I recently shocked the participants during one of my “Elite Negotiation” trainings when I told them “Being human will help you win”.
After the initial surprise, I showed them a letter I received when I checked in at DoubleTree by Hilton Wroclaw, Poland, in April 2017 (a fragment is copied here). And I told them that the letter truly impressed me for two reasons:
- It was a fully personalized letter, personally signed by the Guest Relationship Manager of the hotel. It made me feel cared for and that I truly mattered. This is what attracted me (and countless others) to the Hilton chain across the years – they always knew how to show that you mattered to them, no matter what level you were in their loyalty program. The staff was specifically trained in this way and acted, in most of the cases, wholeheartedly with this attitude.
- The letter started with a promise of the founder of the Hilton company, Conrad Hilton, who said “We will provide the special comforts and acts of kindness that make the traveller feel human again”. What a wonderful vision for a hospitality company! And boy, they really walked the talk! Not just in one location, but virtually everywhere I went, I was treated with this approach and attitude!
These two points reflect perfectly the “human touch” that helped Hilton differentiate versus its competitors. The fact that they grew to become a Global leader in the hospitality industry is a testimony of the way their staff brought to life the founder’s vision day-in and day-out.
Returning to business and specifically to negotiations, I told the attendees that I strongly believe that most of us have lost that “human touch” because of the increasingly higher focus we have on delivering immediate results, faster and faster. The speed with which we do business increases exponentially and, as a result:
- we pay significantly less time buidling relationships with our business partners, despite knowing that “people do business with people” and “people buy from people”. Quantity replaced quality and everything became increasingly more transactional;
- managers are not anymore incentivized to think strategically for the longer term, as they are measured mostly on the short term results. To give you an example, someone I know works for a large multinational company and had 14 different assignments in 18 years, with a maximum of 2 years per assigment. As you might easily guess, if you change assignments each 18-24 months, you must deliver results immediately – thus it is simply impossible to work with the longer term perspective in mind.
