Hospitality has been a continuing theme in my life. Sometimes the lack of it is in my face and sometimes I see when I leap in the opposite direction almost automatically. Yet, I feel so strongly about it and care so deeply.
I grew up in a household were grace and charm and welcome were the usual in social situations at home and out in public. Yet, while driving my dad would emotionally show the opposite, often with aggression and danger. This could be the case at home too from time to time. My dad bought a restaurant, a '50s diner, a grill. Almost always everyone was made to feel welcome, that they were a guest. At times he'd fly off the handle, and the mood was anything but welcome.
When I brought friends or neighbors, growing up, I loved to make them feel at home, to accommodate and to serve them. I enjoyed this in my dad's grill also. As a husband along with my wife, I continued to invite family, friends and my chiropractic patients into the house and often out socially. In my practice was an extaordinary standard of accomodation.
Despite a full schedule, I always made room for another. People would get an answered phone at any hour, and I'd usually invite them to come in right away if necessary.
In a new book, Setting the Table,the Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by Danny Meyer, an entrepreneur who opened a restaurant in Manhattan (N.Y.City), with no training or experience in restaurants, and he now operates eleven thriving, famous and honored locations, each a different, imaginative concept.
He says, "hospitality is when something happens FOR you. It's abscent when something happens TO you." He goes on to credit, "understanding the difference between service and hospitality has been the foundation of our success. Service is the technical delivery of a product. Hospitality is how the delivery of that product makes its recipent feel. He continues, "Service is a monologue--we decide how we want to do things and set our own standards for service. Hospitality, on the other hand, is a dialogue. to be on the guest's side requires listening to that person with every sense, following up with a thoughtful, gracious, appropriate response. It requires both great service and great hospitality to rise to the top." The last line in the book about how he wants customers to feel: "This is the place that most makes me feel I've come home."
Other key thoughts: " 'Shared ownership' develops when guests talk about a restaurant as if it was theirs. That sense of affiliation builds trust and invariably leads to repeat business." He suggests, "Err on the side of generosity." And finally, "Wherever your center lies, know it, name it, believe in it. When you cede your core values to someone else it's time to quit."
As I reflected on this distinctive and useful perspective on hospitality, it occured to me to imagine what our lives and this world would be like if this became a standard of behavior and interaction between people in all waks of life,
Posted by drtalsky at October 05, 2006 03:19 PM