I’m at a camp on Catalina Island. I’ve been here before and it’s been great. I did not realize how great until the managment changed. The competence and care is gone. Or, at least resembles swiss cheese. It’s almost like the heart has gone out of the place.
And I realize now that it was the culture that the previous owners cultivated over many years that made the experience here so good. It wasn’t customer service exactly, it wasn’t fancy, it was more of an understanding of their customers needs, and simply knowing their business – managing and feeding large groups of campers; maintaining the right balance between control and freedom, providing and managing recreational equipment, and creating an attractive work environment that kept seasoned employees coming back and somehow managed to pull in right kind of new talent during the seasonal bubble.
The new owners seem less tuned in, the employees seem like they are making it up as they go. I guess because they are. The old systems and processes and rules (cultural knowledge) and hiring methods are all gone, not passed on with the sale of the amazing location and rustic fixtures. The seasoned staff of old is no more, the esprit de corp is missing in action. and it’s a little sad.
It all just makes me realize that culture and feel – how we go about things and how tuned in we are to the customers needs makes a huge difference in the perception of value derived/delivered. Good teams know the customers needs perhaps better than the customers themselves.
There are a couple solutions in this case . One would be to turn back time, learn from the previous team, obtain not just the property but also the knowledge and culture that suceeded over decades. Ok, probably more of a hindsight wish than an actual option. The second more viable option is to ask the current customers where the gaps are. If they asked me, I would say – make the coffee station actially have some coffee!
Hold some conversations with your audience/customer, do a plus delta; ask what went well ? What could have been better?
Culture worth emulating takes time to cultivate. Good leaders find ways to manifest and cultivate a culture that is competant; and knows more about the clients needs than the client does, and attracts the right mix of people that maintain the systems that work.
Paying attention to and consciously cultivating a culture of competence, understanding of customer needs, and satisfied/good-fit staff are leadership habits that would well serve us all, especially the new owners of this Catalina camp.
Ben Wagner (237)
Member The365Commitment
