Focusing on Purpose

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company is known for extraordinary elegance and world-class customer service. Winner of two Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards, it achieved distinction not just through great quality but consistently great quality—across all eighty-plus hotels in over twenty-five countries. A key part of the Ritz-Carlton consistency comes through a clear vision: “We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.” Every employee from property general manager to housekeeper is clear on that vision as well as its specific implications for their role.

As clear and powerful as their vision is—and the twenty customer-service practices that accompany it—it is useless unless it is kept alive and fresh. It becomes no more than a clever billfold-sized, trifold, laminated card unless it serves as the grounding and touchstone for every action and all decisions. When Ritz-Carlton employees do “line-up”—a ten-minute stand-up meeting in every department at every shift change—it includes an articulation of “what we learned today that would impact our guests’ experience tomorrow.” Learning is tied to purpose. Every new employee orientation begins with the vision and values, not with policies and procedures.

Nordstrom is another company that uses its employee empowerment policy—“Use your good judgment in all situations”—as the basis for many of their learning programs. “Learning at Nordstrom,” says one department manager at their flagship store in downtown Seattle, “is all aimed at helping associates think like owners. Good judgment comes from good know-how.” Springfield ReManufacturing goes a step further. Employees are taught business literacy skills. “We want our employees to know the skills needed to run their jobs just like it was their own business. If they don’t know the impact of their everyday decisions on the profitability of the business, how can we expect them to not be wasteful or inefficient?” says CEO Jack Stack.¹