Corporate Leadership for Social Change Blog

Welcome to the Leadership for Social Change Blog

When Harriet and I bought Grand Circle Corporation in 1985, we promised our team that we were going to build a company that would be totally different from the typical corporations where we had each worked before. We committed to building a culture that put people and relationships first and would consistently deliver unsurpassed value and excellence. 25 years later, our company has proven that a large organization can be very successful and also be flexible, a terrific place to work, and an engine for social good.

Grand Circle Travel today is a profitable global corporation with 2500 employees worldwide who take over 100,000 travelers on trips overseas annually. The company has grown nearly 15% a year for 25 years.

There are 3 major themes that we talk about in this blog:

1. In unpredictable times values drive successful organizations, not systems and structures. 

2. Integrating philanthropy in our business strategy attracts the best people and keeps us focused on what is important.

3. Constant measurement of quality and performance from the customer perspective instead of financial metrics keeps us focused on our extreme competitive advantages.

We have been asked many times to tell our stories of how we built our company and why it looks like it does. We hope that these stories will inspire others to build similar organizations. If you are interested in this theme, we hope that you will contact us so that we can build a discussion together about 21st century leadership.

Alan and Harriet Lewis -- 2010

HOW OPEN AND COURAGEOUS COMMUNICATION WILL DRIVE A BUSINESS

Do your employees tell you when they disagree with you? Do they offer recommendations when they see areas of the business that need improvement? Do they ask tough questions and give honest feedback?

 Many companies claim complete transparency, heralding “open door policies” and “suggestion boxes” or even opening “whistle-blower” hotlines. But few have built a culture that truly welcomes – and even rewards – open and courageous communication. Those companies are missing out on a real opportunity.

At Grand Circle Corporation – the international travel company where I serve as Chairman – we recognize that the combined intelligence of our organization is astounding, but it is valuable only if it is allowed to express itself openly. Therefore, we have made open and courageous communication our signature value.

 When my wife, Harriet, and I founded Grand Circle in 1985, we were quite intentional about this. We had both worked in environments that encouraged political correctness over honesty and felt completely unrewarded in such a setting. Beyond our personal reasons, we recognized the inherent business advantages of open and courageous communication.

Our choice was the right one. Encouraging employees to bring up the hot issues and hold senior leaders accountable is the essential ingredient in Grand Circle’s ability to respond effectively to change. Asking for and receiving the truth unvarnished, warts and all, from all levels of the organization brings hidden issues to the surface and challenges us, as leaders, to stay on our toes. And acting on that frank, honest and open feedback is critical for us to break down barriers, continuously improve our service, and drive a successful business.

 Consider what happened more than a decade ago, when an employee demanded to know whether we had a plan for how we would operate excursions to the Middle East, given the turmoil just starting to heat up there. We didn’t, but we put one in place by the end of the week. To this day, that plan has been critical in avoiding numerous potential crises.

Just recently, we saw more benefits from our insistence on open and courageous communication. Our associates in Egypt felt comfortable bringing us unembellished updates about the mass protests there that were far more accurate than the news media delivered, greatly speeding up our response time and giving us a huge leg up in terms of assessing risks and keeping our travelers safe.

It isn’t easy to create an environment where employees feel free to speak freely and senior leadership really hears and responds to the good, the bad and the ugly. Here is some essential advice for business leaders looking to instill a culture of open and courageous communication within their own organizations:

 

• Leaders must model the behavior. For employees to feel safe speaking up with their honest concerns, the senior team must have the moral fiber and mettle to do it first. They need to recognize that people don’t want to be falsely soothed, no matter how the bad news. After the September 11 attacks, it was a gut-wrenching experience to tell our employees that we were going to have to reduce our staff until the travel industry rebounded, but it enhanced our credibility as leaders and showed employees that it was okay to speak candidly about other issues.

 

•  Operationalize it. Create mechanisms and venues that not only allow open and courageous communication to happen, but where it is expected from employees. At Grand Circle, half of our monthly corporate meetings involve the senior team sitting on the “hot seat” while employees make suggestions, express concerns and demand answers. Although it takes maturity and humility to sit in the hot seat, we make sure the tougher the question, the greater the applause. We also offer a Report Card that allows associates to grade leaders on various responsibilities, as well as a CEO Mailbox where employees can share feedback directly with the CEO and get a personal response within a few days. Finally, our Business Works program gathers small teams of regional leaders together to discuss hot issues and immediately devise an action step, owner and deadline for dealing with them. All of these mechanisms have resulted in phenomenal recommendations on improving the organization, and over the years we’ve made critical strategic business decisions based on feedback from every level.

 

•  Integrate it into the rewards system. Open and courageous communication should be a key aspect of the performance management system. It should not be a choice. Rather, it should be required to get in and get up in the organization. At Grand Circle, we base rewards, promotions and advancement first and foremost on this value. We’ve even been known to off out on-the-spot bonuses to employees who publicly raise a red hot issue.

 A culture of open and courageous communication is seldom seen in public companies, and it is practically unheard of in privately held ones. But at Grand Circle, full disclosure – especially about mistakes – consistently unearths critical knowledge and ideas that drive performance and cuts off small problems before they grow into big ones.

 What can open and courageous communication do for you?

Alan Lewis -

How an experiential off-site can transform a team

For 25 years Grand Circle Corporation has used unique experiential off-sites and team facilitation to achieve extraordinary results to thrive and grow in the unpredictable world of international travel.  From the earliest days of the company 25 years ago, we were exposed to terrorism, environmental crises, and political instability. We knew that we would need to build a culture that could instantly respond to those challenges.  We knew that in order to adapt quickly to sudden changes and crises we had to invest more in people than systems and procedures. In fact one of our first core values was “thriving in change.”  

We learned that people would not let go of old habits unless they really committed to inspirational values and goals, had a direct emotional experience of change, and integrated the change experience into a focused action plan. We evolved off-site programs to consistently deliver that.  

We adopted a series of exercises from Outward Bound that were originally designed to increase survival and adaptability in the British military. We used those to help people recognize and overcome behaviors that were counter-productive for their expressed goals. Then we integrated a systematic process to develop measurable action plans  that took advantage of the behavior changing insights that come from a peak experience like the outward bound exercises.

We now have a proven multi-day  off-site program that every leader in our organization goes through with their teams annually . We believe that this approach it is the fastest way to get individuals and teams aligned around their goals, committed to effective action, and free from legacy habits that get in the way.

Here are the components we use in our core programs to guarantee effective action:  

• For 30-60 days we work with a team as individuals to clarify their goals, values,  perceived barriers, and immediate challenges
• We arrange and facilitate multi-day day off-sites for team groups of 6-12 people.
• We begin the off-site with experiential exercises designed to surface and overcome specific team challenges ( silo thinking, not taking responsibility for the team, poor communication, etc)
• We structure the exercises to assure that each team solves the problem by taking risks and learning a new behavior essential to the team reaching its goals.
• Before the glow (and the adrenaline-high) from success in the exercises fades, we bring the team together and work on developing an action plan for their most challenging business problems.
• Teams work to create an plan that they all cam commit to accomplishing 
• We assure that each individual is completely clear on their individual responsibilities and also the measurements that will be used track efforts.
• We set up a reporting and follow-up process to review the results regularly after the initial program

Hundreds of teams that have gone through this process have emerged with a new ability to work together and to achieve their goals.  We guarantee those results to our teams as well as other companies who use our programs.      

Here are some of the reasons we think our approach is different and more effective:

1. Strategic consultants often focus their on getting the right data to be sure that all aspects of an opportunity is known. That is a great thing to do, but frequently the data does not lead to useful action. What consultants call “the implementation problem.”

2. Process consultants usually work with teams to understand what procedure changes need to happen and then begin an expensive procedure to build new systems and procedures to address change. This process takes a long time, a lot of money, and often does not work because the new procedures are resisted by the organization. This is usually called the  “ the change resistance  problem.”

3. Training organizations offer a wide range of generic programs to help individuals learn new skills to shift their behaviors, but they are rarely context specific. Rarely do they focus on targeted behavior changes rapidly enough to affect ability to execute in the short term. Everyone agrees that training is necessary but bemoan the slow and undependable results. This is called “the training problem.”

4. One of the fastest and most effective ways to shift behaviors is the experiential learning programs that involve mountain climbing, ropes courses, team events, etc. These are usually fun and engaging and can have amazing immediate results, but the emotional shifts and learning experiences typically fade within a day or two and usually do not get transferred back into the organization. This is usually described as  “organizational  learning resistance”

We believe that our intense focus on goals and action get teams moving fast in the right direction. Our combination of  intense learning experiences combined with the best techniques of process facilitation help us avoid the above problems and accelerate implementation of the most effective changes to reach any specific goal.

 Any comments?

 

Hire for culture first, skills second

No two organizations’ hiring process are alike. No technology company hiring manager would ask a programmer applicant to teach the alphabet, but it’s the first thing a school administrator might ask of a teacher. Obviously, you need different criteria to assess if people possess the skills needed to succeed in different positions.  

 

But skills don’t tell the whole story. Every organization needs employees who mesh with its core values – the principles that define who you are as an organization and that shape day-to-day business decisions.    Employees who do not adhere to a shared corporate culture dilute it, detracting from the essence that gives your company its identify and helps it achieve aggressive goals. In my view, every organization’s hiring process – from Microsoft to PS 90 to everything in between – should screen candidates for the best cultural fit. 

 

I’m the owner of Grand Circle Travel, a $600 million international tour operator for Americans 50+, and like many executives, I’ve found that in my business, alignment with my company’s culture and values counts far more than do skills or experience. In most cases, if an associate shares our values, we can teach the job skills. That’s why more than a decade ago we adopted a values-based hiring model. This decision has not only enhanced our recruiting efforts, but also it has contributed toward the long-term success of our associates and of our organization.  

 

Interviewing for values may sound difficult, but it can be easily embraced throughout the organization and by hiring managers. Here are three pieces of advice to keep in mind when working to develop a values-based hiring process:

 

1.   Don’t just let candidates tell you how they espouse your companies values; make them show you. You can learn a lot more about a person from watching him or her interact with other job applicants and employees. At Grand Circle, our process includes a group interview, in which multiple candidates interview for various open jobs at the same time. We observe candidates undertaking unique and often quirky challenges and interacting with each other. Candidates act out scenarios that show us whether or not they exhibit our core values – open and courageous communication, risk-taking, speed, quality, teamwork and thriving in change. To test for risk-taking, for example, candidates role play how they would deal with a situation in which one colleague has been called out of town and needs a less-experienced coworker to take their place in an important presentation. We also engage candidates a  “raw-egg drop exercise ” in which they work in teams to design a travel vessel for the egg – using only straws and tape, develop a marketing presentation to “sell” the trip the designed vessel will take the egg on, and then drop the vessel from about 10 feet. From this exercise, we’re able to quickly learn which candidates exhibit leadership and teamwork qualities, which ones perform well in unusual situations, and which have done their background research on the company.

 

2.   Be crystal clear about your culture and values. You don’t want to hire someone destined to fail, wasting their time and energy and yours, and being open is the best way to avoid it. Prospective associates will walk away on their own if they don’t believe they can fit in with your culture. We’ve seen it many times – i.e. the man who called our raw-egg exercise “really weird,” and the woman who announced she “didn’t want to be part of our kumbaya culture.” It was far better to screen out these people in the initial interview than learn of their discomfort with our values during their first months on the job.

 

3.   Don’t combine skills interviews with values interviews. When values are assessed in a separate and distinct process, you will very likely learn something that you would have missed had you screened a candidate for skills simultaneously. One of our organization’s young superstars came to his group interview with virtually no relevant job experience – which would have held him back had we only tested for skills – but he demonstrated such ambition and leadership that we jumped to hire him.

 

Hiring good cultural matches is the best way to assure the continued success of your company. It leads to higher retention (43 percent of our employees have been on board for five or more years), better employee engagement, and deeper connections with customers. In your hiring process, isn’t it time you looked beyond skills to what’s most important – your company’s values?

 

By Alan Lewisis owner and chairman of Grand Circle Corporation, the largest U.S. direct market tour operator of international vacations for older Americans,

How to do philanthropy well

Tis the season – to give. At least that's what recent news suggests: more and more people are jumping on the donation bandwagon. The world's top billionaires - from Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg to Warren Buffet to Oprah - are coming forward one-by-one and promising their fortunes through the highly publicized "Giving Pledge."

I wonder: is this just a fad that will fade with the season? In fact, the latest report from The Chronicle of Philanthropy shows that giving is down overall – with the nation's 400 biggest charities seeing donations drop by 11 percent last year.

While there is no question the latest spike in donations is a critical step in the right direction, more needs to be done by businesses across the United States and around the world to make philanthropy more than just an afterthought.

As the New Year unfolds, I'd like to challenge CEOs and business owners to make an ongoing commitment to philanthropy. In 1992, my wife Harriet and I decided to make philanthropy an integral part of our company's mission, and almost two decades later it remains the best business decision we have ever made. Admittedly, it wasn't easy in the beginning, but we learned important lessons from our mistakes and figured out how to create effective, innovative programs that make a difference. As other companies resolve to make social mission a bigger part of their strategy this year, I'd like to offer these guidelines, gleaned from our experiences, to help leaders become successful philanthropists.

• Get Personally Involved: 

Philanthropy is more than just writing a check. Money is important, butclose involvement ensures that donations are really meeting the needs of the project.

 • Share Your Philanthropic Passion with Constituents:

Everyone wants to be part of something bigger than him or her self, so welcome the involvement of your constituents. Enlist the help of employees, customers and even business partners in your ventures. You'll not only accomplish more with expanded (and talented) resources, you will also engage the right kind of employees,foster customer loyalty and strengthen business ties.

 • Partner With Strong Local Leaders:

Who can identify community need better than local leaders? Partner with them to identify priority projects and then tackle them together. Local leaders are key to enlisting the community's help to get things done. After all, it will be the community that ultimately will be responsible for driving and sustaining the project.

 • Require Accountability:

Manage your giving as you do your business -- with tight controls and accountability. Build performance measurements and annual reviews into your giving so that you can assess the effectiveness of the projects you are funding.

• Celebrate Your Philanthropic Leaders:

Finally, recognize and celebrate your employees, customers and business partners who step up to help. Cherish them. After all, it's through theirgenerosity of time, talent and spirit that will help make life better for those you have teamed up to serve.

Here's my message to leaders of the 21st century: Make philanthropy and volunteerism a priority. It's good for the world and good for your business.

Alan Lewis is owner and chairman of Grand Circle Corporation

Best wishes for the new year!

Since we are about to begin a new year and a new decade, I wanted to share a quote with you that I have always liked. Perhaps it is not directly about leadership or maybe it is. 

Happy Holidays      Alan Lewis

“If I had my life to live over again, I’d dare to make more mistakes next time. I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would take more trips. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more troubles, but I would have fewer imaginary ones.

I’m one of those people who live sensibly and sanely hour after hour, day after day. I have had my moments and if I had it to do over again, I’d have more of them. In fact, I would try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. I’ve been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a raincoat, and a parachute. If I had it to do over again, I would travel lighter.

If I had my life to live over again, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring. I would go to more dances, I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick moiré daises.”

Nadine Stair ( Readings from the Outward Bound School)  

To build a great culture, hire for values first

At Grand Circle we hire for the culture first and the skills second.

The ability to assess candidates for cultural fit is critical. We are passionate about our culture. When the company began growing, we became concerned around the dilution of the corporate culture. We realized we needed to be very intentional about it.

At Grand Circle we use a variety of techniques to assess candidates as they interact with others in various settings. We conduct simultaneous group interviews with multiple candidates for various jobs that may be open. Candidates are observed interacting with each other as well as with Grand Circle personnel.

We look for such elements as whether the candidates smile readily, whether they smile only at the managers, whether they interact with their peers,  or appear to be trying to just impress those making the hiring decisions.

One of the company's unique assessment tools is known as the "raw egg exercise."  A candidate group is broken into smaller groups. Each group is given a raw egg, straws and a certain amount of tape, and they are asked to create a "travel vessel" that will safely carry the egg even when dropped by someone standing on a chair. The candidate group is also asked to develop a marketing presentation for "selling" their designed vessel.

Even before this stage, candidates are assessed as they enter the building.  They  are asked to wait in the lobby while a television displays skits from our annual  leadership center event. The video shows us at our most outrageous.  We get clues from the reactions to the tape how the candidate may assimilate into the culture. The desire for cultural fit also works both ways. Sometimes candidates opt out at the egg-drop stage.

 Getting people who are naturally attracted to our culture is essential for our success. In my next post I will talk about how we systematically train and develop people through our unique off-site approach.

How risk-taking will boost your business

Risk-taking has fallen out of favor in the last two years, the victim of the economic downturn and global unrest. Indeed, the current business mood has become cautious to a fault. Sit tight. … Keep your head down. … Above all, minimize risk. This is what passes for sage advice in today's business press.

We disagree. In our 25 years as owners of Grand Circle Corporation, we have found that risk-taking always advances our business – in every market and in every season. Risk-taking catches opportunity and keeps you nimble. It builds personal courage and corporate resilience. It allows a company to adapt to changing circumstances and grow to its full potential, even in the face of difficulty.

We believe in "risky business," and here are four lessons we've learned that can be applied to any business.

Risk-taking is not just for leaders. All employees must be willing to take risks to advance the company. Not just the Executive Team — everyone. Our business requires it. We have more than 30 offices around the world, and each is fully responsible for the development and delivery of trips in its region. Everyone must be ready to lead at a moment's notice, from anywhere in the world, and that's only possible if everyone has daily practice taking risks. Risk-taking builds character and employee confidence – a win-win for any company.

Risk-taking requires support. Risk-taking doesn't come naturally to everyone, and it can be hard for employees to embrace it. Managers can help by specifying what risk-taking looks like in their workplace. Employees should be expected to speak up, ask tough questions of leadership, move forward with decisions without always knowing their outcome, and accept new assignments gladly. On the same token, managers must identify and reward such behaviors. They must teach them. For us, this happens in the office, on team off-sites, and at our annual companywide training, which incorporates risk-taking exercises from Outward Bound and other experiential learning programs. In other companies, risk-taking might look different. For example, employees might be expected to speak in public, lead a cross-departmental team, or go after three new accounts a week. The behaviors may be different, but the support is the same: identify, teach, and reward.

Risk-taking must be embedded in a larger corporate culture. Of course, employees can't just go off half-cocked, doing any risky thing they please. Risk-taking must be guided by the company's vision and mission, and bounded by the company's values. A company's mission, vision, and values are its greatest assets, but they are worthless if you don't cultivate them. Leadership must refer to them constantly, and employees must be held accountable to them in performance reviews. When the corporate culture is completely clear, risk-taking will always support the goals of the company.

Risk-taking means you will make mistakes. Every risk-taking organization will make mistakes once in a while. We've made lots of them. In the 1990s, we invested $11 million in a computer system that didn't work for us. Around the same time, we divested financial operations on our overseas offices and got robbed – several times. Mistakes and losses are part of the risk landscape. To succeed as a risk-taking business, you must do two things at a minimum: You must create a safe environment for employees to make mistakes, and, when a risky decision is on the table, you must always be ready with a fast exit plan.

Risk-taking is one of our six core values and has helped build our business in good times and bad. What risk will you take today?

Alan and Harriet Lewis

Leadership from anywhere to solve complex inner city problems

A few weeks ago I convened a meeting of some of the top business leaders, philanthropists, and social agency leaders in Boston to talk about how we could use leadership to accelerate our ability to turn good intentions into positive actions. Specifically we asked what could we do together to provide better opportunities for poor kids from inner city Boston (Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan).

We learned that for a non-white male from these neighborhoods the chance of success was 1 in 12 (versus 7 out of 10 for most white males). We also learned that the need to constantly worry about violence in these neighborhoods makes it very difficult to focus on anything else.    Many of the attendees felt that they did not have enough information to address this problem

One of things that Grand Circle Travel and Overseas Adventure Travel does consciously throughout the world is to expose travelers to foreign cultures to broaden their view of the world and themselves. It seemed that this approach would be a great way to engage the business leaders we needed in this effort  

I contacted Robert Lewis Jr. from the Boston Foundation to set up a tour that would provide some first-hand experience of Boston Neighborhoods.  Robert Lewis Jr. is an amazing leader in his own right. He grew up in the poorer sections of Boston and has dedicated himself to making a difference specifically by reducing teen age violence. In addition to his role at the Boston Foundation, Robert founded the Street Safe Program in Boston to put neighborhood street workers in the neighborhood to build trusting relationships with the kids, to help them understand the resources and opportunities that could be available, and to directly intervene to stop violence.

The tour was an eye-opener for many. We heard from kids in the Lenox housing project how the territory wars that replaced the drug wars make it unsafe for them to cross the street from their neighborhood to get to a T stop if it means crossing through another territory.  We heard from courageous street workers and police how they try to save kids one at a time and how frustrating it can be that they cannot help everyone.  

What was truly remarkable was the next stop we made at the Bromley Heath housing project. This is one of the oldest low-cost housing projects and has had a long history of violence and tragedy. In the last decade hundreds of kids have been killed there in acts of violence. But what we saw was a very different scene. We met with kids in the playground at 8:00 PM. They felt completely safe and so did we.

One of the biggest differences is the commitment that had been made by that project in the last couple of years to support an active community center with continuous programs for at-risk youths. We met Jackie Furtado and Manny Rodriquez who provide a safe active activity center for kids from the 800 housing units in the projects. They started with the younger kids a few years ago and those kids are now effective role models and coaches for the new kids. This seems to have broken the persistent cycles that have plagued the area for years.

We later heard from some extraordinary police officers that incarcerating the problem kids does not change the culture by itself because other kids just step into the gap and perpetuate the problem. What does seem to work is to create engagement, trust and alternative activities to provide a path to success outside the gang structure.

That is not easy, but the examples of Jackie and Manny prove that it is possible.

It was nice to see that there might be a light at the end of the tunnel. We also learned how important it is to develop and encourage the kind of real community leadership that can help break the cycle of poverty and pain for kids who deserve better.

Grand Circle has been using its leadership center and programs to help inner city agencies for a while, but we feel that a larger initiative is urgently needed. We hope you will join us as we work on this problem.

Alan Lewis

Why risk-taking is always important

Risk-taking has fallen out of favor in the last two years, the victim of the economic downturn and global unrest. Indeed, the current business mood has become cautious to a fault. Sit tight. … Keep your head down. … Above all, minimize risk. This is what passes for sage advice in today's business press.

We disagree. In our 25 years as owners of Grand Circle Corporation, we have found that risk-taking always advances our business – in every market and in every season. Risk-taking catches opportunity and keeps you nimble. It builds personal courage and corporate resilience. It allows a company to adapt to changing circumstances and grow to its full potential, even in the face of difficulty.

In fact, we have taken some of our biggest risks in times of crisis and change. When 9-11 brought travel to a standstill in Europe and the Middle East, we bought up all the inventory we could find, and emerged as the leader in those markets. Similarly, during the recent economic crisis we aggressively cut our prices, cultivated our best customers – and celebrated our third-best year ever.

We believe in "risky business," and here are four lessons we've learned that can be applied to any business.

Risk-taking is not just for leaders. All employees must be willing to take risks to advance the company. Not just the Executive Team — everyone. Our business requires it. We have more than 30 offices around the world, and each is fully responsible for the development and delivery of trips in its region. Everyone must be ready to lead at a moment's notice, from anywhere in the world, and that's only possible if everyone has daily practice taking risks. Risk-taking builds character and employee confidence – a win-win for any company.

Risk-taking requires support. Risk-taking doesn't come naturally to everyone, and it can be hard for employees to embrace it. Managers can help by specifying what risk-taking looks like in their workplace. Employees should be expected to speak up, ask tough questions of leadership, move forward with decisions without always knowing their outcome, and accept new assignments gladly. On the same token, managers must identify and reward such behaviors. They must teach them. For us, this happens in the office, on team off-sites, and at our annual companywide training, which incorporates risk-taking exercises from Outward Bound and other experiential learning programs. In other companies, risk-taking might look different. For example, employees might be expected to speak in public, lead a cross-departmental team, or go after three new accounts a week. The behaviors may be different, but the support is the same: identify, teach, and reward.

Risk-taking must be embedded in a larger corporate culture. Of course, employees can't just go off half-cocked, doing any risky thing they please. Risk-taking must be guided by the company's vision and mission, and bounded by the company's values. A company's mission, vision, and values are its greatest assets, but they are worthless if you don't cultivate them. Leadership must refer to them constantly, and employees must be held accountable to them in performance reviews. When the corporate culture is completely clear, risk-taking will always support the goals of the company.

Risk-taking means you will make mistakes. Every risk-taking organization will make mistakes once in a while. We've made lots of them. In the 1990s, we invested $11 million in a computer system that didn't work for us. Around the same time, we divested financial operations on our overseas offices and got robbed – several times. Mistakes and losses are part of the risk landscape. To succeed as a risk-taking business, you must do two things at a minimum: You must create a safe environment for employees to make mistakes, and, when a risky decision is on the table, you must always be ready with a fast exit plan.

Risk-taking is one of our six core values and has helped build our business in good times and bad. What risk will you take today?

Alan Lewis Oct 22, 2010

Change is the new constant: Leading organizations that (can) thrive in crises

Most organizations believe they are not working as well as they used to. They blame the rapid and unpredictable changes that are going on around them. But many of them have failed to grasp one fundamental truth: change is the new constant.

To be successful in the 21^st century requires accepting that change is here to stay, and one of the most critical components for success is now the ability to build a culture to adapt and thrive in change.

Grand Circle Corporation (GCC) is an outstanding example of an organization that has learned to thrive in change and crisis. It offers an instructive model for anyone who understands that change is a persistent condition of the 21^st century that every successful organization will need to learn to address.

GCC learned tough leadership lessons as it developed in one of the most volatile and unpredictable industries on the planet: international travel. Over 25 years, it has grown 15 percent per year, from one office with sales of $ 27 M to a highly profitable company with more than $600 million in sales and 2,300 employees in 30 offices around the world. In the process, the company developed a systematic process that enabled it to survive through hundreds of crises that shuttered the doors of many of its competitors. Today, every business environment is fraught with levels of uncertainty that were unusual even just a few years ago—making the lessons that GCC learned in order to thrive in the international travel business well worth studying.

There are 5 key lessons that Grand Circle has learned that are somewhat unusual, but were essential for the company to thrive and grow in an unpredictable environment. They are:

Flexibility trumps Efficiency

1. Mission and Vision creates Inspiration
2. Values, not Structures, drive effective organizations
3. Investments in People and Learning create Advantage         
4. Relentless measurement of Excellence is essential

 Alan Lewis Nov 8, 2010

In unpredictable times, flexibility trumps efficiency

Traditional efficiency-focused models are focused on managing predictable environments. Over time, the relentless pursuit of efficiency will cut out the capabilities needed to respond to the unpredictable. Flexible organizations that can grow and thrive in change and crisis require a different focus than traditional business and leadership models.

 At GCC, change is a way of life. As we grew, we experienced huge changes. They came at a dizzying pace, sometimes with little warning. That’s why we made “Thriving in Change” one of our company values.

 Here are our 7 Steps for Thriving in Change

1. Set clear goals and focus change where it will make the most difference.

2. Communicate the change at every opportunity.

3. Use off-sites to draw on the brainpower of the entire organization.

4. Get everyone on board.

5. Build transformation teams to direct the action.

6. Make good use of action sets and deadlines.

7. Measure results and change course if you have to.

 Stay Clear and Focused

Look around you. Lots of things need to change, but you can’t do it all. It’s crucial to pick the next most important change and then see it through to completion. A lot of companies fail at making transformational change because as soon as they get started on one change, they run off to fix something else. This is a formula for failure. An organization needs sustained focus to transform its business.

 Communicate the Change

Communication is key. Leaders must formulate a clear goal and explanation for the change, one that everyone in the organization can understand. This is a challenge for a global company like GCC, because our associates speak dozens of different languages. We must craft our message in simple but powerful English and then repeat it over and over again—in company memoranda, in newsletters, in conversations, in our weekly teleconferences with regional associates, and in our monthly corporate meetings.

 Use Your Collective Brainpower

The best brainpower seldom resides with senior management. Put a group of smart, experienced people together in a new environment, preferably outdoors, and their solutions will never disappoint you. We reach deep into the organization to include people who know the day-to-day workings of the company and can see the landmines we might step on if we were to run willy-nilly through the landscape. Our off-sites don’t always go as planned, but they always surface the hot issues.

 Get Everyone on Track

Over the years, we have developed a very structured approach to brainstorming and consensus-building. The approach is based a decision-making practice that identifies key issues and considers all points of view, regardless of where they come from in the organization. We use techniques developed at our Leadership Center, which has been honing methodologies for this work for more than 20 years.

 Build a Transformation Team

Transformation teams are charged with making changes happen. Whether it’s a new computer system or a new way to train Trip Leaders, the process is the same. One member of the senior leadership team is identified as the sponsor and is held accountable for the initiative. Together, the team identifies hot issues, determines necessary actions, sets deadlines, and reports out on progress to the Executive Team. Associates vie to get on these teams because we have a history of using them for testing and developing new leaders.

 Make Actions Happen

Action plans are essential. At GCC, action plans are always very specific. Every issue around a change generates a set of specific actions; each action is assigned to a specific person, who is responsible for getting it done by a specific target completion date. Since the goal is clear and everybody has participated in creating the plan, the transformation gets broad support and every associate helps make it happen.

 Measure and Reassess

Experience has taught us that when faced with a problem or a need for change, speed is more important than being exactly right. We can get away with fast action because we have an understanding with our associates that if an idea or action isn’t working, we will quickly change our direction—without penalty to the team.

 This practice has two prerequisites. First, our associates must feel free to say, “Hey, this isn’t working,” and second, we need to measure our actions to confirm progress. Measurement takes the emotion out of the assessment; it allows us to move forward in confidence and without blame. For this reason, all of the actions in our action sets are measurable; our metrics include such things as quality scores, sales figures, cost figures, and traveler volume. We constantly check the numbers to confirm that our change is on the right track. If we don’t see the results we expected, we reassess and make any necessary midcourse corrections.

 GCC has seen countless world crises, and over the years we’ve become very adept at dealing with them. Today we have a protocol for responding to any world crisis, and we have a set of what we call “Extreme Competitive Advantages” that propel us through difficulties and position us to come out ahead. An example of this was our decision to stay focused on small ships, where we could deliver unsurpassed quality and not try to compete in the large ship business where we might have been one of many providers. But in the company’s early days, we flew a lot by the seat of our pants, relying on guts, instinct, and the advice of the good people we gathered around us.

 Alan Lewis Nov 7, 2010

Why values matter in leadership today

Values-driven leadership has sustained us over 25 years, but elsewhere in the business world enthusiasm for it has waned. New leadership ideas have come and gone, often in response to changing markets and financial conditions. Much of the emphasis in today's business press, for example, is on globalization, nimbleness, resilience, crisis response, change management, and sustainability. These are all worthy topics, but I submit that you cannot address any of them until you get your company's values straight and tie them to your leadership strategy.

Values are the foundation on which your company is built. They shape every conversation you have, every deal you make, and every change you undertake. You must name and nurture them, or your company will be left without a compass when times get tough. Indeed, the current business climate presents an opportunity for leaders to realign their organizations around a set of compelling and productive values, a strategy that will propel them through challenging times and reward them when times are good. We have seen this happen at Grand Circle, and we offer ourselves up as a case study, along with these four general remarks.

 Values drive your enterprise, whether you like it or not

I do a lot of leadership consulting work, both through our business training affiliate, Grand Circle Leadership, and at Babson College, which houses our Lewis Institute for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship. I meet a lot of smart, high-powered people in this work, both business leaders and social entrepreneurs, and it always surprises how often I hear them say things like, "Oh, we don't have any official values," or "We don't bother with culture. Our people know what they're here for, so we just roll up our sleeves and get to work." As if values and culture were somehow optional.

I'm here to tell you they're not. Not every organization talks about its culture and values, but every organization has them – every business, every nonprofit, every family, for that matter.

If your company's values are not made explicit, one of two things is likely to happen: either the strongest personality in the organization will take over the company, or the unspoken values will start running the show. Neither is necessarily a bad thing, but the potential for harm is very high, especially in organizations that are strongly driven by sales targets, quotas, bonuses, and other manifestations of the bottom line, where the unspoken values can get pretty nasty (e.g., secrecy, sabotage, greed, or dog-eat-dog competition). Better to be proactive, to decide the values that you want to guide your work before some crisis ignites a culture war.

 Alan Lewis Nov 5,2010 

Values are critical to success in unpredictable times

Not every organization talks about its culture and values, but every organization has them – every business, every nonprofit, every family, for that matter.

If your company's values are not made explicit, one of two things is likely to happen: either the strongest personality in the organization will take over the company, or the unspoken values will start running the show. Neither is necessarily a bad thing, but the potential for harm is very high, especially in organizations that are strongly driven by sales targets, quotas, bonuses, and other manifestations of the bottom line, where the unspoken values can get pretty nasty (e.g., secrecy, sabotage, greed, or dog-eat-dog competition). Better to be proactive, to decide the values that you want to guide your work before some crisis ignites a culture war.

Over the years we have identified six core values for Grand Circle, and every associate knows them by heart. We think they serve the enterprise in the following ways:

• Open and courageous communication builds knowledge, breaks down barriers, improves our products, and keeps our leadership on its toes.
• Risk-taking builds personal courage and corporate resilience, captures opportunity, teaches by miscalculation, and helps us adapt to changing circumstances.
• Speed keeps us alert and engaged, puts us ahead of our competition, and insures the safety of our travelers in crisis situations.
• Quality drives our repeat business, invites measurement and evidence-based solutions, powers our brand, and constantly raises the bar.
• Teamwork shares knowledge and expertise, lends support and encouragement, spreads the burden, and multiplies success.
• Thriving in change keeps us nimble and optimistic, promotes reasoned responses, and maximizes our effectiveness in uncertain environments.

 Your company values will be different, of course, and they cannot be chosen willy-nilly. They will depend on your organization's industry or sector, your company's vision and mission, the constraints of your market, and the structure of leadership that drives your organization. Your values might be profitability and growth. They might be loyalty and obedience. They might be peace, love, and understanding, for all I know. What is important from the leadership perspective is that the culture be deliberate and the values explicit, so that everyone in the organization is on the same page.

 Alan Lewis Nov 2010

Values are leadership's blueprint for action

It is not enough to identify your company's values; you must also specify the behaviors that will embody them in your workplace. Associates can't be left to guess what open and courageous communication – or teamwork, loyalty, or love – might look like. It is leadership's job to make that clear, in terms that are explicit, achievable, and measurable.

At Grand Circle, we practice transparent leadership. We tell our associates exactly what actions we expect of them; in return, we disclose all the decisions and outcomes that result from our own leadership actions. Our finances, for example, are literally an open book. We pay particular attention to the dissemination of our culture and values. In fact, we have an entire department devoted to this effort, led by our Executive Vice President for People, Culture, and Corporate Responsibility.  We wager there isn't another person in the world with that title; it is testament to how thoroughly all our work is grounded in our Grand Circle culture.

Alan Lewis Oct 2010

 

The secret to success (surviving a volcano)

By investing in developing people rather than trying to build systems to anticipate every change, we created an extraordinarily adaptive organization that can thrive and change through crises.

Last summer a volcano erupted in Iceland stranding thousands of travelers throughout the world. The Grand Circle Associates rallied and within a week the needs of nearly every traveler were addressed. If we had a culture focused primarily on following rules, this would have been a major problem and we would have ended up with frustrated customers and associates.

Instead everyone knew what to do and what was expected according to our values. Ad-hoc teams appeared almost instantly. The call center started to contact the families of every traveler. The change team began working immediately on re-booking options. A crisis management team set up shop to oversee the process. More significantly everyone in the company took responsibility to do the right thing.

Tour leaders extended their tours or even took travelers to their homes when no hotels were available. The challenges of managing this sort of upheaval was handled so successfully that in recent weeks there have been more letters of thanks than complaints about problems.

The secret was that every employee felt empowered to do what was right and lead others to do the same. They all knew that their job was to to provide extraordinary customer satisfaction according to the mission and values of the company.

This is the culture we wanted. No traditional business system could have anticipated this problem or reacted appropriately in real time. The secret was the investment that Grand Circle has made in the culture of its organization and its people.

Alan Lewis

 

 

 

 

Using the right values to build an empowered culture

Values shape our day-to-day business decisions, give direction to our growth, and allow us to measure our progress. There are six Grand Circle values, and they don’t much resemble the ones most of us knew at our previous jobs. Executive Vice President Mark Frevert, for example, came to us from a Fortune 500 company, where the chief values were accuracy and fiscal conservatism. At TNT, where Alan was a co-owner for many years, the top three values were profit, profit, and profit. In that context, Grand Circle’s 6 values seemed revolutionary. Here they are:

 Open & Courageous Communication.

This is probably our signature value, the one outsiders most often remark on. We know that the combined intelligence of our organization is astounding, but it is valuable only if it is allowed to express itself openly. Honest feedback improves our products, discussion breaks down barriers, and challenges to leadership keep us all on our toes. When senior leadership listens to line associates, the real issues of the organization come to the surface. We want our truth unvarnished, warts and all.

What it looks like: Speaking up in meetings, asking tough questions, admitting ignorance, swallowing defensiveness, listening carefully, not whining, saying “thank you,” offering suggestions, stifling gossip, confronting conflict, questioning political correctness, rewarding courage, respecting others’ points of view.

Risk-Taking.

Risk-taking comes directly from the top but it is expected of every associate. We want everyone who works at Grand Circle to be able to lead at a moment’s notice, and from anywhere in the organization, but that’s only possible if everyone has daily practice  taking risks. We encourage that by providing an environment where it is safe to make mistakes, and where important risks are rewarded whether they succeed or not.

What it looks like: Trying new things, expecting mistakes, stepping outside your comfort zone, moving forward without knowing the outcome, eschewing popularity, accepting new assignments gladly, embracing challenges, catching others when they fall. 

Thriving in Change.

This is the value that leaves many observers scratching their heads (more so, perhaps, in the early days, when we called it “Thriving in Chaos”). Change is a way of life at Grand Circle. We change everything—all the time. We change products, business practices, organizations, priorities, and work assignments. Every change has its reason, but most are course corrections dictated by world events, global competition, and the high volatility of the travel industry. Other changes are issued as deliberate challenges to our associates, to help them grow into stronger leaders. In all cases the goal is to maximize our effectiveness and success in an unpredictable and ever-changing environment.

What it looks like: Moving forward, turning on a dime, seeking opportunities, embracing chaos, lifting us up—not dragging us down, staying positive, remaining calm, stepping up to help, being part of the solution; no second-guessing, no regrets. 

Quality.

This value comes directly from the early arguments when we were defining our  company. We needed to make it plain: No more “cheap and nasty” vacations. Most businesses believe cost and quality are constant tradeoffs. We believe it’s possible to drive improvement in both simultaneously, but if an irresolvable conflict arises, then quality always gets the nod. It’s not just that we have high standards. Quality also drives our repeat business, which is critical to our financial performance.  

What it looks like: Reading every traveler survey, considering every suggested improvement, not settling, celebrating progress, knowing the competition, exceeding expectations, holding our own work to high standards, aiming for 100%.

Speed.

You need to move fast in the travel industry, but not everyone is comfortable with speed. We help by creating a safety net, quickly changing direction if a decision proves wrong and ensuring that mistakes are reversed without penalty. Open and courageous communication also puts the brakes on speed. A wrong decision can be costly, but if everyone speaks up when they see something amiss, it takes much of the risk out of speed. 

What it looks like: Feeling urgency, setting deadlines, beating deadlines, wearing a watch, answering e-mails immediately, seeking clarity instead of certainty, not lingering over drafts; fast meetings, full date books, the thrill of the chase.

Teamwork.

Our values define our behavior only if they are shared by all of us and we work as a team to benefit both the traveler and the company. At Grand Circle, “Teamwork” isn’t a cheerleading slogan; it’s the way we work on a daily basis.

What it looks like: Sharing knowledge and expertise, stepping in to help, committing to a common goal, accepting responsibility, deferring to greater skill, providing honest feedback, challenging the team, pushing for better results, showing compassion, supporting other people personally and professionally, celebrating success.

Alan Lewis

 

 

Business leadership is about helping people fulfill their dreams

Productive activity is about enabling people to make their dreams come true. The role of extraordinary leadership is to enable individuals to take risks to achieve their dreams and become all that they can be. When I walk through the boutique store area on Newbury Street in Boston near my home and see a closed storefront, it makes me sad because I see someone's dream that did not survive.

The best leaders help people become what they want to be and recognize that their role is to help people’s dreams come true.

At Grand Circle we intentionally try to help every individual to grow and evolve. We make systematic investments in people. The people who thrive in that environment do amazing things that amaze themselves and us. Some people do not like the pressure of that challenge, and they leave. Those who stay become dedicated and extraordinarily productive.

Harriet Lewis

 

How travel can change people's lives

When Harriet and I traveled to Egypt in 2000, we met a remarkable guide, Farid El Fayed. For five generations his family has made their living by sharing the wonders of their beloved country with foreign visitors.

We asked Farid to take us to the City of the Dead- the poorest section of Cairo- where people inhabit ancient tombs. Farid had never been there and was hesitant to take anyone to such a depressing area. I shared my belief that exploring another culture is not just about seeing what is good and wonderful, it is even more important to have frank conversations about controversial issues and to have direct experience of reality, even the ugly parts. That is how we learn.

 Farid did take us into the City of the Dead. We toured, broke bread with the poorest of the poor, and joined them in prayer. Later Farid took us to his home to share a meal. It was not clear whose life was more changed by this experience, but everyone learned something valuable. Travels give a new perspective, a realization that we are all in this together- a reality check.

Grand Circle is committed to the belief that travel can change people’s lives and make the world a kinder place to live.

Alan Lewis

How our mission statement works for us

While the Vision says what we hope to become, our Mission explains how we do business. It doesn’t define a goal. Rather, it outlines our responsibilities—four responsibilities: to our associates; to our customers; to our financial well-being; and to society at large. Three of these are about people and one is about finance. We think that is the right ratio.

The Grand Circle Mission

ASSOCIATE RESPONSIBILITY - We will provide an environment that fosters professional development and encourages personal growth for our associates. We will maintain competitive compensation and benefits packages relative to the industry and community. We will conduct business with respect for each individual and his or her role within the organization.

CUSTOMER RESPONSIBILITY - Grand Circle Corporation, through direct marketing, is committed to providing active, mature Americans over 50 with the most exciting travel, adventure, and discovery programs in the world at unequaled value. We strive for 100% customer satisfaction.

FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY - We will operate Grand Circle Corporation in a sound financial manner, to create growth, and increase its value.

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY - Global citizenship is central to the success of Grand Circle Corporation. We will commit time, people and funding through the Grand Circle Foundation to local, national, and global communities in which we live and explore, thus creating a better world for our travelers to discover.

It wasn’t easy getting the Mission down to 179 words, but we accomplished it with a lot of work and arguing. The biggest argument was whether customers or associates come first. We have always said "Associates are Number 1."

Harriet Lewis

How doing good creates value for Grand Circle

Grand Circle is in the business of providing travelers with superior learning and growth experiences. The   company motto is " Changing peoples lives". That phrase is repeated constantly, but it is also a compelling mission that engages and motivates every member of the community. Every customer and associate commits to Grand Circle because they understand that the company represents something meaningful. People want to feel that they are part of something greater than just themselves.

A good example is a group of travelers who went with a Grand Circle tour to a small village in Tanzania in 1999.

What they visited on that tour was a one-room school house with over 100 students. The travelers asked the villagers why they did not move the school to a larger abandoned building nearby. The response was that to fix the roof and restore the abandoned building would take far more resources that the village could afford. When pressed it was determined that the cost would be around $ 20,000. The travelers agreed to raise that money on the spot, but with the condition that they would return the following year to see what progress had been made.

When they returned the next year the school was finished and the town was justifiably proud of their accomplishment as were the travelers.

They asked what else could be done. The village chief mentioned that it took almost a day's walk for the villagers to get medical care. Physicians were willing to drive to the village but only if there was a facility in the village where they could see patients. The travelers readily agreed to raise the money for a medical clinic and Grand Circle matched their contribution. Within a few years those investments had expanded further to other projects and other villages.

What was evident to all was that the company had lived its vision. It had changed the lives of the villagers. It had changed the lives of the travelers, and it had changed the lives of the local Grand Circle guides.

Grand Circle Foundation now routinely matches the gifts of its travelers and associates and has a distribution model to assure that the money is used for exactly what it is designated for. 

There is nothing more powerful than this type of experience to build an organization that understands the value of a culture built around a compelling mission. 

What do you think is the likelihood that the travelers in this story would feel closely attached and committed to Grand Circle in the future? Do you think that people in Tanzania go out of their way to make Grand Circle tours of their country special. You bet they do!   

  Andy Snider- Managing Director, Grand Circle Leadership