New Year Resolution for 2014- My communique to my team

Dear Team

I wished my last mail to all of you this year be something positive and that which speaks about things not necessarily around Admin, Customers, Cost-Cutting etc. J

This week I want to talk about New Year Resolutions and here is what I have gathered to share with you all,

I remember reading that if we can create a little bit of something positive that brings us joy and success, then we create more of it – we can further learn to scale it and build on it. I believe in the power of this idea, and have used it as a guiding principle to reasonable success in my professional and personal life.

So let’s apply this and see what could be our New Year’s Resolution – one that won’t just die as a fad after initial few weeks and leave us feeling demoralized and depressed, but will:

·         Stay longer and may be very long

·         Usher happiness, positivity and more importantly fulfillment

·         Bring in growth (We all should grow and there is no serendipity in it! We should remember that we are capable, accountable and RESPONSIBLE for our growth)

·         Build confidence and self-esteem (Very important in our roles where every other user gets reminded of a doormat whenever we are done with serving them)

Think about what you’ve already created in your life today, but want more of. Let’s start with the below 4 key categories:

1.     Love and Kindness

Look around you. Are your relationships supportive, loving, gentle, kind? Do you have at least one friend and loved one who believes in you without reservation, who sees the future vision of you before it’s visible to all, and would do anything for you? Then you can build more relationships that will offer this type of unconditional support. Think about the glue that holds this mutually-loving and respectful relationship together. You are part of this glue; you’ve helped make it possible. Where can you apply that “glue” to form new bonds that will help you be more of what you wish to in the world, and help others do the same?

New Year’s Resolution: This year I will build at least one new relationship in my life that is mutually loving, caring, supportive and nourishing.

2.     Professional Success

I’ve seen first-hand in my own career that if you have built the skills and traits that serve your clients well, and bring great success and fulfillment to them, you can build more such skills. Examine what you offer in your work. What skills, talents and passions are you drawing on that generate great outcomes for your employer or for your own clients and customers? How can you leverage these skills to bring more success to those around you? What innovation or efficiency enhancer can you develop that will help others in a deeper way than you are today?

New Year’s Resolution: I will use my skills in a brand new way this year that will bring more success, growth and well-being to those around me, and thus, to me.

3.     A sense of meaning and purpose

Do you feel that you were meant for something bigger than what you are experiencing today? If you’ve ever felt that, I can you tell — you ARE meant for something bigger. I know because I have witnessed winners who had that feeling for years, and finally, it led them to a complete, successful reinvention. People who dream of doing something big, something important, making a difference, leaving a legacy, have the seed of greatness inside of them and are longing to do something about it. Make 2014 the year you do.

New Year’s Resolution – I will honor the longing I have to play bigger, to go for something important in my life that will bring a sense of meaning and purpose to my life. I will define concretely how I want to play bigger, and walk towards that in 2014.

4.     Belief in what’s possible for you

Some people like to create a theme for their new year – using one word to describe what they want more of. A theme is a great way to focus on something important, and to help bring it into being. Here is a list of some powerful themes or concepts you could choose from, or build your own:

Love
Forgiveness
Creativity
Courage
Openness
Mentorship
Wealth
Peace
Compassion
Tolerance
Prosperity

Choose a word or theme that represents what you want more of. Print it out, and post it on your computer, your desk, make it your mobile screen home page – wherever the reminder will have the most impact on you. Then, make a pact with yourself that you will act, perceive and think in ways that are in close alignment with this positive experience you want to bring forth.

New Year’s Resolution – I will honor my new theme for 2014. I will keep a keen focus on what I want to expand, and gratitude each time I see this theme expanding in my life.

* * * * *

What new kind of resolution can you make that will guarantee to bring you more joy, peace and fulfillment in 2014? Make that resolution today.

Being Open to Feedback in Customer Service

Dear Friends,

Here is my article (A collection of thoughts) on Being Open to Feedback in Customer Service, as shared with my Corporate Admin, Travel & Hospitality team. Please share your feedback

_______________________________

Team,

Personally, I am a passionate believer in the value of interpersonal feedback. To become more effective and fulfilled at work, I think we need a keen understanding of the impact of our work on others and the extent to which they are achieving their goals. Direct feedback is the simplest and most efficient way for us to gather this information and learn from it.

The tricky thing about feedback is that instead of objectively focusing on just the service (product in some cases), it takes the flavor from the culture of the environment on which the conversation is set in. When we have a culture which encourages feedback, even those users who aren’t usually interested or skilled in giving the feedback also chip in. The contra is equally true.  

So as leaders, how do we build a feedback-rich culture? What does it take to cultivate an ongoing commitment to interpersonal feedback? Here are four essential elements:

1. Safety and Trust

To give and receive truly candid feedback, people must feel a sense of safety and trust. Neurologist and educator Judy Willis emphasizes the relationship between positive emotion and performance, and as leaders we need to foster it to ensure that our team members and colleagues learn from feedback. Note that this does not mean avoiding confrontation or offering only support and comfort. It does mean being highly attuned to people’s readiness for a challenge and their emotional state in a given interaction. We have numerous examples amongst our team when we have refused certain services to employees but at the same time have come out of the conversation as sustained Service Champions. Our cabs team, International Ticketing Team, Leadership Academy Resource booking team have time and again confronted users and still have been in the forefront of service. What does this mean to me? This means that it is not necessary to always be yielding. If the policy, situation demand that we can’t provide a service, it is just fine. We can deny the same to our users, but we should make it clear by being polite and assertive. Saying NO doesn’t mean we have to fight with our users. We can keep our cool and still show our point of view. In such cases, taking the feedback after denying the service becomes very delicate. It requires patience and little bit of practice, but I am sure we all can quickly master this and keep seeking feedback wherever we provide service.

To create a sense of Safety and Trust is a simple 3- step approach:

1.        Get to know each other. Make an effort to understand colleagues as individuals. This doesn’t require a great deal of time or deep, personal disclosures — just taking a moment to ask about someone’s weekend and occasionally sharing stories of your own. A casual off-line dialogue, a general question about the holiday, a check on kids etc. These queries help us connect on personal front with the users

2.        Talk about emotions. The ability to discuss emotions is a critical feature in any group that aspires to share effective feedback, not only because feelings are at the heart of most difficult feedback, but also because feedback inevitably generates difficult feelings. When we can talk about our embarrassment, disappointment, frustration, and even anger, the culture is sufficiently safe — and robust — to handle real feedback

3.        Make it OK to say no. A risk in feedback-rich cultures is that people feel obligated to say “Of course,” when asked, “Can I give you some feedback?” The freedom to postpone such conversations when we’re not ready to have them ensures that when they do take place all participants are willing parties.

2. Balance

We usually receive a stinker email when our service is not up to the mark. In other instances, when we don’t deliver as per user’s expectations there is sure going to be a slew of escalations. So much of criticism that we associate feedback to only faults and repair. But, that’s just half the story. The other half is truly meaningful positive feedback, which is all too often absent in some people. You can’t have one without the other, but so many obstacles prevent us from offering and accepting positive feedback. We worry it will sound insincere. We worry it is insincere. We worry it will make us look like soft bosses. We worry it will make us seem weak. And since we don’t do it very often, we’re not very good at it. We should endeavor to pat a back whenever there is a good delivery, so that we can give harsh feedback when needed too. Likewise, we should be ready to face negative feedback when we know that our users are giving us URJAs, Appreciation mails etc. A recent research at Ghent University in Belgium indicates that positive feedback promotes self-development. Further, as University of Washington psychologist John Gottman has noted in his study of long-term relationships, in the most successful ones the ratio of positive to negative interactions is 5:1 even in the midst of a conflict. Strong relationships depend on heartfelt positive feedback — so we need to practice.

To establish balance in the feedback we offer:

1.        Offer some positive feedback…and stop there. Too often we use positive feedback to cushion the blow before delivering criticism, but that practice inevitably degrades the value of our praise and renders it hollow

2.        Start small. We miss opportunities to provide positive feedback every day because we have this idea that only big wins merit discussion. When we see any behavior we want to encourage, we should acknowledge it and express some appreciation. So, no matter how big or small the good work is, we should make an effort to appreciate it

3.        Praise effort, not ability. Research suggests that praising persistent efforts, even in failed attempts, helps build resilience and determination, while praising talent and ability results in risk-aversion and heightened sensitivity to setbacks

3. Normalcy

Off-sites, team building activities and picnics can create space for people to be open to new ideas and experiment with new ways of communicating, but the next day everyone goes back to the real world, if there is no follow-up. Unless the element of feedback seeking and giving becomes a part of routine and normal, the same isn’t practiced vigorously. You have to integrate the behaviors you want into your team’s daily routines in order to normalize those behaviors within the organization’s culture. If feedback is something that happens only at unusual times (such as a performance review or when something’s gone wrong), it’ll never really be an organic part of the team’s culture. It has to show up in everyday life — on a walk down to the cafeteria, at the end of a meeting, over a cup of coffee.

To make feedback normal:

1.        Don’t wait for a special occasion. There is a famous quote that goes-“Don’t build a castle; just put up a thousand tents,” and that certainly applies to feedback too. Don’t turn it into a complex, cumbersome process; just take a few minutes (or even a moment) and make it happen

2.        Work in public. Certain conversations are best held one-on-one, but too often we treat all feedback as a potentially embarrassing or even shameful process to be conducted under cover of darkness. When sufficient safety and balance exist, even critical feedback can be provided in larger groups. This not only allows everyone present to learn from the issues under discussion but also allows people to see how to give and receive feedback more effectively

4. Personal Accountability

As leaders who want to promote a feedback-rich culture, we have to walk the talk every day. Research by Harvard Business School’s Lynn Paine and colleagues makes clear that employees are more sensitive than leaders to gaps between our proposed values and our practical ones. Our teams will take their cues from us as to what’s acceptable, and if we don’t take some risks in this area, they won’t either. Why should they? This doesn’t mean we’re going to get it right all the time. If we’re taking some meaningful risks, then of course we’ll make some mistakes. The key is to fail forward and view those mistakes as essential learning opportunities. Let those around us know that we’re trying to get better at giving and receiving feedback, too, and ask for their input on how we’re doing.

To walk the talk:

1.        Be transparent. Everyone around us – colleagues, superiors, direct reports – should know that improving at giving and receiving feedback is an ongoing goal of ours

2.        Ask. We can’t just sit back and wait for feedback to be offered, particularly when we’re in a leadership role. If we want feedback to take root in the culture, we need to explicitly ask for it

Let’s together seek feedback and work on it, so that we are constantly in line with our user requirements,

 

 

Dichotomy of creativity and functional discipline- Restaurant Business

Dear Friends

This article is one of my personal favourites as it combines food, creativity and passion- Read on and I shall be extremely happy if any of you wishes to discuss this further for avenues of implementation as well as general area of pursuit. Here we go-

 

Under the leadership of Chef Davide Oldani, the Italian restaurant D'O balances Michelin-star-level quality with affordable prices. In the following story, Gary P. Pisano explains how the chef-owner does it.

For restaurateurs, receiving a Michelin star can be a mixed blessing. Certainly it's a rare and celebrated honour—the French company bestows its one-, two-, and three-star ratings only to a select few restaurants worldwide. However, a star begets expectations of quality. To avoid the disgrace of losing the rating, a starred restaurant often invests more money than ever on high-quality staff, flatware, wine, and ingredients. The result: higher prices. Dinner tabs in France or Italy often skyrocket to more than 120€ (Approx. INR 8900/-) per person, for instance. Frugal patrons look for affordable alternatives, and the restaurant, failing to fill seats nightly, starts operating at a loss.

But then there's D'O, a restaurant in Cornaredo, Italy, that opened in 2003 and received a Michelin star only one year later. Under the leadership of chef and owner Davide Oldani, the profitable 35-seat eatery serves dinners at around 45€ to 50€ (Approx. Rs 3850/- to Rs 4250/-) per head and lunches for half that. D'O not only is filled to capacity year-round, but there's an 18-month waiting list to dine there. Understandably, this piqued the interest of a veteran organizational strategy scholar.

"Davide Oldani completely changed the cost/quality trade-off for a Michelin-starred restaurant," said Gary P. Pisano, the Harry E. Figgie, Jr. Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and the lead author of the HBS case study Chef Davide Oldani and Ristorante D'O. "And I'm always interested in how leaders use operational innovation to manage the trade-off between cost and quality. It's an issue you find in every business, whether you're a chef or an executive at Mercedes or BMW or Apple."

In November, Oldani visited Pisano's second-year Operations Strategy class to discuss the case, which details the success of the 10-year-old D'O and poses questions about Oldani's plans for growth. Both the chef and the professor met with Harvard Business School Working Knowledge to talk about the secrets to Oldani's success and his potential plans for the future.

STAFFING FOR PEAK OCCUPANCY

For many restaurants, some nights of the week attract more customers than others. A bistro packed with customers on the weekend might be half empty on a Tuesday. For Michelin-star restaurants, that utilization curve poses a staffing problem.

{“Following the season is the most important thing to do in the applied economics of a restaurant” — Davide Oldani}

"The people who work at this kind of restaurant are not part-timers coming in for four hours a night or only on weekends," Pisano explained. "These are professionals. The waiters who work at a Michelin-starred restaurant are professionals. The cooks are professionals. These are 40-hour-a-week jobs, and you hire them for a full week. If you're a Michelin-starred restaurant you have to staff for the peak. You have to staff for the Thursday and Friday night load. And as a result you carry a very high cost."

Michelin-one-star-rated restaurants in Europe have an average of 36 employees on the payroll, according to the case. D'O keeps a lean crew of 14 by multitasking. Oldani does not employ any professional waiters. Rather, the chefs at D'O take turns waiting tables. (In fact, when Pisano first dined there, Oldani was his waiter.) This leads to a significant reduction in labour costs, even while allowing Oldani to pay his staff higher-than-average wages. Still, the chef insists that the strategy is less about finances than about customer relations.

"You can't fully explain a dish that you haven't prepared yourself," Oldani said. "When a cook explains a dish, he can explain it very well because he made it. He doesn't explain what he heard about a dish, he explains what he made."

FOLLOWING THE SEASONS

Oldani espouses the philosophy of "POP cuisine," which aims for accessibility to a broad audience, in terms of both taste and cost. He maintains that he keeps food costs down and flavours bright simply by buying ingredients only when they are in season. "Ingredients are less expensive and of higher quality when they are in season," Oldani said. "Following the season is the most important thing to do in the applied economics of a restaurant."

The chef also is fervent about not wasting food. The case includes a lengthy list he keeps in his office at D'O, detailing the edible portions of some 70 ingredients. A sea bass has an "edible share" of 47 percent, compared to 60 percent of a hake, for example. A fig: 90 percent. A strawberry: 99 percent. A lemon: 26 percent (juice) + 2 percent (grated lemon peel—only the yellow part, of course).

Table settings receive similar consideration, both sensory and economic. On the sensory side: He has designed several eating utensils, including an espresso spoon that sports a hole in the middle so as not to break up the continuity of the crema on top. On the economic side: "He chooses glasses based on breakage costs," Pisano said.

{“You talk to this guy and you think he’s a production engineer” — Gary Pisano}

The precise attention to detail is also key to creating a menu that the chef describes as harmonious.

"The more harmony in the menu, the better the cook can work," Oldani said. "To get to that harmony, you must avoid repetition on the menu. You cannot repeat the same cooking styles or the same sauces. Not two red meats or two white meats. You cannot have two carbs. A main dish of pasta can't be followed by a dessert made mostly of flour. This is important for modern cooking. We have 22 dishes on la carta, and in every dish there is not one ingredient that's identical to another. They're all different."

Pisano believes that managers and management scholars alike can learn an important lesson in Oldani's ability to marry creativity with intense, practical attention to detail.

"A lot of times we get this ridiculous false dichotomy made in management: that there are creative people, and then there are disciplined people," Pisano said. "Well, the best chefs in the world are both. They're both incredibly creative and incredibly disciplined. And this challenges the idea that it has to be one or the other. In the innovation literature, it's always about creativity versus discipline. Well Oldani shows that it's not versus, it's and.

{You talk to this guy and you think he's a production engineer."}

REMEMBERING PASSION

As a guest in Pisano's class, Oldani listened as students discussed his historic success and his possibilities for expansion. They differed in opinion about whether he should open another D'O or a new, more accessible venture that took POP to a new level. Some argued that he should stick with a successful brand, letting one of his trained chefs take the helm at a new D'O location. Others thought a new venture with a name like "POP by D'O" would be a good complement to the flagship restaurant. But they agreed in terms of the nature of their arguments, which, understandably, focused on finances. (One student crunched the numbers and recommended that Oldani increase D'O's menu prices by 18 percent. Oldani demurred, citing Italy's recent economic woes and their effect on Italian wallets.)

Afterward, Oldani told the students that they had forgotten to mention the factor of passion. "Everything I do, I do it because I want to do it," he said. "Passion has to come first. It leads you to all the things that lead to success."

Asked what he actually plans to do next, Oldani gave an answer that may help to explain why D'O has such a low turnover rate. (According to the case, only three employees have left since the restaurant's opening 10 years ago, and all three happened to be hired as temps.)

"I'll definitely start another business," Oldani told Working Knowledge. "I want to see what my team says. And depending on what we all decide to do, we'll determine what kind of business to open. I want to help the team grow and learn. As the team manager, I want to encourage them to get involved in decisions."