Page 85 - The New Gold Standard

Be Relevant
growth of the Ladies and Gentlemen, teamwork, service, prob-
lem resolution, innovation, and continuous improvement.
Beyond the Functional needs of the guest and the guest’s
Emotional Engagement, Ritz-Carlton leadership has defined a
level they call “the Ritz-Carlton Mystique.” To achieve this out-
come, Values 1, 2, and 3 are needed to create unique, memo-
rable, and personal experiences for a guest. This can occur only
when people fully deliver on the guests’ expressed and unex-
pressed wishes and needs and when the Ladies and Gentlemen
strive to build lifetime guest relationships.
John Timmerman acknowledges that acceptance of the Ser-
vice Values didn’t occur without resistance, and, as might be ex-
pected, much of that initial reticence came from leaders. “When
we did the test of the first set of changes, management’s nega-
tive-to-positive ratio was 7:3. Those results reflect the reaction
of general managers and leaders in the corporate office. It was
quite interesting though—the employee response was 1 nega-
tive to 9 positive. Given those preliminary results, we had general
managers go to focus groups. They heard what the customers
said; they listened to the employees; they saw with their own
eyes the affinity those groups had for the changes. Later we
brought all of our general managers together at a worldwide
conference, and our president, Simon Cooper, presented the
rationale, the data, and then the voice of a highly respected gen-
eral manager, Ed Mady, who said, ‘I have become comfortable
with being uncomfortable about this change.’”
Acknowledging that resistance to change is often the result
of leaders having to restructure the way they lead others, John
explains, “Our leaders’ resistance fell into two areas. They were
understandably concerned that employees would lose focus.
But, while they wouldn’t say this, the unspoken hesitance was
linked to the fact that they had been groomed over decades to
develop the 20 Basics into their own personal leadership style.
Many of these leaders could offer 50 inspiring stories around
what excellence in the 20 Basics looked like, but now they would

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