Agility

Agility refers to the ability to act flexibly, actively, adaptively and with initiative in times of change and uncertainty. Only organizations with these basic capabilities can meet the challenges of dynamic competition. The demand for agility originated in the field of production, but is now considered key to competitiveness in services as well.

In stormy waters

Under the slogan "In a good mood", the Seedamm Plaza in Pfäffikon has given trend-setting impetus to the Swiss hotel industry in recent years, not least because it has successfully adapted a quality management system based on the EFQM model to a hotel operation. For this, it was showered with awards, such as winning Switzerland's most important entrepreneurial prize, the ESPRIX Award, in 2010. Today, the trendy and modern four-star hotel with congress and seminar operations faces new challenges in the highly competitive market.

"How can we become more agile?" has become a "question of survival" for Director Peter H. Ernst. With investments in expansion, Seedamm Plaza has become even more attractive, he says, but the size and number of employees has also made the organization more cumbersome. "We have to be more flexible, the weather has become much more uncomfortable, we have much shorter cycles, the customer is becoming more demanding, their needs are changing." Sometimes he feels like a tanker, says Peter H. Ernst. "We have a clear direction, a clear strategy and vision, we want to move forward, we have a port we are aiming for, but we are in very stormy waters."

As a seminar hotel, 75 percent of the Seedamm Plaza's income comes from major customers, especially companies that use the hotel as a training venue for their staff. Here there were noticeable slumps due to the economic crisis. Although the hotel has not lost any customers, cost-cutting is the order of the day everywhere. The company has to react flexibly to this situation. Peter H. Ernst: "We have to put together packages that meet the budgets of our corporate clients. And we have to do everything we can to stay in the conversation." The success formula of "being in a good mood" alone is no longer enough today, he says; innovation and agility are the only ways to master the weather and keep things moving.

Tailoring packages to suit customers

Investments are essential

Lukrezia Brentel, owner of the "Chesa Rosatsch" in Celerina, also confirms this, even for a holiday hotel. However, there are seasonal differences; winter guests, for example, are more loyal and also spend more money. More than in other regions, there are also many wealthy people in the Engadine. To be able to keep up with them, you have to be "simply top", says Brentel. Good cuisine and good service - that's no longer enough. That means investing massively every year. In 2011, for example, in the new conception of the "Restorant Uondas" and now in the renewal of the rooms, because the guest - as in the past - prefers high beds again and also wants everything else to be state-of-the-art. "Responding to guests' needs is a demanding challenge," says Lukrezia Brentel.

Especially with a view to returning guests, says Peter H. Ernst, something should ideally happen every year. The customer should feel and see what's new in his flagship store. For example, the renovation of the parking garage was a necessary evil for the management, but the new parking garage, the colours, the sound system, etc. have brought so many positive guest feedbacks, which nobody had thought. But it shows how important it is for the hotel that the guest expects something.

However, it becomes annoying when larger future projects cannot be realized as planned. In order to offer business and private customers even more experiences and to develop the Seedamm Plaza into a leading venue for events and entertainment, for example, the construction of a large multifunctional hall was a done deal. Although approved, the project has so far failed due to objections.

Peter H. Ernst gives massive vent to his anger about the cut in the company's future planning: "How do I bring agility to the big political decisions? Permits, for example, in order to move forward, I think that's a Swiss problem. If we don't become agile on a large scale, we Swiss will be sewing T-shirts for the Chinese and Indians in 15 years' time."

Several other projects are now planned for the bridging period. This explains event and mar-

The acid test for flexible behaviour

keting Manager Tanja Köppen: "We are leaving the fixed structure of the Seedamm Plaza and taking our services outside." For example, as a catering partner for various external "living dreams".

Be agile to amaze guests

In every hotel business, the basic package has to be right: Service, food, rooms. But the "need to offer something additional and special is becoming increasingly important," says coach and trainer Reto Venzl. The reason: "Today, it is considered normal that everything is good everywhere, and expectations are levelling out accordingly. In order to leave a positive impression, it is therefore important to always provide something new and surprising.

But how can guests really be surprised? Lukrezia Brentel explains: "For example, if it has snowed outside and the guest comes out, his car is standing there cleaned. The surprise is big, he didn't expect that." What comes as a surprise varies depending on the guest segment. For private guests, the staff at Seedamm Plaza have a tool that they can use to create their own surprises: "One of our people picks up that it's someone's birthday, then he goes into the kitchen and makes sure that a cake is presented and sung." But amazing actions are also feasible in the core business, the seminar business. For example, when the chef announces that the kitchen is on strike and he goes into the kitchen with the whole group to cook the intermediate course himself. However, the seminar business with its fixed procedures sets limits to agility and spontaneity, because everything should be coordinated. But when it works, says Peter H. Ernst, it creates a lot of "goodwill".

A real test of flexible behaviour for the service staff always comes when mistakes are made, the guest notices this and complains to the employee. The principle at the Seedamm Plaza is: the employee must find a solution himself without calling his bosses - and preferably in such a way that the customer goes home with a smile at the end. The way a problem is solved without fuss strengthens customer loyalty. It often happens that guests only want to be served by the specialist concerned. The bosses stay out of it, the professionals take matters into their own hands, and that too causes amazement among guests.

Employees are challenged

The examples show: For a hotel business to be truly agile, it needs committed and innovative employees. A high degree of autonomy, i.e. self-determination instead of regimentation and instructions from above, is the prerequisite for this. Guests are constantly interacting with service staff. Compared to other organizations, this is felt much more quickly and directly in the service department, says Lukrezia Bentel: "The fact that the employee at the front desk is friendly and attentive doesn't just happen. We don't buy that, we have to develop and promote that as a company."

Reto Venzl also sees this as an essential task. In many industries, he observes "growing customer demands on hosts, on the people vis-à-vis". Meeting them is becoming an increasingly noticeable central task. At the end of the day, "every single employee is constantly a business card of the company". Getting them to live this from within is the great challenge for the internal management culture and for external specialists.

Tanja Köppen for the Seedamm Plaza states: "Here, the example is very strongly promoted. Even as a child, you learn from your parents. And if the management doesn't set an example and shies away from openly dealing with conflicts, perhaps even deliberately bringing them about, then you can't awaken and expect open cooperation in the company." External training for personality development is out of place, he says: "It has to come out of a certain state of irritation from within the company." This is the only way to promote openness and attentiveness towards guests.

Peter H. Ernst adds: "My tactic is, if there is a conflict, you do a bit more, pour oil on the fire so that it really blazes. I'm not in favor of always balancing things out and talking things up. If you have to put out the fire, you also look for the cause."

Create and manage ideas

Agility involves thinking and acting in terms of options. Ideas, no matter on which level, awaken the potential for positive change. The existing culture of the hotel operation is the linchpin of how changes are proactively realized.

For Ueli Knobel, Food & Beverage Manager at Seedamm Plaza, one of the "most exciting things" in the relationship between guest, supplier and staff is how "ideas for new offers are constantly being created from a large reservoir of ideas". The most recent example: At the suggestion of the wine supplier in the Rioja region, a targeted coordination between food and wine was realized on site together with service and kitchen for the summer offer. And on the other hand, there are the many small inputs from the guests in the restaurants, such as the need for more wine in the open bar: "Here it is important that this request comes quickly via the service staff directly to the management, so that it can be implemented".

The internal feedback culture and quality management ensure short and unbureaucratic channels. Whether via input into the computer system, verbally or in writing: Great importance is attached to rapid feedback and, where possible, rapid implementation.

Another question is how open service staff are to sharing their own ideas and how sensitive they are to guest input. It is not a matter of course in every company that a service employee even goes to a management person or even dares to give feedback from the customer. You have to create platforms, a kind of "think tank" so that employees know they can come, even if the idea is crazy. They have to be listened to and understood, and they have to get an answer, otherwise they won't come back.

The Seedamm Plaza therefore offers a special "creative room". Employees across all hierarchy levels are invited to spend 20 minutes together voluntarily creating ideas for a problem, absolutely informally, i.e. without specifications and protocols. "This is really new territory," says Katharina Müllener, who has been driving quality management at the hotel for years, a "place for organisational learning, where you don't work off something, but which you really use to share experiences together and to work with

place for collaborative learning

each other to find new solutions ". The attraction is that employees can break out of the daily work routine and deal with and think about something across borders without being obliged to do so.

Learning from and with suppliers

A hotel's ability to innovate also includes intensive cooperation with its suppliers. Successful partnership is characterised by the principle: no one wants to rip off the other. Factual discussion and shared perspectives set the tone.

Heinz Brassel: "We want business relationships in which we are open and honest. We have to scold each other openly if something doesn't suit us, and conversely the partner should also call and say what he wants. That's the only way to get on the right track together."

Chef Brassel often meets with his closest suppliers for unofficial meetings and exchanges ideas with them personally about what could be done together. "That's where things can just bubble up, where the simplest, but also the wildest things come about, on both sides," says Brassel. It can happen, for example, that a close delivery partner produces a new spice and herb sauce for the market, which was originally prepared in Brassel's kitchen and met with a "sensational" response from the guests. Heinz Brassel: "I benefit from the fact that I no longer make the sauce myself, can buy in a constant quality and have capacity for other recipes. "In short: a mutually inspiring collaboration ensures flexibility with benefits for both sides.

Open culture of change

The "Creative Space" as well as the improvement tool "Plaza Kick" focus on self-initiative and empowerment, important components of an agile culture for change. At Seedamm Plaza, the management attaches great importance to reducing possible inhibitions on the part of the employees and avoiding any attitude that could be interpreted as paternalism.

Peter H. Ernst is already getting in the mood for this at the information day for new employees, which he personally organizes. Two messages are central for him: He encourages the new employees to contribute everything that bothers them in some way and where they have ideas. And he takes away their fear of making mistakes. You are allowed to make mistakes, but you should learn from them.

Agility is expressed less in what one does, it is part of the essence of an organization. According to Peter H. Ernst, this also includes sensitivity. This is precisely what you can exemplify. If it works, you're on the right track, "fit for long-term customers", so to speak. And: "It is important for the employee to be able to make decisions and to have the scope to do so. Leadership is about ensuring that."

Ueli Knobel emphasized how central the way ideas are implemented is: "When an input comes from an employee, management initiates simplified implementation steps and plays them back to the person concerned, as if he had invented everything himself." When employees can implement their ideas in this way, they also carry them and return the trust that is placed in them.

With regard to quality management, Tanja Köppen concludes: "The moment you give people the opportunity to initiate things, and this is also pursued further, when you enable people to make fully responsible decisions, give them the confidence to do so, take away their fear and take them seriously as 'co-entrepreneurs', at that moment you have taken quality management out of the abstract and brought it into the active and living."

Quality management - not an end in itself

Is a quality management system with defined standards a hindrance or a support for the implementation of agility and flexibility? Do systems like the EFQM model pave the way for becoming more agile? "No," says QM coach Katharina Müllener. As long as QM is rigid and static across hierarchies, it is no longer process-oriented. But if it can be adapted to new situations, i.e. if it is a means to an end, the less it hinders the ability to innovate and can provide important impulses for agility: "At Seedamm Plaza, we have aligned EFQM in such a way that it acts as a central instrument for learning and change," says Müllener.

Peter H. Ernst adds: "Quality management is lived and breathed, we

QM tool for everyday life

don't adapt to the system, don't act according to the system's specifications". Some hotels would define a ready-made process system and then want to work according to it, which simply cannot work. The ISO certificate degenerates into an alibi exercise: "It's different with us. We create first, we hold a process once in rough lines, and then we adapt the process to what we live." During the "spring or autumn clean-up", each department is scrutinized over a two-day audit and compared to see if what is written on paper is really being lived. If not, the necessary corrections are decided upon, which again result in new pending issues. "So it's a permanent process that must never die," says Peter H. Ernst.

For Katharina Müllener it is clear: "We want a learning system. The employees should be encouraged to critically question their processes, should define interfaces and contact points themselves and talk about how to become more efficient and avoid duplications. QM must fit as an instrument for everyday life and support the employees, give them orientation and thus security. We have a defined standard of a service process, and from there we also gain the flexibility to be able to act specifically when the situation requires it."

For Lukrezia Brentel, too, guidelines or a system are absolutely necessary so that the employees feel secure in their work. A quality management like in the Seedamm Plaza is a role model, but hardly achievable in Switzerland again. In the holiday hotel industry, it must also be possible with less. Despite initial scepticism, Brentel has also set up a quality management system: "I wasn't sure whether we needed it, but in the end it has simplified a lot of things for people. And the guests who come to my hotel now also feel that something has been set up with a system."

Limits of agility

Dealing with the flood of online reviews on the Internet left the roundtable rather perplexed. To what extent should one respond to this kind of feedback culture? For Peter H. Ernst, this is "a very important challenge". For Katharina Müllener, it draws "the boundaries of an organization in terms of agility". The seriousness of giving feedback in the interest of the company easily becomes "a game in which the company is on the outside". And Lukrezia Brentel sees "a social problem: thumbs up and thumbs down, we're right in the middle of it."

For Reto Venzl, the central challenge is that one has no direct influence on who writes what about a hotel. "Therefore, it is crucial that the customer proximity is great and the guest feedback system is diverse, so that the mood of the customer is already recognised on site and picked up in an appropriate way. This way, if a guest is not satisfied with something, he goes directly to the person in charge. But if I'm not even asked whether and how I was satisfied, and I had a problem, then the criticism is simply deposited in a portal."

Tanja Köppen says: "Agility is also about the law of action. You can't become the plaything of a mass of information that you can't grasp. You can only make it in the end by trying to be open and truthful. Truth always stings. That's also true of online portals, the Internet, and all the reviews."

In this respect, a hotel like the Seedamm Plaza could actually take a more relaxed approach. As the agile and flexible action of the service staff in case of guest complaints shows, the intensive and unbureaucratic exchange with the customers can contribute a lot to relieve this problem.

Conclusion

Agility depends strongly on the corporate culture, on the basic understanding of what leeway one has, how appreciatively one deals with each other internally and with the customers. Agility and flexibility are neither a technique nor a program; they result as a puzzle from many small actions and behaviors that must interact. Every detail is important and brings the organization a few steps forward. Above all, it is important to understand and actively promote what is essential, namely the culture of collaboration behind agility.