and I had a cocktail, after quite a day, and then adjourned to Il Terrazzo Carmine for roasted calamari, Carmine’s antipasto, duck, sweetbreads, a great Nobile di Montepulciano, and cappuccino – all in celebration of our 19th anniversary. We nuzzled together like a couple of parakeets and recounted sappy things like our favorite places we’ve been together, what makes us so happy with one another, how lucky we are … thank God no one could overhear us.

On the way home we began to speculate on what a double martini at 6:30 and a half bottle of wine between 8 and 10 would do to one’s blood alcohol level. Were we at or over the magical 0.08?

Curiosity consumed us: we detoured to the Mercer Island police headquarters, parked and went looking for a policeman to test our blood. We figured if we were illegal they’d either drive us home or call a cab – and we’d have learned something. Unfortunately, Mercer Island in its austerity campaign closes its police office at 10 and transfers calls to Bellevue. We weren’t giddy enough to drive over there, and decided to call it a night. Despite the seeming idiocy of the idea, I’m sure I was safely within legal limits. I had put 92.5ml of alcohol into my body mass of 75.3kgms over a span of 3.5 hours – go figure. But maybe the very notion of asking for a breath-o-meter test suggests otherwise…. And I’m suspicious of her; her body mass is only 55.34kgms.

Twenty-two years entwined with this lady of which nineteen married. And we’ve never had a fight! It continues to be a terrific ride.

The Blue Angels -- What you see is what you think.

Seafair is over; the Blue Angels have left town. Did you just hear hateful, god-awful, ear-splitting noise --- or like some boosters, did you hear “the sound of freedom?” It depends….

What are the Blue Angels? Why are the Blue Angels? What do the Blue Angels mean?
On April 24, 1946, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Chief of Naval Operations, ordered the establishment of an air acrobatic team “to enhance Navy and Marine Corps recruiting efforts and to represent the naval service to the United States, its elected leadership and foreign nations.” Note “its elected leadership” -- an underlying mission was to generate public and political support for a larger Navy allocation of what would clearly be shrinking War Dept. and Navy Dept. budgets. (Consolidation into the DOD came later, in 1947.) It was a brilliant move; you can’t steam a battleship into Kansas, but you can show off naval aviation anywhere in the country.



Public and political support: these are still the missions today, perhaps the prime mission.



Within a week, Lt. Commander "Butch" Voris, a World War II fighter ace, was charged with creating a flight demonstration team. Voris selected three fellow instructors and went to work. The group perfected its initial maneuvers in secret over the Florida Everglades so that, in Voris' words, "...if anything happened, just the alligators would know."



Only two weeks later, the team gave its first demonstration before delighted Navy officials. One month later, Voris led his diamond of four F6F-5 Grumman Hellcats through their inaugural, 15-minute public performance at home base, Naval Air Station Jacksonville.


Over the past 63 years, the team has grown from the diamond four to eight plus Fat Albert and to a huge support staff. They graduated from pistons to jets in 1949, taking off in Grumman’s F9F Panther. The first time I saw them was in 1957, off Virginia Beach. I was thrilled… by then they were flying the Grumman F9F Cougar.

In 1986, they adopted the McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing’s) F/A-18 Hornet. Those are still the angels’ chariots, 23 years later.


In this show season, the team will have flown their F/A 18s in 70 air shows at 35 sites in the United States. A total of 15 officers voluntarily serve with the Blue Angels. Pilots rotate out every two years. Blue Angels officers return to the fleet after their tours of duty.

“Boss,” the Blue Angels’ Commanding Officer, who flies point in the diamond, No. 1, must have at least 3,000 tactical-jet flight hours and have commanded a tactical-jet squadron. This season, Boss is Commander Greg McWherter.

The Events Coordinator, who calls the shots on all scheduling and logistical matters and flies Number 8, is a Naval or Marine Corps Officer who, like the pilots of Numbers 2 through 7, must have a minimum of 1,250 tactical-jet flight hours. This year, she is Lt Commander Amy Tomlinson.



Career-oriented officers and enlisted men specializing in airframe and power plant maintenance, communications, avionics, administration, aviation medicine, public affairs and supply fill 108 support positions.

So that’s the what, the who, and the why of the Blue Angels. Audience?

• Some 15 million spectators view the squadron during air shows each season (March through November) and 50,000 more are visited at schools, retirement homes and hospitals.
• Key to the pr/lobbying process is to invite media reps and VIPs to fly. The squadron has two F/A 18 D’s, two-seaters, for just this use. Three media members are selected at each show site and a handful of VIPs from television, sports, music and the movie industry are taken for spins -- literally.

Danger?

• During its history, 26 Blue Angels pilots have been killed in air show or training accidents, with considerable collateral damage. Through the 2009 season there have been 264 pilots in the squadron's history. That’s a 10% fatality rate. In a peace-time assignment.

Costs? The Great Mystery

• An oft repeated number on internet sites is $20 million for the squadron, but I can find no hard source for that.
• I examined the Navy budget for 2009, searching for Blue Angels, demo teams, air shows, etc. No entries.
• A 2005 GAO report to Congress said the Angel’s costs are carried – or buried is more like it -- in the Navy’s recruiting advertising budget, which this year is about $115million.
  

So what might the costs be? An F/A 18 costs about $29million. Is the Navy still buying them? Some critics have nattered about fuel costs, but that is only a pittance. An F/A 18 burns roughly 8,000 pounds in an hour show or 1,200 gals @$2.35 (I hope the Navy pays wholesale), so the squadron total for four days of flitting about is under $100,000. Fuel isn’t the issue.

Maintenance, salaries, training, etc. would be done as part of naval aviation, were there Angels or not. Certainly there are incremental expenses for a travelling air demonstration team – some 45 people travel 240 days a year – so transport expenses, room and board, communications, pr and all the rest. How much? If it’s $500/day/pp, that is only $5.5 million.

Whatever the true costs of this recruiting and lobbying effort, if the Dept. of Navy knows, they aren’t telling Congress nor us citizens.

Does it work? We don’t know and neither does the Navy.

• Guess what? Studies show that people who go to air shows like them. Duh!
• Rear Adm. Eugene Carroll, deputy director of the Defense Information Center: "No study has been conducted to determine how effective the teams are as recruiting gimmicks." Note he uses the word “gimmicks.”
  

So, are the Blue Angels just a gimmick? What do the Blue Angels mean?

• You may have watched an uplifting demonstration of America’s might at a time of national self-doubt. Perhaps, but, like me,
• You also may have seen taxpayer dollars being frittered away on superficial public relations at a time of ballooning national deficits.

• You may have seen a thrilling demonstration of American ingenuity and leadership in aerospace engineering, or – like me,
• You may have seen unnecessary environmental stress -- wasted fuel, exhaust emissions, noise pollution.

• You may have see evidence of our having the finest airmen in the world to protect us and project our force – yes, but at the same time, like me,
• You may have witnessed a depressing demonstration of America’s love affair with armaments,
• and the military-industrial complex’s shameful manipulation of public opinion.
  

The point is that what you saw last weekend is a function of what lies behind your eyes – those attitudes and beliefs and values you brought with you to Seafair. What you saw is what you think…

I think I’d rather see that money, whatever the total truly is, spent on pre-schools for armed service families, or for more PTSD clinicians, or for more dependent family subsidies, especially to forestall foreclosures. Yes, the Angels are thrilling, but we have better things to do.