Don't be so serious...

I remember the first time I saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail – very British and totally irreverent… comedy with a message. I loved Cleese’s corporate training films which were spoofs about service mistakes that made employees laugh while learning what not to do. Those were the first training films that used comedy to get a service message across. Around that time, I saw a table games pit at Harrah’s where the employees were allowed to dress up and have fun – an interesting blend of gaming and entertainment. It was lightly scripted, and the dealers were allowed to have fun with their customers. When we opened Bellagio, we allowed departments to build fun and games into their job training – teaching new employees how to do the job while encouraging them to have fun… job training together with team building. We often get too serious at work, stressing policies and stressing out employees – it’s hard then to ask and get them to smile and have fun with customers. If you want employees to smile, smile at them. If you want them to have a good time, have good times with them. Don’t take yourself too seriously – a little self-deprecating humor goes a long way. Make work fun today.

 

John Cleese (born 1939): English actor, comedian, screenwriter, producer, and presenter.

Learn more about this very funny guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cleese

Keep an eye out for excellence...

In Search of Excellence was published just as I started in the gaming industry and its impact carried through pretty much my entire career there. Excellence became the standard for everything – in strategic planning, goal setting, daily operations, group dynamics, and individual performance. Before that, good was good enough; after, good was measured by organizational effectiveness and whether business problems were solved by empowering decision-makers at multiple levels of a company. No more top-down management. Like many companies, we started rethinking how businesses ran, how managers managed, and results were measured.  With this, we began to focus on the performance of employees at all levels and how they contributed to organization’s performance. Employee relations strategies evolved – working on treating employees fairly; companies focused on workplace culture – making it a good place to work; and employee satisfaction became the basis of customer satisfaction – happy employees made happy customers. We celebrated what we wanted to see more of – that was the impetus for catching employees doing things right - it became the way we managed. Much has changed in the world and industry since then, but excellence endures – it still revolves around how we treat employees. Find ways to celebrate what you want to see more of today.

 

Thomas J. Peters (born 1942): American writer on business-management practices, became best-known for his 1982 book In Search of Excellence (co-authored with Robert H. Waterman Jr.)

Learn to become an effective communicator: it'll make all the difference...

When I was growing up, Lee Iaccoca was a larger than life auto industry executive – we were into cars, and he was producing and pitching some very cool ones. For me, the Ford Mustang and Chrysler minivans represented big changes, and he wasn’t afraid to try them. While he wasn’t the first, he was a standout pitchman for his products in bold ways – “If you can find a better car, buy it”; and “We want only to be the best”. He was clear, straight-forward, and proud – that’s the way leaders should talk. He had brilliant ideas, and he got their messages across – that should be the objective of every leader. Because the difference between a good or bad leader is his or her ability to communicative effectively. Make sure you get your messages across – plan carefully, practice the delivery, and check to see if what your audience heard was what you intended. And another thing that made Iaccoca stand out – he came across as a regular person, unafraid to put his reputation on the line. Making promises and keeping them. Being a positive role model. People like and respect that. Get this right and you’ll be an effective communicator; more importantly, you’ll be a more successful leader today.  

 

Lido Anthony "Lee" Iacocca (1924 – 2019): American author and executive who developed the Mustang, Continental Mark III, and Pinto cars while at the Ford Motor Company in the 1960s, and the K-car and minivan while at the Chrysler Corporation in the 1980s.

Good ideas are worth waiting for...

I’ve told the story here before but feel compelled to tell it again as it relates to determination and perseverance. Many good ideas never make because  they take so long and are hard to see them through to realization. That was almost true with the creative computer ideas I had. It started after the Mirage opening, when we looked back and began talking about what to improve if we had the chance to do another opening. All the manual paperwork and record keeping associated with 55,000 applications and 6000 new employees had been a nightmare to handle and store. There hadn’t been many alternative ways to do that prior to the development of computers, and they were so new back then (in 1989) that no one had thought about using them for something like this. But what little was known about them seemed to suggest this might be impossible. It wasn’t until 1998 that we were able to program computers to handle some of these manual processes, and even then, those solutions were only partial. But it started to look like they might possible. The 2003 planning for the Wynn Las Vegas opening showed that even though computers had not been used for this kind of application, they certainly looked like they could. Two years later, in 2005, all that determination finally resulted in our paperless HR environment, with online applications, self-service applications, and electronic storage of data and forms. I nearly lost heart during those 16 years, but the strength of my dream and the determination of our team kept it going finally made it happen. Whatever your dream, stay determined to make it happen today.

 

Tommy Lasorda (1927 – 2021): American professional baseball pitcher and manager. He managed the Los Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1976 through 1996. 

Blend good parenting and leadership skills: they complement each other...

 

When I was first hired at the Golden Nugget, I was told my title would be “Daddy” – this was in reference to the company’s desire to have managers and supervisors treat employees in much the same way mommies and daddies treat their children. As in: even if you must tell them no, you never stop loving and caring for them; or when dealing with them, both parents must communicate clearly and be consistent in their what they say and how they act; or when they need help, coaching them to discover things and learn to do what’s needed rather than doing it for them; or bringing the family together regularly by getting the family together at the end of the day around the dinner table to discuss things of shared experiences and interests. In essence, being there, caring, communicating, coaching, and being fair and even tempered. The same way we should treat our employees. In both, we guard against giving them answers to remember rather than problems to solve. So, nurture a leadership mindset around practical parenting terms – since all have been children and many are now parents, this can resonate with and inform them in ways they understand. Discuss this with your managers, give them the tools (good policies, training, coaching, and support) to think and act like a parent, and the time to build relationships based on trust and respect with their teams today. 

 

Roger Lewin (born 1944): British prize-winning science writer and author of 20 books.

Do not evade the obvious...

In a listening exercise I often use in workshops, I ask attendees to “try to stand” – invariably they all stand and are chagrined when we point out the instruction was simply to “try”. Cute, but instructive when discussing the importance of listening carefully. My former company’s Interview Policy instructs hiring managers to select ‘accept’ or ‘reject’ only; in this, there isn’t a maybe option – it forces clear thinking which in turn lead to decisions. These are examples of a do, or do not mindset where we must learn to think and decide rather than waffle or prevaricate, defined as an ambiguous or evasive way to avoid committing oneself. My point here is that managers must learn to be unambiguous in their communications and able to commit to definitive actions when supervising. Employees deserve that and, in fact, members of Gen Z (18% of today’s workforce, projected to be 30% in 2030) demand it. It’s good management practice to think in yes or no terms – not in all cases, like those where negotiation and compromise are appropriate, but certainly where and when it’s appropriate. Like in policy definitions, forced-choice decisions, and those times when clarity is important. Start thinking along these lines, practice where appropriate, and discuss the concept with your peeps. When try is not an option, do or do not today.

 

Yoda: A fictional character in the Star Wars franchise. He is a small, green, elderly humanoid alien who is powerful with the Force and typically speaks in an inverted phrase order. He first appeared in the 1980 film The Empire Strikes Back.

Work hard: prove why excellence wins...

For more than 40 years, I’ve seen the best jobs go to the hardest workers. The ones who put everything they’ve got into proving their abilities. Along the way, I’ve heard people complain about how others must have “juice”. In my experience that’s rarely the case, sometimes it happen, but as a former manager I know that people usually get a big job by outgrowing the small one, by showing they’re ready, and diligently proving that to be true by their subsequent performance. Hiring and promoting people isn’t a perfect science – that said, it’s enhanced by a hiring manager training, coaching, and supporting the people they select. That’s teamwork and a commitment to making your peeps successful – what you do after someone’s hired is critically important.  Know what you’re looking for – experience, education, knowledge, skills, and abilities. Ask good technical, situational, and behavioral questions. Assess for fit and attitude. Make an honest and objective decision. And support them as they get started. If you go into selecting someone with good intentions and back that up with good support, everyone wins. Put the right people into the right jobs and help them be successful today.

 

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882):  essayist, lecturer, philosopher, minister, abolitionist, and poet who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century.