Preemptive, precautious and precarious protocols
Mind your Ps and Qs (36)
When visitors venture into the unknown, peace-of-mind is challenged, especially when outrage, fear and novelty get amplified and foment instability. This can be problematic as travelers and tourists become far more cautious, selective, and prudent in their choice of destination, how they interact and conduct themselves…with growing numbers reluctant to travel internationally, staying closer to home, comfortable with what`s safe, familiar and reliable. To a point at which tourism become the thermometer of global insecurity
As leaders, managers, marketers, and communicators, the concerns that also worry us are those related to employees and citizens whose social, economic and emotional needs are becoming depleted rather than fortified.
Concerns and frustrations also being expressed through strikes or protests due to the deterioration of their communities and cultures, recently expressed by the staff at the Louvre walking off the job. An industry risk in times of high demand that could be managed through an understanding and application of queuing theory.
Our interests, commitments and obligations to those we serve and who serve us are multiplying exponentially. If we hope to attract and protect visitors and those who we are in service to, we must help them predict, prepare, and prevail. It’s no longer a matter of reassurance; we must rectify and resolve in multifaced ways, not just on behalf of our organizations but on behalf of our communities, regions and nations…an undertaking that will require multiple all-hands-on-deck responses.
TROUBLE calls for protocols.
At the outset, in this series of articles, I mentioned how my mother always pestered me: “Mind your Ps and Qs Michael…be curious but diligent in how you conduct yourself…whatever you do in life, do it in good taste, thoughtfully and with propriety…be polite and considerate of others; treat everyone with grace, dignity and respect.” It was advice that has always served me well, especially in those situations in which I had to navigate my own way toward resolution.
Most of us will recall similar lessons from the past, especially those that relate to hospitality: The importance of good manners and etiquette passed on through our parents, families, tribes, religions, schools, and cultures, whether explicitly or implicitly.
For those of us involved in tourism, regardless of capacity, can you even imagine not embracing hospitality as a core philosophy, code of ethics, or edict? Our organizational and community-wide cultures, lacking a sturdy foundational base, would flounder…which invites another question: Without this knowledge, could we expect everyone within our hosting community to know how to behave and act when welcoming and serving visitors? Could or would we be able to hold people responsible and be held accountable for the well-being and safety of visitors and citizens? Unlikely. Indifference to hospitality would be wholly unacceptable and totally at odds or non-compliant with our own foundational qualities as leaders and managers.
I have often wondered: Should the way hospitality is expressed in our organizations and communities differ significantly from hospitality displayed and honored within our homes? I would hope not. Why is it then that some professional hospitality organizations when hiring for attitude don’t respect those who they hire, rule by fiat, and breach their own codes of ethics, when hospitality at home is an expression of love, affection and gratitude?
Wouldn’t it be preferable if hospitality, within in all communities, revolved around the love and respect of others, the pleasures of emotional and sensual connectivity, engagement, friendship, and expressions of affection? Hospitality, generosity and magnanimity over ideology?
Can you imagine hospitableness without banter and the sharing of ideas, stories and gossip? The spreading of joy, whether in meetings or around tables? The grand harmonizer of music and dance that neurologically stimulates our brains and moods? Hospitality that evokes memories, makes memories, and bring us closer together as families, friends, and colleagues, loyal as customers and clients.
Through instinct and intelligence, we`re at our best when we anticipate and personalize. Thinking of how we provide for the needs of our employees and guests who expect us to be prepared…our businesses to be truly welcoming… and based on the occasion, how appropriately and fashionably we present ourselves with style and substance, humor and humanity.
While inwardly and somewhat unpretentiously we hope to charm and impress, hospitality is always about amity, pleasure, courtesy and kindness. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” What matters, really matters, is the human touch.
Profound hospitality endears and ties us to the hope of human flourishing. As an ancient and important ritual with sacred responsibility (with well-established codes of conduct to help facilitate trade, commerce and diplomacy), commercial hospitality has always depended on people like us – leaders, managers, DMOs, and entire hosting communities (what the Greeks would have referred to as “proxenos”) - to implement guidelines that detail what identifies as appropriate behavior that lies between the boundaries of appropriate and inappropriate behavior, particularly when things go awry.
As a starting point, many visitor-serving organizations begin the process by concocting and publishing hospitality protocols – norms, standards, guidelines, procedures, practices, and codes of conduct.
Hilton`s code of conduct, for example, is based on its vision, mission and values – hospitality, integrity, leadership, teamwork, ownership, and the concept of “now”. Intercontinental Hotels is based on a more elaborate exploration of “True Hospitality for Good”. Accor promotes them through encouraging their employees to be “Heartists”.
As countries, India outlines its standards for “safe and honorable tourism”, and the Southern Africa Development Community has its “Protocol on Tourism”. For the industry-at-large, the International Hospitality Institute has developed a code of ethics, as the UNWTO has done more specifically for tourism.
But I wonder, what do these protocols communicate? Affinity or antipathy? Do they serve as tools of reinvigoration or degradation? Are hospitality protocols sufficient in helping inform, train, and develop people or do they serve to condescend?
While there are acknowledged and admirable rationales for codes of conduct, norms, and rules, our job as hosts, leaders and managers goes beyond outlining the basics. We must set the right tone and example, so hospitality can be carefully and lovingly demonstrated, learned, cultivated, and fostered in honest and meaningful ways, throughout our organizations and communities, on a continuing day-to-day basis. Not only is it a matter of mastering civility but also mastering community
According to Danny Meyer of Union Square Restaurants, hospitality doesn`t exist unless it is intentionally designed to be a dialogue, one that makes people feel valued, involved, part of a team, emotionally comfortable and secure. It is not an edict that can simply be imposed and regulated. Rather, hospitality (that differs from customer service and its protocols) must be displayed and behaviorally demonstrated (especially by senior management) in ways that are instructive, helpful and rewarding. It must become a culturally embedded creed and attitude.
Of course, protocols can be important documents and extend beyond outlining and explaining the basic requirements for conveying hospitality. They are put in place to serve and protect people, organizations and communities, as well as inform people how to avoid and respond to disagreements, dangers and disasters.
In this sense, protocols are precautionary with some serving to preemptively avoid perils, endangerment, instability, uncertainty and vulnerability. Protocols ensure that certain rules, practices and procedures are applied in consistent ways with a view to serve guests according to expectations and cultural norms; improving efficiencies and workplace health and safety; ensuring fairness at work, employee and organizational productivity; creating and managing a wide variety of risks or faux pas. All of which should require a high degree of attentiveness, personalized and meaningful micro-interventions.
Certainly, tourism becomes safer when nation states impose border control protocols to regulate movement. They call for travelers to have passports, visas, or other proof of identity, so long as they don`t contravene recommended principles and guidelines for human rights.
Similarly, safety was of utmost concern during COVID when the WTTC proposed Safe Travel protocols. You could also say that the WHO`s health related travel advice led to health and safety advice in hospitality businesses, all of which and more have culminated in a workbook on risk management in tourism, risk management protocols for sustainable tourism, and development of ISO 31000 risk management standards.
Mention of tourism`s dependency on nature requires that our communities become far more attentive to other existential risks that must be managed and the need, for example, to create more immersive regenerative tourism experiences. Recognition that demands we adopt the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action for Tourism and WTTC`s reports on climate action to ensure that our communities-as-destinations aren`t subjected to adverse consequences requiring an undying commitment to destination stewardship.
While tourism in destinations is subjected to a slew of regulations relating to food safety, food waste, fire safety, or accessibility standards for example, let it be said and emphasized: Protocols should posit positivity and encouragement; promote the pursuance of opportunities so long as they don`t expose organizations and communities to unmanageable risks or comprise their long-term viability or profitability. Perhaps it`s time to find out: Do your protocols posit positivity; push or pull people forward or backward?
In the title for this article, you will have noticed that I included the phrase, “precarious protocols”. It is not just the choice of words and how sentences are constructed in protocols that can lead to misinterpretation and constriction of freedom, but how, when, and where protocols are administered, put into practice, upheld and applied or chastised. Witness the current backlash against wokeism, climate policies, DEI & ESG…anti-liberal demonology on the rise. Of course, managers and leaders can be quite arbitrary in this regard, but more recognition should be given to the amount of discretion frequently required, given that contexts and situations can be quite nuanced, evolving, and open to interpretation…as in achieving DEI goals without DEI programs
Whenever protocol infractions occur, many types of choices must be made. Choices that require us to make decisions that are effortful because of the apparent risks and emotional labor involved. While some managers and leaders are rarely on the frontlines interacting with customers and clients, our workforce is. As decision-makers, our employees and hosts are the ones forced to bear the brunt of repercussions and responsibility, not just from customers who may be fleeting, but managers who are overseers.
As managers and leaders, we are quick to complain when others fail to assume or take initiative. Maybe the risks are too high. Now, imagine if our job was to “offer initiative”, if we willingly made the effort to allocate the time and resources to do it well. What might this accomplish? Gratifying work experiences that would help employees achieve their own sense of progress; an improvement in the cognitive and emotional cultures within organizations and communities; and, thereby, the ability to enhance the value of connecting with customer or visitor emotions …a branding and marketing goal.
To succeed hospitality-based protocols require human touch. They need to be carefully designed, explained, and perceived in ways that benefit everyone. In their design it is important to keep protocols simple so that they leave space for flexibility in the way they are implemented. The bigger picture must always be front and center. Protocols are more than guidelines or a set of rules. They operate within systems and have impacts that may have unknown side effects.
Protocols are rarely static; their implementation grows and diverges with time. How they are designed and communicated will influence their deployment, which will have a massive impact on who applies them and how they are used - which in turn affects how they should evolve towards positive hospitably-influenced instruments of guidance reflected in the call and promise to ‘Stand by me’.
