Hostmanship - A Serial Review #3 - Functional Hostmanship

This is the third in a series of postings on the book - Hostmanship - The art of making people feel welcome.The first posting - an introduction -can be found here, and the second on Personal Hostmanship, here.

Functional Hostmanship

Unless impossibly small, every organization is divided up into functional units. You have a sales force. There’s a fulfillment office, a HR department and a production staff. Each function has its own purpose and method for operating and measuring their performance. The leadership challenge is to avoid the silo effect, which is the fragmentation into territorial units who are protective of their turf. Unless addressed proactively an organization will devolve into separate little fiefdoms.

Gunnarsson and Blohm address this reality in what they call Functional Hostmanship. They begin by identifying the principal attitude that lies behind this destructive tendency in organizations. When people view people with "thinly veiled contempt"(their phrase) they are making a statement that their function area is all that matters in the operation of the company.  We've all either been treated to or have exhibited ourselves the condescension that one person or group has toward "them" who are not like us. When this attitude exists within an organization it is difficult for any sense of being a team to develop.

I’ve told the story before of the hosiery mill where I did a project several years ago. The mill was organized around 17 separate stages in the manufacturing of socks. Each stage was so isolated from the other stages - meaning their whole focus was on their function and their function alone - that no one in one stage knew what the stage before or after it did. This fragmentation was major factor in the eventual closing of the business.  It extended beyond the manufacturing floor to the executive suite.  In essence, everyone was there to do their own thing and receive their just compensation.

The cure for thinly veiled contempt is respect. Respect for other people, their backgrounds and the belief that everyone will make their best choice based on the situation at hand. If you look at it that way, it is easy to like other people, cherish the moment, to treat interaction with your guests as uplifting and always focus on the guest’s needs. You will clearly feel that you, your function and your organization are part of something bigger than yourselves.

The key to Functional Hostmanship is this attitude of respect. How is this done? It begins with the recognition that we each must be responsible for our own part of the organization. If we sit in judgment of others, we are in essence taking on ourselves the responsibility of knowing what is best for them to do in their function area. When we respect someone, we accept his or her responsibility for knowing what to do and doing it. Consequently, we accept our own responsibility for doing our part.  This is partly why I see Hostmanship as an ethic of responsibility.

In truth, I can’t fix anyone. That is a delusion. To think so is a denial of reality. If we are honest and objective, we have a difficult enough time changing ourselves, much less other people and whole departments with our business. But that is the attitude of thinly veiled contempt. We think we know better than them, and often we don’t. Contempt is really a clever way to avoid responsibility. When I am contemptible toward some person or department, I am really trying to avoid that functional group’s scrutiny of me and my department. As a result, we put up walls to avoid criticism. Our isolation not only keeps us from learning how to do a better job, but also hurts the company.

Gunnarsson and Blohm describe it this way.

A guest is a guest is a guest

The surest way not to misjudge a guest is never to judge anyone. What your guest chooses to wear, how she cuts her hair or who she is with is up to her. What you should be interested in is her needs. When I mentioned in the last section the ability to read a guest, I meant doing it without making value judgments. Your focus should be on the situation at hand and the function within the company the guests decided to turn to.

Hostmanship is fixed before the guest ever arrives. It is part of the overall performance, expressed at a predetermined level in harmony with other functions and the company as a whole. In other words, the hostmanship you offer is constant as the products you sell, which in turn differ merely in terms of size, model, color, etc. The guest expects you to play your role and not break the spell. 

Hostmanship is a way to bring unity and cooperation to your company. Just as personal hostmanship is integral to functional hostmanship, functional hostmanship is essential to organizational hostmanship. We’ll look at that stage of Hostmanship tomorrow.