Peter Bregman claims that the real secret of “thoroughly excellent” companies is trust — which strikes me as… less than actionable.
More usefully, he explains how Michael Newcombe, general manager of his favorite hotel, the Four Seasons, practices proximity management:
Every month he meets informally with each employee group. No agenda. No speeches. Just conversation. That helps him solve problems: for example, the time guest check-in was being mysteriously delayed.During his meeting with the front desk staff, he learned they were slower than usual in checking in guests because rooms weren’t available. Then, in his meeting with housekeeping staff, someone asked if the hotel was running low on king size sheets. Most CEOs wouldn’t be interested in that question, but Michael asked why. Well, the maid answered, it’s taking us longer to turn over rooms because we have to wait for the sheets. So he kept asking questions to different employee groups until he discovered that one of the dryers was broken and waiting for a custom part. That reduced the number of available sheets. Which slowed down housekeeping. Which reduced room availability. Which delayed guests from checking in.
He fixed the problem in 24 hours. A problem he never would have known about without open communication with all his employees.