Thinking On Our Feet

In baseball, both batters and pitchers dance with uncertainty, albeit from different angles. The pitcher is trying to fool the batter with an unexpected pitch (curve ball vs. fast ball vs. slider, etc.) in hopes it isn't hit. The batter is improving the skill of how to read the pitcher, the body language and the pitched ball early in flight in hopes making a hit. They work in opposition, each with the goal of triumph over the other.

Alternatively, we can use uncertainty for synergy to reach common goals. We can develop a skill of receiving uncertainty as a gift, something we see or know now, we didn't a moment earlier. The key is to accept it as such, and then use the new trajectory to add something meaningful to the flow. Accept, "Yes", and then add with "And". Yes, and...the roots of improv. Instead of winning, the goal of improv is to keep playing, and to create an interesting change in the process.

Some of the most memorable service exchanges are born from uncertainty and improv. Predictable is boring. Unexpected is interesting. Improv turns the interesting into delight. An artist skilled in seeing a new possibility despite the uncertainty, and then extending the service game to new, unexpected territory is known for thinking on her feet. She creates a pleasant surprise because it wasn't obvious. She can see what others don't, imagine a new possibility and act on it, all in the moment.

Certainty seems comfortable, the logical place to go. And it works with a lot of things, like buying gasoline, taking an airline flight or turning on our computer. But, we can't create unexpected delight from certain. This requires curve balls, and more importantly, a posture of seeking them out. Innkeeping isn't comfortable because it might not work. This is precisely what makes it worth doing, worth dancing with the discomfort, and making it a habit to say "yes, and".

Welcome Home

Hospitality, or innkeeping as I call it, is personal. It's intentionally designed to change a specific person at a certain time. It's a crafted set of actions to make someone feel delighted, as if it was made only for them. We treat them as our guest, not as a customer.

Innkeeping, because of its highly personalized nature, its lack of uniformity,  is very hard to scale, to make available for everyone.  A person is unique. She sees the world differently than another. Innkeeping is our ability to see what she sees and to respond to her specific wants and needs in a specific way. It's a highly curated, bespoke act. And, bespoke by definition is individual.

Of course, it can be done. Innkeeping can be scaled. It begins with seeing our customers as individuals, as guests which we might welcome into our own home. This requires a different posture when we design our systems, technology, processes and our teams. How would we want a good friend to feel at our front door? On the phone? Or, after a service problem?

Innkeeping is hard, really hard. And it's even harder to serve in larger doses to more people. But, if we care enough to do it for one, we've started. We merely need to keep our promise to do it for the next one too.