MANAGING FORINNOVATION INHOSPITALTYBy Arturo Cuenllas

PART I:

STRATEGIC OVERVIEW OFHOSPITALITY MANAGEMENT

Weshould take certain facts into considerationin order to explain why the hotel business ismore complex than not long ago. These factsare new business issues and complicatemorethings. Some of these business issues areuniquely happening in Spain, but others alsohappen everywhere in our hospitality industry.However, all of these facts might perfectlyhappen in other countries as well in nearfuture. For example, in China.

1-Over supply situation.

During the economic boom –from 1998 to2007 Spain developed a real estate bubble,which reduced significantly, the entrybarriers to the hospitality markets. Thebanks opened up financing and credits andthe investors –especially construction andreal estate companies- found a newbusiness opportunity: hotel development.However, business for these new playerswouldn't stop there; they also wanted to runthe hotels.

It was an easy business to enter and verypositive for investors. The hotel project wasprofitable in itself, because the bubble wouldgenerate secure gains over the real estateand building property. This fact attracted

many new hotel developers and investors.Though hotels were constructed everywhereto a point of oversupply. That is, supply grewat a higher rate than demand.

2-Quantity not Quality.

These new players –real estate owners andconstruction companies, found hotelmanagement as an easy business in whichto operate. So they wanted to become hotelmanagers too. In fact, the professional andtraditional hotel operators – NH, AC hotels…did not have any business competitiveadvantage, such as brand loyaltydifferentiation or operational know-howadvantage in running their hotels. Underthese traditional premises, hotelmanagement and hotel operations were nota very complicated issue, nor a question ofexpertise.

Most of the hotel companies had a commonstrategy –if we can properly call it a strategy.Which was (1) hotel expansion –hotel boom-in order to make their brands grow. And, (2)maximization of profits. Shareholders werethe first priority along with profits, and profitgrowth over the years as the firstmanagement objective. These two prioritiesmade the following facts: (I) a developmentfever; organic development brought moredebt –and financial risk- together with branddepreciation; yet management contracts orproperty rentals, often impoverished thebrand since these hotel companies addedolder properties to their portfolios. (II)Economic performance despite being a veryimportant business priority was achieved bymismanaging work and workers.Management focused only on the short termand did not focus priorities on staff. Instead,hotel operators created rigid bureaucraticsystems –working processes. As service andoperations became more mechanic –no

CHAPTER 1:Hospitality industrysituation in Spain:Challenges faced todayand tomorrow. Why is itmore difficult to competein a hyper competitivebusiness?

7 facts

thinking or delighting guests by the serviceworker was required. Yet a well executionfrom operational work of the designedprocesses from the top was the mainpremise. Therefore, a kind of more radicalcost savings in order to maximize profits wasalso a main objective.

3-Hotels are in a Commoditymarket.

The new hospitality scenario turned into ahyper competitive market, that is, a marketwith oversupply and very strong competition,without any competitive advantage betweenbrands. Thus, hotel business become aCommoditized market. Spain developed avery new hotel infrastructure and products,in which every new hotel was stronger in

architecture, decoration and comfort. So thetangible part –product- would not makesignificant difference among customers.Commoditization occurs as a goods or aservices market loses differentiation acrossits supply base. In the eyes of the customerthere is no significant value differentiationamong brands, or even stylish hotels; so thelower is price the main consideration for thecustomers when making their decision. Infact, price turned out to be very important,because in the commodity market priceswent down. In a commodity market the onewhose prices are lowest is better positionedto attract guests. The million-dollar questionis: what do you do when your competitorskeep dropping prices? There is not an easy

solution to this dilemma.

4-Hyper-competition.

Let´s first define what a hyper-competitivemarket is. Hyper-competition is definitely theopposite situation to London, Rome or Paris.In between, there are many other marketswith decent ADR and Revpar, since demandis strong enough. Nevertheless, in Spainthere are many markets such as insecondary cities, even major cities ortourism areas in which demand hasdramatically decreased –e.g. nationaltourism and corporate business segmentsbecause of the economic crisis. On the otherhand, supply has increased significantly, notonly in quantity but also in quality. We canfind a very strong competitive situation inwhich many hotels –brand new and stylishupscale and upper upscale hotels-competefor a more reduced demand. Among thiscompetition, there are no significantcompetitive advantages (good hotel locationmay still be a significant advantage). In ahyper-competitive market it´s very difficult todrive demand to hotels; even throughincreasing online advertising or weboptimization. In such situation, marketingand sales (off-line and on-line) efforts arefutile.

Since hyper-competition means a verycommoditized market, price drives customerpurchase decision. The lower the price thebetter for the customer. Very competitivehotels still providing good quality and serviceare competing each other lowering theirprices. In contrast to price reduction, costincreases. Although most of these hotelshave decreased labour costs, there is aminimum of labour costs to maintain –structured labour costs cannot be furtherreduced in order to maintain a proper level ofservice. Indeed, the hospitality business is alabour intensive industry. Unions and labour

politics were not flexible either, andincreased the payrolls annually. But also,other costs such as energy costskyrocketed. The conclusion is that loweringprices -to a point- is not a proper strategy, ifdemand does not increase in order tocompensate this price reduction and hotelprofitability would suffer to death.

5-Barganing Power.

Do you know what bargaining power is? It isconcept brought by Michael Porter in the 80`-A Harvard Business School teacher. Itmeans the ability from distributors orcustomer to put the firm –business- underpressure to reduce prices. Bargaining powerused to be on the side of distributionchannel: TTOO. Nowadays, is also on theside of the online distribution channels… andcustomers.

6-Hotel Transparency –value vs.price.

There is another important new businessissue, common to our hospitality market, asa consequence of technology evolution:Internet, but especially the Social Media haswide-open hotel visibility. Not long time ago,it was very easy to camouflage any hotelshortcomings by having a good departmentof marketing or public relations. It was veryeasy to sell, maybe old-fashion anddecadent hotel, as an elegant, comfortableand beautiful property. In the present isimpossible: guest comments and picturesare very clear. Also price is very clear. Soprice versus quality, -real quality not thequality the hotel says is giving- is crystalclear.

7-Customer evolution.

Guests have evolved. As an important

French sociologist -Gilles Lipovetsky, wrote:“Guests, at the present are moreunpredictable, variable, and, of course, haveless loyalty to brands”. We will be listening orreading about the simple cause and effectthat, by providing good service and goodproduct we should keep our guests loyalty.But this fact is no longer very real. It`s notthat simple.

As a conclusion we can say that aDifferentiation of services or better product isa taught strategy, since guests’ wouldn'taccept easily to pay more for better qualityor service. Excellent hotels providing goodservices are everywhere in a hyper-competitive market. Even the hotel highercategory or classification system is notanymore a differentiator. We can see manyfive star hotels in hyper-competitive markets,selling rooms at 69€ to 76€ (taxes included)in certain low yield periods. Exceptions tohyper-competitive markets are there such asin Barcelona, Palma or Ibiza. But even theseprolific markets today, may become hyper-competitive markets tomorrow.

In Spain -as it might be the case in othermarkets- due to the hotel development boomand oversupply and because of newinnovative business models (e.g. Chic &Basic such as Room Mate hotels), hotel StarClassification System is no longer a goodvalue guide to customers.

How is the business reacting?

How are hotels reacting? Doing the commonthings is no longer a solution, since hyper-competition is a new problem that hasdramatically affected profitability. As AlbertEinstein said: “we cannot solve our problemswith the same thinking we used when wecreated them”. New problems, like the oneswe see, need different reasoning to solvethem.

But it seems most of hotel operators andmanagers are reacting as they usually did,and thus doing the common things. Mosthotel operators are very concerned with costreductions. Guests take for granted goodquality and good service and these twomanagement objectives, are no longer adifferentiator; hence the common strategyconsists of balancing the best possiblequality with a lower cost structure.

During this crisis hotel top managementhave reorganized organizational structuresinto -an even more- centralized system. If inthe past the common organizationalstructure was towards a more mechanicalbureaucracy, nowadays it is even morecentralized. Top Management in corporateoffices had no choice to reduce costs but layoff employees, re-think hotel procedures andsimplify hotel operations. Because the hotelclassification system is so ambiguous andobsoleted, even a 5 star hotels couldmaintain a lower level of services and notloose its category.

This common management practice ofcutting costs by centralizing decisions andmanagement, and mechanizing operations,lead down to a vicious circle impoverishingbusiness strengths by putting service andoperational employees at the bottom of theirpriorities list. Yet hotels, still “produce”service as a core business product. HotelManagement, by acting in this way thuscommoditized more hotel services andoperational knowledge. By limitingoperational knowledge management is alsolimiting the role of innovation as a possiblesolution to differentiation.

Hotel Management competences andprofiles were limited too. Inasmuch asmanagement and decisions werecentralized, the common profile of the hoteldirector was also lower in professionaleducation, experience and, of course, salary.

The result of this conventional wisdom is,that companies’ know-know and knowledgebecame more obsolete. They get trapped ina kind of obsolescence trap because theirreaction to escape from that trap,paradoxically, depreciates more theirbusiness value and knowledge.

"Management Gurus have been telling us foryears that machine-like organizations aredisappearing and with them maximum managing.Well, look around at the auto assembly lines,textile factories, supermarkets, call centers…(Mintzberg)”…And hotels! -I would say.

Machine or bureaucracy operators althoughevolved they still maintain, in essence, Taylor’sconcept management premises. The mechanisticway of thinking that separated planning fromdoing was pioneered by Frederick Taylor. Usinghis “scientific management” he would find thebest way of working, timing workers with a stop-watch and observe the fastest worker did, so that

"Management Gurus have been telling us foryears that machine-like organizations aredisappearing and with them maximummanaging. Well, look around at the autoassembly lines, textile factories,supermarkets, call centers…(Mintzberg)”…And hotels! -I would say.

Machine or bureaucracy operators althoughevolved they still maintain, in essence,Taylor’s concept management premises.The mechanistic way of thinking thatseparated planning from doing waspioneered by Frederick Taylor. Using his“scientific management” he would find thebest way of working, timing workers with astop-watch and observe the fastest workerdid, so that the could define the “one bestway” of doing the job. The “best way” wouldbecome the standard. The doers –theworkers- could not be trusted to contributeto the one best way. Nowadays, we findmany hotel operators working and –evenworst- understanding the management likeTaylor saw.

What is a machine organization orbureaucracy? Machines organizations arebasically characterized by more centralizedoperations and management decision-making. The objective of the machineorganization is to design and establish a

working system or rigid operational standard.Working processes are thought up fromcorporate offices, whether by staff analystsor top management. These standards aresupposed to be replicated within hotels asthe only way of doing and working. Workersthen are expected to successfully putting topractice what has been planned andanalyzed from the top. So any possibleimprovement or adjustment to the operatingstandard must be done and approved by thecorporate offices.

There are some advantages to this machineor bureaucracy structure. One is supposedlybetter management control such as in costs,or quality. But as we will see later, there is abetter way to meet these two objectiveswithin a more decentralized managementstructure. It is also said than in matureindustries –and stable ones, with moreassured revenues or demand-a mechanicalorganization can ensure better profits oreven maximize them.

CHAPTER 2:Organizational commonstructure in hotels: TheMachine Organization. Overallview and leadership styles:advantages anddisadvantages.

The problem is that machine organizationsand bureaucratic working systems limitinnovation, and do not boost organizationallearning. Innovation happens also as resultof constant job improvement from bottomline employees. In hotel operations it shouldalso happen the same way. A hotel businessthat limits innovation to the top level ofmanagement or does not consider workimprovement to be a responsibility alsoassumed by service workers together withtheir managers, is certainly limiting itsorganizational learning and knowledge baseand therefore, is getting closer to businessobsolescence.

Above all, management is neither a sciencenor a profession, it is a practice. Thisproposition means that management is firstrooted in experience. We can surely studymanagement and leadership, techniques ortools, but in the end, what matters most isthe context in which management is applied.That is, the specific situation a manager willencounter managing in everyday work withhis or her team.

Peter Drucker pointed out long time ago thatmanager’s first resource is people. And thehuman being is a unique resource requiringpeculiar qualities in whoever –manager-attempts to work with it. Working with the“human being” always means developinghim or her. Indeed, a main objective of amanager is to lead, enhancing workers’strengths and making their weakness

irrelevant. Though, every manager no matterin what position, should be experiencedenough to accomplish this purpose -amongother managerial objectives.

I do agree with Mintzberg’s thesis, as myexperience has shown me, that leadershipand management should be totally blended.We can conceptually divided leadership andmanagement but in the practice, we cannotseparate them. To do so, would be simplymismanaging.

We can see a lot hotel managers anddepartment managers planning, organizing,coordinating, even delegating or settingbusiness objectives, but I’m not sure howwell they are mentoring and coaching theirpeople, or how well are they enhancing thebottom line operational knowledge in orderto make constant work improvements.

To this study purpose I would like to showhow innovation could happen in operations.Management has not only financialperformance objectives, but also the task ofdeveloping people and enhancing workers’capabilities. It should be a cause/effectsituation: the more we focus on our fellowworkers, in their attitudes and competences,the more we would be able to approach asort of competitive advantage, such as inoperational know-how, service or to betterinnovative solutions.

Why is innovation an advantageand how could innovationhappen in HospitalityManagement?

“Work improvement requires innovators andcontinuous improvement requires continuousinnovators everywhere all the time”, wroteJeffrey Liker in his book The Toyota Way.

CHAPTER 3:To the origins: What isManagement and the purposeof Management

Innovation happens also as a cause ofconstant job improvement.

In hotel operations it should also happen thesame way. A hotel business that limitsinnovation to the top management or doesnot consider work improvement to be aresponsibility also assumed by serviceworkers, is certainly limiting hisorganizational learning and knowledge,therefore is getting closer to businessobsolescence.

I would like to bring to hotel operations akind more accessible innovation, anincremental innovation or continual workimprovement, which is done not only bymanagers but also by service employees.Our knowledge service workers!

Continual work improvement andincremental innovation is done through arepeating process called PDCA –Plan-do-check-act, first developed by Deming andvery successfully implemented in the ToyotaProduction System. This PDCA processshould be also a Mantra in our hospitalityworking system. Service workers must be

trained and used to question every workingprocess, and be capable of bringingproblems to the surface; they should be ableto carefully define them. Every serviceworker, together with his or her manager,has to search for the root cause of aproblem. He or she has to be able todevelop countermeasures or a provisionalplan, prove it (experiment it) and closely,monitor and analyse results.

We may bring thus a simple example: wecould have a problem in our food &beverage department. After an inventoryanalysis we found a deviation: costs haveincreased in the replacement –purchasing-of broken glassware. We then analysed theroot cause of the problem: by asking “why”several times; why is this happening? Wecame up with the problem: some waiters,especially temporary agency workers, inhotel banqueting services, are not followingthe correct procedure. So we would plan acountermeasure and implement it, in order tocorrect the problem. However, just byplanning and putting the plan into action isnot enough, we will have to closely monitorit. OK. This is a basic example of jobimprovement. But imagine that someonefrom your team, maybe a very capableworker, brings a brilliant idea. He says: “OK.Why don’t we re-think the whole process,and make the waiters not to walk that much,when bringing all the material to washing.We may create back-office service stationson their way and make them place glassesinto their specific box, this time not in thekitchen but somewhere else in between”. Sowe implement it, and then we would againclosely monitor it. The good thing is that wemay discover after six months that we havesaved, maybe, 5.000€ in glass damage andits replacement.

Now, imagine we share this best practice toother hotels in a group or hotel chain. Howmuch money could this simple jobimprovement save to the company as awhole, if they share this simple bestpractise?

Before than anything, innovation is first aprocess. To obtain any result innovating, wemust first organize ourselves for thatpurpose. Then, we may or may not succeedin our innovative objectives, but if theprocess of innovation is well established asa core value, we could have a hospitalityorganization, in with most of their workersare improving internal processes andservices for the purpose to offer more valueto customers or improve work standards.

Innovation, as a result of a previous process,could succeed or fail in many forms. Havingan innovative willingness doesn’t guaranteewe will make more revenue, reducesignificantly our costs and provide value toour guests. However, the purpose ofinnovation in hospitality management is toseek an advantage in knowledge and know-how. This hotel, as we will see, learnscontinually from its operations and workers.

Innovation, therefore, will bring us animportant advantage in hospitality if itprovides our company the following results:(1) higher revenues by providing more valueto guests. Or (2) costs reduction -or at least,better costs optimization. We couldaccomplish the first objective –increasingrevenues- buy increasing also our costs butstill being profitable. Or we could obtaininnovative results in operations by reducingour costs; by improving a job process.

Therefore, the best innovative solution –andmore complex- may be obtained byaccomplishing both objectives at the same

time: increase revenues and value to guests,yet reducing even more, operational costs.

1. To be innovative in obtainingmore revenue.

It means to earn income from other sources;products or services other than thetraditional ones. Is there a way of satisfyingguest’s demands by providing other servicesor product in rooms, food & beverage orother hotel services? Do we really providevalue to guests or just income for theproperty?

For example, charging for the Wi-Fi servicemay increase our revenue, but never providevalue to our guests not along to be aninnovative solution.

2. To be innovative by reducingcosts.

It is possible if the worker is not only anexpert and knows very well his or her job,but if he or she analyses and focuses onimproving the working process with a sort ofa flexible mind. As Deming pointed out longtime ago, employees should ask themselveseveryday: what have I done in order toreduce costs when working?

The tricky thing in reducing operational costsis that when doing it, we should not affectour level of quality or our guests’satisfaction.

INCREASEVALUE

REDUCECOSTS

We all agree about how important learningis, but when we refer to organizationallearning the concept is not very wellunderstood, or if it is, people are skepticalabout it. We learn through our lifeexperience and working. As individuals,maybe we go to Hotel Schools, professionalprograms or specific seminars in which wetruly learn. We learn about techniques,technological advances, methods and tools,management facts, and maybe, fashionablebusiness concepts. This is certainly a part oflearning, but mostly individualized. It is akind of know-what learning: if we lack thisexperience, then we hire the proper personor we get the proper training program tomake up for our ignorance. This approach itshould be enough in certain business, in astable situation of solid profitability, andcertainly still a working solution in manydifferent contexts, but it is not longer asolution in a hyper-competitive businesssituation. In such situation, as we have said,doing the right things is no longer a solution.In that context, in-work learning becomes akey point to improve response in a moreuncertain business world. This type oflearning is more focused on know-howlearning. It means that, we all –not only topmanagement- learn from our jobs,constantly, in order to better respond toexternal challenges.

In-work learning though is not only anindividual process, but a social interactiontoo. And it implies many changes in currenthospitality mind-sets.

Organizational learning it must beestablished, as a core value -if the purposeis to make innovation happening through ouroperations. It should be a declared objective,first of all from Top Management. As ChrisArgyris –a Harvard Business professor-pointed out in his article Learning smartpeople how to learn (1991)- To be able tolearn, is not that easy when we becomespecialist in what we are doing. The termitself means that, as “Masters” we do nothave much room left to improve, let alone toaccept our failures or to question our usedtheories. He says: “Solving problems isimportant to learning, but if learning is topersist in our mind-sets, employees andmanagers won’t advance past a certainpoint. They must also look inward. Theyneed to reflect critically on their ownbehavior, identify the ways they ofteninadvertently contribute to the organization’sproblems, and then change how they act. Inparticular, they must learn how the very waythey go about defining and solving problemscan be a source of problems in its own right.”I would add up that, in order to learn how tolearn, we should be capable to eliminatemany professional biases that we all havedeveloped in our careers.

Individual learning sure is very important, butup to a certain point it is irrelevant if is notshared with the group and constantlyenhanced. It is even more important, if anyhospitality team does apply knowledgesynergies as a whole, instead of asindividuals or department silos. Mostcompanies are full of “islands of Knowledge”.We, as individuals may learn either way,when working –other people learn less-, orin-groups. The fact is that in hospitality

CHAPTER 4:Why is it so important toenhance learning through abetter job performance andreflection? And, how could wedevelop better organizationlearning?

organizations or individual properties, thereis not much organizational learninghappening. Executives are not very concernabout this issue, since organizationallearning implies a dramatic change in thetraditional views. Hospitality managementand organization structures are settledbasically to command and control, andservice workers are there just to providegood service obeying orders. That is all, andlearning it may be reserved to seldompeople.

Through a PDCA (plan-do-act and check)process, learning happens continually if, notonly managers, but also front-line employeesare encouraged to analyzed their jobs.Learning in jobs happens constantly whenservice workers are also responsible tocontribute to job improvement. Learninghappens all of the times when every workeris analyzing how a process could beimproved, or when trying to solve a problemgetting to its roots. Maybe problemsappeared to the surface when analyzing aguest feedback or just by recognizing ahuman mistake.

The process of learning is first individually,that is, the employee reflection about how hecould contribute to improve a workingprocess, maybe by setting new proceduretowards better cost optimization, or with thepurpose to provide more value to guests. Inany case individually learning must be put italso to the service of the group. Indeed,organizational learning happens in-group, asa group of workers together with managersthinking in-group about a problem and itspossible best solution, debating-planning:and thus developing a countermeasure –doing. Then, by putting the plan into action –acting, and monitoring, in order to makefurther adjustments if necessary-checking.

The style of management must also beappropriate to enhance organizationallearning; a particular type of leadership moreconfident in her or himself, but at the sametime humble enough to being able to get ridof a harmful ego. So there is not space forauthoritarian leaders, nor for employees notbeing able to accept higher levels ofresponsibility, and thus being committed withthe company goals and objectives.

It is important to underscore that learn alsofrom our mistakes. There is not innovationprogress happening without falling. Period.As human beings we are fallible, indeed thisfact should be taken into consideration whenmanaging. The tayloristic view, in whichhotel operations standards will be designedon top (planners) and expect to be executedwith a proper training by service workerstogether with managers limits individual andorganizational learning. I agreed that theremust be always a base (standard) to startworking, since there is not possibleimprovement if we do not have a standardthought up at the beginning or to a certainmoment. However, the key point starts whenimprovement and thinking is also a bottom-up process.

To become a learning organization meansbecoming a more adaptive organization to allsorts of problems, customer changes, andmarket evolutions or just to respond tocompetition.

PART II

AN INNOVATIVE THEORY ANDPRACTICE OF HOSPITALITYMANAGEMENT TO BOOSTINNOVATION THROUGHHOSPITALITY OPERATIONS

Collective Management (C-M) is a vision,philosophy, theory and practice method ofworking in hospitality management. Its mainpurpose is to develop a hospitalityorganization that constantly learns andadvances through all working processes.

C-M breaks with the taylorist view inhospitality management. It focuses itspriorities on service workers–and back officeworkers- on improving capabilities; not onlywith the purpose of providing good serviceand better execution of Hotel StandardOperating Procedures, but also to contributeto constantly improving standards byanalyzing the job together with his or hermanagers.

As a result, C-M sees workers as knowledgeworkers, and the hospitality organization, asa knowledge community with a shared visionand values.

C-M's core vision is to provide constantvalue to guests. Innovation and in-worklearning will be two important core purposesin guiding the organization to differentchallenges, such as business uncertaintiesor any kind of problems that are sure, toappear in the future.

The human factor is vital in order to sustaina Collective Management purpose. So, theright employee and management style aretwo basic key points, to make this newparadigm happen: a shift from a maturepractice in hospitality management to aninnovative one.

The Team concept must be extended to allthe business community, as a holisticorganization in which the total is more thanthe sum of its parts. Contrary to the currentview, which implies different departmentteams in a hotel defending their priorities.Every hotel is a unique team pursuing globalgoals and objectives. If it happens that thehotel belongs to a group or chain, then allthe hotel units are part of a wider team, witha common goal of enhancing the companybrand.

Collective Management shares Mintzberg'sthesis and Merge Strategy concept. Thatis, strategies are not only planned inCorporate Offices but also merged in thebottom of organizations. Businessopportunities can arise from unexpectedevents. It is a top management challenge, torecognize these opportunities by unleashinghuman potential and decentralizingorganizations. Maybe an idea welldeveloped by a food & beverage departmentin any hotel could produce results. This idea

Chapter 1:An innovation proposal in Hospitality

Management: “Collective Management”(C-M) Theory and Practice: Introduction

then turned out to be a new profitable sourceof revenues. Such opportunity could beprofitable, not only to that specific hotel, butalso to the whole hotel group if sharing,though becoming a globalized strategy.Merging strategy’s could be seen as aChaos Theory, a theory that proposes thatany action anywhere in the world caninfluence a phenomena elsewhere. Or aButterfly effect, which sets the conceptexpression that, “the flap of a butterfly’swings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas”.To our purpose, Merge strategies shouldlead to many business opportunities.

C-M has not only the intention of making thecompany more competitive through itsoperations (know-how) but also, to share allbest practice and knowledge among theorganization. How could companyknowledge be better shared? How could we,as a whole, create more knowledgesynergies? And what is the best way toshare organizational information such as,know-how, merge strategies, best practices,errors, problems, questions, financialperformance or guest feedback?

The Intranet and I-Community Manager,both are very important in order to removecompany boundaries, to share knowledge, toenhance organizational learning, anddiscover potential opportunities or possiblemerged strategies.

The working method starts with guest´sfeedback. All service employees, -or most ofthem, should ask in the moment of service –and be able to solve problems if so- “how isthe service going?” We may have certainlyother sources of information to obtain guestopinions, such as questionnaires or mysteryguest’s evaluations, yet the most importantsource of information and working action isthe one that is done in the moment ofservice, by service workers. This workingprocess –to ask guest about service in themoment service is happening- should beestablished as a core competence in jobdescriptions. Further information should bein-group analyzed in-group dialogues. Onlyby sharing business issues, such asproblems, relevant information, or strategicopportunities, among workers andmanager’s, individual and group learning ishappening, inasmuch as commitment tobusiness objectives. If we then make alsoworkers and managers responsible to put inaction his o her ideas in-group,organizational knowledge can be boosted.

C-M imports Open-Book Managementideas –concept first coined by John Case in1993. The basis in Open-Book Managementis that the information received byemployees should not only help them dotheir jobs effectively, but help themunderstand how the company is doing as awhole. Financial performance should be alsoshared. Collective Management sharesdetailed financial performance amongcompany employees, applying itstransparency value. Open-BookManagement also leads to a betterperformance to company financialobjectives, such operational costs reductionor better-cost optimization.

This theory and practice of management isdivided in 3 parts, into which we are going togo through.

Part 1: vision-leadership needed, the rightemployee or service worker and the team- itis what I called structural, since in this firstpart we find the bases or foundations of thewhole theory and method. Without this partof management, we wouldn't be able toadvance. We could also say it is thetoughest part.

Part 2. It is a working method. When wehave said that the purpose is to improvejobs, in this part I do propose a way ofworking that I have been putting intopractice.

Part 3. The last part is strategically,because as a consequence of the rest, wemay have merge strategies.

Peter Senge was the first to develop theconcept of “shared vision” in his book TheFifth Discipline. He said that a shared visionis not another management concept but apowerful force if it touches the hart of the

people. It generates a sense ofconnectedness and a shared passion by allbusiness-working activities. There is agreater sense of community and teamworkin a business in which a shared-vision ishappening. Workers' motivation is morepowerful, not being only intrinsic but also akind of transcendent motivation, seldomexperienced in many businesses.

Peter Senge also advised that there isn’torganizational intelligence without anestablished shared vision. A shared visiondiffers from the traditional concept ofcompany vision, because it brings peopletogether into a better way of working. Itdoes not really matter if the vision is firstestablished on top, unless communityworkers do not share it with commitment atall levels.

James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras, in theirarticle Building your company vision(HBR-1996) described the vision as a coreideology: “A core ideology has two parts: (1)Core values are the handful of guidingprinciples by which a company navigates.They require no external justification. Forexample, Disney’s core values ofimagination and wholesomeness stem fromthe founder’s belief that these should benurtured for their own sake, not merely tocapitalize on a business opportunity. Insteadof changing its core values, a great companywill change its markets—seek out differentcustomers—in order to remain true to itscore values. And (2) Core purpose is anorganization’s most fundamental reason forbeing. It reflects people’s idealisticmotivations for doing the company’s work.Disney’s core purpose is to make peoplehappy—not to build theme parks and makecartoons”.

How could we establish then a shared visionor purpose in our concept of Collective

Chapter 2:

The Vision:A sharedVision

Hospitality Management? As it has beenmentioned, the purpose of this newsynthesis in hospitality management is toboost innovation and innovators. Innovationit is above all a process, indeed a socialprocess embedded in most of the workingactivities. Innovators could be all knowledgeservice workers in our organization.

Our core purpose of Collective Managementis to provide more value to our guests. Thus,in order to accomplish that purpose, weshould establish two basic core values: (1)constant learning and (2) innovationthrough our operations while working.

The vision must be first developed on thetop, however is more important to makeemployees and managers being hooked withthat vision.

What does it mean and what does it imply?

Developing a vision to be shared.

The vision: to create a hotel organizationthat seeks innovation providing more valueto guests; and that constantly learns throughits operations, managers and serviceworkers.

Note that the core purpose is to providemore value to our guests, and notprofitability. Profitability is important toshareholders, and certainly a very importantbusiness objective, but making money is apurpose that won’t inspire many workers.Money or profits should be seen as aconsequence of innovation. The customersand searching how to provide value to them,indeed it is a purpose that must engaged toour employees.

So together with guest and listening carefullyto them, we should improve and performbetter.

Also by being very concerned aboutcustomer value and committed to providingit, we may obtain better businessopportunities such discovering consumers’new trends; understanding better theirpurchasing behavior; and how customersare evolving, since there are social,demographical, financial or technologicalevolutions happening all the time.

It is also possible to go further and have anorganization that shares knowledge, projectsand information, among hotels, in order toshare its best practices and mergestrategies.

Leadership and management must betotally blended and both are needed topromote innovation and organizationallearning in hospitality. Leadership must tobe in perfect equilibrium with management.There cannot be real teams without theproper managerial leadership. What’s meantby a real team is a group of people who docollective work with commitment. It’s morethan just cooperate and coordinate betweendepartments. Depending on how leadershipis applied when managing, a very powerful"energy" will take place and permeateeverything. Only those managers that havecreated such teams know what I am talkingabout; this kind of energy manifests day-by-day working in many forms, and constantlyfeeds on itself.

The Hotel General Manager –together withdepartment managers- is the key person todevelop high performance teams. He or shewill enhance learning, encourage jobimprovement and challenge people to getinnovative solutions to different jobproblems –when possible.

Not all styles of management are capable ofdoing so. Indeed, management must comeon board with an appropriate leadership-

style. Our Hotel General Manager must beable to escape from his/her Ego, or at leastto be able to control it, since the finalpurpose is to make innovation happening asa social process, in-group. In this contextthe process of innovating it is seen as ademocratized responsibility among workersthrough constant job improvement. HotelGeneral Managers, together with middlemanagers, they support, not just drive,teams and individuals in their daily work.Equally, they will be considered as the mainsource of energy that ultimately will unleashworkers’ potential. In this way, we shouldplace our GM at the center of everything,and not only on top of a hierarchy. He orshe should be a mirror to everyoneexemplifying norms, values and companybeliefs. In other words, they have to walkthe talk.

Chapter 3:Leadership needed to promoteInnovation and OrganizationalLearning. The Humble and Self-

Confident Boss

Contrary to this style of management andleadership, that constantly boosts companyknowledge, we have the manager who isnot secure enough in his or her strengths.His insecure attitude is normally hiddenbehind an autocratic and authoritarianpersonality that does not accept critics, ordivergent approaches, nor recognizespersonal mistakes. Such a managernormally feels more comfortable within acommand and control style in working.

We may have also the Super Ego person, ornarcissist director, with much selfishnessincapable of empowering workers, honestlylistening, and of course, not willing to"share" leadership. Linda A. Hill and KentLineback pointed it our very clearly in hisbook Being a Boss when they clarified thateffective managers don’t view authority as asource of personal superiority or primarily asa means of satisfying personal needs.Instead, they considered it a tool for helpingothers accomplish something worthwhile. Inshort, they use authority to do useful work,not to serve their own ends.

I do commit with such statement verystrongly. Unfortunately, I cannot say thesame about some bosses I had during mycareer.

There are also many managers that onlyunderstand the concept of managementfrom top-down because they grew andexperienced management in that way; theyhave deep-rooted beliefs. The opposite ofan authoritarian manager is the"democratic" leader, apt to be marked bytolerance and by admission of ignorance, bywillingness to admit that he doesn’t knoweverything. Edwards Deming wrote longtime ago, saying that reason for a kind ofsickness in leadership was such aconsequence of resisting knowledge andlearning; usually directors and managers,

weren't able to question themselves theirprofessional bias. The same is true forpride, which it makes it also difficult forbetter knowledge, since a very prouddirector must be acting and pretending thathe or she has all responses, together withsolutions to all types of problems. Instead ofdoing intelligent things, he prefers to appearintelligent to everyone. At the endeverything is masquerade that underminesmanager’s credibility. Effective managersknow that, within their managerialresponsibilities, they must managethemselves too.

The growth of people capacities is a mainissue in managerial leadership. Indeed,employee's strengths development must beon the mind of all Managers and Directors.Not doing so, will be mismanage. Thegreatest humanistic psychologist, AbrahamMaslow, saw it when he stated "The goodboss or the good leader in most situationsmust have as a psychological prerequisitethe ability to take pleasure in the growth andself-actualization of the people". We shouldtherefore ask ourselves: are we comfortablewhen ideas or initiatives come from thebottom? Do we feel fulfilled when we seeemployees growing and improving workconstantly? Do we trust in people andbelieve in human potential as nature,although some people will surely disappointus in certain moments of our career?

One of the great benefits of coaching is notonly that you help others to improve, yet youalso grow as person and as a manager.

Management and leadership must be bothsides of the same coin. Both are complexsocial processes that we have to situate firstin its context. There may not be a uniquestyle of management, because a specificsituation could define other priorities; wemay find a hotel without proper companyvalues, and with "contaminated" employeesshowing wrong attitudes… Yet our HotelGM must struggle to make changehappening, even though he has to adapthimself to this particular situation. Maybenot having another choice but to apply amore autocratic style. His final goal isfocused on a final behavioral change. Then,as soon as possible, he or she will get rid ofhis provisional carrot and stick method,once the proper values have been instilled.

Management tasks such as controlling,coordinating, budgeting, deeming,evaluating, supervising…are very importanttoo, but not enough if those tasks arecoming alone. Leadership is needed too,and appears in other roles andresponsibilities such as setting a vision andpurpose, and to make this purpose clear tothe whole team. Therefore, the mostimportant roles in leading are: making thisvision shared by everyone; setting valuesand being a model for all workers;enhancing people's strengths and makingweaknesses irrelevant; developing a senseof community and defining or modeling thecompany culture; contributing to solveproblems and place order to apparentchaotic situations; participating in dialogues,moderating and influencing with his or herideas; developing the proper atmosphere tomake a kind of community energyhappening, that will also alienates peopletoward common objectives.

Day-by-day, issue-by-issue… leadershipand management occur also in small thingsand daily working activities. It’s surely not an

easy process being more difficult in practicebecause managers must face manychallenges such as emotional conflicts,since human relationships arefundamentally emotional. Sometimesmanagers, will have to take unpopulardecisions to some members in the interestof the majority; the short-run and long-runare both important in business, and thisrequires trade-offs…Managers -like goodorganization behavioral researchers provedin their field of studies -"do one darn thingafter another".

In my experience, I have to admit also thatimprovisation has occurred very frequently.Iganill Holmberg and Mats Tyrstrup fromStockholm School of Economics, inSweden, pointed out that managerialleadership is an event-driven improvisation.As they say: "The need for everydayleadership emerges constantly since thereare always events that require immediatemanagement action. Much leadership isthus about finding the right solutions for theproblems of the particular moment andmaking sure that the most important andurgent problems are solved so that the workmay continue". That is why there is a veryimportant part of craft and art inmanagement, which balances today'spriorities with tomorrow's vision, and otheropposing forces. We thus have to movethoughtfully and systematically fromplanning, to organizing, to coordinating…tofind ourselves improvising! "However, thegood manager also needs improvisationalskills and stress-coping tools that are notacquired in classrooms or by readingtextbooks. These are the skills and tools theanalytical and conceptual models cannotprovide" –remarked professor StefanTengblad.

Management, above all is neither a sciencenor a profession, it is a practice. Thisproposition means that management is firstrooted in experience. If management isrooted in practice, certainly our hoteldirector and middle managers needexperience, but managerial skills do notimprove beyond a certain point if managersare not flexible enough to adapt themselvesto new situations; feeling comfortable withinthe business and market uncertainties,unexpected events or daily problems.Though, being self-confidence and humbleis equally important. It is key sincemanagement should have a proper attitudeto learn constantly; indeed, learning neverends and it must be considered as acontinuous life process.

Do managers need both brainhemispheres?

Scandinavian researchers in managementbrought to light the "irrational" aspects ofmanagement, such a kind of Complexitytheory; defining complexity as the transitionregion between stability and chaos. Weshould thus consider the importance ofother managerial and leadership skills in amore and more complex business andunpredictable scenario. Tengbladsummarizes management as a field ofpractice saying: "that is probablycharacterized more by stability than chaos;however, managerial stability is not sostrong that one can describe it in terms of astatic and simple order. The exception is theordered management system that may existin highly bureaucratic settings wherefollowing rules takes priority over followingmanagerial directions, and whereorganizations are typically unresponsive toexternal stimuli. Except in perhapsextremely stable environments".

Are then hospitality environments that

stable? The question is: it depends whereyou look. For example, in some areas ofSpain –as in many others in Asia -there is ahyper-competitive situation, which hascommoditized more hotel products andmakes it more complex in order to obtainprofitability.

Is it necessary to develop both hemisphereswhen managing, because of this complexsituation? As Daniel H. Pink has been tellingus. Neurological scientists have confirmedthat our brains have two regions, the leftand right hemispheres. The left side wouldbe more analytical, linear, where literalnessand analysis take place. And the righthemisphere, meanwhile, takes care ofcontext, emotional expression, andsynthesis. A perfect balance in managementto accomplish order, analysis, and control,together with creativity, chaos, vision andsynthesis would be needed. I agree thatthere is not a perfect manager, not along a"super hero" leader -which has been alreadydemystified by Mintzberg- However a goodboss should focus on what has been calledthe "hard" tasks of management- such asanalysis, control, planning a strategy,evaluating, controlling, deeming,discipline…together with the "soft" ones –such as creativity, humanity, passion, vision,empathy, communication…etc.

Maturity thinking or to be mature inbusiness, is a state of mind above all. If anindustry is known as being matured, it isbecause the way of thinking it is trapped inits obsolescent knowledge. Common wiseor Status Quo supposes thus a barrier toescape from that obsolescence knowledge,because the way they used to do things itmay no longer be a guarantee of success.

In Hospitality Collective Management,service employees and back officeemployees are seen as knowledge workers.I do admit it is very difficult to sustain thatdegree of responsibility in all people;certainly there may be persons who do notfeel comfortable within higher levels ofresponsibility. Abraham Maslow reflectedhimself and doubted about how manypeople or what proportion or workingpopulation would actually prefer toparticipate in management decisions, andhow many would prefer not to have anythingto do with them. But he was sure, above all,that human beings would prefer ameaningful work to meaningless work. Healso said that, if work is meaningless, thenlife too comes close to being meaningless.

I am not sure what is thought to be ameaningless work in any specific developingcountry –I have worked in developingcountries and treated employees the same

way as in developed ones. However, I amsure that, up to a point of culturedevelopment, meaningful work means morethan limiting responsibilities, or more thanjust being there obeying orders, unable togrow together with the organization.

Collective management though sees andseeks for knowledge employees, togetherwith management and proper leadership. Iam not talking about super-heroes andsuper-women. I am talking about just thenormal-and-right people to fit in.

What is a knowledge employee?

In my opinion a knowledge employee doesnot necessarily need to have an MBA, oreven a Bachelor's degree. I do not share theelitist way of seeing knowledge in such waythough I certainly do not undervalue thisknowledge. Indeed, we can see hospitalityorganizational groups such as Rezidor. Thishotel group is successfully developingindividuals through its own business school.

What I do see is that every worker, evenwithout an educational career, could be theright person for our purposes. Of course, Iagree that adequate professional educationand training it is very positive to anyhospitality employee.

Chapter 4:Human resources strategy: capacitiesand attitudes required in knowledge

service workers

Service workers such receptionists, barattendants, housekeeping maids, andservice waitresses…they all could bepotential candidates for knowledge serviceworkers, if getting closer to the properattitudes and aptitudes, although in theirlimited spheres of responsibility.

A Knowledge employee in CollectiveManagement then should have or be closeto having the following aptitudes andcapabilities. These attitudes should be alsoconsidered as core values.

1-An attitude to learn constantly

It is the base of a Socratic thinking; to beaware that you won't be able to knoweverything, but you should always seek forknowledge through constant learning.Learning happens all of the times when youare working with the proper attitude.Apprenticeship happens when we are ableto question our mind-sets and usedtheories. It requires enough humility to learnalthough we may be experts in what we aredoing.

2-To be a reflective person when working

More than 2000 years ago the greatConfucius, a Chinese philosopher, teacherand political assessor enhanced work, andmade us aware that working withoutreflecting was a waste of energy and wouldnot contribute to knowledge. The Japanesecall it Hansei and implemented it as a jobresponsibility to assembly workers. It meansthat, when working, we should be trained,and have the proper attitude to get to theroot in job problems, and constantlyquestion how are we doing things working.

3-To be flexible

Like bamboo, it means being able to bendbut not to break. To be flexible doesn'tsuppose renouncing to self-principles, but toaccept other points of view, and self-adaptto new situations. A flexible employee ormanager normally sees things with a widerperspective as a consequence of havingmore information from the Top. If our visionis to provide constant value to guest, anattitude of flexibility is really necessary,since both the customers and the contextchange continuously.

4-To have humility

It was attributed to King Solomon the sayingthat, there where arrogance andhaughtiness appeared, much ignorancehappened. To be humble means to be ableto listen carefully, to respect another'sopinions even if those differ from ours. Aswe have said before, there is not deeplearning without humility. It was the greatpsychoanalyst and philosopher, ErichFromm who said in his book The Art ofloving that being objective meant to useself-reasoning, and that would only bepossible with the proper humble attitude.

5-Ability to work as a part of a team

It means that such person commits with thevalue of solidarity and what means trulyteamwork. He or she will prioritize in workpurposes and objectives. To fit in a teammeans to be able to support others, not tothink in the self but also toward the team.Not everyone is capable of working in ateam. Proper attitudes are needed such ashumility, sense of community, sincerity, andwillingness to accept other opinions or mindsets, even if those differ from ours.

Contrary to these values, selfishness,narcissism, or the Ego person, wont fit inour vision of what a team should be.

6-To have self-confidence

Up to a point of professional expertise, self-confidence arrives naturally. It is veryimportant since being humble it not enoughif self-confidence does not fulfill the otherpart of the balance. We will search forpeople with good expertise, capable ofanalysing the job and contributing to itsimprovement. Thus, having self-confidencein the own professional capacities makes agood base to start for being a knowledgeservice worker. Paradoxically, only theperson with enough self-confidence is moreapt to develop its opposite: humility. Aperson with self-confidence and humility hasthe ability to work without professionalbiases, certainties and prejudices.

7-To be committed

To be committed to the company mission,vision, values, culture, and businessobjectives… Such a person gets hiscommitment from within. Motivation is a finalstage that someone might or might nothave. There are many forms of motivation ordifferent ways to be motivated, but whatmatters here is a more powerful motivationwhich comes from inside every worker,since the atmosphere that management hasproduced should produce this fact.

8-To be sincere

First, be honest with yourself. And this is thehardest part, since such discipline impliesself-knowledge. If this discipline is notpossible for all of us, at least -as ErichFromm reminded us, being able to reflect onhow we do things and how our behaviour is

doing. How authentic can we be? Of course,to be honest with your team colleagues, withyour manager, with company values…

Are these attitudes and capacities veryidealistic, thus unable to accomplish in a bigorganization? No doubt that, not all peoplewould fit into this parameters. However, ifwe start a company with these guidingprinciples, with Top Management firstexample; thus defending, promoting andevaluating toward this guiding principles, wemay have many worker approaching thatlevel. We should take these principles as afinal goal to pursue in order to have fulfilledknowledge service workers. HumanResources though should be totally alignedwith top management and middlemanagement to make this goal possible.

Leonard R. Syles explained to us how tomeasure effectiveness in teams in his 20-year-old book The Working Leader. Byobserving teams in action, he argued, onecould notice certain characteristics thatmade operations more efficient. Highperformance teams, he pointed out, used tomake decisions based on continuous trade-offs between the real needs of individualfunctions and the needs of the well-coordinated system. In this way, all teammembers, he said, were responsive torequests from other team members toconsider modifying their own plans, in orderto take into account the consequences forother functions. These teams were willing toseek out alternative ways of accomplishingtheir objectives in any given crisis situation.Members in these teams provided eachother with as much advance notice aspossible regarding how they wereprogressing with their own assignments,and were less likely to get into trouble. Theyalso provided full and open information toothers.

We have used the term high performanceteam to define those people workingtogether but having a wider view of theirown interest. The contrary is a tunnel vision.If any hotel unit is normally made of differentfunctional departments such as the front-office, house keeping, sales & marketing,food & beverages, maintenance…Thewhole system efficiency will then have to bemeasured by the manner in whichcoordination and communication isconducted towards the company final goals,instead of those of the differentdepartments.

To our purpose these goals are simple:

(1) to provide more value to guests and(2) to make the hotel operations moreefficient at the same time.

High performance teams are thenincentivized to improve both quality andefficiency. Efficiency/quality trade-offs arethe rule in most business operations,especially in a highly competitive market.

Chapter 5:High Performance Teams in

Hospitality

“Adam Smith said that the best result comes from everyone in the group doing what's best for himself. Right?That's what he said, right? (...) Incomplete. Incomplete, okay? Because the best result will come fromeveryone in the group doing what's best for himself… and the group (…) Governing dynamics, gentlemen.Governing dynamics. Adam Smith… was wrong!” Russell Crowe interpreting John Nash in A beautifulmind.

If any company is to be considered as arole mode in this regard, that should beSouthwest Airlines. There are manyreasons to explain Southwest Airlines’competitive advantage since its foundation -in an industry where the exception was tomake profits. Many people would say thatinnovations was the key, but above all whatmade this airline company success was itsculture and high performance teams. JodyHoffer Gittell, in her book The SouthwestAirlines Way, dubbed it as “relationalcoordination”. Relational coordinationresulted in fewer delays, fewer lost luggage,faster turnarounds, and higher employeeproductivity compared to other airlines suchas United, American Airlines or Continental.Organizational factors such as sharedgoals, shared knowledge and mutualrespect contributed substantially to effectivecoordination and, therefore, to quality andefficiency performance.

What is good for the individual is good forthe team. We call it a team because itsmembers share both successes andfailures. We all win as a team, or we all failas a team. We all win when each one of ussucceeds but, at the same time, we allloose if anyone of us fails individually.

Peter Drucker used the term “gang”referring to groups of people callingthemselves a team in many businessesorganizations. There is a big differencebetween what we mean as a highperformance team to what most peoplemay think. Trust, is one key aspect. Trustbetween team colleagues and managers, isthe basic pillar for any good team. A goodteam has also the opportunity to growingtogether, reinforcing its confidence andreliability among team members. If suchtrust is not a part of the equation, we do nothave a team. Instead, we have a group of

individuals –or separate hotel departments -working together but defending its owninterests.Good teams must also share values,conforming the proper hotel culture. Valuessuch as solidarity within the team,confidence, humility, unselfishness, respectfor all members, flexibility and, of course,truthfulness.

A bureaucratic mind-set, much moreconcerned with the status and hierarchies -instead of personal capabilities andattitudes –is a barrier towards developinggood teams. In companies with suchorganizational culture it is usually moreimportant who said something rather thanwhat was said. As oppose, highperformance teams stress the importanceof being part of a “community” andcontribute to developing other coworkersand own ideas. What matters most is notwho came up with a brilliant idea butinstead how can we work, as a team, toimplement that idea. Once we are workingin developing such idea, we will enhanceour individual capabilities and group know-how.

Good teams develop knowledge synergies.Because a good team is more cohesive, itis also more effective. In those workingenvironments, coordination andcommunication among team membershappen more naturally and spontaneously.I am not saying that there is no need formanagement when engaging incoordination or communication. Indeed,leadership is always key. However, thesetasks are completed in a much easier wayin such teams. This is happening becauseall team members share a common visionand company values, hence the work iscarried out in an effortless and smoothermanner.

The opposite is also true and we can seegroups of people in whom there is a lack ofcohesion among team members, andselfishness becomes the rule. In suchteams, even the simplest issue turns out tobe a center of disputes and disagreements.So every working issue, which it's seen assomething normal and easy to handle in agood team, in a bad team, is oftenconsidered as something “not possible,unworkable or unrealistic”.

There is no doubt that time is important ingetting a high degree of cohesiveness. Ashuman beings, we are moved by emotionalrather than rational feelings. There willalways be conflicts among workingcolleagues, because of the task interactionand interdependence within departments.Teams are not in an everlasting calm state.Yet, when strong company values areinternalized by a majority of the teammembers, there is usually no need formanagement in resolving conflictsconstantly. Chris Argyris, ProfessorEmeritus at Harvard Business School, in hiswork about organizational learning, statedthat the difference between a good teamand a bad team is the ability to solveconflicts and discrepancies within itsmembers. I do fully agree with thisstatement, as experience has shown me.

Good teams need their time to grow; day-by-day, issue-by-issue… There is a famoussequence in the movie “Any given Sunday”in which Toni D´Amato, a football coachplayed by Al Pacino, gives a brilliant speechto all team members during the final game.In our day-by-day work, in the small dailytasks, we will encounter many situations towhich the same speech could apply. As afootball team they talk about inches but, inessence, they are talking about the samevalues: solidarity, confidence, respect,

sacrifice to the team, and success, ordefeat, which finally affects the whole team.The coach says: “…inch by inch, play byplay, ´till we´re finished (…) The inches weneed are everywhere around us. On thisteam we fight for that inch (…) you gonnalook at the guy next to you. Look into hiseyes! Now I think you´re gonna see a guywho will go that inch with you. You aregonna see a guy who will sacrifice himselffor this team because he knows when itcomes down to it, your are gonna do thesame for him! That´s a team, gentlemen!And, either we heal, now, as a team, or wewill die as individuals”.

Collective Management in hospitalitybelieves that, in general, the right group ofemployees, together with their managers,should achieve better thinking as a teamthan individually. Collective Managementideas such as guest feedbackmanagement, in-group dialogues, in-action working or mistakes recognitionand sharing, can only happen in verycohesive and high performance teams.

Guest feedback or guest opinion of serviceprovided is fundamental in CollectiveManagement. Continuous workimprovement starts with guests’ feedback,at the time of service. Every service workermust be in charge of asking customers:“how is the service”.

By asking at the time of service, employeesshould also be able to provide an effectivesolution when critical problems occur–atleast provide a provisional solution to anyproblem with the service or with customerdisappointment.

We all know guests' questionnaires or othersystems of obtaining guests information,such as Mystery Guest evaluations or onlinecomments. Indeed, nowadays we have tobe very concerned about our hotel's on-linereputation. However, the problem with thiskind of feedback is that the activity hasalready occurred when analyzing guests'data. Collecting data about hotel

performance and customer’s opinions isnecessary. Guest surveys or additionalreviews in service through a guest’sopinions are very important as a source ofindependent information. Nevertheless,these tools must be seen only ascomplementary information, and not to beconsidered the only method to obtainingfeedback from guests. These traditionalmethods of getting feedback do not usuallyinvolved rank-and-file employees since theyare designed as a source of independentinformation.

In any case, the most important source ofguest feedback always occurs at the time ofservice-by-service workers. Otherwise wewill loose a great opportunity to solveproblems happening at that specificmoment, if not involving service workers inany problem resolution.

Guest’s opinion must also be furtheranalyzed when services are finished.

Chapter 6:

The Methodin Collective Management

1. GUEST FEEDBACK AT THETIME OF SERVICE

A bureaucratic system of collecting guest’sinformation, usually limits analysis andcorrections to managers and HotelDirectors. Hotel staff usually feels apart fromthe whole system because they are not incharge of collecting guest’s feedback.

The truth is that the traditional model ofcollecting guest’s opinions manifests a lackof trust and reliability in hotel workers.Within this tayloristic approach, only topmanagers are supposed to be prepared tohandle guest feedback without committing afraud against the system. Workers are seento be less capable or unreliable of handlingsuch a job.

Contrary to this view in hotel management,Collective Hospitality Management seesguest’s feedback as an opportunity, not onlyin providing good service and solvingguest’s incidents, but also by putting serviceemployees in the center, being consideredto be a cornerstone of the whole system.The main purpose of guest feedback at thetime of service, is then twofold: (1) to makehotel staff more responsible for their jobanalysis through guests opinions, and (2) toshow guests that hotel staff is veryconcerned in providing good service.

Guest’s feedback at the time of serviceworks in this way:

Step One. Getting information inaction: a receptionist, housekeeping maid,or a restaurant waiter will ask how theservice is going when providing his or herservice

Step Two. Recording guest’sinformation: if guest’s response ispositive, then it should be recorded –memorized or immediately recorded, ifemployees are busy attending guests, data

should be recorded as soon as possible todo not forget it -in its appropriate Excelsheet, block notes, piece of paper…

Step Three. First solution if thereare problems: only if guests manifestdisappointments; every worker has to applya solution to that specific problem -anddepending on its nature, asking for help to amanager or Director.

Step Four. Feedback analysis in-group: every week there should be aninterdepartmental meeting betweenmangers and the Hotel Director; analyzingweekly performance, service issues,incidents and employee’s first intervention,and customer’s suggestions. However,before this meeting, department staff,together with mangers, should have held aprevious meeting and should have madetheir first conclusions. This is a pre-reunionbetween operational staff and managers,and it could also be interdepartmental (e.g.kitchen and service staff together withmanagers).What do we analyse? We´d like to receiveand review compliments, but the truth is thatimprovement only happens throughdeviations, that is why we will focusespecially on problems, incidents, and guestsuggestions. Therefore, the unique path toexcellence is the one that constantlyimproves hotel operations within a PDCAworking system and this is done with asense of urgency.

No doubt hotel staff must be very empathicand subtle when asking guests aboutservice. The last thing we would like to haveangry guests because they have beenbothered when asking. The method certainlytrusts in worker's expertise and empathywhen approaching guests. Indeed the wholemethod is based on employee’s confidence.

Collective Hospitality Management expectsevery service knowledge worker, andmanager, to dialogue about every workissue such as guest's feedback, revenueopportunities, procedures, better-costoptimization, competition and so forth.Dialogues, if productive, can boostknowledge and come up with bettersolutions to many types of business issues.

David Bohm introduced the concept statingthat any dialogue can be considered as afree flow of meaning between people incommunication, in the sense of a streamthat flows between banks. These “banks”are understood as representing the variouspoints of view of the participants. Dialoguesare very productive if we are able to respectother people's opinions, even seeing thedialogue itself as a positive action. We couldcertainty learn within a dialogue about manyworking issues, if we respect the basicprinciples within a dialogue.

Dialogues have the goals of exploring withother participants better solutions toproblems, open mind-sets and learning. Indialogues learn from coworkers andmanagers. We wont try to impose our ideas,pretending we may be competing in a sort ofopinion battle; that´s why dialogues differfrom discussions. Through workingdialogues, we will also come up to bettercourses of action.

There are certain rules in order to makedialogues productive: (1) we must allcarefully listen to others, and respect others'

opinions. (2) Often, there is not a unique -orclear- solution to certain work or businessissues. Many problems are unstructured,that is, these problems may have worthwhilesolutions. Which one is then the bestsolution? Through dialogues we will exploreunexpected and unknown scenarios better.(3) In dialogues there are no hierarchies;every worker, together with managers, hashis or her opportunity to be listened to.There is no place for authoritarian people orbosses, nor for workers without enough self-confidence and humility in balance. (4)There must be a moderator with the skills –authority- conducting dialogues. Normally,managers or directors will participate andmoderate these dialogues. (5) We may notalways obtain conclusions from a dialogues;this is very important to understand becausemost of the people think that without aconclusion or final action to all this talking,dialogues could be a waste of time. Workissues don’t always need immediatecourses of action and often dialogues don’tend up with conclusions the first time.Although we may not be conscious of it,there is a learning happening just becauseof the dialogue itself.

Dialogues happen all the time in CollectiveManagement, such as in feedback, costsavings and financial meetings, small andprovisional projects teams, within forums inthe Intranet….

2. ON-DIALOGUES

Great philosophers such as Voltaire andSocrates, or epistemology philosopherssuch as Karl Popper remarked about humanfallibility. As human beings we simplycannot be certain that we did not makemistakes. This principle applies to all cases,and of course, in work and management. Ifwe accept that we might make mistakeswhen working, by recognizing this fallibilityprinciple, we may start developing a workingplace that really learns and advancesthrough errors. Of course, a negligentattitude toward mistakes has no place withinsuch culture. Admitting worker’s mistakeswhen working is not an “open-bar“ ofpermissiveness. We commit errorsnaturally, but we then carefully analyze in-group, trying to learn from every mistake;

we will share them with everyone –if wemay consider that certain mistakes couldhappen elsewhere.

Admitting errors is necessary to improvejobs. Equally, there is no innovation processhappening without admitting errors, becauseinnovation occurs basically through a trial-and-error method. Contrary to this view, wehave the hotel organizations thatunrealistically don´t admit errors; this type ofbelief thinks that by punishing every error,managers will avoid future mistakes. Butreality shows that everyone is hiding theerror, and such attitude neither permitsbetter learning nor job improvement.

3. ADMITTING WORKINGERRORS

4. IN ACTION WORKING

In-action working means that we surelyadvance further and better by doing –together with analysis. It reflects the PDCAprinciple explained in the previous chapter,how could innovation happen throughcontinuous job improvement. It is a kaizenattitude, in which action-improvementhappens all of the time; doing and planningshould be totally blended, because most ofworkers, and managers should reflectcontinuously in their jobs. But basicallybecause when we are implementing

countermeasures, or developing ideas, weshould apply constant analysis.

Although within a culture in which too muchaction may cause more errors, what mattersmost is not to loose workers' initiatives or asense of urgency when working. A sense ofurgency it is a kind of non-conformist statein which employees try to improve thingsconstantly, and its the opposite ofcomplacency.

As professor John Kotter pointed out, trueurgency focuses on critical issues, andenergizes to action, but it is not a state ofanxiety, or fear.

In-action means that we put ideas andconclusions into testing, but above all weclosely monitor and analyze results. Wemay ask ourselves: Is this course of actionimprovement working? Or, Is this newservice offering value to guests and

revenues to the company? Is it alsoprofitable? Do we have to make furtheradjustments? Or, do we better give up thatcourse of action? Could we save costs byre-thinking this procedure and how could itaffect guests?… In-action means doing,analyzing and constantly learning. It isRichard Branson's life and workingphilosophy: “Just do it! “.

FEEDBACK

ON DIALOGUES &ADMITTING ERRORS

FEEDBACK ANALIZINGAND LEARNING

IF PROBLEMS- FIRSTEMPLOYEE RESOLUTION

DIRECTOR AND MIDDLEMANAGERS MEETING

DEPARTMENT MEETING

Open-Book-Management (OBM) is an ideadeveloped by John Case (1993) and furtherdeveloped by Jack Stack (1997) that sharesand makes available financial informationthroughout the business and beyondmanagers, to bottom line employees. Bygiving financial data, and detailedaccounting information, we should expectmore commitment to improving financialresults and better employee contribution.

Stack set out three basic rules: (1) Knowand teach the rules: every employee shouldbe given the measures of business successand taught to understand them, (2) Followup the Action & Keep Score: Everyemployee should be expected and enabledto use their knowledge to improveperformance, (3) Provide a Stake in theOutcome: Every employee should have adirect stake in the company's success-andin the risk of failure.

How is OBM implemented in ourCollective method of HospitalityManagement? And how domanagers together withoperational employees applythis method?

Collective Hospitality Management sees

cost saving as everyone’s duty. Theresponsibility for saving costs or makingcosts more efficient lies with all workers. Ofcourse, within its sphere of action, it’sobvious that managers must have moreaccountability than bottom-line employees.

In this sense, General Managers, musthave the primary responsibility. Therefore,we could develop an organizationcommitted to analysing costs and makingthem more effective, when such a taskbecomes part of the responsibility and theaccountability of every job description.

Edward Deming viewed it this way when hedeveloped his TQM system a long time ago.He said that if every worker werecommitted, even in his small work sphere, tocontributing to costs reduction, then costsavings would be boosted; maybe a groupof workers would be very proud just saving$500 as a consequence of a new workimprovement. The assumption is: manysavings, even smaller ones, can add up to avery large number.

Chapter 7:Open Book Management

HOW TO SHARE FINANCIAL OBJECTIVES TO ALL EMPLOYEES BY

MAKING COST REDUCTION AN OBJECTIVE TO BE SHARED

A case study applied in a 5stars hotel, with 160 roomswith two restaurants andconvention facilities

Collective Management in this hotel appliedan Open Book Management practice anddeveloped a customized method in order toopen up responsibilities, skills andcommitment to saving costs or increasingrevenues. The method has the followingparts: (1) financial knowledge andcommitment, (2) control and monitoring –Cost savings Balance Score Card- and (3)initiative.

1. Financial knowledge and commitment:

This implies a basic knowledge of cost-accounting principles, also an in-depthknowledge of costs within its department.The method must start first with allmanagers, but it has to go beyond themanagerial levels. No doubt that allmanagers must be the first example tofollow -in skills and commitment.

Hotel management and Top Managementwill set up a monthly reunion in which everyfinancial issue will be carefully talkedthrough: Costs Saving Balance Score Card,Budgeting, monthly results, quarterlyfinancial reports, possible variances,unexpected results…

Based on my personal experience weshould involve bottom line employees,together with mangers. Thus, in order tokeep the group of participants to amanageable size, we should provideassistance, rotating within rank-and-fileemployees. Such meetings shouldn’t havemore than 18 to 25 people. Thus, we shareda lot of financial information in those

reunions basically with two purposes: (1) toimprove knowledge and financial skills, (2)to encourage a greater sense ofcommitment among members that results insaving costs once they start realizing thattheir contributions are producing results thatcan be measured.

At these meetings we soon benefit fromworkers' and managers' actions beingproduced by enhancing skills. Everyone isaware of every department's financialresults since everyone is sharingperformance information. The purpose thereis to share data, ideas, countermeasures,analysis and enhance organizationalknowledge. Indeed, by sharing this financialinformation we constantly learn, coming upat the same time with better ideas orcourses of action.

For example, the kitchen may be aware thatby improving its practice when using ovens,it could save important amounts of energyconsumption -and money; by using smallerovens for restaurant orders instead of thebigger ones, by pre-heating properly…etc.

This basic action, like the rest, should bealways quantified –estimated cost saving oraccounted, and the quickly registered in theCost Saving Balance Score Card (CS-BSC).What matters most in this meetings is tocome up with short-term results toencourage commitment, though reinforcingthe sense of responsibility and initiativeswithin this working system.

2. Control and Monitor. Cost SavingBalance Score Card (CS-BSC)There is a management deed that says:“anything that is not measurable cannot bemanaged”. I do feel comfortable with thisview, however it must carefully handle,since not all actions can be measured. Howcould you measure the value of a singleworker in guest’s revenues?

Or, how could you measure employee’sdaily efforts in your brand enhancement?Yet, we do have many working activities thatcan be perfectly measured.

Regarding cost saving and better control,we must budget and closely monitor themcontinually. We all know variable costsincrease with revenues, but in the end whatmatters most is profitability.

Cost monitoring and control should be adaily task, first assumed by Hotel GeneralManagers and departmental managers, butthen down to bottom line employees. Howmany workers could we have committed tothat purpose? The answer differs betweenhotels, yet the ideal state focuses on allpeople.

The CS-BSC focuses on these followingactions, saving costs and affecting differentlevels: (1) we could save costs by improvinga service or any working process; (2) wecould save costs with the renewal of apurchasing agreement; (3) we could savecosts by switching to another supplier; and(4) we could save costs by cancelling asupplier's service; for example cancellingoutsourcing service by in-sourcing, or justby eliminating that service. Nevertheless,we have to stress that all actions in savingcosts must always maintain an expectedlevel of quality and service to guests. If wehave re-though a service process and it wasdecided it should be eliminated, maybebecause it is not longer valuable to guestsand increases our costs, the action has tobe closely monitored (guest feedback). Also,in advertising we shouldn’t be satisfied if byreducing costs we have affected our brandor revenues. Advertising has to be bettermeasured within its ROI (return oninvestment)

Under these four actions, bottom-lineemployees should be co-responsible for thefirst one. All service and back office workersare expected to save costs by improving jobprocedures. Managers should be co-responsible for all four activities, and ofcourse, General Managers are in charge ofthe whole system, co-responsible with theCorporate Offices.

How does this Control-Saving-BalanceScore Card work? Hotel Budget and allperformance ratios are on one Excel sheet;and there is a single sheet for eachdepartment with its particular budget. Allunexpected financial results are noted, aswell as financial variations. But what mattermost are all possible actions that are takenand quantified; every action has beenimplemented and how much money isexpected to save the company.

We may have the following example: (1)Sales & Marketing department: advertisingcosts, salaries, office expenses, agenciescommissions, agencies fixed costs,agencies rappels telephone,…(2)Restaurant, banqueting and bars: cost ofbeverages, salaries, staffing agenciessalaries –reinforced service waiters,advertising (cost-shared), telephone,uniforms, utilities (cost-shared), table linen,service-ware such as glassware…(3)Kitchen: food cost, salaries, staffingagencies salaries, utilities (cost-shared),uniforms, kitchen-ware, telephone…(4)Reception: salaries, uniforms, telephone,office expenses, utilities (common-shared)…(5) Housekeeping: bed-linen, mini-barexpenses, salaries, staffing agenciessalaries, telephone, utilities (common-shared), uniforms, flowers, roomstationery…(6) Maintenance: utilities overall,salaries, external maintenance services,maintenance reposition materials...

(7) Administration: salaries, outsourcingservices, utilities (common-shared),telephone…(*) In this context administrationco-lead with Hotel GM the system beingwith an overall responsibility in Cost Savingwith a controller function…(8)…(9)…

3. Initiative

Employee´s initiative is the proof of successin this system. If the working method andcommitment goes beyond directors and

managers with proven results, we couldstart talking about high performanceemployees. Initiative it is shown byencouraging workers to ask themselveswhen working: how can I contribute toimprove working by saving costs?

Against the common wise and traditionalmind-set of management, the strategicprocess is not something that happens onlyat the Corporate Offices; between a groupof directors reasoning and planning aboutthe best strategy, provided by tons ofstrategic data. We all have in mind thatpicture of a strategy planning process inwhich the strategist is thinking, evaluatingfigures, weaknesses, strengths,opportunities, competition, threats, reportsand different strategic scenarios. Althoughthis scene of strategic planning in true in away, strategies can also occur from smalland unexpected events. This sort of strategyis not planned in corporative offices.

Instead as the traditional strategic processcoming from the top, this is a sort of mergestrategy, which comes from the bottom.Henry Mintzberg was the first to demystifymuch of the strategy planning process.Michael Porter developed this strategicprocess in the 80´. Nowadays, strategyplanning has turned out to be only a part ofthe whole strategy process, it should beseen as just a part of the entire process.

Don´t get me wrong, I am not saying thatthere is no need for the strategy to beplanned, and upper management carefully

and thoroughly analyzing and planning inorder to make important business decisions.There are many questions embedded whenplanning any strategy such as, what thebusiness is? Where to invest or where todivest? Where to assign priorities or tobetter allocate company resources? Howare they going to differentiate themselvesfrom the competition? What is going to bethe levels of quality and service they´d liketo offer to guests, what should the visionand the mission be? I am sure that this partof the strategy is really necessary, but wewould be mistaken if we think that´s what it'sall about. The reality is that, strategyplanning is only the 50% of the job.

How is the rest of the strategy developing?Is it also planned by Top Mangers? Notreally, in fact, it could happen at the bottomof the organization, as soon as managersare very concerned with discovering thesetypes of opportunities. Such businessopportunities were unexpected until westarted to go deeper through what at firstsight seemed to be a potential opportunity.

In Collective Hospitality Management itstarts from something small such as a jobimprovement best practice, to becomebigger after it’s been shared.

Chapter 8:

Merge Strategies from UnexpectedOpportunities

Once, it has been proven to be a successand implemented elsewhere we may end upwith a global best practices or even to goingbeyond an become a global strategy.

This small and merge strategy did not comefrom a logical approach, but instead from asudden surprise: “Suddenly, the opportunityis there!” Of course we made thatopportunity happen, the difference is that wenever thought it was going to be thatsuccessful; our knowledge service workersmade it happen. It wasn’t uppermanagement.

Collective Hospitality Management focuseson this type of business opportunity and,indeed, it expects to boost businessopportunities throughout the organization.When I am talking about innovation, andconstant job improvement, above all, I referto merging strategies; by a PDCA process,collecting and analyzing guest information,dialoguing, developing ideas, monitoringand testing what has been thought up in thegroup. Unexpected strategies should comeup in greater numbers than in any traditionalhotel organization, which operates within themore traditional management premises.

Charles Handy reminded us in this bookInside the Organization (1990) that,employees’ job descriptions andspecifications are after all the last tasks toaccomplish when working. But there aremany other tasks beyond job descriptions,which are normally unexpected andtremendously productive for the business, ifworkers initiative gets to them. Managersnever thought about them. The opposite ofthis view of job improvement by workers, isa mechanical and tayloristic hotelorganization that doesn’t unleash humanpotential, because they wont never letworkers step out –enrich or improve- from

their job description. After all, this is whathappens when human capabilities arelimited.

Why should hotel and service workers beless capable of higher performance in theirjobs? Why is innovation only reserved fortechnology or technological industries andseems to be less possible in matureindustries such as ours?

Throughout this entire innovativemanagement thesis in hospitality I haveexplained how we can unleash employeepotential. It is not an easy path, becauseeverything must start with a deep change inmanagers’ mind set. But it could definitelybe a path towards escaping from businessobsolescence. Therefore, the purpose ofthis model in management is to boost Mergestrategies.

One merge strategy could start within themarketing and sales department, in certainhotels; together with reception they havediscovered this business opportunity bylistening to guest feedback and analyzedsing guest information. Or maybe a simplejob process improvement in housekeepinghas been successfully tested, in a hotel inAsia, saving important costs to thedepartment, then implemented everywhereas the best practice or new standard tofollow. Which has started out as an initiativein job improvement saving 4.000€ yearly tothat particular hotel, could ended up saving300.000€ to 75 hotels together. Anotheridea could also have been developed andimplemented within the food & beveragedepartment from a hotel in Madrid. Havingbeen shown to be very profitable, itbecomes a global strategy, because thisnew innovative service could be also veryprofitable to the rest of company.

We do think locally but we act globally withinour strategy process. What usually happensis that service employees often have moreaccurate information about hotel guestsbecause they are dealing with them everyday. Mintzberg pointed out that often,operational employees are really the oneswho are handling strategic informationdirectly from guests. It is all aboutestablishing the proper communicationchannels and methods to make thatinformation arrive to the Corporate Offices.

How are managers analyzing this? How aregetting out from much information thestrategic data?

Since much of the knowledge,communication and information, such astesting projects, are shared also in theIntranet, managers, together with ourIntranet Manager, should also be consciousof promoting best practices and businessopportunities.

Chapter 9:

The Intranet: boosting OrganizationalKnowledge

Within the company Intranet, relevantinformation and knowledge meet. Within thisIntranet Community there are no hierarchieswhen workers participation is happening.The organization Intranet follows Internetand open collaboration principles by beingan organization Community who believesthat openness, transparency, organizationallearning, job improvements and shearing,are key. All these principles and effortsshould also bring us to innovation results; aswell as better company financialperformance.

This vision consists of a knowledgeCommunity better reflected within thisIntranet. Like in every learning organization,knowledge, has to be there for the purposeof be sharing, and taking advantage from it.There is no point in boosting knowledge and

enhancing learning within a hotel group ifcompany know-how cannot be shared andback-fed. What differentiates learningorganization from a more tayloristic orbureaucratic one is basically its know-howknowledge.

The purpose, though, in CollectiveManagement, wouldn’t be accomplished if itdoes not include producing financial resultsfrom al this corporate knowledge. Thismethod of working must take advantagefrom knowledge synergies. Nowadays,technology is also helping us; sincetechnology has removed geographicalboundaries, company knowledge andcommunication can get enormous benefits.However, what matters in the end intechnology is the people who are behind itto make it more effective and productive.

The problem often is that many hotelorganizations overrate technology, becausethey don’t realized that, in the end whatdiffers between good social mediastrategies, or perhaps one CRM softwareprogram and another, is all the people whoare there high performing with theircommitment, creativity and skills. Tools –technology, should be made available forhuman intelligence and no the other wayaround.

How could this Intranet vision work? I haveto confess that this part has never been putit in practice. At the moment, I've come upwith an abstract vision and what should bein my mind. However, the important fact isthat once we got to here in CollectiveManagement, everything else shouldbecome easier; yet the hardest stepinvolves making the vision more clear,boosting the appropriate leadership andknowledge service working, developing realteam sharing values and installing theworking method. Although organizationsmay have started developing their Intranet,it is not going to produce significant resultsuntil the pillars of Collective Managementare well established. They may be using itfor information or communication purposes,still Collective Management knowledgewon’t be maximized until we startdeveloping skills and creating serviceknowledge workers from our service hotelworkers.

Another important question to ask bydeveloping this Intranet knowledgeCommunity system is how could weencourage worker´s participation, but notforgetting, at the same time, servicepriorities and other work issues. After all wehave to admit that before knowledge, theyare service workers and they should beattending to guests as their first

commitment. Should everyone reliable thenbe exposed to that strategic information?Should everyone capable be participating inprojects within the Intranet and beingproductive? Could we free up someemployees –maybe the most capable- toinvest more time-sharing and enrichingknowledge within the Intranet? Or, evenparticipating in organization projects withinhotels through discussion forums. Could weimplant a sort of Google 20% rule byliberating certain people working in-groupprojects within the Intranet?

There must be also a moderator andIntranet leader. This person in charge willlead what’s happening there. Among muchinformation, what ought to be highlighted?Or, what shall we emphasize the most?Who is benefitting from this knowledge?How could we better structure information,participation, clean up, or procedures withinthe Intranet?

I see the Intranet Community Manager (I-CM) a very important and strategic positionwithin the company in CollectiveManagement. After all he or she, will be thegatekeeper and “gate-master” of allcompany knowledge. Participation withinthe Intranet, to be productive, must followcertain rules, so he is the key person to putorder. The whole system wouldn’t workeither way, if top management is not thereencouraging; could we evaluate the qualityof Intranet participation within the jobevaluation performance?

The I-Community Manager must also havea high managerial position if the purpose isboosting and sharing Company knowledge;when the organization gathers “tons” ofinformation from service knowledge workersand hotels.

Now, for the first time, we have oneCorporative department with the purpose oftaking advantage of bottom line workers'knowledge, as opposed to imposingknowledge from the top-to-bottom. Isn´t thiswhat innovation is? This Intranet orCompany knowledge department will thushave as its core mission not only to extractknowledge but also to improve the systemcontinually through the PDCA workingmethod. It should also be reporting directlyto the company CEO. Every hotel GeneralManager should be accountable within hisor her job responsibilities for Intranetparticipation and enhancement. How is hisor her hotel team going to contributing toenhancing the whole system, bothparticipation and company knowledge?

What ought to be part ofCollective Management on theIntranet?

We should be treating the following C-Mtopics:

Every hotel Guest ‘feedback: As wehave seen in the C-M working method,guest´s opinions are first collected by

service workers at the moment of service,and then analysed –first within departmentsand then in an executive meeting. Allconclusions from dialoguing and analysingsuggestions, errors, incidents, improvementor other ideas must come up in a summaryon the Intranet with the purpose of sharingand further discussing it. Since every hoteladvances its working process through aPDCA working system that also focuses onguest´s feedback, all these know-howimprovements or best practices must be onthe Intranet.

Intranet dialogues: If dialogues are veryproductive in company meetings, and theway of getting to better problem solutions,then dialogues must also be reflectingconversation styles on the Intranet. Everyforum discussion must maintain the purposeof dialogues.

In-action –company projects and resultsto get best practices:We constantly putinto action improvements and ideas, but wealso have to thoroughly monitor and adjustwhat has been planned. How are differentideas or hotel projects advancing? Do wehave already proven results? Is any projector working process improvement ready tobe shared as the new standard?shared leadership.

Error sharing: I am aware that his sectioncannot be adopted in most of hotelcompanies. But within CollectiveManagement we share values and vision;as we have mentioned, admitting errors is akey factor to advance. We all improve ourwork by admitting and recognizing errors,we all thoroughly analyse mistakes, andfurther share them in order to get allpossible benefits from them. It would bevery interesting to have a special section forerror analysis and conclusions.

Financial information and advances inCost Saving Balance Score Card fromevery hotel: In our Open-Book-Management working philosophy we shareall financial results and performance withthe purpose of taking all advantage; and,why not to say it, to compete with theappropriate behaviour.

Company processes, work flowcharts: We all recognize the best standard,but C-M purpose is to improve it constantly,and to share it with everyone. What´s the

current working process? Has the bestpractice improved –and be proved withresults- and could it be set as a newstandard?

Vision and values: The whole system, byits participation, must continually enhanceC-M values and vision: team work, sincerity,transparency, commitment, humility, self-confidence, company and individualknowledge, innovation, job improvement,shared leadership.

All human beings prefer meaningful work tomeaningless work. This is much like stressing thehigh human need for a system of values, a system ofunderstanding the world and of making sense out ofit…If work is meaningless then life comes close tobeing meaningless.

AbrahamMaslow