The next tier in the pyramid contains the 2 very reasons why I have chosen a life in hospitality. Being able to be a part of a team that gets to make peoples days and nights for me is what it is all about! Since high school I have always enjoyed hosting the party more than being in it. The feeling I get when I see our guests laughing, dancing and having the time of their lives in a fun, safe, clean atmosphere, is what I am addicted to and why I am dedicated to seeing through our vision of 1 million people dancing!
Equally as rewarding to seeing our guests laughing and dancing and having the time of their lives, is watching people on our team grow within their roll with us and achieve personal growth within our company or taking what they have learned with us and applying in it to other areas of their lives.
Although our foundation, (bottom 2 levels of our pyramid) is what gives us the opportunity to do business every day, this line item is my personal reason for being in love with what I get to do!
I apologize for the delay, however we have just finished a successful Ski and Snowboard Festival in Whistler that was a ton of fun! Now we’re back to our weekly blog posts.
Back to our Values Pyramid.
The second level is centered by our operating system which is our 100% Participation Program. Our 100% Participation Program is a democratic style of leadership giving every person on our team a weekly voice. When we execute this program with excellence, while putting a smile on the faces of everyone touched by our business, we’ll continue on our path to reaching our goal of one million people dancing.
Surrounding our 100% participation system is respecting the “golden rule” ~ Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. We strongly believe in giving back to our community, as well as being good neighbours.
We take pride in following all the rules to “protect our license” and are proud of the strong relationships we have formed with the local authorities in each town we do business.
With the trust and respect of the local authorities, our neighbours and the communities we operate in, we are able to earn the next level of the pyramid.
Sorry for the delay in reaching out. I just got back from a great trip to Ontario where we had 3 AWESOME Family Events with some great Pub Games that were created by the different Thursday, Friday and Saturday Teams. I’m looking forward to this upcoming week where we will be doing the Whistler Family events.
As promised, I will give a brief explanation of our Values and why each one represents who we are. Everything we do in the company is based on these Values. We hire based on these values, lead based on these values, make partnership with suppliers based on these values and entertain our guests based on these values. The bottom row of the Pyramid represents the foundation which reflects the foundation of our company.
The Foundation of the Company
Integrity/Candid:
Centered in the foundation. Everything that we do and have done has been done with Integrity at the top of mind. Without Integrity we would never be able to earn the trust of those we surround ourselves with. Everything we do in this company is based on doing the right thing, following the rules, and respecting one another as we live by our Mission ‘To put a smile on the faces of everyone touched by our business’. We add Candid to this piece because not only to we do the right thing; we also must be candid with each other so that we stay on track, giving our guests and team mates the experience they deserve on a daily basis.
Resilience:
Also centered in the base of the foundation. As a new business with an ambitious Vision ‘To have one million people dancing around the world at once for a greater cause’, we constantly need to be trying new programs, new systems, new leadership styles, new events and new design. We will obviously strive through due diligence, brainstorming, and learning from one another to get it right as we try new things, however it’s inevitable that at times we will be wrong. When this occurs we need to bounce up, dust ourselves off and try again.
Hardwork/Passion:
Supporting the center of the foundation. We are convinced that Hardwork is impossible without Passion. We believe that to be successful in hospitality, Hardwork is an absolute necessity. For those who love hospitality and are in it because they gain satisfaction by making others happy, tend to not notice how hard they are working because it is their true love and passion.
Positivity/Smiles:
The final corner stone of the foundation. It is important that although we are working hard on a daily basis, that we love what we do and operate with a ‘Can Do’ attitude and have a glass half full approach. Our guests feed off of our team’s energy who are entertaining them. When we take a positive approach to everything that we do, positive energy will radiate from all of us inside and outside of our business. It is this energy that attracts our guests and will have them come back and visit us again and again and again.
In summary, this foundation defines the fundamentals that our company lives by. Without these fundamentals we have no interest in growth or even opening our doors. Next week I look forward to going over the second layer of the Pyramid.
Thank you for your continued feedback and again if you have any videos you’d like me to add to the blog, please forward them.
As a growing company we have been through mostly ups but have also seen our share of downs, particularly going into new communities to do business. Throughout our growth over the past 5 years, what we are most proud of is that we have always stuck to our Values, Mission and Vision! After watching a very inspiring video on Ted Talks featuring John Wooden, we decided to create our own Values Pyramid based on the values that have defined our team. We believe when we lead our businesses with the right values, good things happen and through this we achieve our mission of putting smiles on everyone’s faces. If we achieve our Mission of putting smiles on everyone’s faces, we are convinced that we will achieve our Vision of 1 million people dancing!
Please enjoy the Video this week and the Pyramid. Next week I will define each block of the Values Pyramid that shapes our success.
I grew up with the following quote hanging up on my parent’s wall. The quote was a gift from my uncle Jim to my father and the more I experience life, business in particular, I realize how true it is!
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” ~Calvin Coolidge
Every morning when I work out, I watch videos on whatever it is that I am focusing on in life. I simply type into “google videos” my focus and out come several awesome videos that helps me get motivated on my focus of the day! If I am not learning something, I get bored working out and have a hard time doing it….
I have shared the following video with several of you before and it is my favorite business speech of all time! After reading A.L. Williams books, I liked it even more. If you are looking for a motivating book, pick up his book called The Coach.
Just like the above quote and the attached video sometimes in life we need to stop thinking about it and talking about it and just get out there and get it done, we just need to DO IT!!!
I hope you enjoy the video, have an awesome weekend!
What an awesome week in Ontario. I need to start by thanking James Neil for suggesting that I visit Ontario by day for our family dinners instead of at night when everyone is busy doing their jobs!
For the past 5 years I have always visited the party but because everyone was busy working, I had a hard time getting to know anybody.
This month we had our third family dinner event where we all met for an hour and a half and discussed bizz and then had dinner and did an event. (Hamilton, we will get an event next month)
I wanted to thank everyone for all of their insight into WHAT we do, HOW we do it and WHY we do it. I will not send out a new video this week but I want to re post the Simon Sinek video I posted several weeks ago for you to enjoy.
Not only did I get to know everyone better, I got to learn a ton from each meeting. For example, when we discussed what we do, over 50 percent of the group felt people visit us to have a “social experience”. However when we discuss business, our focus seems to be on drink pricing and music. Nobody mentioned that our music and our drink pricing defined us, so why are we talking about it so much???? Of course we will stay focused on having fun sing along music where 90 percent of our guests know 90 percent of the words and we will keep our prices reasonable but obviously we can’t allow for this to define who we THINK we are. Instead we should be discussing more how we can help people “socialize” better!
We also discussed WHY we do what we do and I loved the answers that came in!
As I mentioned to you, the reason WHY I am in love with what I GET to do is because being a part of building a great team for the right reasons and seeing people succeed in our company, makes me Happy! The second reason for my WHY is because seeing our guests having the time of their lives in our venues in a fun, safe, clean environment has become my addiction!
My WHYis to find a way to take the above and spread it around the world and have the proceeds go towards local, national and global causes. This has turned into our companies vision statement, “To have 1 million people dancing in our venues at once for a greater cause!”
As mentioned, throwing 1 party with 400 people is an art and to create 2500 parties with 1 million people dancing is a science and this is what we are constantly working on!
Some of your awesome why’s for being on our team were:
+ because it’s fun.
+ because it makes us happy to make others happy.
+ for the education.
+ a social choice.
+ best of both worlds going out and having fun while getting paid to do it!
+ experience in hospitality.
The HOW part of our conversation I found the most interesting. Our HOW is a simple formula which defines our 100 percent participation program:
CS + A + S + CR = 100 percent!
Customer Service: When we poled the teams, the feedback was that we operated customer service on a 10 out of 10 level. 100 percent! This nearly brought tears to my eye as all of you were so committed to giving our guests amazing customer service! Doing this is 25 percent of the equation and I was unbelievably excited to hear all of the amazing examples of what each of you do to go above and beyond to make our guests day!
Atmosphere: Thank you for all of the wonderful feedback. We seem to be around 85 percent in this category! We are committed to get this to 100 percent and I want to say thank you to all teams for your participation on the tools audit. Every team had over 80 percent participation which is unbelievable!
Sales: The third part of our equation “sales” brought up some terrific dialog around price. It was interesting to hear how many people felt it was important for us to be priced “lower” until we discussed it…. We challenged lower pricing by asking what crowd lower pricing would attract and the result of the discussion was that lower pricing would not attract the guests we were looking for.
Although cheap drinks is a business model several businesses use, it does not align with our Values. The people who want cheap drinks typically pre binge drink at home, create problems in our rooms, over consume in our rooms and do not buy drinks or want to pay cover charge… Plus, when we discussed WHAT we were, nobody defined us as a place to go have cheap drinks….
I felt that this part of the dialog was awesome as many members understood better who we are and why we price ourselves the way we do!
Community Relations: The fourth piece we discussed was our Community relations! We had awesome conversation around this! The teams have learned how to leverage the opportunity of going out into the community and meeting people they want to meet by inviting them in to the London Tap House! Of course this part of the business can be a daunting task but I was wonderfully impressed with everyone’s attitude on getting the fourth part of our equation perfect!
The biggest thing I have learned through all of this is that although we understand our recipe for guaranteed success! (CS+A+S+CR= 100 percent!) Just like we know 2+2=4. We have learned that the only way the formula works is that if we have an awesome team who believes in it, who cares about it and executes it with a smile!
Now that we have found the recipe of success, it is my full time job to ensure we have the tools and the program to create the best jobs on earth so that all of us can execute the 100 percent program at a 100 percent level with a smile!
I am excited to meet with our whistler teams to further discuss WHATwe do, HOW we do it and WHY? Let’s have an awesome weekend and help people get “social”!
70% of our Leadership Team has been developed from within our organization. Out of that 70%, 100% of the leaders came to us through our Captains program since it has been in place. As many of you know, I started out throwing parties in my parents’ garage and then university before making my way through the bar business from Host to Busser to Porter to Bartender to AGM to GM to VP to President of our company. The hospitality industry, and this company, has taught me a ton and given me the opportunity to be a leader and to continue to develop! I have always believed that if I am not developing as a person or growing in what I am doing that I am wasting my time and the teams time I am working with. Seeing others develop in our company and take on Captain roles or management roles have always been one of the most rewarding things to see happen! Getting letters or e-mails from people who have worked with us and then gone on to become leaders of other hospitality businesses, lawyers, engineers and doctors, real estate agents etc. stating how much they learned with our company and from within our industry has given me equal satisfaction! As long as I am in leading this company, growing leaders from within will be a priority!
Our companies vision is to have 1 million people dancing throughout our venues at once for a greater cause and to do that we must in my opinion have an expectation that everyone who we get to work with is a leader! This is why our company has created the 100% Participation program. Our goal with it is to give everyone on every team a voice every week and to create clear opportunities for those looking to step up in our company to take on a Captain’s role and own a night! Once Captains have proven themselves in their role, AGM and GM and Executive Team opportunities will open up! We rotate people through our Customer Service Associate roles and Atmosphere Associate roles to teach what we believe is important in atmosphere management and customer service but more importantly learn what YOU believe is important in customer service and atmosphere management! What we do inside our businesses as leaders is important but what we learn to do outside of our businesses separates the good leaders from the excellent leaders! In sports the teams who work the hardest off the ice, court or field are the teams that win, the players who do the same are the ones who personally succeed. This week I have included a video of some of my favourite leadership quotes that I hope you enjoy!
What a great week! Sunshine in Whistler in February is Magical! That plus an awesome trip to Ontario to visit our London, Hamilton and Toronto Businesses.
Since we have done our 1st Family Dinner event in Ontario I feel like I have been given a new lease on life and I am back on the team as opposed to being an outsider peaking in from time to time! I am excited to do the second Family dinner event on the 27th through 29th in Ontario and do our first Family Dinner/Breakfast events in Whistler, the first week of March. We have handed out The Strength Based Leadership books to everyone in Ontario and Thank You for sharing your results with the team! I have also received several nice e-mails about people experiences with the book which is awesome! Team Whistler will receive your books at our Family Event in March!
This week I have included one of my most favorite videos EVER! I have always loved what we do, because we get to make people’s days the second they walk in our door. We get to act as the American Jackalope to each other and all of our guests!
Remember our product is made up of 2 things. AMAZING CUSTOMER SERVICE and awesome ATMOSPHERE!! Check out this video. Most of you have you have probably seen it, however, it’s a reminder of how to get creative putting a smile on the faces of everyone touched by our business, while still getting the proper message across!
