ELECTRONIC HOUSE CALL - May 31, 2002

We just arrived in Slovenia last night. What an amazing country . . . and I expect that most people in the US have never even heard of it! You can follow the daily odyssey on the website.

PLEASE STAND BY
More than in the past few years, this trip has been plagued by technical difficulties in sending e-mail. It has been relatively easy to receive messages, but sending them out from my laptop has been more of a struggle. The problem all stems from SPAM. Because the idiots that flood your in-box with junk messages have exploited every possible way to mask their real identities, it has forced service providers to greatly curtail how messages can be sent away from home, hence my difficulties. The end result is that the EHC delivery schedule has been a bit sporadic and my response time to other messages is longer than usual.

Eventually it will all be sorted out but what concerns me most about this . . . is that I find myself concerned about it. After all, how much of our communication is really so time-sensitive that it has to happen instantly? Wouldn't we once have handled similar issues by mail? How much of my "down time" do I really want to spend on a computer and why do I feel anxious when I don't have immediate access to the Internet? Electronic communication is a wonderful thing. No question about it. The lesson for me is to separate a sense of urgency from a sense of dependence and remember that e-mail is just a tool, not a reason for being.

THE LESSON IS ALWAYS THE SAME
I continue to be struck by the same thing -- the places that we like the most are the places where we connected best with the people. This is true whether we are talking about individuals in their homes like Marcela in Prague or Paul and Eva in Budapest, the staff of a hotel like Hermann, Gertrude and Christl at the Hotel Stadt Melk in Austria or folks in a restaurant like Jurij Matjaz at Gotisce Matjaz in Slovenia last night. All it takes is a smile, an honest effort to go beyond the superficial, some basic communication skills and you have a memory . . . and perhaps a customer . . . for life! This is an innate ability that all human beings have and is really where the soul of hospitality resides.

I am not convinced that we can actually teach people how to connect. I think it is more accurate to say that your job as the leader is to make sure that you are not getting in the way of it. This means that you place a personal premium on connection and model this behavior in your dealings with your crew. It means recognizing and rewarding this behavior when you observe it in your staff. It means an awareness of the importance of personal connection to the success of your business and a willingness to adjust your operating format to help enhance it. Smaller stations will help because servers will have more time to be at the table. Better training will help because the staff will be less distracted by the mechanics of the job. Quieting your own mind will help because when the manager is relaxed and present, the entire operation tends to be relaxed and present.

Ultimately this is a one-on-one business no matter in which country . . . or maybe even on which planet . .. it happens.

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