Marty was immediately dubious about the idea of partnering. He didn’t want to partner with Jean over anything. He said his group was doing just fine, and from what he could tell, Housekeeping was doing a good job, too. Jean said guests often complained that her staff had done a poor job of cleaning the room. She noticed that these were the rooms that had been scheduled for maintenance, and she was constantly sending housekeepers back to rooms where Maintenance had just completed a job. She complained that the maintenance engineers made a mess and never cleaned up after themselves.Marty just smirked.
I suggested that we meet individually to talk about the problem. I first met with Marty. I wanted to know several things about Marty’s operation. What was his vision of the maintenance organization in the hotel? He told me he wanted to make sure everything in each room operated properly and was in good repair. “But, you know, with eight hundred guest rooms, three dining rooms, fifteen meeting rooms, two kitchens, a laundry, and a suite of executive offices, it’s impossible not to have something broken.” I told him I could understand his point. When I asked about his relationship with Jean, he said that she was all right “personally” but was overly sensitive to criticism—and that her staff was not always competent and frequently did a poor job and then blamed it on Maintenance. Once I understood the relationship issues, I began to ask about the tasks. I asked how people got assigned jobs, the hours when people were scheduled, and other issues where I thought there might be conflicts. I got an understanding of how they measured their work and noted the performance issues that were important to them. Marty showed me a priority list of items that the maintenance people followed to help them get the job done.
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