The Purpose Of Your Game

Here I am, standing at the front desk of a five star hotel in Goa (no, I won’t tell you the name), waiting for a front desk executive to check me in. I am not standing unaccompanied here. There are at least 4-5 more restless humans who are waiting for someone to attend them. Despite a long lasting wait of 10 minutes (trust me it felt like an hour-long wait), none of us are ready to leave this spot. All the guests, including me, are busy looking at a scene that is unfolding like a blockbuster movie. The current scene of this movie has a lot to offer. It has right amount of action, drama, emotions and revenge. A guest relations manager and a house-keeping manager are showing their resentment out in the open with half a dozen people from both departments teaming up to support their manager.

Source: The Blue Diamond Gallery
While most of us were relishing the drama, a guest’s restlessness crossed the safety line and his anger stopped all the drama. And with that the check-in and all the other usual processes resumed. Everything went back to normal within a few minutes. Only the guests who suffered the pain of unnecessary waiting and an unpleasant scene would carry this bitter experience in their heart and brain for many days, months, or even years.

After settling down in my room, the first thing I did was to activate the complimentary Internet connection. Out of curiosity, I started searching for more information about this hotel. To my surprise, the mission statement of this hotel was about ‘Putting the Customer First’ (worded differently of course). At the time of checkout I noticed that their mission statement was even proudly printed on each and every invoice they print. And most of the managers were wearing a badge with a similar line.

Sigh, what a mismatch! A fancy statement that was probably born in a boardroom and the behavior that most of the staff members have are totally worlds apart.

This hotel staff was excellent when it came to performing tasks that they were well trained in. They unquestionably knew the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of their job. Perhaps the only missing piece was ‘why’ of their job. Why notice an incorrect behavior? Why even put a customer first?

Last week, I was talking about this to a friend who heads the L&D section of a multinational company. She gave me an example of her company’s mission statement, which is about caring for the society. During the induction program this company makes their new joiners spend a few initial days working with the NGO partners. This way these new joiners feel the pain of society and understand the magical power of the support that their company provides. That’s where the rubber hits the road. She said just like every other company, they too had a choice of educating their employees about this through longer PPTs or fancy posters stuck on their office walls. But they chose a method that very powerfully inculcates the ‘why’ of their mission statement.

What about you? Do the leaders who brewed your company’s mission statement and the people across all departments and locations have the same understanding of the ‘why’ of your mission statement? Sadly just the ‘telling’ method doesn’t work with workforces. At FocusU we love gamifying the entire experience to create a better buy-in. Connect with us today and together let’s explore how we can help your team discover their own ‘why’.