Look back over your career. Who motivated you? Who brought out the best in you? Which managers, which leaders, seemed to bring out the best in the people they served?

In his book, Dr. McGinnis outlines twelve rules for bringing out the best in people. These principles can be applied to any team you lead: the front desk, the sales department, housekeeping, servers, the kitchen, or even the management team of your hotel or restaurant. These skills are valuable in creating a motivational environment where your employees want to work and feel they can contribute to the success of your organization.

In final part of this three-part article, we look at the final four rules and how we can apply them to the environments in which we work.

RULE 9 – APPEAL SPARINGLY TO THE COMPETITIVE URGE
The desire and instinct to compete seems to be a natural human response in the world of work. Servers try to see who can make the most tips in a night. Room attendants have contests to see how fast they can clean a room. We enjoy games and competition! Competition can be a very strong technique, as well as a very dangerous and damaging one, for bringing out the best in your people.

"I say sparingly," says Dr. McGinnis, "because competition has only limited usefulness." If servers are pitted against each other too often, they will start feeling manipulated and they will resent the competition and eventually each other. If too much competition is created in your team, they might start stabbing each other in the back and undermining each other's efforts just to "win."

Competition can be used successfully when you place the team against "a common enemy" – another restaurant or hotel or the challenge of selling out the hotel on a particular night. Reaching a team goal can create cooperation and healthy competition among team members.

As Dr. McGinnis states, "Competition is always a factor for highly motivated people. The trick is to know how to use it in balance."


RULE 10 – PLACE A PREMIUM ON COLLABORATION
The manager, supervisor, or leader who can learn the laws of group morale becomes very valuable and effective for a hospitality organization. Not only can this leader enable people to get the job done in less time, new people will be drawn into the organization because of this effective corporate culture where teamwork and collaboration is valued. Good leaders do more than build allegiance to themselves – they build allegiance to the organization and to each other.

Leaders of successful groups base their efforts on a fundamental: most of us can function best when teamed with another person. Housekeepers work more effectively when they work together – helping each other out even with the small things such as getting more towels or linens. Servers and assistants create a greater and more profitable guest experience when their efforts are combined.

Service is more effective and efficient when people are working together. My wife and I spent our recent anniversary in a tapas bar in our hometown. Allisa was a great server and explained our menu options. The assistant brought our orders out in a very timely fashion. There was no hesitation on the part of another server who happened to walk by our table on a couple of occasions to fill our water glasses each time. The collaborative efforts of the team made for a great guest experience.

How do we build this collaboration in our teams? Dr. McGinnis suggests fours strategies

• Reward cooperation - reward the team when the team succeeds.
• Assign responsibility for group morale to the group itself - the best groups take a great deal of responsibility for their own success. This applies to standards, quality control, as well as morale.
• Plan occasions when people can be away together - when you take a group away from their normal working environment, they become more creative, more open to new ideas, and create stronger bonds with those they work with.
• Assign a high value to communication. - "More often than not," states Dr. McGinnis, "when a group is fractured and people begin to fight with each other, it is because of misunderstandings and small acts of inconsideration which have escalated into major grievances."

Group loyalty, teamwork, and collaboration do not mean our employees are giving us blind allegiance. It is an acknowledgement that the people in the group each have strengths and weaknesses, but because the group works together and has a history of teamwork, supporting one another is a necessity.

RULE 11 – BUILD INTO THE GROUP AN ALLOWANCE FOR STORMS
"Part of being a leader," says Dr. McGinnis, "is that you must spend a considerable amount of energy absorbing other people's complaints. It is not the happiest way to spend one's time, but if a group is going to run smoothly people must have an opportunity to get the bile out of their systems. Providing this ventilation should not be an unbearable burden when you remind yourself that it is one of the ways you keep a group tightly motivated."

At times, your employee's complaints will be more about others in the group than it will be about your supervision or leadership style. At times, supervisors must act like referees because allowing arguments and disagreements between employees to go on too long will hinder performance.

We can't go up to two servers and say, "I don't want to hear you arguing – work it out now!" To say that invites trouble! At times, we must go in, hear both sides, and help reach a compromise. When a compromise is reached, stick to the agreement and support it fully. A good motivator tries not to lose anyone and doesn't take sides. Allowing fighting will decimate the organization.

"What we are after," concludes Dr. McGinnis, "is a positive-thinking cadre of people in which there is a minimum of backbiting, criticizing, and negative communication. The only way that will be possible is if the leader is willing to drain off a great deal of venom by getting potential troublemakers aside and hearing them out. Anger is inevitable, and it is much smarter to let it ventilate upwards rather than allow it to smolder down in the ranks, for it is such smoldering that often erupts into a major conflagration." In every organization, whether it is a hotel, restaurant, college food service outlet, or even an amusement park, the only way to keep a high level of enthusiasm is to build in adequate avenues for grievances.

RULE 12 – TAKE STEPS TO KEEP YOUR OWN MOTIVATION HIGH
If it is true that the quality of your own personal spirit is an essential part of your leadership style, then the management of your own motivation must be a priority. How is the motivator motivated? Dr. McGinnis outlines the following strategies:

1. Associate yourself with successful, positive people. Spend time with individuals who inspire you, people who stimulate your thinking, restore your vision, and stretch your capacity for dreaming.


Monitor carefully the ideas entering your mind. The famous axiom is true: garbage in, garbage out. If you become what you think, and if you feed a constant stream of junk and trivia into your brain, your motivational skills will suffer.

Educate yourself! Attend classes, workshops, and seminars. Take advantage of the wealth of audio books and websites. Don't get stagnate in your career.

Write down your goals and post them. Keep a journal of your goals and record the steps taken to achieve them. This record will become a source of motivation when you look back on your achievements.

When we get down or discouraged in our efforts as we work with people, it is important to step back and remind ourselves that there is nothing more noble and honorable than assisting another human being and helping them succeed.

Conclusion and Review
If it is true that people can grow, expand their abilities, jump higher, run harder and faster, do more with less, this means that ultimately leadership is becoming servant to those we lead. In the end, we will produce employees who will surpass us. Employees will become managers and owners and have their own restaurants. General managers will oversee multi-unit organizations.

If we can reach in and draw out the best from our employees – if we can like Vince Lombardi challenged his players to give an extra 10% - they will perform better, try harder, and give more effort for us than for anyone in the world, and they will accomplish surprising things. That extra effort just may be the difference that wins the game for your organization.

Then, our challenge is, do you:

1. Expect the best from your employees and those you lead?
2. Understand the needs of your employees and use this information to create an environment that builds their motivation?
3. Establish standards of excellence that are attainable for your employees and those you lead?
4. Create an environment where failure isn't fatal?
5. Encourage your employees as opposed to nagging them?
6. Provide models of success for your employees to follow?
7. Regularly recognize and applaud the efforts of individuals and groups of employees?
8. Use a mixture of positive and negative reinforcement?
9. Effectively balance competition among teams and individuals?
10. Place a premium on collaboration?
11. Build in the group the allowance for storms?
12. Take steps to keep your own motivation high?

Evaluate your own performance in these areas. As leaders in the hospitality industry, strive to bring out the best in all those who work with you.

Chris Longstreet, CHA, is President & CEO of the Society for Hospitality Management. Chris is also a Visiting Instructor in the Hospitality & Tourism Management Program at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan.

Bringing Out the Best In People: How to Enjoy Helping Others Excel was written by Dr. Alan Loy McGinnis (1985) and is published by Augsburg Publishing House, Minneapolis, Minnesota.