What Does an Iconic Hotel look like? Part 1 – The ‘substance’ of a Brand!

The business of hoteliering, perhaps, dates back to the time when the first explorer trudged into a vacant room seeking refuge in order to rest and recuperate.

With growing demand and a motley bag of customers who came with their distinct charter of needs and wishes, the ‘hoteliers’ began evolving. The professional hotel owners began to define and refine what – just a place to stay in and eat at – could begin to mean and deliver.

With every pioneering entrant’s stroke of genius, talent and serendipitous discovery there began distinctions and classifications that set one apart from the other; while still serving the basic needs of food and shelter.

Of course, hotels, now as we know them, are a billion different types – with local thrusts and international flavours; from cookie-cutter assembly line chains to queer and classic stand-alones.

Let us look at some of the factors that make a brand stellar and iconic –

1.     Iconic hotels have a story to tell

A unique hotel must have what I call a ‘story’ about it. You can call it history or legacy. The 1887 born Raffles Singapore has been the grand old lady of the East. From witnessing the Japanese occupation of Singapore to becoming the transit camp for the prisoners of war, from being the birthplace of the Singapore Sling or the preferred hideout for some of the world’s finest authors to being the subject or setting of some films and novels, The Raffles is full of awe-inspiring lore. Similarly, The Imperial in New Delhi was a participant-observer to the saga of India’s independence. In fact, annals of history show that the Declaration of Independence may have been signed at this grand hotel which became part of Edwin Lutyens’ vision for New Delhi as the new capital of India.  

A rich past lends an outstanding personality to a hotel. The history helps weave a web of stories in which the guests can be fascinatingly ensnared and with the fabric of which many a PR yarn is spun. 

One of the hotels I worked for was one of India’s grand old men having witnessed the Freedom Struggle and having been part of the Raj era. We reaped an interesting harvest of this rich legacy from seeds sown in that time. Not only did the loaded past fluff us up with a sense of pride, making us feel as if we had been a part of it, our guests loved it too – holding meetings in the room where the Partition Treaty was signed, banqueting in the Royal Ballroom where the Earls, Knights and the Indian Rajas and Ranis had waltzed, eating with perhaps the same heirloom silverware that the blue-blooded had partied in.

Elsewhere, hotels have named suites after eminent writers who stayed in them; so there is a Maugham, Kipling, Christie suite. Coco Chanel and Rockefeller made virtually their homes in luxury hotels. There are cakes named after celebrities who loved the presentation or perhaps gardens on the premises christened after the famous feet that tread upon its grounds.

Every iconic place has its singularly exceptional ‘story.’ How it came about? What slices of history has it shared in a common past! There may be an heirloom spin about the owners or the notable guests. There are unusual facets and delectable twists and turns that make the tapestry of its birth and life worthy enough to be talked about and rejoiced in.

So, be very proud if there is a ‘story’ from the annals of time that you can tell and then go ahead and tell it with a sense of flair and relish. Your guests are going to love it.   

2.     Iconic hotels sweat the small Stuff

One of the legendary hoteliers, heading an eponymous luxury chain, is known to send his staff – from the General Manager to the Doorman – into a maniacal tizzy every time he plans to visit one of his hotels. 

Even after having successfully created, managed and run award-winning hotels in India and overseas, the Gentleman is known to have a keen eye for observation and will not let pass a crookedly placed rose stem in a vase, a spot of dust in the inner fold of a guest compendium, an otherwise sparkly-shiny glass with just two tell-tale blotches of dried drops of water that escaped the steward’s attention, the serif missed out by the designer in the Advertisement copy, the words dropped unwittingly by the Guest Relations girl from the standard greeting – you get the picture! This expectation of perfection percolates down from the Top Dog through the managers to the rest of the employees, making the Brand one of the most highly regarded globally.

It really appeals to me when Hoteliers pay attention to detail and sweat over the tiniest of stuff. One is quite wary of the hotel bread baskets where all the breads are not of the same quality and freshness. Likewise, with the butter dish which may have been passed around all too many times. So, I am really impressed with hotels and owners who will not let the smallest of issues pass their scrutiny – from that bread basket to the temperature control in the room and the choice of flowers changed to suit a guest’s peculiar allergy. Not all hotels will go that extra mile but the special ones, most undoubtedly, will.

When dealing with a people-centric industry, even the smallest of demands, desires and likes of guests become significantly important. As hoteliers, we must keep in mind a layered pyramid of guest wants, putting in aspects from the most basic (such as cleanliness or running hot water or trained staff) to the very exquisite (dinner on a romantically lit dhow with performance by a violinist or bespoke wine served under the shadow of the Sphinx). And it becomes our ‘karma’ to ensure that each need is met with guest satisfaction and delight, however small or big it may be. The iconic hotels know this and deliver it on a silver platter, with a sense of enchantment.

3.     Iconic Hotels have a distinct Unique Selling Proposition

In the crowded marketplace of hospitality, with a multitude brands essentially selling the same thing, it becomes imperative to have a Unique Selling Proposition; that unquantifiable yet tangible special facet. 

There are hotels around the globe that hold on to their uniqueness dearly and with a lot of pride. The Plaza in New York, Claridge’s in London, Le Bristol in Paris, Burj Al Arab in Dubai, Amankila in Bali – all are gems that stand out and above on account of their individuality.

So, whether it is intrinsic elegance, locational vantage point, helicopter shuttle service from the hotel’s rooftop helipad, a confluence of history, mystery and magnificence, a piece of geographical wonder, whatever is their magical power, iconic hotels hone and polish it and keep it ever gleaming in a perpetual state of readiness.

Part 2 of this feature will reflect on the ‘soul’ of being an iconic brand.

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Picture Courtesy - Google Images

THE SWANK AND SWAGGER OF NEW MEDIA!

The real-time value of New Media is unsurpassed. Everything in it happens in the realm of “here and now.” Your news is as new or old as your last post or blog or tweet.

Sites such as Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube have heralded the coming in of Web 2.0 – a whole new world that provides excellent chances and opens up new vistas for a Media Manager. With the onset of Social Media in the arena of media coverage and planning, a PR Professional must be adept at handling each of these avenues. 

While Social Media is expanding career options by introducing such positions as a Social Media Manager or an Online Reputation Management Expert, not many companies have the finance or inclination to bifurcate responsibilities and hire separate individuals to handle such posts. Hence a role such as this has landed itself in the kitty of the Communications or PR Professional who needs to learn, unlearn and relearn to become a master of both the traditional and new age media. 

This, to my mind, is an extremely welcome change that encourages you to shape up for the New Media defined roles otherwise you may be shipped out by those who are more adept and trained.

Come to think of it, as PR experts with our strong skill base in writing, media handling, planning, website management and marketing communications, we are the naturally skilled workforce who should be entrusted with the responsibility of managing the New Media.

A lot of the power has shifted to you – the Communications Specialist – from those on the journalistic side. If you have proved your worth and your Brand is considered of significance, then even the journalists are becoming fans of your Facebook page, following you on Twitter or linking up with you on LinkedIn.

You get to decide what, when and how much you wish to share with your target audience through your blog posts that link neatly with your parent website (thereby also increasing footfalls on your website), your Facebook updates, your tweets and YouTube plug-ins.

You get to learn instantly whether your Brand is ‘trending’ or is being given the cold shoulder by the online traffic.

With the old media, it was difficult to measure the reach and penetration of your story – the only measure being the circulation figures which often failed to tell you whether the information on your company was actually read by the key audience or not. 

In the New Media, you can actually count up the “likes,” “views,” “shares” and “follows” to define how much a sub-product has been liked and whether a marketing idea will fly or fall with the end consumer.

While the old media and your story in it had the misfortune of being retired to the waste paper basket or sold to the ‘Raddi recyclist’ (Scrap paper dealer) or of reappearing as a wrap for snacks sold by the street vendor, there is no such danger with the New Media. 

Of course, the biggest fear in the New Media is to go completely unnoticed by those very eyeballs that you wish to catch as news and information flash by at high speed across the information freeway. 

Yet, the New Media has this great propensity to go Viral in the biggest way possible. Imagine the circuitry your story can create – from your company website or blog to LinkedIn to YouTube to Facebook to Twitter – with innumerable swaps in between - to a large river of search engines on which your story continues to appear.

And often with proper Search Engine Optimization it would appear in the initial few searches itself. This brings us to the importance of skills such as business writing for technology driven platforms as verbose as blogs or as crypt and concise as the 140 character Twitter. 

The other skills to be polished would be intelligent use of keywords, learning to link up well, using such tools as hashtags, bing, klouts, RSS, Social media alerts, tickers, Feedjits and the like. But this is a subject matter of another article which we may get into another time.

With New Media, you have the advantage of creating your own community that follows you, likes you and becomes a fan or a member. Your article that is liked or viewed by ‘X’ number of people has actually been read by those numbers without any wastage in the count and as a bonus has also been shared with their respective networks. 

Your Brand that is followed by a certain number of people enjoys loyalty from this number which has the potential to grow into a large population. Think about the online hits that certain features/stories invite on the internet and you will instantly know that this population can grow to a size of millions or more.

New Media is also an excellent platform for networking widely with larger demographics or pointedly with chosen focus groups. The networking and linking up chances with the like-minded groups on sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook help you increase your audience base taking you beyond the geographical boundaries within which your company exists. 

There are hundreds of Groups for Hoteliers, Travel professionals and other such defined categories with which you can network and share your information.

With an avenue like Wikipedia, you can be your own Editor and create a User page or article for your Company. If it has universal significance then you will be easily inducted into the Wiki pages and enjoy easy searchability and wide readership.

With New Media, everything happens in the present so much so that the stories are listed every second and every minute of the day and through the night. The World Wide Web never sleeps and to make matters worse the Social Media keeps it on its toes at all times. 

There are no lunch breaks or pit stops on this information highway. Hence you need to be consistent and constant with your messaging. The rise in the relevance of New Media has caused a decline in the attention spans, therefore there is a greater need, now than ever before, to be pertinent and prime in your ‘newsability,’ otherwise, your input will remain popular only amongst employees, family and friends.

With New Media, you can reinforce your message with the ease of clicking a button. Simply press share or retweet and your story comes alive once again. But you must learn to do this prudently and in the right time span lest you become a social media outcast. With so much of information threatening to deluge their mind space, your guests do not wish to be bored with old news or annoyed with the repetitive nuisance.

All forms of New Media present wonderful options for inter-linkages. So, your official blog piece or website page can be tweeted or shared on LinkedIn, Facebook etc. simultaneously with just a couple of clicks and you get to showcase your product amidst a large number of users of these sites with so much ease that it makes a kid’s play appear difficult.

One of the biggest boons of New Media is that it is absolutely free and adds admirably to your profit protection strategy. View this point in the light of big dollars earmarked for the annual media plan covering advertising and other media spend including Press FAMs and individual Press Trips for media coverage on your Company. Virtual Property Tours with exciting 360-degree views that have been traditionally put up on the website can now be uploaded to YouTube or tweeted or shared through LinkedIn, Facebook and the like for free and to multitudes who just need to have an access to a machine and the medium of Net. 

This, however, does not reduce the importance of the human touch, the impact of relationships with the media and the power of experiencing a property for real.

With these huge benefits come the bad lemons too as is a given with almost anything in life; with everything there always being two sides. Opening up to a wide readership and onto instant news platforms such as these also calls for immediate feedback. Your guests are at free will to tweet back or post a negative comment or deride your new sub-product or product in the same open, worldwide medium that you use. The onus lies on you – the Newsmaker - and your Company to be more responsible, meaningful and noteworthy.

With you as the Communications Chief, New Media also allows for much greater engaging and involvement of the employee base that can be part of the news making process, thereby developing a stronger bond and belongingness with the Company they represent. 

While not everybody can be allowed to post or tweet – given the crucial baseline of adhering to the Company Profile and Brand Standard, but they can send their submissions to you, who as the Chief Brand Custodian can play the editor to the hilt and include the appropriate ones on to the forums. Seeing one’s tweet or post feature in the virtual world gives almost the same high as seeing one’s article in print, well almost, and is especially true for the non-writers.

While the importance and significance of the old Media cannot be ever denied, the New Media is all too powerful, in your face, productive and result-oriented so as not to be taken lightly. It is not a fad and needs to be fashioned out sensibly into your media strategy.

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Picture Courtesy - Google Images

MAGIC OF MEDIA - WEIGHING THE NEW WITH THE OLD!

As any Public Relations expert – Hospitality specialist or any other – knows, media is the veritable best man, the strongest ally and one of the most powerful tools in the PR toolkit. 

Nobody can deny the usefulness and power that the media mix holds over a PR person’s overall role. So much so that in many companies and PR agencies, the efficacy of a PR person’s performance is measured by media presence garnered for the company represented.

Today, a PR person is spoiled for choice, between the old and new media. Some professionals are from the old school of thought and still hold the old media in a prominent place while warming up to the idea and prospects of the New Media. 

There are others who are fans of PR 2.0 so much that they make the mistake of ignoring the traditional media, of course at their own risk. But the wisest are those who hold both kinds in esteem and continue to reap benefits out of the two.

As we all know, there are distinct qualities that set one apart from the other and enjoy brownie points over the second when brought to comparisons.

Since the success of our campaign and PR Strategy depends on devising a good mix of the two types of media, here is a quick snapshot of the Top Five pluses and minuses of both kinds of media –

OLD, TRADITIONAL MEDIA –

TOP FIVE +es –

1. It is the best form of credible and creditable Third Party Endorsement.

2. To appear in a top notch publication immediately ups or reinforces the profile of your Brand in the minds of the significant publics. Think Condé Nast, WSJ, New York Times, The Guardian, Forbes, Fortune and you get the picture.

3. To be written about by the renowned reviewers/writers of these publications is a major achievement in media presence. Imagine getting a first class rating by the likes of Gostelow, Middlehurst, Weinstein and see how proud and pleased the owners, management and the guests are.

4. Mention in traditional media has a sense of permanence to it. The news report can be filed and archived and can easily be dug into when it needs to be referenced again.

5. It is easier to control what is being written about you (either through your Press Release or on account of your established relationship with the media representative) and form opinions in the traditional media as compared to the information circus that exists in the New Media. 

TOP FIVE –es –

1. It faces the danger of getting dated and being lost in the annals of time. A news story that appeared in print at so and so date gets time stamped; a Tweet or update on a Company Website / Facebook page can be put out at one time and easily resurrected in a new avatar at another.

2. The negative review hits the Brand hard, going by the same logic of appearing in a top notch publication and written by the high profile reviewer.

3. In today’s times of excessive information being delivered to your desktop, laptop or palmtop every second, it may face the risk of getting lost in the deluge.

4. With new information coming up every second, your article in traditional media can become old news sooner than you think.

5. Because of the timelines it adheres to, there exists an inherent gap between sending of your press release or a journalist reviewing your product and the actual appearance of the story. That could be on account of a backlog of stories in hand with the media or something of more importance coming up at short notice. Many a time your news report gets printed as a post-event publicity and that is half the battle lost.  

NEW / SOCIAL MEDIA –

TOP FIVE +es –

1. You can control what is being said about you through your blog, pages, updates and tweets.

2. You have a direct access to your guests and can reach them with ease in relation to your news, offers and promotions.

3. Instead of just one media platform, you have the ability to turn your news into a viral phenomenon and see it appear in several media planks simultaneously.

4. You have the opportunity to send out more information about yourself. There is no restriction on how much you want to or can share.

5. The power publications and the publicists that pack a punch are also on the New Media. Which means they can not only continue to write about you in the online editions but can also do so in their personal spaces of blogs, twitter page etc. which also enjoy additionally huge following.

TOP FIVE –es –

1. You have less control over what people say about your product through their blogs, pages, updates and tweets.

2. In the New Media, just about anybody can turn a writer or opinion maker and send their comment into the Social Media whirlpool. This can and does include your guests who can make direct comments on their experience. The realm of news does not just belong to the journalists anymore.

3. You must ensure that your news is meaningful and useful to the guest for it to be lapped up and for it to be something that your guests look forward to. Otherwise, it is very easy for you to become an irritant and face the risk of being unfriended, unfan-ed or unfollowed.

4. It is difficult for you to control the vehicles where you wish to appear, keeping in mind your Brand personality and profile. Through the channels of New Media, your brand can find presence even in those media outlets in which you do not wish to appear.

5. It is hugely difficult to grab the attention and enjoy readership penetration as the window of appearance and presence has been sizeably shortened in the flux of all that information that floats in the world of Social Media World; be it Blogosphere, Twitterdom, Facebook zone, LinkedIn Groups, YouTube or innumerable others.

And a final comparison – to have my piece or property featured in a publication of repute is a prominent feather in my cap. But then the Social Media opens up a whole new world with its wide reach and focused penetration. It also offers the advantages of “viral-ability” with sharing and re-sharing and being followed by the key groups of an audience that we wish to address. Going by this measure, Social Media is several notches up as compared to the traditional tactical vehicle of Direct Marketing. With the latter companies often lamented whether the expensive mailer was being read by the CEO or his secretary. There was always the question mark about whether or not that pricey, glossy flyer was managing to hold the interest of the end user for the right amount of time, ensuring grasping of the offer that you wished to sell.

I am from that group of people who believes that we will always get to hold and feel the crispiness of newspaper with our morning cuppa, that we will still leaf through glossies and not just at salons or clinics and that in spite of the up surge in the demand for Kindles we will still get to hold and smell the mustiness of paperbacks and hardbound, at least in our lifetime. I also belong to the set that uses the socially relevant New Media optimally, intelligently and with such mastery that it reaps rich dividends for the Company we represent.

In my PR scheme of things, both the media have their place, position and prevalence and both need to be used effectively in order to enable me to stay on top of my game and you on yours.

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 Picture Courtesy - Google Images

Earn your stripes first! Top Resolution of a True Professional!

You know the three jobs that have been continuously downgraded, bastardised and undermined in the millennial are easily - the Writer, the Professional Speaker and the Life Coach (the last being, a tad reprehensibly, dire need and invention of the Millennium).

To my chagrin, anybody claims to be a writer these days. Just as everybody wants to ride the speaking /coaching gravy boat!

A woman who has plagiarized content into a chapter and has got it inserted into a book - which is a series of chapters 'authored' by different people - through her social networking skills calls herself an author. In the same vein, journalists turning compilations of their articles into book form are being called authors.

People writing 140 incoherent characters on Twitter, fudging posts on LinkedIn, writing elaborate updates on Facebook are staking a claim to the honour.

Industries that are not technical, but are people centric are easy victims to a jaundiced eye treatment from us. We effortlessly club the sectors of Hospitality, Advertising, Writing, even Anthropology, Psychology (Applied, not Clinical); Art and the like into areas that we think do not require advanced skill and technical qualification. We completely disregard the almost scientific approach these fields, too, apply to their strategic and tactical functions.

And what a folly it is to cultivate such a mindset! Ask a chef who has earned his Le Cordon Bleu stripes by gruelling over demanding ranges and whimsical palates. Ask the advertiser who must be able to understand the demographic effect on consumer behaviour, study mindscapes shaped both by culture and fads and gauge the pulse of the client to deliver copy and artwork that ensnares the consumer interest and loosens the purse strings.

To my personal annoyance, Public Relations, especially in the Hospitality Industry, is a free parking zone for anybody – from a Guest Relations Executive, a Sales Representative to an HR resource or the Executive Assistant.

Nothing wrong with that! But please get enough educational background and experience in the field and then merrily jump in. After all, however flossy, flashy, fun or fickle our work may seem to you, it involves a lot of hard work, with refined strategy and tactical application of established techniques and methodology. Yes, it is not just about looking natty, talking smooth and shaking hands.

The same is happening with the legion of speakers and life coaches who claim to have the power to help you reclaim your life, find divine meaning and discover the simply good life of renunciation - all the while, shamelessly attempting to fill their coffers on the might of regurgitated, recycled age-old data that has been floating in the stratosphere of recorded literature. While such evangelists are appearing on the horizon of almost every industry, these good folks fail to add anything new, novel or of lasting value - unabashedly reaping the fruit of somebody else's labour.

We don’t do this with essentially old world professions – think law, medicine, engineering. Why do we think writing or photography or even fashion designing is any less a craft that requires focused education and hours of practised skill!

In the past, Freud, Jung or Adler wrote path-breaking books but they were primarily psychoanalysts who also recorded their researches, findings, experiments on paper.

Even today, an APJ Abdul Kalam or Sheryl Sandberg or Howard Schultz or any other heavyweight from any industry may pen down bestsellers - either on their own merit or through ghost writers - but they have predominantly been recognized for being the businessman, technocrat, Statesman that they are; who also incidentally have a way with words. Secure in their roles, they do not make any false claims.

Amidst my social media circles, I see true blue authors burning the midnight oil, or getting up with the larks at the crack of dawn, laboriously chugging away on their desk for larger parts of their exhausting days to write their books that they wish to get published, distributed and read, but more importantly earn from. They and their ilk need to be lauded and their tough ladder to success emulated.

I dabble in writing and I know it is not an easy job. I have been on the broad side of the mike and I know it is such a monumental task to fight your own fears and inhibitions and then come out speaking engagingly in public.

First learn to pick-up/use the artillery (in case of the writer it is the proverbial pen), shoot an enemy (fell a competitor with your brilliance), raise your flag on a summit (pursue your goals to get the ultimate recognition), get wounded (face failure), relearn and return to the battlefield before you bestow upon yourself the title of a writer or coach or whatever else that may have taken your fancy.
Today, anybody who has drunk a few good wines socially wants to be considered an oenology expert. A gourmand who can ladle out passably tasty dishes claims to be a respected chef with aspirations of becoming a TV or YouTube celebrity or even starting their own under-the-bridge eatery.

And don’t even get me started on art and music and film and food critics. We all, with our substandard two-bits, put out on our Twitter handles or Facebook pages, would like to strut about like able, knowledgeable critics who have studied the subject and know as much about it as the people practising that field. There was a time when the badge of a critic brought in fear and respect amongst those that were reviewed; enough to get them to deliver better and above bar.

Anybody who clicks a photo for his instagram feed or plays around with his camera phone thinks he’s a photographer – to the utter displeasure of the professional photographers who have spent a lifetime learning the technicalities, the art and science behind their profession and have spent a fortune investing in their state of the art equipment.

Same seems to be happening with musicians and fashion designers. Every person who can sing in tune; heck, even those who sing quite off-key but still go ahead and upload their mishmash or dubsmash if you please on YouTube think they are the next best thing after Sting or Sir Bono.

Any woman of wealth courtesy an affluent spouse but with no real qualification, men who have grown up on a staple diet of couture glossies, and those innumerable ladies at leisure with the luxury of free time shoved in their uber luxe and over-sized handbags love to brand themselves as fashion designers. They then go ahead and float labels, host parties to get media attention, rip-off designs from magazines or the runways in far off places (whatever is more difficult to trace back to) and hand it over to the seamstress in their hole-in-the-wall sweatshops – and for such sham they merrily get themselves a calling card of a designer.

These days everybody wants to be the next serial entrepreneur. The goals are misplaced – they being easy money, quick (even if short-lived) recognition, quick gains, pseudo popularity, two minutes of fame as against novel products, innovations that promise to bring value to the society and credible standing.

For this and more, I detest the growing breed of spineless, unskilled, unzealous cretins and zero-conscience easy-gainers who do not bat an eyelid before snaking their way into positions and posts that others spend a lifetime to attain through hard work, perseverance and purely on merit.

On stolen thoughts, plagiarized ideas and filched business plans we go ahead and audaciously label ourselves as Thought Leaders, Visionaries and Entrepreneurs. It is quite dismal to note that we end up slotting ourselves into such newly coined words as ‘Voluntourism’ and ‘Humanitarian Douchebaggery’ to define our lack of ethics.  

It is a reflection of our society in which Kim Kardashian is one of the most followed Twitter personalities. A society that does not recognise real talent, does not reward excellence is a dying, sick society.

Let it be a 2016 resolution for us that we will pursue excellence, give hard work and merit its due and earn our stripes first before embellishing our calling cards, curriculum vitae and virtual profiles.

Before you embark on the path you have envisioned for yourself in 2016 and beyond, let this be the resolve you start your journey with. Have a wonderfully productive and meaningful year ahead!

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Picture Courtesy - Google Images

SOCIAL MEDIA – IS IT EMPOWERING OR OVERPOWERING?

As a PR & Communications Specialist, published poet, Hospitality Features writer and a to-be-published author, I really do understand the importance of setting priorities, maintaining discipline, being focused, consistently perseverant and goal oriented. Giving vent to seed-germination-plant theory, I place enough weightage on the fact that every action was once a noble thought that was nudged out of the crevices of the mind by strong will, determination, diligence assisted ably by hard work and creativity.

With such straightened out thinking, as clear as water, what becomes my nemesis is the wrong-doing or sloth that comes in my path by way of procrastination and playful, mindless distractions. Such as checking out friends' statuses and pictures on Facebook, keeping abreast of the latest tweets of my tweeple, watching that interesting video on YouTube or simply getting down to a nonsensical virtual game that is so utterly unproductive but helps me hide behind the sham that I am occupied, albeit ungainfully.

Every morning starts with an honourable intention to draw out and follow a sacrosanct to-do list, jotted down in the sanctum of the most private place in the home office without any worldly interference and with a resolve to conquer my Goliath. Yet, the moment the morning starts progressing into the day, my will begins to wither, the determination gets embattled by the urge to click elsewhere and the spirit starts slackening. The charm of social networking beckons and ensnares me in its fold, relegating what's important to another day and time. And once you are onto this social, virtual juggernaut, it is mighty difficult to wean yourself out as it begins to suck you into the deep recesses of its womb. Sooner than later, you get into this jocular, other-wordly mood living a vicarious existence in the lives of your friends, far removed from the real and important goals of YOUR life!

You might argue that I fall prey to this because I work from a home office. But there are a legion cases of employees hiding behind a screen whiling away office time playing Solitaire, Candy Crush, Farmville or whatever the flavour of the season is. There is an equal number of us liking friends’ Facebook posts or commenting on LinkedIn updates or retweeting a wisecrack, while still at work.

When you are on the net you tend to make that big mistake and be disillusioned with a make-believe situation that you can actually multitask to the extent that you can work and play at the same time. So, you get into this monstrous maze that sets you clicking from one tab to another in the most futile manner delivering zilch on the productivity front.

There are enough studies being conducted to show how people are becoming more prolific, creative and successful in meeting their goals by taking up the challenge of leaving the social media trap for one year (or whatever block of time they may have chosen); or uninstalling Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook  applications from their smartphones; or limiting their access to such pitiably bottomless attractions (indeed the newsfeed of some of these social media platforms is bottomless and unceasing) to just one or two hours in the day.

Having said that, Social media comes with huge advantages and gains too – as tools of publicity and promotion, brand building and image reinforcement, news sharing and opinion-making, creating trends, shaping consumer behaviour, furthering causes. The pluses are endless and gigantic; big enough for you not to take these platforms lightly. The essential need-of-the-hour is to be wise, intelligent and judicious in harnessing these channels for effective use, as also requisite doses of fun; as against getting sucked into the whirlpool of the unreal / semi-real world they propagate in a manner from which you cannot be rescued.

Soren Gordhamer, Organizer of the Wisdom 2.0 Conference, which brings together staff from Google, Facebook, and Twitter with others to explore living wisely in our modern age, says “There have never been more things that call out for our attention: We have tweets to read, Facebook statuses to check, put up pictures and posts on Pinterest and Instagram — not to mention text messages, e-mails, and cell phone calls. And the amount of data is growing each day. Recent reports estimate that the average American consumes 34 GB worth of content a day, including 100,000 words of information. While this access to information has numerous benefits; learning to live and work skillfully amidst an active social media lifestyle is an art in itself — one that will be increasingly challenging in the years ahead.”

With the number of social media platforms increasing rapidly and with new features being added each day on the existing ones, it is becoming imperative, more and more, to try and not only keep one’s head above water but to stay relevant and industrious, accomplishing one’s key goals.

Here follow five simple tricks and tactics to manage the Social media and make it work for you, without allowing it to enslave you. These lessons will help you stay sane and focused amidst an active social media lifestyle.

1. Manage the internal needs to reign in the external stimuli

Back in 1943, Abraham Maslow put forth his theory of the ‘Hierarchy of needs’ in which he rightly put pleasure and trivia below esteem and actualization.

Ask yourself each morning (or several times in a day) what is it that you actually wish to achieve at the end of the day or the week. Having determined the actual point of focus, go after it with all that you have; allowing yourself only minor, short-lived digressions.

To channelize the internal impetus back on track look towards a short walk, or a spot of reading, or listening to your favourite music to get back, with renewed vigour, to what needs your undivided attention.  

“The biggest (and hardest) lesson I’ve learned in life is that the external world is just a reflection of the world within,” says Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.

Finally, know thyself as Bible exhorts, know the raison d'être for your life. Listen to that big drummer up there who beats uniquely for you, hear out the silent little beats that make music only for you and follow your impassioned heart and rational mind into getting on the path that only YOU are meant to tread upon.

Go on, beat the brash blitz of the unimportant or the less important, conquer the bastions and charge ahead on your mission and goals in life by wearing the blinkers of high resistance to fruitless pleasures of social media.

2. Do not multi-task

New research is beginning to point out that humans cannot multitask on more than two things at a time. A recent study at Stanford found that the more people multitask, the worse they become at it.
So, turn a deaf ear to this latest scientific revelation at your own peril.

If you wish to accomplish a lot more, then do one thing at a time – satisfactorily, having given it your 100%. Then get on to the next and from there on eat that mountain bite by bite.

“When people try to perform two or more related tasks either at the same time or alternating rapidly between them, errors go way up, and it takes far longer — often double the time or more — to get the jobs done than if they were done sequentially,” states David E. Meyer, director of the Brain, Cognition, and Action Laboratory at the University of Michigan.

3. Do not be too hard on yourself

From time to time, cut yourself some slack. The temptations of the Social media are so large and incessant that the more you try to push them away, the more you will be drawn towards it. So, instead of creating a mental prison, give in to the ‘pull’ and you will be able to pull away with far more ease and conviction.

Create a healthy, happy balance between Social media time and the no-go zone. Also, learn to maintain a healthy, constructive equilibrium between Social Media for work (after all, Social Media is an integral part of your business strategy; true for any business that you may be in today) and Social media for fun (that is essential too – to keep you in touch, to bust your stress, to keep you in step with breaking news and latest trends).

4. Do not indulge in it first thing in the morning

A lot of us wake up to the alarm set on our smartphones. And with this proximity with the device comes the easy opportunity to quickly check out the posts on the Social Media. Similarly, we fall into the trap at the Breakfast table or when we are booting the computer at work. We tell ourselves it will take only a few minutes but it never does as we get so immersed in one post after another, losing the track of time.

Time Management Gurus have been telling us for years to fight the urge to check and respond to our emails first thing at the start of our day. Now the onslaught is from several directions and the risk of losing precious time so much more.

Make a rule of finishing at least one major or two moderate tasks before you get on the Social media platforms for work. The feeling of having accomplished good work will be substantially high and you will end up achieving more by the end of the day.

As for Social media for fun, use it as a reward or a stress buster to a long, hard day. Treat it special, like entering a Country Club to catch a drink with friends on Facebook or engaging in a cerebral dialogue over coffee with connections on LinkedIn or allowing yourself interesting time-out on Twitter with shoes kicked off, satchel laid aside and that tie loosened up.

5. Give it your Attention when you are at it

Oftentimes, we flit from one Social Media platform to another with a zombie like stance, mindlessly rolling down on one and then sprinting to another; with no time given to comprehend, digest, enjoy or introspect on what we are soaking in, giving our valuable time to it.

“In the age of social media, our attention can get bounced around like a ping-pong ball, from this call to that text message to that tweet, such that by the end of the day we are exhausted. Mindfulness, or attention to the present moment, is lost. We spend our day “chasing,” letting others determine our focus, not choosing for ourselves where to put our attention and attending to the tasks most important to us,” warns Soren Gordhamer.

Be mindful of whatever information you are taking in. This way you will register the information more and will also feel satiated with the consumption of the information overload. Being present on the platforms but still not being really there creates a sense of vacuum that mechanical surfing fails to fill, instead creating a sense for more craving.

“When players practice what is known as mindfulness — paying attention to what’s actually happening — not only do they play better and win more, they also become more attuned to each other,” advises Phil Jackson, who has won a record 10 NBA Championships as a coach.

The lure of Social Media will only increase with time. With their significance and power as a potent media form, we will not be able to switch ourselves off or log ourselves completely out of it. What is going to be of utmost importance will be to come to a state of balance between how much and how little, how often and how infrequently and which one to lean more on than the others. Similarly, like in work-life balance, we will have to learn to carve a middle path between a simply ‘wired’ life to one that we must live in the real terms.

“The challenge of our time is to live connected and use all the great social media available to us, while at the same time harness and direct our attention where it is most needed at any given time,” adds Gordhamer.

Learning to manage and reap the Social media with the above strategies will bring in the distinction between being fatigued and focussed, shifty and attentive, engaged and effective, busy and productive, reckless and result-driven and overwhelmed or empowered.

Our choices and things where we want to park our exclusive, unadulterated attention define how we wish to lead our life.

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Picture courtesy - Google Images

Compliments help Achievers over and out-perform!

There is this nice, feel-good video that is currently going viral on Social Media. It shows Chris Ulmer, a young teacher at Mainspring Academy in Jacksonville, Florida - a School for Special Children, beckon his wards one by one every morning. The teacher goes on to say to one boy, "You're an amazing student. I love having you in my class. I think everyone in here loves you." And to the second, "You're funny. You're athletic. You're a great soccer player. You're very smart. You've been doing a great job reading." And so on, one after another to every special boy in his class before sending them off with a high five. 

Chris opines that this simple practice helps shape his students’ world view turning them into better human beings. “If they have a mean, jaded teacher, they will think the world is mean and jaded. But if a teacher displays love, harmony and peace, that will become their norm. After a few weeks of this practice, my students started complementing one another consistently. They praise each other for accomplishments as if it was their own," Chris shares in his video.

You can see the body language of each student change from the time Ulmer calls for them to the moment he High Fives the little tots. It is quite evident that as Chris speaks his fine words to them these differently-abled children transform into confident, beautifully square-shouldered, enthusiastic, sprightly butterflies emboldened to take on any challenge that their uniquely special day throws at them. 

And therein lay a master class in Management Best practice and one of the finest strategies for Talent Retention. Sincere words of praise from people of authority – Super bosses, direct reporting, team leads, managers and people of significance – Top management, mentors, industry bigwigs, even prominent peers, are known to have a lasting impression on the recipient.

Several studies have shown that many a time, well-deserved compliments that are truly and well-delivered by the management – conveying acknowledgement of good work, recognition of the value the employee brings and appreciation of his talent - rate higher than even salary and perquisites. Moreover, using a public platform or a larger audience to express admiration of a great worker and his admirable output creates stronger bonds, reinforces mutual trust and respect, motivates other team members and instills a higher drive in the recipient.   

Compliments and acknowledgements can take varied form. They can be verbal pats on the back in official forums; they can be written affirmation on those formal appraisals; they can also be very visible endorsements of your special talent put up as showpieces for all to see and emulate from.

I was in a closed door once with my General Manager, the Company CFO and the irrepressible Mr. O, owner of the eponymously named chain of hotels, easily considered one of the finest in the world. We were discussing PR budgets, decision-making autonomy, our media engagements and some hairy issues when Mr. O’s eyes rested on the latest issue of Chronicle, the Hotel Newsletter. He quizzed me about how much we spent on it and right away got on the hotline to another hotel GM in his Chain. Without batting an eyelid, he told the gent how ‘our’ Chronicle was the finest in the Chain and produced at a lower cost too. Of course, our GM’s chest swelled with pride but Mr. O won a lifelong fan in me and an employee who would be a Brand Ambassador of his fine Company whether she continued working for him or not. To this day I remain an Oberoi loyalist.

Compliments or recognition of one’s performance must be genuine and sincere; otherwise, it is just meaningless fluff that gets blown away easily without having the desired effect. And it should not always be premeditated, practiced and pro forma. Truthful, honest praise comes straight from the heart and is an instant reaction to a job that has been done well and beyond the brief.

During Australia India New Horizons 1996-97, Australia’s biggest Country Promotion thus far, I was on the media team of Alexander Downer, the then Hon’ble Foreign Minister of Australia. At one of the national Press Conferences held at FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry), the Minister was very pleased with the success of the Press meet and the huge number of press folk from prominent media that had gathered there. At the end of the Conference, the Minister turned towards Gai Brodtmann, the Counsellor Public Affairs, who was also the Head of PR & Publicity at the Australian High Commission in India and my immediate boss, to congratulate her for one of the best Media interfaces he had ever experienced. Gai, true to her form and character, got up, turned towards me and told the Minister that she “had nothing to do with it. That it was all my hard work;” in full attendance of the Australian and Indian Government officials and the Mission staff. With that profound gesture, my mentor-for-life, left behind some indelible management lessons for me and all others who were present – lessons in leadership, being secure in one’s own role and position, being proud of one’s team, giving credit where it is due at the right time in the right forum, best techniques in employee motivation and instilling the highest form of accountability in her team mates.   

Compliments need not be direct. Sometimes, a fine word let out by your significant others at work that travels back to you is the finest and most promising music that you need to hear to put your best foot forward at all times. I was meeting this journalist friend for lunch and during the course of our conversation, she recounted that she had met my boss at an Art exhibition the gone Sunday and how they got talking about me and how he had such great things to say about the kind of work I did. The fact that I remember the conversation to this day and that what the boss had to say about me still motivates me even when I have had several experiences under my belt since, shows the importance one can attach to such wonderfully inspiring feedback. Fair words of commendation not only serve to be great pick-ups when you are feeling low, but also, always, serve to maintain your confidence in yourself.

Compliments need not always be verbalized. Often times, actions do speak louder than words and leave a stronger mark. I had just joined this hotel as part of the Change Agent team with the mandate to turnaround and present the hotel with a completely new Brand Image and positioning. Before I joined the place, the Owner and the VP & GM had contracted all PR, Communications, Publicity and Advertising work to two agencies – A PR & Image Consultancy and an Advertising Agency. In my introductory briefing session, Pierre Jochem, the VP & GM (who I call my second mentor) thought aloud, “We will keep the agencies for three months. That should allow you enough time to warm up and begin earnest work on the PR roadmap.”  We had a catching up meeting on the fourth day in his lovely, glass-walled, mezzanine floor Corner office. Monsieur Jochem, carrying the Guest Services Directory mock-up I had given to him for his review, was happy to note the media coverage that had started to happen (with luck on my side one had got the hotel covered every single day of those first four days). And this is what he uttered to me, “You seem to have achieved what these folks had collectively done in three months. I guess we will just terminate their contracts and let them go. I think this way you will get more work done.”

Yes, this decision went into his report to the owners. After the initial sense of high and euphoria it brought in a higher sense of responsibility in me. Such trust and conviction must always be proved right. 

Compliments are the very vocal and visible endorsement of an employee’s good performance that is laudable and to be encouraged. Such validation of commendable work ensures that the employee continues to feel motivated, accountable and responsible. He/she becomes more result-oriented and holds a stronger level of ownership for his role and responsibility; endeavouring to maximize the wins and diminish the fails towards his/her goals achievement.

Compliments are, indeed, one of the finest strategies for retaining good talent and reshaping average work into stellar feats. Use it often, but judiciously. Compliment your team profusely at every given opportunity but with sincerity and deservingly!

So how have compliments helped you perform better and exceed targets? Tell me in your comments.

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Can a Leader Make or Break an Organization?

More times than not, the shape and personality an organization falls into directly depend on the dominant traits of the top leader at its helm. So whether the top dog is fair, biased, aggressive, assimilative, open-minded and inclusive or clique and coterie centered, insecure or confident, the organization tends to take on similar features and harbour the climate that screams of the same defining set of behavioural facets.

Leadership Key to Healthy Organization

In one’s career history, while growth and better opportunity are often the crucial reasons for moving out from one and into another organization, the other main reason that seldom gets talked about openly is a huge sense of disenchantment or dissatisfaction or unhappiness stemming from a sour equation with an immediate boss or the super boss or the politically charged peer group that makes it difficult for one to perform optimally. Complicated and unreasonable bosses or a set of ogre-like colleagues is, in fact, a bigger, often unspoken reason for people to move and seek greener pastures elsewhere. Several HR studies, globally, have proved this fact time and again.  

In the early 1990s, as a young, sprightly fresher with rose-tinted glasses, I joined the Public Affairs Section of a Diplomatic Mission in Delhi. This was my second job and I had often heard that it was Asians who were more cliquey, gossipy, with inherent biases and prone to apple-polishing. So, imagine my astonishment when I found some of my Western colleagues as guilty as their Asian counterparts. My first reaction was, “Hell, Here too!” And the second reaction post some thought, “We all are the same beneath the veneer.”

My first boss here was a grouchy, somewhat mean, cranky man given to favouritism and an unpleasant disposition.  He was tendentious towards one single person – obviously his favourite – instead of treating the entire team fairly; so much so that this person embodied the same attributes as the boss, adding extra doses of her viciousness to it. At one time when I was working along with her, she would rejoice in giving me some of the most menial tasks – “just do the filing,” “get me connected to so and so on the phone,” – and had the audacity to keep the official files hidden away and stashed under lock and key lest I lay my hands on them even when I had to file. Mind you, this was no confidential data but the ludicrous behavior continued, fanned by the boss’ strong inclination towards this person that allowed for many such unprofessional acts to flourish in the department. 

Then one day this boss was transferred out and in came a breath of fresh air in the form of a youthful, dynamic lady who brought in a sea change in the department in terms of how we viewed PR work, how we regarded each other as colleagues, how our work was perceived by other departments and the parent Government we had to report back to. 

What came across bright and clear were two different modes of leadership, two distinct personalities who contributed in their own way to the manner the department looked, breathed, felt and delivered. 

While one was a negative influence, the other used her high standard of skills, fine leadership style, fair & equal opportunity approach to make every work day a fun and productive day and ended up turning the Public Affairs Department into a highly respected and sought after department in the High Commission.

Leaders can Make or Break an Organization

My next stint for a period of more than a decade and a half has been with hotels. Now, hotels are completely multicultural organizations where the workforce is truly international, hailing from different countries; but of course, the largest base is of the countrymen from the place where the hotel is located. Yet, in hotels, it becomes extremely pertinent to know how to work together with people from as far and wide as France and Germany to Sri Lanka and China. Despite the cultural differences, this ends up adding a lot of fun elements to one’s day in the life of the organization as you end up learning about these cultures and understanding what makes the ‘other’ people tick. This, however, is a subject matter of another discourse.

In hotels, while the owner or the CEO of the hotel chain is the defining personality, the GM of the unit hotel where you may work is the lord of his own fiefdom. The team and staff pick out from this leader’s personality aspects and way of running his hotel as much as the top boss’ style percolates down. 

On hindsight, having worked with six different GMs across three hotel chains, I have been fortunate to sometimes thrive and at times strive & struggle in as many organizational climates. And where there has been striving, it really has been a battlefront that has made one as hard as a rock, yet more understanding of the complexities and dynamics of a fire-pit organization.

It has also brought home the point that leaders can really make or break an organization. Not just what corporate literature may tell you, from personal experience, too, I can list out the following – 

1. The organization can be a happy and fun place to which you look forward to returning every morning and to which you willingly want to give extra hours at the end of the day. Such organizations create an overriding sense of job engagement and satisfaction. 

2. It can be such that each day, nay, moment is difficult to pass with an impossible boss breathing menacingly down your neck; and a wicked set of colleagues rubbing their hands in malicious glee every time they pull you down like the proverbial crab.

3. The organization can be healthy, conducive to work with unsurpassed functionality and highly ethical work practices. Responsibilities and recognition, exemplary output and rewards go hand in hand in such places.

4. It can be sick, divisive, undermining and demoralizing. What might get you ahead is hoodwinking and proximity to the influential people like the bosses or the boss’ right-hand man; even if such easily ill-gotten prizes are short-lived and open to scrutiny.

5. The organization can be a place that allows you to blossom as a star worker with positive strokes that help germinate your skills and talent into wonderful fruits of productivity.

6. It can also be a place where there is so much of negative energy that all that can flower there is more bad blood splattered about by parasitic employees who eat into the climate.   

7. The organization can be a place where workers breathe in fresh air, enjoy positive influences, are allowed space to make mistakes and grow, have access to information, become a two-way process in clear communication and are given learning opportunities.

8. Then there are organizations that live in the dark zone of fear, punishment, connivance and control. They operate like secret missions where unnecessary stuff is hidden and kept out of reach of the employees thereby acting as a major impediment in the processes and execution of duty.

9. There are healthy and buzzing organizations that promote good work practices, innovation and creativity and encourage workers to take ownership of their actions.

10. And there are organizations where flattery, manipulation, bad performances, terrible attitudes and overall downward slope in almost all areas rule the roost.  

It is widely seen that the top man maneuvering the reins of the Organization can really lead by example, allowing for the finest personal and professional traits and benchmarked business best practices to shape the organization into an exemplary company; that boasts happy, engaged and optimally delivering team.

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