Pleasure, pain and play

Mind your Ps and Qs (11)

The anticipation of being on the road again, leaving for destinations of our choice (Abaco, Bahamas) excites.  Once we arrive, it’s up to those in destinations to help visitors meet and exceed their pleasure-seeking expectations, to be sublime,  create delight, collective effervescence and prolong contentment, joy, and happiness.  It’s a tall order, in large part, because the hosting community has responsibility for delivering on all the implied and explicit promises. 

Yet, there are no guarantees:  The outcomes of encounters and experiences cannot be pre-determined; they’re variable, based not only on the elasticity of people’s feelings but our hosts’ understanding of pleasure seeking behavior (its various motives), hedonics, eudaimonia (meaning and self-reflection).  Also on the importance of human comfort and our host’s enthusiasm (or lack of) to commit to, or follow through, on an organization’s or destination’s promise to satisfy and astonish, while being aware of the danger and value of decadence.

To be on their best game, communities-as-destinations need to be invested in creating happy cities, growing and strengthening people’s relationships and emotional attachments, engaging and involving their customers, employees, and citizens, creating loyalty, even building a sense of community, hoping everyone is feeling good, experiencing the ingredients  of satisfaction. 

To do so, closer attention has to be paid to helping leaders and their colleagues manage with their brain in mind, in order to improve and reinforce their social nature, convey optimism rather than pessimism. As mentioned in a prior article, it happens when the human side of leadership is prevalent, when leaders collaborate in empowered networks (not power penetrated that can result in micromanaged destinations) and personally get involved in the pedagogical aspects of skill and competency development.

But it’s not easy. From typical organizational perspectives what’s in play is application of the service profit chain and how to put it to work in the most effective ways possible.  Obviously, leaders and managers in visitor-serving enterprises are expected to have well-established mindsets that are experience and performance-oriented. 

While it’s hopeful to think that they are committed to achieving a truly noble purpose; are curious and open to learning; are well-connected with those they work with and serve; and, are centered in a joyful spirit, it’s the financial metrics, more often than not, that are used to determine whether performance has been achieved (a topic that will be discussed in greater detail at another time).

But careful study of the service-profit chain reveals that profitability is dependent on the extent to which customer, employee and resident satisfaction is synergistically coupled and evidenced through the delivery of `good times`…a finding that dovetails with customer loyalty, though may not always correspond with people’s current state of happiness, which can be measured.

From personal experiences, we’re all aware that breaks in the service-profit chain are inevitable, common, and to be expected.  But, if recovery is to be achieved, and destinations and visitor-serving organizations are to follow a no-excuse approach to ensuring that all stakeholders – visitors, employees and citizens – are to derive pleasure, not pain…create value, not destroy value…it’s essential that the following barriers be breached:

·       An incomplete understanding of host/guest (customer, employee, citizen) feelings and priorities; what they want to achieve; and what they value.  

Notably people’s feelings and priorities can shift and change almost unperceptively and may differ from the mental models or beliefs that we already hold to be true.

·       A lack of alignment around concise specifications of the intended customer/employee/ citizen experiences. 

Too often these experiences are inconsistent, fragmented, or just plain frustrating (Barcelona residents shouting: ¨Tourists go home¨. But it’s known that host/resident/visitor engagement can improve overall quality of experiences  for all by achieving a higher degree of alignment, also exemplified in Barcelona.

·       The existence of processes, technologies, and management practices that get in the way of employees or hosts doing what is right for customers or a community’s citizens. 

These represent significant hurdles for destinations and visitor-serving organizations to overcome.  Despite the heroics of individuals, they can add to the continuance and inconsistencies in the visitor experience.

·       The amount of ‘unwritten rules’ that drive behaviors and decisions that are inconsistent with desired customer experiences. 

Unwritten rules are unique to each organization and tend to occur due to:  Legacy effects, reliance on the prevailing performance (financial and non-financial) metrics, inherent decision-making biases, expectation of cross functional collaborations, and the importance given to acquiring new (while caring for existing) customers.  Unless such rules are identified and addressed, they can get in the way of making improvements to employee/citizenry engagement as a means toward improving the visitor experience – creating pleasure and avoiding pain.

·       Leaders and managers who inadvertently and sometimes purposefully stifle creativity, improvisation and hamper progress.

Employees and hosts on the frontlines are expected to be functionally proficient in their circumscribed job categories.  Jobs that can be emotionally taxing and stressful.  Rarely are they expected to act or think creatively.  

When travelling visitors select their destination with care and anticipate that visits will provide contentment, joy, and happiness…they expect hosting communities and enterprises to respond favorably to their consumptive hedonic requirements.  Requirements that require anticipatory, pleasing, and often creative responses from our hosts. 

Fortunately, we often think of businesses and organizations as serious enterprises in terms of their responsibilities to their shareholders, employees and communities in with they operate.  With so much ambiguity and uncertainty in the world, it is interesting to note how many, out of necessity, are building businesses on the frontlines, improving lives on the frontlines, and seeking novel ways in which to react and respond to adversities (the ‘great resignation’ – ain’t no sunshine when they’re gone) and are in constant pursuit of opportunities (using the power of play in organizational life).

There is no reason why employees as hosts shouldn’t enjoy their work - the employee experience – and have it bring pleasure not pain.  Now, a sense of play may not be obvious or appropriate in all settings, but it can be utilized in various ways to improve engagement; foster a sense of belonging and security; encourage collaboration, conviviality, and creativity; and nudge new behaviors by moving from pathways to sandboxes (in my case beaches).

Play that breaks down entrenched existing social divisions that can insulate people from diverse information, hamper deliberations and undermine a sense of shared reality.  If communities-as-destinations are to prosper, progress, and build community cultures that work, there may be no better way than through proverbial sandboxes (possibly through placemaking activities) – collaborative collision spaces that bring together all stakeholders to develop ideas and design innovative solutions to important local problems.

The core idea:

·       Plurality through play that augments deliberation, annuls pain, and activates pleasure.

·       People believing that they are progressing toward achieving principled purpose.

·       Communities-as-destinations determining their own destinies.