PART TWO
Roller Coaster
LOW-HANGING FRUIT
After a weeklong sabbatical during which he set up his home office and a baby’s room, Jude dove into his new venture head first.
Determined to avoid the common entrepreneurial mistake of overindulging in naming his company and designing a logo (it was 1995, so a website wasn’t really necessary), Jude focused his efforts instead on finding customers. Even Theresa was surprised when it took Jude just four days to fill his dance card with three paying clients, plus another pro bono.
Though he sold himself as a general consultant with expertise in marketing and operational effectiveness, it seemed clear to Jude that his ability to land clients had more to do with what he called the three Rs: his reputation, the relationships he had with executives, and the rapport he developed during sales calls.
With a slate of paying customers on board, Jude finally gave in and spent a few hours thinking about the peripheral details of the firm. Following his wife’s advice, he settled on the name Cousins Consulting. Though not creative at first glance, it appealed to them because of its double meaning. Jude had been telling Theresa about his aspiration to have a family-like relationship with his clients. Not an immediate family member, maybe, but someone close enough be trusted. Like a cousin.
Then Theresa came up with a simple but professional logo for Jude’s business cards, letterhead, and invoices. Cousins Consulting seemed official.
It wasn’t the trappings of his new firm that really excited Jude, though. It was the variety of clients he would be working with.
CLIENTS
THE MADISON HOTEL
Jude’s first call had been to Dante Lucca, GM of the Madison, San Francisco’s oldest, largest, and most prestigious independent hotel. Jude had been a valuable and versatile member of the company’s advisory board for a little over a year, and Dante was more than happy to take him on as a paid consultant.
After buying the historic but worn landmark five years earlier, Dante had overseen a massive and expensive renovation of the three-hundred-room facility, restoring it to its position as the jewel of Nob Hill. He also received some recognition within the industry for flattening the management structure of the hotel and taking a hands-on role that was rare for an owner and general manager.
For the first three years after the physical renovation and organizational restructuring, business at the Madison boomed. Recently, however, occupancy had begun to drop slightly in the face of mounting competition from upscale chain hotels. And to make matters worse, there were rumors that employees were entertaining overtures from organized labor, threatening the Madison’s stature as one of the few remaining nonunion hotels in the city.
Dante hired Jude hoping he would be able to provide him with advice in the areas of market positioning and strategic clarity, and anywhere else he could add value to the hotel.
JMJ FITNESS MACHINES
Contrasting with the metropolitan world of the Madison was Jude’s second client, JMJ Fitness Machines, a manufacturer of high-end consumer and institutional exercise equipment. JMJ’s headquarters and manufacturing plant were located in Manteca, a small town sixty miles east of San Francisco, in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley where Jude had grown up.
The company’s CEO, Brian Bailey, had been a longtime board member at Hatch, and had come to know and respect Jude during his rapid ascent there. He had even quietly tried to hire Jude at one point, though he couldn’t quite convince him to move to Manteca. Still, in the course of just three or four interviews, the two developed a remarkably close relationship.
At JMJ, Brian was trying to figure out how to reduce his company’s costs to compete with cheaper labor overseas, but without hurting quality or productivity. He wanted Jude to help him.
CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL
Not only did Brian hire Jude on as a consultant, he referred him to a customer and old friend. Lindsay Wagner—not to be confused with the actress who played the Bionic Woman on television—was president and CEO of the Children’s Hospital of Sacramento. She had been a pediatrician for fifteen years before making the jump to administration and working her way up the corporate ladder.
Lindsay’s reign as head of CHS was just four weeks old, and she wasn’t initially prepared to bring on a consultant. But after a few hours with Jude, she decided he was just the kind of resource that could help her as she made the transition to her new role.
CORPUS CHRISTI CHURCH
Finally, Jude agreed to help Father Ralph Colombano, pastor at Corpus Christi Church in Walnut Creek, California. Father Ralph had married Jude and Theresa when he was a staff priest at a different parish, and had recently been assigned to run Corpus Christi.
When pressed by Theresa, Jude found it hard to decide which of his clients excited him most. The hotel would be interesting because—after years of corporate travel—he could relate to the business from a customer viewpoint. Though he had attended advisory board meetings and an occasional wedding reception there, Jude had never spent the night at the Madison and was looking forward to getting a more in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at what made the place go, or in this case, what was holding it back.
The hospital in Sacramento interested Jude for a few reasons. First, the sheer complexity of the business intrigued him. And he found the round-the-clock, mission-critical nature of the operation both fascinating and overwhelming compared to the relatively stable business of selling software. Most compelling of all, however, was the fact that Theresa was about eight months away from giving birth, and Jude was anxious to learn more about the process that she would be going through.
And of course, Jude was happy to work with Father Ralph at Corpus Christi because it would be a great opportunity to give back to the Church and to an old friend, something Jude had always wanted to do but never understood how he could contribute. On top of that, Jude had always wondered how churches operated between Monday and Saturday.
But beyond any of those clients, it was the fitness equipment company out in the valley that captured Jude’s interest most of all. Not only was the business problem there a substantial one, but Jude had always been strangely fascinated by industrial manufacturing, where concepts like quality and product management seemed so much more tangible than in the world of high tech. And over the years Jude had come to admire Brian Bailey’s straightforward approach to management; he was eager to see it from an inside perspective.
Exactly how Jude would ultimately add value to these clients was still somewhat unclear to him. But based on his advisory board experience and his observation of the parade of consultants hired by Hatch over the years, he was confident that he would be able to justify the cost of his services. Still, Jude wondered if he wasn’t overlooking something.
CANDY
For the first three months Jude was a kid in his own little candy store. In any given week he might find himself walking the factory floor at JMJ, touring the operating room at Children’s Hospital, or taking Theresa with him to do “customer research” at the Madison.
More than the novelty of these activities, Jude loved the process of observing real business problems. And trying to solve them. Whether he was talking to clients, interviewing their customers, or observing their operations, Jude was a happy man. He even admitted to enjoying their meetings. “I think I was made to be a consultant,” he told his wife on more than one occasion.
As is so often the case with people who love their work, Jude succeeded wildly. In those first months alone, he found ways to make meaningful contributions to almost every one of his clients.
At the Madison, he convinced Dante to shift marketing dollars away from business travelers and focus instead on upscale leisure travelers. While large chain hotel competitors could certainly woo away executives looking for cheaper rates and more sophisticated in-room technology, Jude argued, they couldn’t offer high-end visitors to San Francisco the atmosphere and uniqueness that the Madison did. Jude encouraged Dante not to compete on price but to relish his hotel’s status as an upscale, even pricey, destination.
In Sacramento, Jude helped an overwhelmed Lindsay put together a simple management radar screen that she could use to monitor the success of the dozens of initiatives under way at the hospital. This allowed her to avoid spending unnecessary time on many projects that seemed urgent but weren’t actually all that important. He also started doing weekly calls with her, to give her a chance to vent and talk through sensitive issues that she couldn’t discuss with her staff.
Because of his fresh, naive perspective and his unabashed enthusiasm for manufacturing, Jude was able to identify a few redundant processes at JMJ that experienced plant managers had overlooked after years on the job. His willingness to ask simple—sometimes almost embarrassingly simple—questions, and his lack of condescension and pretension, earned him the trust of the factory supervisors, who were more accustomed to cocky management consultants from the high-priced Ivy League firms. As a result, they were more willing to listen to his suggestions and ideas.
As for Corpus Christi, Father Ralph had decided to wait a few months before bringing Jude in. The church was in the midst of a few personnel changes and thought it would be best to begin any new initiative after things had settled down.
All in all, Jude felt that Cousins Consulting could not have been doing any better after one quarter in business. Revenue was fairly strong. Clients seemed genuinely happy. Theresa liked her husband’s more flexible schedule, especially now that she was almost halfway through her pregnancy. Jude was having the time of his life and wondering why he hadn’t gone into consulting sooner.
And then life got interesting.
BREATHE
The first piece of news that Jude received was the biggest shock of all. He would never forget that moment.
He was standing next to his wife, who was lying on a table at John Muir Medical Center. As a nurse rubbed some kind of gel on Theresa’s extended stomach, Jude couldn’t resist analyzing the actions of the doctors and nurses around him and wondering how he might be able to help Children’s Hospital become more efficient. And that’s when he heard the phrase that he would never forget.
“Wow.” The nurse had a tinge of shock in her voice. She was moving a wand over Theresa’s midsection while looking at a monitor that neither Jude nor his wife could see.
“What’s wrong?” Jude and Theresa almost shouted in unison.
The nurse frowned, focusing on the screen and slowly turned the large monitor so that the couple could see it too. Suddenly, her frown morphed delightfully into a smile. “Do you see what I see?”
Theresa and Jude studied the moving image on the green monitor, unable to understand what they were looking at. And then Theresa began to cry. “Oh my, Lord. There’s two.”
Now Jude looked closer and saw what his wife did. Two babies. Coming in and out of focus as they squirmed and moved. “Twins,” he whispered. “Wow.” He hugged his wife and wiped the tears of joy that were streaming down her face.
Jude would later describe his feelings in the moment as mostly excitement, mixed with a measure of panic. His anxiety stemmed from the realization of double-duty feedings and burpings and diaper changes. The loss of sleep that people had been predicting for him, and that he had largely waved off as hyperbole, was now starting to sound formidable.
At no time, however, did Jude even think about the financial implications of twins. Especially when everything was going so well in his new consulting practice.
INVADING THE NEST
The day of the big announcement had been a blur for Jude. Between helping Theresa deal with her own emotional roller coaster, calling family members to tell them the news, and figuring out how to transform the baby’s room into a babies’ room, he had no time to read the paper or watch the news. Which was why he was so surprised when he picked up the next morning’s newspaper and learned about one of the largest stock market dips in five years.
The writer of the article assured investors that “the correction was not as widespread as had once been feared.” Jude was relieved. Until he kept reading. “The impact is being felt primarily within the high-tech community.”
Jude scanned the rest of the article and then looked at an accompanying chart on the inside page of the business section. With a chill in the pit of his stomach he read the names of the companies that had been most adversely affected. Fourth from the top was Batch. It had lost more than 30 percent of its value in one day. Jude’s nest egg had shrunk considerably.
But the market has a way of rebounding after a one-day fall, and Jude was hopeful. Which was why he was so disappointed when Hatch lost another 20 percent by noon the following day.
And if that weren’t bad enough, Jude found that he might have actually contributed to the exacerbation of his own financial difficulties. An article in the next day’s Wall Street Journal profiled the companies hit hardest by the market correction. According to the story, one of the factors that pushed Batch’s stock further down than most of the others in the industry was the ongoing loss of key talent just below the senior executive level, especially in engineering—and marketing.
SNOWBALL
Jude was not the kind of guy to panic about work. He had watched his father, who owned a grocery store for thirty years in Modesto, negotiate the inevitable ups and downs of being an entrepreneur. He had survived a difficult career change when he left his journalism job in Chicago to come back to California and dive into technology with no contacts or experience. And he talked Theresa into going out with him against the advice of her friends.
So Jude decided he wasn’t about to let an extra baby and a financial setback get him down. But that was before he learned that Theresa would probably be having that extra baby, as well as the original one, a month ahead of schedule.
“That’s pretty standard for twins,” Lindsay reassured him, right before she explained that she was going to have to cut Jude’s retainer in half, “at least until next year’s budget gets finalized.” She estimated that it would take no more than two months to wrap that up.
But then the worst news of all came.
While Jude was driving back to the Bay Area from Sacramento, Brian Bailey called. He was in a good mood.
“Jude, I just wanted to call and thank you for the work you did with the assembly team earlier this month. We’re going to take what we learned there and apply it in design and procurement, and I think we’ll be able to save considerable money before the end of the year. I knew you were good, but I didn’t expect it to be so easy.”
Jude was relieved to get some good news, until Brian continued.
“So let’s wrap up your consulting gig at the end of the month. Send us any receipts that are outstanding, and we’ll have you paid up on the last day.”
Jude was stunned, but didn’t want Brian to hear it. He responded as though he expected Brian’s call all along. “No problem. I’ll get everything over to you tomorrow.”
Still, he wasn’t about to let a client go without a fight. “I do want to ask if there is anything else you think I can do for you.”
The lack of immediate response from Brian suggested that it hadn’t occurred to him before, and more important for Jude, that he was considering it.
“No, I can’t think of anything. Did you have something specific in mind?”
Now Jude was caught off guard, but recovered in time to come up with something. “Well, I was thinking about marketing, for one. And I’m not sure where you stand in terms of sales operations.”
Brian responded immediately, and politely. “Nope. We just finished a marketing review and brought in a new guy from one of our competitors. And sales ops is already humming. I really think we’re doing fine in those areas.”
The last thing Jude wanted to convey was desperation, so with an air of confidence bordering on indifference, he closed the conversation. “Great. Let me know if there is anything else I can do for you.”
“I’ll certainly do that. You did a great job for us. And keep in touch.”
Jude assured him that he would, hung up the phone, and decided that maybe this consulting thing wasn’t such a good idea after all.
ANALYSIS
The way Jude saw it, he had two problems. First, he needed more clients. That was a no-brainer. Though he had enough money to pay the bills for six months, beyond that he had been counting on the Batch stock to rebound, a hope that was fading a little more every day.
Second, he needed something to sell to those clients. As obvious as that seemed, up until now Jude hadn’t felt the need to be so specific. As an advisory board member, he didn’t have to focus his advice in one particular area. And he certainly had no trouble landing his clients—not to mention adding value to them—without a clear service offering, other than a general aptitude in marketing and operations. But he never suspected that keeping those clients would require an explicitly defined program.
Even as a marketing executive, Jude had prided himself on being something of a generalist. He thought that his well-roundedness would serve him well as a consultant, allowing him to avoid being pigeonholed. Suddenly he was desperate for a pigeonhole, but he couldn’t seem to find one.
After a week of painfully unproductive brain-racking, Jude was beginning to feel that he had made a mistake. I’m going to be providing for a four-person family soon. Am I crazy? Deciding to give up, he broke the news to his wife over dinner.
SECOND WIND
Theresa would hear none of it. “Come on. Tell me that you haven’t enjoyed working more during the past few months than in the last five years combined,” she told her husband.
Jude admitted it was true, but countered, “Yeah, I’d probably like being a cowboy too, but that doesn’t mean it’s what I should do.”
“That’s not true.”
Jude was confused. “So you think I should be a—”
“You’d be a miserable cowboy.” She smiled, forcing a laugh from her husband.
“But you’re a great consultant. You said it yourself, you were made to be one. Just because you’ve had an early setback doesn’t mean you should go back to Hatch or Batch or whatever it’s called now with your tail between your legs.”
He gladly agreed with his wife and decided to rededicate himself to making his consulting practice work. Little did he know that he would be back at Batch sooner than he expected.
EXPLORATION
Determined to power through the problem, Jude did what he would advise any other businessperson to do. He asked his customers what they wanted.
What really kept them up at night? What made them mad? What made them want to quit sometimes? What they would give their left leg to change?
He talked to Lindsay, Brian, Dante, even Father Ralph, as well as a handful of other executives he knew. He recorded the conversations and took as many notes as he could. He listened to the tapes and pored through his notebooks, looking for something that would qualify as a compelling, universal need.
A few of the executives mentioned quality. Most didn’t.
Two of them talked about labor problems. But that was largely a union issue for the hospital, and a concern for Dante if things didn’t go well at the hotel.
And all of them referred to technology challenges, but they already had plenty of consultants focused on that, and Jude was neither skilled at nor interested in doing technical work.
It was only when Jude was going through his notes for the third time that he spotted it.
“Of course,” he murmured to himself. “There it is.”
DISCOVERY
Dante had mentioned it twice. Lindsay referred to it using a variety of terms on three different occasions. Father Ralph almost used a curse word when he mentioned it. A num ber of the others had called it by name. Everyone but Brian had complained about it at one time or another.
Silos.
Some called it departmental politics, or infighting, or lack of divisional cooperation. But as he thought back on those interviews, almost every one of them used the silo word at some point during the conversation.
Lindsay described the problem at Children’s Hospital where doctors and staff members seemed to be almost at war at times. At his hotel, Dante couldn’t get the front office staff to cooperate with housekeeping and maintenance. Father Ralph surprised him most of all when he explained that the Parish Council and the Parent-Teacher Committee were at odds over how to use the school facilities during weekends.
And then Jude thought about Batch. Headquarters versus the field. Sales versus engineering. Hatch versus Bell. Silos.
It had been right in front of him all along, and yet he hadn’t realized just how universal the problem was, and how much pain it caused CEOs and their companies. Slowly, Jude was convincing himself that this silo thing was exactly the issue around which he needed to build his practice.
Now all he had to do was find a solution to the silo problem—something he felt confident he could do given his experience at Batch—and convince his clients to give him a chance to help them implement it. The second part of the challenge seemed like it would be more difficult, so Jude decided to start there.
SALES
Jude’s first call was to Dante Lucca. He was still a paying client, and so Jude felt like he could more confidently sell him on the idea to see how he would react.
“Are you kidding?” the hotelier responded. “If you can help me get these people to work together, I’ll double your retainer.”
Jude hoped Dante was serious about that statement.
Lindsay at Children’s Hospital was no less enthusiastic than Dante, but was still hampered by her financial planning process. “I would love nothing more than to have you help us deal with the rift between doctors and nurses and admittance. But first I have to get my budget finalized and approved.” Then she paused, reconsidering. “You know, I’m the CEO of this darn hospital. Let me see if I can shift around some discretionary funds so you can start sooner. Give me three weeks to figure it out.”
Notwithstanding the delay at the hospital, Jude felt like he had hit the jackpot with the silo issue. But he needed at least one more client. He considered calling Brian at JMJ Fitness, and then decided against it. He didn’t mention anything about silos, he reasoned.
Then something occurred to Jude that was either complete genius or stupidity. What about Batch?
On one hand, there was no doubt that the company had problems with departmental infighting. And Jude knew the organization inside and out.
On the other hand, the executives were probably not too happy with Jude, especially after the infamous newspaper story about the brain drain at the company. And even if they could see beyond that, would they view Jude as being credible? Or would he be an insider, a prophet in his own back yard?
Torn, Jude turned to Theresa.
“You should definitely talk to them. What’s the worst that can happen?”
Jude winced. “They can strip me of any semblance of self-esteem that I have left, that’s what can happen!”
Theresa smiled, knowing her husband’s sometimes morose sense of humor. “Okay, but other than that?”
Now Jude laughed. “I know. I know. All they can say is no. They probably won’t even laugh in front of me. They’ll wait until I leave.”
“I don’t think they’ll laugh at you. In fact, I think there is a better than 75 percent chance they’ll hire you.”
“How can you say that? Did you forget that I quit? And now they’re in the toilet financially. Don’t you think they’re going to be just a little pissed at me?”
Theresa shook her head emphatically. “No. I think they’re going to see you in a different light now. You’re an outsider. And remember, you broke up with them. Having you back, even as a consultant, would probably be somewhat redemptive. And misery loves company.”
Jude thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know.”
“Come on. I’ll bet you fifty bucks they say yes.”
Slowly, Jude seemed to be warming up to the idea. “You know, I’m sure Brian Bailey would be willing to tell them how I helped him at JMJ.”
Sensing an opening, Theresa pushed a little further. “And you’ve got nothing to lose.”
“Other than my self-esteem.” Jude countered.
“And fifty dollars.”
PUSHING FORWARD
Jude was surprised that he had little trouble scheduling a meeting with Carter Bell.
Because he hadn’t really forged a personal relationship with the new CEO before leaving the company, Jude was taken aback by Carter’s warm response and apparent enthusiasm during their brief telephone call. This certainly wasn’t the brash caricature of a man that he had expected. Jude wondered if the company’s recent slide had humbled him a little.
And though he couldn’t decide whether it was Brian’s recommendation that opened the door for him, or if Theresa’s theory about misery loving company was correct, Jude was already starting to feel like there was a chance he might lose his $50 bet.
Unfortunately, as quickly as Jude was able to arrange the meeting, it wouldn’t take place for ten days because Carter was leaving for an analyst road show to convince industry experts and investors that the company was headed in the right direction.
Undeterred, Jude decided that the time lag would give him a chance to develop and test a solution to the silo problem. He would start at the Madison.
After giving the situation a good deal of thought, Jude decided to propose to Dante a two-pronged approach to breaking down the barriers between the facilities department, which included housekeeping and maintenance, and the guest services group, comprising everyone from the valets, bell staff, and concierge team to the clerks checking people in and out of the hotel at the front desk.
Part one of the proposal would be a partial redesign of the compensation plans for the departments, placing greater emphasis on hotel-wide goals like customer satisfaction, and on overall company performance, revenue, and profitability. Jude had little trouble convincing Dante and his human resources director to do this. In fact, they thought it was a great idea. Though he didn’t say so, Jude couldn’t believe they hadn’t considered it before.
The second part of the proposal would involve a session with as many of the employees from the two departments as possible. This was also an easy sell. But implementation would be a different story entirely.
TRIAL RUN
Sixty-five employees representing the two divisions streamed into one of the medium-sized banquet rooms on the first floor of the Madison. (A handful couldn’t attend because they had to keep the place running.) As they settled in, Jude was surprised at how congenial the mood in the room was. People were laughing and interacting with one another as though they were about to see a movie. It wouldn’t last.
Flanked by his director of facilities, who oversaw housekeeping and maintenance services, and his front office VP, who managed everything from the front desk staff and reservations agents to the concierges and bell staff, Dante kicked off the session. “The reason we’re here today is to improve the working relationship between our departments. We’re not here to point fingers or rehash the past, but rather to create a better experience for our guests, and for ourselves, by breaking down any barriers that might be holding us back.”
Though everyone was certainly paying attention to their owner and GM, no one reacted in the slightest. Dante then introduced his consultant.
“Jude Cousins has been a member of our advisory board for a few years, and he’s going to be leading today’s session. I’m sure that this is going to be a productive and fun exercise.” Dante’s tone of voice didn’t really indicate that he was sure of that, but rather that he merely hoped it would be true.
With that, Dante and his executives left the room, turning control over to Jude.
As soon as they were gone, Jude noticed a subtle but undeniable change in the body language and facial expressions of the employees seated in front of him. Beyond the handful of people he caught rolling their eyes in mild disgust after their leaders left, he was most surprised by the sudden lack of attention and respect that they seemed to be giving him.
Feeling like a sheep thrown to wolves—or a substitute teacher left alone with a roomful of angry fifth graders—Jude knew that if he didn’t get things started quickly and compellingly, he might be eaten alive.
EXERCISE
Jude kicked things off by doing something that he hated to do, but that he thought was critical for what he was trying to accomplish. “Okay, I’d like half of the people in the room to switch tables with someone from another department. I don’t want you all sitting with people you work with. That means half of the room should be getting up and moving to another table.”
At first no one moved.
“Come on, I’m serious. Choose two or three people at your table to move, and have them take their stuff with them.”
Slowly, people started to stand and gather their things. After almost five minutes of minor chaos, the room had been rearranged and Jude was ready to go, albeit with a little less credibility after pushing them outside their comfort zones so quickly.
“Okay, I realize that many of you already know each other, but I’d like to take the next 15 minutes to have you introduce yourselves. But rather than just saying your name and job title, I want you to answer one more question: What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?”
He paused to let it sink in. “But it can’t be the one you have now.”
Everyone laughed.
“Okay, go ahead and get started.”
Again, it took some time for people to warm up, but within minutes the room was buzzing with discussion and more than occasional laughter. Jude was feeling pretty good about the situation, but he knew he was barely out of the starting gate.
When everyone finished their discussions, Jude gave them their next instructions.
“Now, I’d like each table to take a half hour to come up with a list of all the things that prevent you from doing your jobs the best way that you know how. It could be anything and everything. And don’t worry about editing or categorizing your answers. I don’t care if it’s apples, oranges, pears, or monkeys. Just get it all on the flip charts.”
He motioned to the easels spread around the room. “Appoint someone on your team to do the writing, and someone else to be your spokesperson when you’re done.”
More interaction and laughter ensued, and Jude would have bet all the money in his wallet that the silo problem at the Madison had been overblown. He would have lost that bet.
When the flip-charting had ceased, Jude went to each of the tables and asked the spokesperson to report their findings, and ten minutes later he had a list of two dozen issues taped to the walls. It had been less than an hour since the session began, and the group had already identified their problems.
Jude then called for a break and spent the next few minutes grouping the various issues into five natural categories.
1. Excessive delays in getting rooms clean for arriving guests
2. Bad information from the front desk about priorities for guest rooms
3. Last-minute surprises about large groups checking into the hotel at the same time
4. Unwillingness of front desk and concierge employees to pitch in outside their specific job responsibilities during busy times
5. Poor treatment of housekeeping staff by front desk crew
As Jude looked at the list he’d created, it became clear that the battle lines for the next part of the session had been drawn.
DIVISION
When the room filled up again following the break, Jude noticed something that he hadn’t expected: everyone was back in their original seats.
The housekeepers were sitting together, as were the bell staff and the front desk clerks and the concierges. As much as he didn’t want to, Jude made them return to the tables where they were sitting before the break, something that they found even less appealing this time.
By the time they were reseated, he noticed that almost everyone in the room was already reading his five-point summary. Thankfully, many of them were nodding as if to say that’s right. Those are the issues.
And so he began. “Are there any questions about this before we start the next part of today’s session? Because what we’re going to do now is focus on finding solutions to these problems.” Just as he was about to move on, a lone hand in the back of the room went up.
It was a front desk supervisor, a tall woman with her blonde hair tied up in a tight bun. “Are you going to let us pick which of these issues we work on?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Because I’d like to do the first one,” she said, referring to the slow turnaround of clean rooms.
Jude noticed more than a few of the housekeepers rolling their eyes.
“No. I’m going to assign the issues randomly to your tables, so that we give every issue attention.” He then made the assignments.
For the next half hour, employees brainstormed solutions to the various problems. Jude encouraged everyone to weigh in, even if their jobs were not directly related to the issues being discussed.
When it came time to report back, the results were not pretty.
Regardless of where they were seated, it seemed as though housekeepers only saw the world from a housekeeping perspective, front desk clerks from a front desk perspective, and so on. And no one was terribly diplomatic.
At one point, a front desk supervisor actually suggested that the hotel replace many of the housekeeping staff and hire “hungrier” people for the job. A concierge recommended that the housekeeping and maintenance staffs be reorganized and report directly to the head of the front desk. This was met by a smattering of boos from some of the housekeepers in the room, and prompted a maintenance worker to complain that the bell staff called the housekeepers maids, or worse yet, toilet scrubbers.
Everyone pointed a finger at one of the other departments, convinced that they were the cause of the hotel’s problems, and that they only cared about their own part of the hotel and nothing beyond.
At this point, Jude certainly had a vivid picture of the silo problem. Unfortunately, the session so far had only served to reinforce the barriers between the departments, and Jude needed to salvage the day. So he took a risk.
ROLE PLAY
I want everyone to go back to your original tables and sit with the people you work with,” he said. This time he didn’t have to urge them to move. When they were settled, he explained the next exercise.
“I want you,” he pointed at a table full of bell staff, “to pretend that you’re housekeepers.” One of the older ladies in the back of the room yelled, “You mean maids!” The room burst out into laughter.
Then he pointed to another table, this one filled with housekeepers. “And I want you to pretend that you work at the front desk.”
One by one he went to each table assigning them a role that would be particularly different for them than their regular jobs. Then he explained. “When I call on you, I want each table to be as stereotypical as possible about describing the problems from your perspective. But play it straight. I want you to really assume the roles I’ve given you.”
Nervous laughter filled the room.
Jude pointed to the housekeepers who had been assigned front desk roles. “What is the problem around here?”
After a brief pause, one of them spoke up. “Those housekeepers are just too slow and lazy. They don’t care about guests. All they want to do is get through the day and get home. They don’t understand the pressure we’re under down here.”
A number of people laughed, and a few even applauded, at the accurate depiction of what a front desk clerk would probably say.
Jude couldn’t turn back now. “What about you housekeepers?” He pointed to the table full of bell staff.
A tall young man with a goatee spoke with an affected feminine voice, playfully mimicking a housekeeper. “Yeah, but why should we work hard, anyway. We don’t get many tips. And even if we bust our butts and turn our rooms around quickly, no one really appreciates us. It’s no wonder two of our best housekeepers left last month. And no one ever helps us. You’d think one of the guys in the monkey suits standing downstairs might come upstairs every once in a while and vacuum or something.”
The room howled with laughter, and the housekeepers burst into spontaneous applause.
Jude pushed on, looking at a table full of maintenance workers pretending to be concierges. “What do you think is the real problem?”
After a considerable delay, one of the older guys spoke up, nervously. “Well, we sit down here in the lobby and watch the whole operation, and we think the problem is all about communication.”
“What do you mean?” Jude asked.
“Well, those front desk clerks,” he pointed to the table full of housekeepers, “they don’t talk to the people upstairs, the housekeepers, until there’s an emergency. And by then, it’s too late. And when the emergency’s over, they don’t even think to go upstairs and say thank you. It’s like they’re too good or something.”
The maintenance man paused, and then continued with more passion.
“And when they call the maintenance guys to fix a toilet or something, they act like they’re second-class citizens. I mean, it’s bad enough that we, I mean they, have to fix toilets. It only makes it worse when they look down at them. Heck, we’re the ones who have to keep this beautiful hotel in good shape.”
No one laughed this time. The maintenance man blushed.
Jude thanked him, and continued going around the room until every table had a few opportunities to speak. When he finished, he asked a question he hoped someone would answer.
“So, what do you guys think about all this?”
Silence.
Until one of the housekeepers, a Hispanic woman named Estela, raised her hand and waited to be called on. When Jude nodded to her, she explained. “Actually I think we’re all trying pretty hard.”
That was it. And it was enough.
Jude looked at his watch and realized that he was ten minutes over his allotted time. He thanked everyone for their patience and participation, and assured them he would be sharing his observations with the executive team the following day.
As the room emptied, Jude couldn’t deny that there was a sense of goodwill in the air that he attributed to more than just relief that the session had ended. Still, he didn’t have as much information as he wanted, so he asked the managers of the various subdepartments to stay behind for a few minutes.
The four supervisors overseeing housekeeping, maintenance, the front desk clerks, and the concierges and bell staff moved to the table at the front of the room. When everyone else had gone and the doors were closed, Jude began.
“So what exactly is going on around here?”
HIGHER-UPS
After a pause, the front desk supervisor spoke. “Basically, a lot of these people just don’t like each other. I mean, the facilities people upstairs come from very different back grounds than the guest services people down here, and they have different interests. It’s the same in every hotel I’ve worked at.”
The housekeeping supervisor nodded her head in agreement, although Jude wasn’t sure she really believed it.
The head concierge was shaking his head. “Wait a minute. I’ve worked at hotels where there wasn’t so much tension between the departments. And I don’t think this is about people not getting along or being different. Hell, half of my bellmen play soccer with the maintenance guys on the weekends.”
“So what’s the problem, then?” Jude wanted to know.
The concierge shrugged. “I honestly don’t know.”
Jude looked up at the list of topics written on the flip-chart. “Okay, let’s take one of these issues. How about last-minute surprises around large groups coming into the hotel. What’s causing that?”
The front desk supervisor didn’t hesitate. “Well, we used to have all-staff meetings prior the arrival of a big group, and that gave everyone a chance to ask questions and hear from Dante and the other executives. But about six months ago we stopped doing that.”
Jude was curious. “Why?”
The front desk supervisor shook her head. “I’m not sure.”
“I am.” It was the concierge supervisor again. “People complained about them, and so Dante decided to let each department do their own updates.”
“Who complained?” Jude wanted to know.
The concierge hesitated before answering. “Well, I should probably take the Fifth on that one.” He looked at his peers as if he wanted their approval. “Let’s just say that it wasn’t us, and leave it at that.”
As much as Jude wanted to say, “Who, then?” he backed off, guessing that it was someone on Dante’s staff.
Looking at the list again, he asked, “Where does the lack of respect issue come from? And how big of a problem is it?”
The maintenance supervisor responded first this time. “I think it’s fairly typical for the guest services people downstairs to see us,” he motioned to himself and the head of housekeeping, “as being less important than they are. It’s not good, but it’s not completely unique to the Madison.”
“And what about the less-than-flattering terms people use to describe one another.”
The maintenance head laughed. “I think that’s pretty standard too.”
The front desk supervisor nodded in agreement. “But there is one difference here.”
“What’s that?” Jude wanted to know.
“Now I’m going to take the Fifth.” Everyone laughed.
“Come on. Give me something,” Jude urged them.
The head of housekeeping said cautiously, “Let’s just say that those terms aren’t only used by employees.” Again Jude decided not to push further.
Changing the subject, he asked the big question: “Why is customer satisfaction falling?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” the concierge countered. “If the bell staff and the front desk people and the housekeepers and the maintenance guys aren’t communicating with each other, don’t you think that the guests are going to notice? Rooms aren’t ready on time because no one downstairs tells anyone upstairs which rooms they need first. Someone’s TV isn’t working and they call the front desk to complain. And when the maintenance guy can’t get there in less than three minutes, the guest calls back to the front desk and the clerk down there blames the maintenance guy, which makes all of us look terrible. You can’t hide this stuff from guests. They’re going to notice.”
No one argued with the monologue.
The maintenance supervisor jumped in. “And then the CFO tells us to cut the number of maintenance guys we have, to reduce costs, and the assistant general manager wants us to reduce the amount of time it takes to respond to a guest issue. And of course, Dante tells us to take as much time with the guest as possible to ensure that the problem is addressed and that they’re happy. And at the end of the day all we get is grief from the front desk about why we aren’t doing enough. I’m about to lose my third employee this year because of this.”
“Who’s leaving?” the front desk manager wanted to know.
“Raymond.”
“Not Raymond. He’s your best guy up there.”
“The best ones always leave first,” the concierge replied, resignedly.
Jude felt he finally had enough information. So he thanked everyone for staying behind to help him, and left for home.
That night he went through his notes and put together a summary of his observations and a handful of specific recommendations for addressing the issues that separated the departments and kept them from working together. As good as Jude felt about the recommendations he would make to Dante and his team the next day, he was anxious about how to present it to them, and how it would be received.
BLOW UP
When he arrived for the meeting, the hotel’s executive team greeted Jude warmly.
Dante was smiling. “I heard things went well yesterday.”
His assistant general manager chimed in. “Everyone I talked to really enjoyed the session. Even the cynical bellmen said it wasn’t bad. And coming from them, that’s a huge compliment.”
Jude was now feeling a little more confident in what he was about to do. After a few minutes of polite banter, he went to the flip chart at the front of the room and began his presentation.
“I don’t want to take up too much of your time today. I’ll just quickly summarize what I saw yesterday and what I think can be done to improve the cooperation between facilities and the guest services group.”
The executives seemed ready and eager to listen, so he dove right in. “The first thing I’d like to say is that there is definitely a problem between the departments, and it’s hurting the hotel and will continue to do so if you don’t do something about it.”
In a subtle but undeniable way, the mood in the room shifted. Curiosity and openness on the faces of most of the executives seemed to transform into mild defensiveness.
Only Dante seemed to be excited by Jude’s declaration. “Tell us what you think is causing this.”
Clearing his throat, Jude explained. “Well, for one, it seems like they’re receiving different messages from you about what’s important.” He hoped that would be enough. It wasn’t.
“What kind of messages?” the front office VP asked in a way that indicated she wasn’t going to be open to whatever the answer was.
Jude decided to start with the least inflammatory examples. “Like the issue of late checkouts versus getting people in their rooms when they arrive. Front desk people don’t seem to know where to draw the line around that issue, and the housekeeping folks are put into a lose-lose situation.”
“I don’t think that’s necessarily fair.” She responded as soon as Jude had finished. “My people know what their priorities are. That sounds like an excuse from the housekeepers more than anything.” She seemed to suddenly realize how defensive she sounded. “But I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to clarify things a little.” She didn’t sound like she meant it.
The head of facilities winced a little at her remarks. “I don’t know. I think that there’s more confusion than you might be aware of. We’d certainly like your front desk people to stop telling everyone they can stay as long as they like. I mean, we have to decide who we’re more willing to piss off. A guest arriving or one leaving. We can’t perform miracles up there.”
The front desk VP seemed ready to launch into an argument with her colleague, then turned to Jude. “Anything else?”
Jude looked at his notes. “Well, there are a few dozen issues actually. Where do you want me to start?”
Dante jumped in. “I’d like to hear more specifically about how you see all of this hurting the hotel.”
Jude took a breath. “Well, for one, you’ve lost some key employees, which is stretching people too far and sending a bad message to everyone left behind.”
No one commented, so he continued.
“It’s also creating a great opportunity for the unions to move in. I mean, if your employees don’t feel any sense of unity or commitment to each other, they’re going to be more likely to look for it somewhere else.”
Jude still couldn’t tell exactly what the executives were thinking. He decided they were either in disagreement with what he was saying, or disappointed at the environment they had allowed to take root.
He pressed on. “And of course, there’s the guests. As the managers told me yesterday, it’s impossible for all of this not to affect them. I don’t think you’re going to fix your satisfaction problem until you get your people working together.”
In a slightly challenging tone, the CFO asked Jude, “So what do you recommend?”
Jude hesitated, looking down at his notes. “Well, the first thing you might want to consider is try a job rotation program.”
A few of the executives were frowning now, which Jude mistakenly interpreted as a sign that they didn’t understand what he meant. “If you give people a chance to spend time doing one another’s jobs, then they’ll—”
Dante interrupted. “Yeah, we understand the idea. We tried it last year.”
Jude was surprised. “How did it work?”
The front desk VP answered somewhat sarcastically. “Well, based on what you learned yesterday, how do you think it worked?”
Dante broke in to clarify the issue. “Actually, I think it was pretty well received,” he said. “But obviously it didn’t change behaviors. What else do you think we need to do?”
“I think you should rethink your orientation program for new employees. Provide a better understanding of how the hotel works from a bigger-picture perspective. Give everyone a sense of how they contribute to the whole operation.”
No one seemed particularly impressed by the idea, though the head of HR wrote it down.
Jude continued. “And I’d recommend going back to having all-hands meetings, especially around big groups. I’m kind of surprised that you stopped doing that.”
The room groaned.
The head of facilities explained. “We just didn’t think it was helpful anymore.”
“Why not?”
“I think we just felt like we could do it within our own departments, and that we didn’t need to waste everyone’s time pulling together a large meeting.” He seemed less than convinced about his rationale.
“You have anything else for us?” This time it wasn’t Dante, but his CFO, who was asking. His tone seemed to suggest that nothing mentioned so far had been particularly insightful.
“Have you ever considered pooling tips and sharing them with people in supporting roles?”
The reaction from the executives—a mixture of laughter and rolling eyes—made Jude feel like he had just asked a group of college deans to consider revoking tenure among their professors.
Slightly wounded and embarrassed, Jude decided to try to convince them anyway. “It just seems to me that there are plenty of people in the hotel who make a big difference to customer satisfaction and don’t get much of a bonus for day-to-day heroics. When they see others doing the same amount of work, or less, and getting rewarded for it, I can see how they’d get discouraged a little.”
Dante shook his head. “Sorry, my friend. That’s been a problem in this industry since money was invented, and it’s not something we’re prepared to take on right now.”
The CFO looked to Dante and jokingly asked, “How much are we paying this guy, anyway?”
The head of facilities piled on. “Are we actually paying him? I thought this was free.” Everyone laughed.
Though he knew they were just teasing him, Jude felt stung enough by their remarks that he needed to respond. Letting his pride get the best of him, he made a decision that he would regret.
“There is actually another issue that we haven’t talked about yet, but that I think may lie at the heart of your silo problem.” He paused. “And it has to do with you.”
That got everyone’s attention. Any lingering smiles from those who had been teasing Jude began to fade.
“I think you could set a better example for everyone in terms of how the departments interact.”
That was just too theoretical for Dante. “Set an example? How so?”
“Well, for one, it would probably be a pretty good idea if no one in this room was ever heard to call the facilities crew ‘the toilet scrubbers.’”
Two of the executives tried to avoid laughing, while the others seemed embarrassed.
The front office vice president was bordering on incredulous. “Don’t take this wrong, but you used more than a hundred man-hours of our employees’ time yesterday, and your recommendation is that we stop calling each other names? I certainly hope we’re not paying you too much.” She smiled as though she were suddenly trying to twist her insult into a joke, but no one bought it. And they certainly weren’t laughing.
Jude was about to respond by pointing out that it was only one of four recommendations he had made and that he had seven more pages of notes outlining the problems at the hotel and that if the executive team didn’t want to hear anything that they might be doing wrong then maybe they shouldn’t have asked him to. . . .
But before he could say a word, Dante jumped in.
“Listen, I think Jude makes a good point here. It would be a good idea if all of us were more careful about the things we said in front of our employees. Even though we all get along fine and know that we’re just joking with one another, it can send a bad message.”
No one responded.
Dante decided to bring the entire session to an early close. “I want to thank Jude for his time and effort yesterday, and recommend that we take a good look at his suggestions. Getting an outside perspective on our problems, even if it merely confirms what we already know, is helpful.”
Ouch. Jude would have preferred that Dante had just said, “Okay, this wasn’t very insightful or useful, and frankly, we’re not going to be implementing any of it. But thanks anyway.” And while he understood that Dante wanted to rescue his consultant from a school of sharks smelling blood in the water, he would have liked him to show a little more support for him while the front office VP was taking potshots.
As the executives filed past him and out the door, Jude felt a bizarre sense of failure, one that he had never experienced as a professional.
FALL OUT
When everyone else had left, Dante shut the door and turned toward Jude, smiling in a forced kind of way. “Well, that was certainly interesting.”
They laughed a little painfully.
Jude felt a mix of emotions. First, he was frustrated by the team’s immaturity. He also felt a little betrayed by Dante for not allowing him to address the defensive barrage he had just received, though he certainly understood his motivation for ending the discussion. But more than anything else, he was embarrassed.
“Listen, Dante, I’m sorry that I—”
Dante held up his hand. “Don’t apologize. It’s fine.” He took a breath as he considered the situation. “I mean, I wish you would have brought up the executive name calling stuff earlier, because it sounded like you were sandbagging us a little. But we needed to hear those things, and some of my staff members were way out of line. I’ll talk to them about it.”
Though he felt better, Jude couldn’t help but consider the implications. “I can’t possibly have credibility with your team now, can I? I’d understand if you ended our agreement.”
Dante shook his head. “Listen, I don’t want to over-dramatize what just happened. But I’m also not going to lie to you. This is the team that I have to work with every day, and you’re just a consultant. So if push comes to shove. . . . ” He didn’t finish. “But you’ve still got a few weeks left on your retainer, right?”
Jude nodded.
“Let’s take a look at the situation then, when things calm down.” Dante patted Jude on the back and walked him to the front door of the hotel. “You gave me some things to think about today.”
Jude thanked his client and went home, more than a little concerned about the future of his business—and his family’s financial situation. He couldn’t deny that he was desperate. But desperation is sometimes a great motivator.
