Not a day goes by when I don’t think of Michael O’Grady. I can’t forget the creative ways he coached and mentored so many to new heights. In this series, “Lessons Learned from the Magnificent Manager,” I’ll share my insights, breakthroughs, tools, and techniques, which honor Michael’s legacy of helping others grow and succeed.

fter a rainy trek back over the Canary Wharf Bridge, I found the red-carpeted hallways of the West India Quay London Marriott inexplicably soothing. I’d walked those corridors many times, but this time there was something different—a Shangri-La-esque feeling of warmth, comfort, and calm. This, and so much more, was the result of GM Paul Downing’s unerring passion for innovation.

1 GO CARTLESS
Behind the luxurious sense of silence and space was cartless housekeeping. “It was started at the JW Marriott in Mexico City,” says Paul. “And we used it at the Lisbon Marriott, but I wasn’t totally satisfied. So I sent our resident manager, Nila Schreiber, to Mexico City to check it out. Upon her return, she commissioned a local audiovisual company to design a stainless steel case on wheels for shampoos, conditioners, soaps, stationery, and other collateral. We also purchased plastic holders for cleaning supplies. Now our housekeepers have only three things to carry: a vacuum cleaner, a stainless steel case, and a plastic supply holder. There are no more bellmen and guests fighting their way through a war zone of bulky carts and laundry piles. Gone are corridors riddled with scrapes and paint marks, along with costly rug and wall repairs. And since, in most hotels, carts are placed in front of an open door, housekeepers are vulnerable. Our associates work safely behind locked doors. Furthermore, this approach prevents theft of laptops, iPods, and other guest valuables. Finally, going cartless puts a stop to unwanted nicking of soap, shampoo, pens, and towels from unattended carts. It’s a great system that fosters luxury, safety, security, and costsaving benefits.”

2 THINK COSTUME
“Uniforms make a powerful statement. From the beginning, we decided to create something different,” says Paul. “We wanted uniforms to match the vibrant Canary Wharf’s highly paid, work-hard/play-hard population as well as embrace East London’s history and culture. We worked with a costume designer, then we contacted “Mike the Tailor” from Bangkok to review the designs, show us fabrics, measure each staff member, and create the costumes. We are elated with the results. The doorman’s outfit, a variation on Lord Nelson’s nautical style with its distinctive hat, silk cravat, and tails, creates an amazing first and last impression. Curve Restaurant’s managers wear fitted Italian-style gray suits and black shirts with red-threaded buttonholes. In-room dining servers wear classy Asian-inspired white button-down mandarin-style shirts with burgundy silk waistcoats and black trousers. And, since I’d worked with Mike when I was a director of operations for south and central Asia, I helped him get contracts with other hotels, which cut down on his travel and expense. In the end, we didn’t pay a dollar more for cutting-edge, custom-made uniforms. Rarely does a day go by where we don’t see guests having their pictures taken with our doorman or hear questions like, “How can you afford Armani suits for your restaurant managers?”

3 HIRE WITH CLASS
“When opening a hotel, you may have two or three thousand people to interview,” says Paul. “I wanted to get away from the cattle call approach, so I asked Jo Dowell, our director of human resources, to get creative. She put ads in the local newspapers for each discipline—restaurants, housekeeping, front office—and grouped together smaller departments like engineering and security. To save us time, we contacted the local employment center and had them screen applicants to ensure they had the proper legal documents. Then, rather than have several hundred people wait around in an impersonal auditorium, we rented suites and set up specific times for interviews at the Museum of the Docklands, housed in a late Georgian warehouse. We interviewed candidates behind a backdrop of artifacts of the history of the River Thames from Roman settlement to the recent regeneration of the Docklands. From the get-go, candidates saw us as not just another cookie-cutter hotel, but one focused on local history and culture. And, by creating a class-act hiring process, we set a tone of welcome, warmth, and respect for the opening and beyond.”

4 MAKE TRAINING AN ADVENTURE
With Marriott, we have core training courses, and most hoteliers send their people to places like Leeds, Birmingham, or Manchester. We checked out sending our staff to exotic places like Majorca, Paris, Berlin, and Copenhagen and found that in most cases it doesn’t cost any more since, with easyJet and Ryanair, flights are cheap and hotels are even cheaper than in the U.K. Now, when managers come back after a Seven Habits course in Capri, they’re fired up. They’ve visited a new country and made new contacts. Since our opening chef had not worked outside of the U.K., I wanted him to experience unique trends and authentic cuisines of the Middle East and Asia, so I sent him to Dubai, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Singapore, and New York City. I had him cook five dishes in each country. He told us he learned more on his 26-day trip than he had in the last 10 years. Plus, having for the first time been featured in a magazine and on a TV spot while on tour, he returned pumped and renewed, ready to apply his newfound skills. And we made it happen with a cost-saving round-the-world ticket for less than five thousand dollars. In the end, everyone’s proud. They share their adventures with spouses, partners, kids, and friends. They’re grateful for the experience-ofa- lifetime investment we’ve made in them.

“Paul never stops,” says Jo. “He’s always coming up with weird and wacky ideas. Paul never says ‘no’ or ‘it’s not possible.’ His philosophy is: ‘If it’s right for the guest and right for the associate, we’ll make it happen.’ At first, some people are frightened, but, once they see where he’s coming from, they get excited. Some hotels focus only on the bottom line. Paul spends money in innovative ways, always thinking like an owner and never expecting Marriott to bail him out. His greatest talent is turning the cost of resources, tools, and training into creative investments with extraordinary returns. The proof is in the pudding with our hotel and the London Marriott Regents Park sharing first place for best balanced scorecard based on guest satisfaction, revenue, pull-through profit, market share, and labor turnover for the U.K., Ireland, the Middle East, and Africa.”

Bob, president of Bob Brown Service Solutions, www.bobbrownss.com, pioneered Marriott's Service Excellence Program and has worked with clients such as Disney, Hilton, Morton's of Chicago, Olive Garden, and Red Lobster. He has appeared on the "food Network" and "Hospitality Television" and is author of The Little Brown Book fo Restaurant Success and The Big Brown Book of Manager's Success.
©Bob Brown Service Solutions 2007