Mythic Moments
I will confess right up front that I’m a Michael Jordan fan. So much so that I took my son and a couple of colleagues to Chicago for an all-Michael-Jordan-fest the last year before his second retirement. We went to his restaurant. We went to Nike Town. We went to the United Center about two hours early to take in all the sights and sounds. We sat in $400 seats. We even watched Space Jam on the plane out and took turns taking our pictures in front of Michael’s front gate when we got there.
When Jordan retired the second time, I stopped watching professional basketball. After watching the Bulls of that era, nothing that the pros have to offer comes close to measuring up; even the current Phil Jackson led Lakers falls short of the aesthetic and athletic standards set by Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman.
It’s almost embarrassing to write these words. I’m not prone to this sort of unabashed brand worship. I’ve owned and driven a Porsche, a Mercedes, two BMWs, a Jag, an Infinity Q45, and two Corvettes. They were all great in their own way, but I’m not so smitten with any of them that I would cleave unto one make and one make only.
I shop at Nordstrom and think it’s a nice enough retailer, but I don’t worship at the shrine and I’m happy to buy clothes elsewhere. I only buy Nike’s, but that’s due in large part to the fact that the one time I bought Reeboks, I permanently damaged two toenails. Nike’s fit me so I buy them. Why mess with success.
So back to number 23. While my enthusiasm for His Airness the basketball player knew no bounds, I’ve not been swept up with the rest of the brand package. I don’t wear Air Jordan’s, I don’t wear his cologne, and I don’t wear any of his signature apparel. I don’t want to be Mike, or even be like Mike. I just wanted to watch him play basketball.
It seemed like every game had at least one, and sometimes more of what I’ve taken to calling “Mythic Moments”: moments when time stood still and the course of the game, or maybe an entire series if it was the playoffs, we’re inexorably altered (fans of Michael, fill in your favorite dunk, jump shot, or three-pointer here). Other players have generated their share of these defining moments, but not like Jordan.
Michael the Restaurateur
Despite my non-interest in Jordan the businessman—I thought his restaurant in Chicago was ordinary at best—I will further confess that I’ve twice eaten at his restaurant in Grand Central Station in NYC, most recently this week with my brother and his lady friend. It’s a sensational location and the food is up to the price, though to my taste not as good as the fare at Smith & Wollensky’s. With all that going for it, the place could be called Michael Smith’s and it would do just fine. But the name on the door surely promises something just a bit extra, what with all the mythic moments Jordan has produced over the years.
With this long a lead up, you have to know that the service was either stupendous, or stupid. There couldn’t be any in between or why else write about it? Sad to say, I’m here to report an air ball.
We had a reservation at 7:30 for which we arrived promptly at the appointed time. The ladies at the front desk were charming enough in a twenty year old, “I have no sense of proportion or what service really means” sort of way. The one with the nice Romanian accent informed us that they were just waiting for a party to leave and they would then seat us. Fifteen minutes was the estimate which didn’t seem abusive given that we had nowhere to be and lots to catch up on. So we went to the bar. (I should digress here to say that neither my brother nor I drink, so going to the bar entails a ginger ale and bitters. Drinking more than one is pointless.)
Over the next hour, we took turns walking back to where the hostesses stood to enquire as to the whereabouts of our lost table. We probably should have left before then, but at some point the waiting game takes on the psychic dimensions of driving by a car wreck. As much as you don’t want to, you just have to look. As much as you want to leave, you get to the point that you're sort of just waiting to see if they'll ever get their act together. In this case, the answer remained resolutely the same: we’re still waiting for the party to leave.
Finally, we were ushered to our table . . . which was set for two. This was a problem as there were three of us, so we were escorted back out of the restaurant and into the wine cellar (to sit at a very nice table that I’m quite certain would have held our diners) at which point the manager offered to buy us a drink. I politely suggested that the time to have offered that was any time during the previous hour during which we were sitting in the bar.
We finally got a table (Warren Buffet was holding forth in the private room just behind us) and ate our meal. The bill came and everything was on there. No free desert. No free appetizer. No free mineral water. Not once did the manager come by to check on us. I don’t remember what I ate, but I remember everything about the first hour vividly.
It Shouldn’t Be This Hard
In the words of my friend Peter Flatow, “It shouldn’t be this hard.” Any reasonably competent person could come up with ten things the nice people at Mr. Jordan’s dinette could have done at any point before, during, or after my last ever dinner there to redeem the obvious screw up. But whatever might show up on that list apparently didn’t occur to any of the three ladies standing around at the front desk. Nothing on that list or any other list past “buy you a drink” flashed across the mental screen of the manager either.
Bad day at the gym? Lost the shooting touch? Someone in foul trouble? Surely there’s a reason for this misstep other than carelessness or thoughtlessness. Or is there?
I’m struck by the counterpoint of the experience provided by the Ritz-Carlton in Pasadena where I’ve been the last three days and will be for three more. In the case of Jordan’s Joint, arguably only a dozen or fewer people really need to “get it”. The restaurant serves a very limited menu and a manager that actually cared could keep the entire establishment under constant surveillance without breaking a sweat.
By contrast, the Ritz is a sprawling place with two restaurants that I can find, a spa, pool, tennis courts, sleeping rooms, and everything else that goes with running a first class resort. Given the prices that Jordan charges for a hunk of beef, the comparison seems entirely fair.
Since arriving here, I’ve had an opportunity to directly interact with perhaps two dozen staff members. When I arrived in the middle of the night, Tillman and Jose made sure I felt welcome while the nice lady checked me in (don’t remember her name). When I needed to get into the business center way after hours the next night, Jose (who conveniently walked by just then), opened the doors without missing a beat and told me to use whatever I needed and come to the concierge desk when I was done.
Later, when I started to feel poorly, a nice lady named Theresa rounded up a member of the staff to take his car and drive to a nearby pharmacy to get me some eye of newt and feet of lizard to aid my ailments.
When I needed a cab to go to the Pacific Palisades, Derek at the concierge desk offered to find me a rental car instead—this at 4:30 on a Saturday afternoon. Why? The cab was $75 each way. Derek was able to secure a car for me to use for $38 a day.
There’s more, but you get the point. The folks here never miss a beat. Never miss a shot. Never miss a chance at another mythic moment. What’s more significant is that it’s the same at every Ritz-Carlton property anywhere in the world.
I know something about what goes into making the Ritz what it is. As you would expect, The Ritz-Carlton is committed to training and it begins with the onboarding process. All new employees go through a 30-day certification process during which they work with department trainers to learn their jobs. Managers get 310 hours of training in their first year; other employees average 271 hours. On an ongoing basis, every employee receives about 120 hours of training a year. Take a minute to think about those statistics. Now consider that fact that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the amount of time spent on sales and service related topics in companies larger than 50 employees is about a day a year.
Beyond Training
If you talk to an executive at one of the customer service champions like Ritz-Carlton, The Body Shop, Lands’ End, and L.L Bean, he or she will tell you that the real key is a single minded focus on hiring to values. The firm’s values show up in the recruiting process, and never leave the field. Personally, I think there’s something more going on. Call it mythic leadership moments.
Some years ago, a fellow I know named Tom Peterson left Wells Fargo to run the retail bank at BofA. Early in his reign there, Tom was out touring the branches and found himself becoming increasingly agitated at the slovenly condition of the ATMs. In a fit of pique, Tom gathered up all the trash and junk at one of the ATMs, marched inside the branch, and dumped it on the floor. Nothing more needed to be said, and there wasn’t a branch in the system that didn’t know all about what Tom had done by the end of the day. The ATMs were standing tall all across they system in about 48 hours time. A mythic moment.
Earlier this past week I had breakfast with a colleague in NYC. We got to talking about this idea of mythic moments and the subject of 9.11 came up. She related that the day after, the president of the company stood outside the building on Madison Ave. so that all of the company’s employees who decided to come to work the next day would see him and he them. Words were shared, hands clasped, hearts joined. Another mythic moment.
This last point was interesting for me to think about in juxtaposition to my own experience post 9.11. There were five of us from the company I worked for then who were in NYC that day: four of us at the World Trade Center on the plaza (I, for whatever reason at the last minute decided to skip the meeting). At no point on that day or any day thereafter did I ever receive a call from my company’s CEO, COO, or Head of HR. Another mythic moment, but not the kind any right headed executive should want.
Leadership Is About Mythic Moments
In his defining work, A Hero With a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell says that, “ . . . [a myth’s] understood function is to serve as a powerful picture language for the communication of traditional wisdom.” Michael Jordan the player instinctively understood and grasped mythic moments. As is true of any legend or legendary person, his exploits took on mythic proportions because they defined moments as they captured emotions and tapped into the collective yearning for heroes.
The nameless manager at Michael Jordan’s restaurant was either out of the room when they were handing out common sense or too wrapped up in something else to notice or care that a moment came and went in which she could have stamped a decent restaurant with a big-time name and a great location with a little bit of myth. The same was true of the executives I worked for who couldn’t grasp the significance a call would have had to a bunch of guys who nearly punched the eternal time clock while on company time.
Ed Vick at Y&R knew in his gut the mythic importance of standing outside that day. Tom Peterson at BofA instinctively got the mythic impact that dumping the trash in the branch would have. The Ritz-Carlton has built a sizeable business and a gold platted reputation delivering mythic moments day in and day out. What about you?
These people weren’t and aren’t any more heroic than you and me. But mythic moments beget more mythic moments and pretty soon a place like the Ritz starts to feel like it’s filled with Michael Jordans, while Jordan’s place starts to feel like the 2001 Chicago Bulls.
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Last modified:
05/03/06