One would expect to find differences in hospitality staples like front-desk greetings and breakfast menus when traveling from the Marriott property in Akron to its counterpart in Tokyo, Japan.
In Fairlawn, smiles and waffles are served counterpoint to the bows and miso soup served up in Tokyo. But beyond the cultural accommodations, one notices more parallels than differences in the basic management principles practiced at both hotels.
According to Akira Suzuki, vice president of marketing for Marriott Japan, and Jolene Robinson, manager of the Montrose Courtyard Marriott, the formula for a hospitality business’ success is based on obsession with the root cause of guest satisfaction: employee satisfaction. In Tokyo, Suzuki says, “our people in the company must be happy first, otherwise they cannot do a good job for the customer.”
Thousands of miles away, Robinson independently mirrors this approach, observing, “If you have happy employees, you have happy guests.”
For these operations, employee spirit is directly impacted by managers who are hired and promoted on their ability to win respect through collaborative, not hierarchical, decision-making.
In the Japanese Marriott operations, managers practice nemawashi, in which they talk to key staff to gain informal understanding and agreement prior to a formal decision-making meeting. Managers wanting to change staff uniforms allow that decision to evolve through conversations between staff and department managers.
Formal decisions become the logical endorsement of consensus organically cultivated in a team environment.
In Montrose, the decision-making practice is equally collaborative. Robinson says that continuous employee inclusion is necessary.
“Because they interact with guests more than managers do, employees know better what guests’ wants and needs are,” she says.
The consistency of attention to detail within each hotel is not subtle.
“You want guests to experience the same all the time,” says Robinson, even in details such as where a towel is placed in a room. According to Suzuki, training is the key to consistency — something honored by managers in both operations as they practice managing by walking around.
Marriott managers, according to Suzuki, strive daily to blend the best of Japanese-style hospitality management practices with the American-based Marriott approach. Employees are treated as family, and managers “have to be respected as a human being in order to be effective.”
Robinson shares similar sentiments, in an environment in which “people have to love the business” in order to be successful.
Perhaps the principles of consistent service and the leadership rigor required to sustain it are more universal than we would expect. Jack Ricchiuto is a management consultant and author, who recently returned from a working vacation in Tokyo. He can be reached through his Web site at www.newpossibilities.net.
