Is your team stuck? How to change that (and yourself).
As seen in: The Human Touch Blog on Hotels Mag by Robyn Pratt
“You become what you think about all day long” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
You are never too old to learn and grow. Lately, during many of my discussions with individuals and hotel teams, I have heard the comment “Robyn, we keep going around in circles, we continue to try new things, but our results are not changing.” I decided to do some research of my own into why this happens so much as I know there are times when I feel the same way.
Specifically, as it relates to consistently delivering the guest experience, despite many initiatives there is still the familiar thread in the conversations:
- “We have talked about this so often and people are STILL not doing what we ask.”
- “I don’t know whether the change is possible as we have tried to do it differently so often and it works for a short time, but then we go back to the old ways.”
- “We have spent so much money in training, but they don’t get it!”
The material I have found particularly interesting in this regard is the Proctor Gallagher Institute’s Bob Proctor, whose views which are based on 50-plus years of study based in most part by Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich.”
And after facilitating this thought process with several individuals and teams and reflecting upon the vivid change in discussion and acceptance of “why” things aren’t changing, I believe there is absolutely something we all need to consider when developing and communicating our goals and aspirations in our quest to improve our results.
We all have our own “way of doing” things that are based upon the thoughts we think. The thoughts that truly dictate our results are those based in our subconscious (our paradigm) – or perhaps you refer to it as your mindset, which has been developed from early on.
I am sure many of you, like me, have worked across various cultures and depending on the culture you are working within, you need to tweak your goals accordingly. In these situations, I always try to think, “There is no right or wrong here – just different.”
It can be very difficult, though, to succeed with projects where human beings are required to carry out tasks and activities vastly different from their mindset/paradigm – they have no connection with the task, e.g. implementing luxury service in a remote area where locals don’t even know what staying in a hotel is all about!
Just think about this for a moment. Whether it’s with us setting a big goal, with our teams or with others who will be impacted by your goal or target-setting – if you do not take the time to understand the mindset you are working with, you may well be setting yourself and others up for failure and disappointment!
Our paradigms are strong and play a major role in our results. Companies have paradigms and mindsets as well – we call it company culture!
If we don’t consider the culture of a group when asking for change, there may be strong resistance. Getting the best out of people means communicating from a solid understanding of “where” they are listening from. If you think what you have always thought and try to resolve an issue or create something new, you will continue to get what you have always got as long as the same old thoughts are pulling you back. You might not even realize this is happening until that common phrase is heard: “Why can’t we make this happen? Why is it so hard?”
I will speak more in my next blog about the impact of thinking from results, but as a first step, consider the impact of thoughts in all you are trying to achieve, especially when dealing with humans, which is what this blog is all about – humans dealing with humans to create experiences for humans! With so many humans involved in this puzzle, getting great clarity on the mindset of all the humans would play a major role in success!
Thoughts are Things! And unless we positively engage with others in a way that impacts their way of thinking, we can expect the same results. That goes for us as well: Consider going on a diet. Unless a change in mindset is implemented we may lose some weight, but it is only when we truly change our mindset towards the way we eat and exercise that we see the amazing results and transformations.
Thoughts and paradigms can be a powerful enemy of success! Next time you are developing a strategy to communicate or implement a new program or customer experience, consider the mindset of your audience or those you are relying on to carry out your vision. If you can impact their mindset into engaging with your expectations, the result will be new behaviors that will have a greater chance of “making something stick.”