Mr. Kelleher

Human Resources, Recruitment & Training

How to Build a “Why Not” Culture: A key to fostering creativity and innovation

By Bob Kelleher , CEO, The Employee Engagement Group

I am all about engagement, having experienced firsthand the connection between employee engagement and customer satisfaction. A key engagement driver is creating an environment in which your employees’ opinions and ideas matter. As such, leadership teams must empower employees to seek ways to improve the guest experience, boost profitability, build brand, improve marketing, and improve quality. To be better than your competitors, you have to be different – and your employees often have the answers. Perhaps you just haven’t asked. Or perhaps you have but no one responded. Or perhaps you’ve asked, heard, and forgot about following up on your “we’ll get back to you” reply.

Many leaders fail to create a safe environment for employees to contribute ideas. Or worse, they create an environment in which new ideas are met with rejection. I tell leadership teams that if they want to kill employee engagement or employee initiative, then they simply tell employees that they can’t do something “...because that’s not how we do it here”, or “...because we’ve tried that before” or “...because management will never accept that” or “...because it is not policy”. A “because” culture ultimately leads to status quo, and status quo simply does not breed creativity or innovation.

To understand why we settle into “because” cultures requires us to understand and recognize the societal and business pressures to conform. In our personal lives, we tend to get more set in our ways as we age, and subsequently become more resistant to change. In our business lives, we become conditioned to work a certain way. This is exasperated by the natural bureaucracies that occur over time as companies grow. In Chic Thompson’s book, ‘What a Great Idea’, he shares with his readers a number of specific group studies that support why we become victims of “because”. Thompson highlights one particular study in which he compares the level of creativity with both 5 and 44 year-olds. This study was conducted using the same creativity exam NASA uses to gauge the creativity of its astronauts. Remarkably, 8% of 5 year-olds passed the exam while tragically, only 2% of 44 year-olds passed. In another study, Thompson shares research that shows that the average 5 year-old asks 65 “why” questions a days, while the average 44 year-old only ask 6 questions a day. I know that laughter is a key engagement driver, and necessary to create the kind of environment in which people can unleash their creative energy. Sadly, laughter also decreases as we age. The average 5 year-old laughs 113 times a day - decreasing as we age to a bare 11 times a day at age 44. No wonder we have a hard time being innovative in the workplace!

Hotels that foster both engagement and innovation often start with building an environment of “why not”. Continuous improvement is about change and challenging the norm. Companies fail when they stop evolving their product or service, or they become complacent, or are afraid to fix what is not yet broken, or worry about the investment necessary to innovate, or worry about failure (“what if we’re wrong?”).

The history is full of really good companies led by really smart leaders who stopped innovating. Why did Digital Equipment Corporation founder and CEO Ken Olsen continue to produce minicomputers while competing start-ups built personal computers? How was it that Jeff Taylor, founder of Monster.com, was able to launch Monster.com and not the New York Times or the Boston Globe, who employed thousands of talented employees? Why didn’t Polaroid see the emergence of digital photography? Folklore has it that Polaroid actually invented the digital camera but was afraid of investing in a product that could potentially cannibalize their cash cow base business. These are all examples of leading for “today” and not creating cultures of creativity for tomorrow. Innovation requires investing today’s cash to discover tomorrow’s new service or product offerings, technologies, geographies, or approaches.

Why Not cultures requires hotel executives to seek ideas that are different than their own. Innovation often comes from those who are not the architects of the present. Too often, today’s leaders become protective over what they’ve created. I see countless leadership teams who surround themselves with people who think just like them. Birds of like feather don’t innovate. Diversity of thought leads to innovation.

The 7 step guide to boosting innovation at your hotel:

1. It starts at the top

Your Hotel General Manager, and their leadership team needs to be the innovation champion(s). Frequent and consistent hotel wide communications need to highlight innovation and recent success, while encouraging employees to challenge the status quo.

2. Establish a “Why Not” campaign

Create a “Why Not” campaign, with posters, training, and supporting communication all focused on getting leaders and employees to recognize when they lapse into their “...because” trap. Make it fun – encourage your employees to catch others saying “because”, and correcting them with the appropriate “why not” response.

3. Expand your definition of diversity

Diversity is not simply about fair and equitable treatment, or some Equal Employment Opportunity Commission definition aimed at eliminating discrimination in the workplace. Diversity is about inclusion and inclusion leads to innovation. It is not simply about one’s gender, age, or color of your skin. It is about one’s thinking style, culture, heritage, generation, tenure, organizational level, etc.

4. Budget and measure Innovation

The old adage “you get the behavior you measure” is certainly true with innovation. Are you establishing an innovation culture by budgeting for innovation? Some companies earmark a % of total profit or revenue or a set number of hours per employee per year. Regardless of your metric, it is essential to report on progress and highlight successes. And don’t shoot those who innovate and fail. A key ingredient of innovative cultures is the acceptance of failure. If your employees are afraid to fail, you will never build a culture of innovation.

5. Establish a cross sectional task force to oversee innovation

Every task team that is assembled at your hotel should include our Millennials (Generation Y). They have great ideas on how to leverage technology, along with how to introduce social media as a branding and communication tool. Include representation from both full and part time staff. Populate your team with left and right brain thinkers, along with recent hires (remember, the architects of the present rarely can see what needs to change). Give the task team a budget to oversee and manage and ask them to report on progress. Institutionalize your innovation task team, with 1-2 year rotating terms. Perhaps institute a “Innovation” idea process to encourage both guests and employees to suggest new ideas. Stay away from suggestion boxes which often become complaint venues. You’re after ideas, creativity, and new solutions (perhaps to problems you don’t even know exist yet).

6. Look outside the hotel industry for ideas and talent

I’m amazed at how many hotels look to run in the same race as every other hotel. They only do external benchmarking against hotels within their niche. Create your own race and you’ll find a unique niche. You want to come up with an innovative idea that is the “first” or one that is disruptive to your competition. See what other service industries are doing. Don’t be afraid to hire people from outside the hospitality industry – remember, you want to surround yourself with people who think differently than you!

7. Follow the 125 rule

Some experts claim that in order to foster a culture of innovation while avoiding bureaucracy, you must prevent your chain of command from exceeding 125 employees. It is well known that Richard Branson, CEO of Virgin, will break up a business unit when it exceeds 125 employees. He is attempting to remain fleet of foot, foster innovation, and encourage entrepreneurial drive.

Hotels that encourage engagement and innovation often start by creating an environment of “why not”. Leadership teams that move from “...just because” to “why not” challenge the norm. They empower employees to discover ways to enhance the guest experience, boost profitability, build brand, improve marketing, and improve quality. It’s not too late for you to transition your hotel from a “...just because” to a “why not” culture - and following these seven steps is a great place to start.

Bob Kelleher is a noted speaker, thought leader, and author of the critically acclaimed LOUDER THAN WORDS: 10 Practical Employee Engagement Steps That Drive Results, which has climbed to the #3 Workplace book, #5 HR book, and #12 Management book on Amazon. A sought-after consultant, Mr. Kelleher travels the globe sharing his insights on employee engagement, leadership, and workforce trends. As CEO of The Employee Engagement Group, he also helps leadership teams better engage their employees and drive profitable growth. Mr. Kelleher can be contacted at 508-935-8070 or rkelleher@employeeengagement.com Extended Bio...

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