Rude Awakening to a Valuable Reminder

It was a rude awakening to a valuable reminder.  Bang!  I was in Calgary to present a seminar on communicating value.  I squinted at the hotel alarm clock.  Not quite five.  Bang!  There it was again. Another insensitive guest on their way to an early start I surmised and closed my eyes.

Voices.  Hang on.  They are still there! Someone – a man – is in the hall shouting something.  I hear a female voice make some kind of reply – further away.  Bang!   I look at the clock.  Still not quite five!  Voices again. Bang!!

I paddle over to the door and peak out the peephole.  There is a bag trolley in the hall.  The door across the hall has the security bar closed so the door won’t close completely.  Suddenly the door opens and a man, in mid conversation, emerges with a bag.  He is having an argument over his shoulder with a woman in the room… seems that she can’t find something and is complaining to the man.  Unfortunately the man is in a hurry to get away and he is not too shy of sharing this fact with the entire hotel. Bang!  The door slams against the security bar.  He puts the bag on the trolley and re-enters the suite.  Bang goes the door behind him.

I can’t believe that someone could be so insensitive to the other guests at this time in the morning.  Then I hear a child’s voice.  Turns out she is not happy either.  From what I can gather, she wants to go to the fast food restaurant for breakfast but the man reminds her – and the rest of the hotel – that they don’t have time.  The man re-enters the room.  Bang goes the door.

I return to bed.  The noise continues for a couple of minutes until the commotion moves down the hall leaving an eerie silence.  I think about what I have just seen and heard and I still can’t believe how people can demonstrate such bad manners.  Worse still, this couple were teaching the little one the acceptability of being selfish and rude. Did this couple really want to burden their child with rude manners that could negatively impact her for the rest of her life?  I am sure that if they thought about it they would rather provide lessons on how to get along with – and be appreciated  by – others.  Yet, there it was – How to be Obnoxious 101.  It couldn’t have been a clearer or more comprehensive lesson if they had tried.

In a funny way, this rude awakening proved to be a valuable reminder for me.  Sometimes, through our actions or words, we are teaching our teams to behave in ways which are polar opposites to the desired behaviour.  We forget sometimes that as managers we are in a fish bowl and everything we do or say is analyzed by our team for consistency and often used as a model for their own behaviour.  We have to become more conscious of our actions and words and constantly ask ourselves, “What are we teaching our staff through our actions right now?”  It reminded me of a meeting I had with a client recently.  We were talking about the important role that personal presentation has on the customer’s perception of service quality.  We both seemed to agree that it was critical that our teams represent our companies in the most positive light and one critical aspect was their grooming and attire.  I mentioned that I had been speaking with one of the technicians in the parking lot and that he had not shaved in a few days and was looking a little “rough”.  I commented that this fellow was not the only one I had observed with a few days growth.  The client looked at me sheepishly and said, “I guess that I don’t often shave every day either.”

What are we and/or our management teams teaching our staff members?  As the ambassadors of our business, they deserve the best from us so they can perform their best for us.

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“Action will delineate and define you.”

– Thomas Jefferson