A few years ago Bill Marriott invited a group of monks to speak to his top world managers on providing hospitality at no charge at their monasteries.
Not only room and board are free but they also provide a few spiritual extras like spiritual lectures, walks in the forest with excellent discussions about life and spirituality and exercises and suggestions on how to reduce stress, give new ideas an opportunity to grow and improve the quality of your life.
Mr. Marriott asked “If they can do it for free what can we learn from them to improve our services?”
In this white paper I go one step in a slightly different direction and ask “How might we alter our hospitality business model to reach new innovation possibilities?”
The innovation model we teach at Coles says that innovation is the end product of a Creative idea, that meets or changes a Business model and is Accepted by the market place. We call it the A,B,C model of innovation.
Below you will find moments when my cousin and I experienced Aha!! moments and gave us some insights. I hope they inspire you also to see how you want to apply them in your dealings with your clients whether it has to do with new acquisitions or retention.
This past August I spent five days at Mount Athos.
I will not write about the history of this sacred place in Greece. The internet does a much better job and the following link provides plenty of photos.
To get a sense of the monasteries of Mount Athos please visit https://www.google.gr/search?
I have been going there since 1995, missed two years somewhere along the way, and the question has always been “Why go there?” Many good friends have asked this question.
To be honest the answer changes every year but I always have the feeling that I am getting closer.
I feel like a bee that visits many flowers and in the end I hope to make some honey!
I believe this year’s answer is “It’s all in the details!” or “Pay attention to the small things in life”
What I mean by that is that in our everyday lives we react first emotionally to most everything and then we pay attention to the details. It is a challenge to reverse that and pay attention to the details non-judgmentally and then react.
So, I have selected some of the ridiculously simple things and will try to give you a sense of what happens when time literally slows down and you experience what it is like to think that 15 minutes looks like 3 hours! I hope to give you some moments from Athos that could go unnoticed but they were noticed!
COFFEE AND BOUGATSA AT THE PORT
It is 7 AM and have not had coffee or anything for breakfast.
We have to wait in line to get the passport to go in and also to get the tickets for the boat. Mt. Athos is a country on its own, within Greece like Vatican is in Italy, and you have to get a special pass to enter.
I feel groggy almost dizzy and would give anything for a small cup of coffee or a piece of bread.
Waiting in a line that moves at a snail’s pace I try to be focused on what I really want… and then it happens: a waitress shows up and asks “would you like some coffee and bougatsa (a pie made with pastry leaves and crème inside)?” I thought it was a mirage!!
YES, I reply and she dashes off to bring them. My day has changed. My faith is restored. My taste buds are salivating and I have become a good Christian again… one small miracle at a time! I am happy and yes, there is God and looks after us!
What is the extra yard you bring to your clients?
THE WALNUT TREE AND HOW TO CRACK FRESH WALNUTS
Greece is a funny place. Somehow everything around you seems to bare fruits.
When you go for walks at Athos you can’t help noticing the walnut trees, the chestnut trees, the fresh oregano, the apple trees, the mountain tea, the wild blueberries, the tomato plants that grow wild and just about anything you want to eat!
We reached for the walnut trees to get some walnuts. The skin is green, then there is the hard shell and the fruit is inside. Beautiful white color and delicious but hard to get to.
You place it on a stone and hit it with another one but it slips and slides so you learn quickly that you have to find a stone with a hollow place and then crack it with another stone.
You might say “so what is the big deal here?” Absolutely NOTHING! No big deal at all except…at that moment of discovery you have the sense in that universe of spiritual loneliness that you have made a discovery. It is a survival moment and you know how to eat fresh walnuts. And you pay attention to that moment because from that moment on you and the walnut tree coexist.
It is like making a good friend. Not a Facebook friend. A true friend. A friend that supports you and you support him/her. Come to think of it our purpose in life is to support each other so that the game of life goes on!
What did you discover today that made you smile?
COLD WATER AT THE SECOND FLOOR
The monasteries have no modern amenities. After all they are over 1,000 years old. And of course there are no elevators!
Getting fresh water to drink can be challenging because you have to go 3 floors down, these are double size floors equivalent to 6 floors.
Until one kind monk lets you in on a secret: there is fresh running water in a secret place on the second floor and you just go one floor down to get it! What a discovery! At night when there are no lights, no electricity and only oil lamps it becomes a gift from a higher authority to know that water is next to you… only if you have been camping in adverse circumstances you can appreciate this but you get the point!
PERHAPS YOU CAN START TO SEE WHAT I MEAN BY ATHONIC MOMENTS OF DISCOVERY
READ ON IF YOU ARE NOT BORED…..
4 AM WAKE UP CALL
Try this if you dare:
Go to bed at 9 PM.
Wake up at 12 midnight. Do some form of Yoga until 4 AM while meditating!
Then from 4 AM till 8 AM read prayers or go to a room where you listen to chanting from a tape.
Then go to your garden and work till noon.
Have a light lunch and sleep for 3 hours
Get up to do all your chores until 6 PM when you have dinner
Read until 9 PM and repeat the cycle all over again… see how long you can last!
That’s what the monks do. And they take care of their guests at no cost. They want no money and give you everything they have for free.
We, the visitors join them at 4 or 5 AM and go along as much as we can… getting exhausted after 4 days brakes you down and you pay attention to details or the small things!
My friend, this is different from being analytical. Being in the moment is being present and aware of the moment. I did not know it until this year and no one explained it to me. It just comes to you and I would like not to lose it… it gives you a sense of awareness that I had never felt before. Almost like a sixth sense. I believe it comes to you when you have been deprived of sleep, you are absolutely dead tired and your senses are in red alert… then you suddenly are in the moment!
Practice, practice, practice to conquer the reflexes so that when necessary you can pay attention to the details.
WHEN YOU EAT, EAT! (Zen, Buddha)
The dining room is plain and consists of 12 wooden tables that seat 14 people each and have two wooden benches, one on each side that seat 7 people on each side.
At the head of the room is the table for the big chiefs and a lecture stand where a monk reads a story from the bible while we eat.
There is absolute quiet except for the monk who reads and the sound of the forks and knives. We are focused on eating that lasts 14 minutes.
As we are eating one visitor decides to share part of his salad with his friend in another table so he gets up. Wooooowwwwwwww!!!!!!! I see one of the older monks stand up, dashes across the room, runs towards him and simply tells him “what do you think you are doing? We are receiving food from God and you dare to interrupt?”
Needless to say the visitor went back to his seat and all was quiet. When you eat, eat! Said the Buddha.
Forget about multitasking. True service is one moment at a time.
BREAKFST OF CHAMPIONS: MOUNTAIN TEA, OLIVES AND HALVA WITH BREAD
Halva: A sesame-based version of halva is the most familiar in the U.S., arriving in the early 20th century along with a wave of Jewish immigrants. This form of halvah is very simple to make, consisting primarily of tahini — ground sesame butter — and sugar or honey.
We happened to visit while the monks were observing a form of lent. I was dreaming of a breakfast of bread, cheese, fruits and coffee! Instead we got mountain tea, dry bread croutons, olives and halva. Not exactly what I wanted but it was another one of those moments when you might ask “Why this?” and the simple answer is “because this is it!” and you get filled.
Then you go for a walk and you get walnuts and anything else you want from Mother Nature like pears, figs, tomatoes, apples so you soon learn that breakfast does not need to be on the table because it is available out there, outside the walls and you just harvest it. We just don’t know about these things in the States unless you live in farm country and you have that sort of thing available.
Come from abundance, not scarcity.
One of the many rewards you get when you are in Athos is that when you get up at 4 AM and you go outside because there are no lights, no electricity and the entire peninsula is a huge forest the air is absolutely crisp and clear. You can almost touch the stars which are bright and well defined. The extra touch is the moon! In fact the moon and the stars make you understand how man created the image of God and how spirituality was born. It is beyond words to stand outside in awe and admire the sky at that time of the morning. A three-D image that makes you feel so present!
And you go inside the church where you see dark dots, the monks, moving with absolute purpose almost like ballet dancers who are lighting candles intermittently and in total darkness that mesmerizes you. I call that the dance of the candles and goes on all the time until the mass is over. By the way, they operate in Byzantine time which means they are anywhere from 3 to 7 hours ahead of our outside time. They set their clocks every Saturday with 12 midnight being when the sun sets! A 2,000 year tradition.
Something to aim for: BE PATIENT, BE HUMBLE AND HAVE POSITIVE THOUGHTS—GIVE NO LANDING STRIP TO BAD THOUGHTS
I might have bored you with my rambling but Yannis, my cousin and I had the type of discussions you can’t have unless you are placed in the right environment like Athos.
There is magic there but you have to be willing to experience it. Thanks for reading this and will see you soon.
Harry