Everything I Know About Leadership, I Learned from the Ritz:
Extraordinary Observations Aboard the Yacht
By Stuart Grauer

I’m going to go right out and say it: My brother Bill made more money in his career than a person needs to make. A lot more. But then, as a lawyer, he worked much harder than most, served people with very high stakes, and made them feel incredibly well taken care of.

Given all this, when he asked this year if I’d like to join him on a Ritz-Carlton cruise in the Bahamas that I would never have afforded or considered, I said, Sure.

The ship Ilma is currently the only cruise ship in the world to earn the independent Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star rating. This is not a marketing pitch, but an award based on rigorous evaluation of the guest experience that I can now verify as deserved. This is a 5-star boat!

But what impressed me most wasn't the luxury built into the ship—it was the people. Every crew member I encountered seemed:

• incredibly happy to serve,
• genuinely honored to be a part of this crew and team… and to be serving me!
• unusually bright, emotionally intelligent, and well educated,
• deeply attentive (I like the word “attunement”),
• energetic without seeming forced—good energy.

They remembered our names, our stories, our preferences, and conversations from previous days. It was never scripted and it came in from various directions. It was caring, real caring.

Even the youngest employees demonstrated interpersonal maturity that is uncommon in almost any organization. You can see that the Ritz hires for character first and skills second. As a result, they seem to get both. Their recruitment process must be incredibly selective—one crew member said she was one of like 3000 applicants and, knowing her now, I agree with their choice.

I experienced one service failure on the first day right after boarding—someone was very late with our food. What happened next left us with a more positive impression than if the mistake had never occurred. The next day, the staff was all over us like a beautiful, caring swarm. The mistake became a call to action you knew they’d huddled about.

One early morning, I was taking a walk below decks far from my stateroom and there was a young woman setting up a bar that I did not even know was there, and she was getting ready to open. “Good morning, Dr. Grauer, can I help you with anything this morning?” she said with a smile. I had never seen this person before! “I hope you enjoy your time on the beach at Great Exuma this morning!” Whaa?

The message: the deep cultures create redundancy in caring. Great organizations don't just assign care, they layer it. When three different people notice you from three different directions, you stop wondering whether you matter; and to a child, it feels like Belonging. Redundancy in caring isn't waste. It's one of the highest forms of leadership. Look for redundancy.

The food was unbelievable. Probably the highest overall culinary experience I have ever had, and beautifully presented. Exceptionally flavorful. Unlimited fresh lobster/sea bass, etc., premium wines and spirits, custom chocolates and coffees prepared at an astonishing level.

So that’s that about the shipboard service, and I hope fun to read about. But that’s not really why I am writing about this. Here’s where the story gets real…

What struck me as an educator and leader

Great organizations are built less by procedures and buildings than by people. Great cruises are not about the great navigation or engine room work, though we need those. They are about the service we experience. Great schools including The Grauer School are not about the curriculum or programming, they are about the mentorships and relationships—the caring we feel and experience from every single person there, from the front office to the principal to the maintenance staff… to the math teacher who greets us at the gateway or doorway, the English teacher who talks about literature over lunch with us, the joyful volunteer who hands us flowers, the office staffer who sees a sad look on our face—it’s the noticing! It’s the caring.

Luxury, or in schools, distinction, is not created primarily by marble, suites, ivory towers, distinguished job titles, or expensive things.

It is created because carefully chosen, passionate, genuinely caring and giving people consistently make visitors and students and colleagues feel:

• noticed,
•  remembered,
• anticipated,
• and genuinely cared for. Sometimes even loved.

When someone is just attending to their assigned duties, we know it. And when we matter to someone, we know that! Day and night. No mistaking.

The Huddle

But you don’t need to be a rich lawyer on a cruise to experience this…

Last week, I was up in Sonoma County to help out a family member who was in a tough spot. One of the biggest help he wanted was for me to go to the amazing, top-rated San Rafael farmer’s market and get his fruit. But why was it so renowned, this gathering of a few dozen farmers?

This needing family member lives for that market but was unable to travel there. So there I went and got the best peaches you will taste in this lifetime, and some other produce that would qualify as nectar of the gods. When we told one of the stalls what we were doing here, the owner said, “Yes, we dropped off some fruit for him and the nurses at the hospital last week.”

Who does this? Why?

But there’s more. It was early, my produce bags runneth over, and I happened upon a little stall that was preparing to open. They were selling hot chocolate. Those of you who know me look compassionately upon my chocolate issues and know that this was not a stall I could pass by. Only one trouble: they were not open yet.

But why not? The chocolate was hot. The coconut for the toppings all shaved. The farm fresh crème all whipped. The spices standing by the shaver. Can’t I have my chocolate?  No, the owner said. This opening means too much. We never serve anything before our team meeting to explore what we are intending. We share what today means to us, how we each want to treat people on this day. Their mission statement was posted on their counter, writ large: 

“OUR MISSION IS TO HELP THE WORLD SMILE.” And they meant it.

Wow. They were serving hot chocolate!

But, to quote a Grauer School motto, it “meant the world to them.” No, not meant the world.  I mean it really meant the world to them. I paid, and he shook my hand, and I understood that he was not merely wishing me a good tasting. He was shaking my hand for joy and for world peace, he lived this meaning.

And when I was handed my hot cup, the first sip did not only taste like chocolate, it tasted like love.  And purpose. And when I drank, I drank for the cacao farmers and truck drivers, and dockworkers and provisioners, and chefs, servers, and dishwashers who were all a part of this love, and I was overwhelmed with gratitude for the invisible community of people whose work had converged in a single, gorgeous sip. This was more than “doing small acts with great love.” They had the sensitivity and energy to notice and create what those small acts might really look like. That’s the love. That’s the character.

Connections to The Grauer School

When I meet and am served by people who are really Serving, it reinforces some beliefs we've developed together over many years as a learning community.

Attunement!  When people feel truly seen, trust grows naturally. I just can’t say enough about the difference we experience when teachers and staff are attuned. Routine experiences take on a spiritual quality and we know and feel it when we are in it.

Relationships are not a by-product of the overused word, “excellence”—they are the whole of it. They are the energy that drives it.

Character matters even more than credentials when building a great organization, or at least it comes first.

Hiring and ongoing team-building like that morning hot chocolate meeting is one of the most important forms of curriculum design. I regret not having more such meetings, or huddles—no great coach would skip this element of a great start to almost anything we care about as a team.

A culture spreads through example more than through rules—through service more than requirements—through Socratic probing more than information downloading.

Excellence isn't a single action. It's thousands of discrete little human interactions (or lack of them) repeated and coordinated consistently into patterns that become culture.

Takeaway

The great organizations and teachers don't merely deliver exceptional goods or services. They make them matter. To everyone. Maybe even to a higher power or purpose. I hope you have that in your work, whatever you do.

And that, I think, is a lesson every great school, especially the great small schools, can keep trying to embody …and if you don’t believe me, cruise on the Ritz. Just bill it to my brother, Bill.

---

COMMENT! Click on the "Comments" drop-down box below to share a comment.

SHARE! Click on the social media icons below or copy the link to share this column.