Did you ever ask yourself why we make the most mistakes when the occupancy is low and operations are quiet, or why our service scores are falling down during the slow weeks of the year?

It’s December and we are fully committed with no rooms left to sell, every guest is paying rack rate, and the guest expectations are the highest of the year. Yet everything seems to be falling into place, operations are mostly smooth (exceptions proof the rule as always), and our guest satisfaction index goes up.

How is it possible that we do better when we have less time and resources at hand and are expected to do more compared to when we seem to have all the time in the world and people standing around only waiting to serve a guest?

The answer is simple! When we are busy, we are in the zone, bring our A game, and are on edge. It’s when we are slow and not on edge that we start making mistakes. This phenomenon is most visible during the holidays when most of our guests are not on business, but are traveling with their families at their own expenses (not their companies’) and have high expectations. Our guests are in the holiday mood, and unfortunately so are we, we are tempted to take it easy and lose focus.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So your job as a leader while encouraging the festival feelings of the holidays is to keep your team focused and on edge. I always go with mixed feelings into the holidays knowing that we will struggle again accomplishing only the basics that were coming so effortlessly just a moment ago.

Question: How can you keep your team focused and on edge?