Background
The Twine Loft and Artisan Inn is a collection of historic buildings scattered throughout the picturesque town of Trinity, NL. Tineke Gow started the business in 1991 as a two-bedroom bed and breakfast with one employee open only during the months of July and August. Over a 30-year time span the business grew to include 9 properties, a restaurant with a 6-month operating season and a team of 20 employees.
Tineke ran the business on her own from 1991 until 2008 when she decided she was ready to retire at the age of 65 and sell the business. Unfortunately, the financial crisis caused the prospective buyer to back out leaving Tineke with uncertainty as to how to move forward. Her daughter Marieke, who was 24 at the time and completing her studies in Ottawa, offered to make the move to rural Newfoundland to help with the business.
After two years it was decided that Marieke would take over the family business. The business was rapidly expanding however, and mother and daughter were required to work full time just to keep up. They developed a divide-and-conquer strategy to share the workload of managing the business. “Mom always knew how to get people to follow her,” says Marieke. “But (as we grew and expanded) I was the one who oversaw the moving parts to make sure everything got done.”
When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived and shook up the hospitality industry, Tineke, now 74, had to keep her distance from the business and Marieke knew she’d have to step fully into a leadership role to ensure everything was running as smoothly as possible to survive this troublesome time.
The Challenge: Blending New Approaches and Communicating Effectively Across Generations and Departments
While transitioning into full leadership, Marieke wanted to draw on her experience working in the hospitality industry in a larger centre to create the best guest experience possible. Her enthusiasm toward this goal led her to implement many changes very quickly.
The ‘all-hands’ approach to getting the work done when the business was smaller was now leading to confusion and operational issues in a larger business. Marieke decided to create more defined job titles, schedules and smaller teams. Clearly defined roles and responsibilities also led to increased accountability. However this also meant that employees were coming to work feeling nervous about whether they could meet the new expectations set out for them. Staff were used to doing things a certain way and, while Marieke had the right intention, she experienced challenges with communicating the importance of her goals.
Navigating difficult conversations was another area of communication where Marieke struggled. She often worried that, as she attempted to give employees feedback about their performance, her employees would turn the conversation to point out her mistakes as a new leader. Marieke was younger than most of the staff at the Inn, so she was unsure how to get past that part of the conversation causing her to sometimes start off conversations already feeling defensive.
Marieke also came to realize that while her staff were trained on many essential duties of the job, they had never received adequate communication training. Employees were having challenges communicating between departments, shifts and navigating the dynamic of a difficult conversation with a co-worker who might also be their neighbour. The day and night shift also had no method of communicating with each other and Marieke made the false assumption that they would feel comfortable communicating their needs or issues with each other outside of work since they were all living in a small, rural community.
“If someone had an issue with a co-worker or department, they would bring it to me and ask me to fix it, but they wouldn’t want me to tell that employee that someone had brought an issue forward let alone who brought the issue forward”, says Marieke. This approach was not sustainable or helpful for team performance and Marieke felt stuck between letting an issue fester or betraying someone’s trust.
The communication challenges experienced by everyone at the Inn, combined with Marieke’s goal of wanting to maintain the best guest experience possible, meant Marieke spent much of her time running around putting out fires and tending to small details. Between the pressure of fixing problems and keeping track of everyone’s tasks, Marieke was at high risk of burnout.
Rather than share her knowledge and help her team build their skills, Marieke faced the same issue as most managers: the desire to conquer her goal by convincing herself that ‘it was faster and easier to do it myself’. When bigger problems did arise, she often lacked the emotional intelligence to handle them. Similarly, staff often avoided bringing up problems as they didn’t want to bother Marieke with issues they perceived as small.
Marieke’s first step to improve the culture at the Inn was to shift her mind-set from making the customer happy to instead, creating a great place to work for her employees. She figured if she took care of her employees, they would take care of the guests and she wouldn’t need to intervene as often.
This shift in leadership style had the desired impact and Marieke was feeling good about the changes she had made. Staff morale had increased but Marieke knew it might not be enough to attract and retain employees in a small rural area. Then in 2020 another challenge presented itself in the form of a global pandemic.
“I knew the world was going to be a different place after the pandemic. I wanted every tool in the toolbox I could get.” – Marieke Gow
Marieke knew it was time to make an investment in leadership development to ensure she was doing everything in her power to engage and retain her staff while maintaining productivity during a crisis.
The Solution: Leadership Development and Skill-Sharing
In March 2020, Marieke decided to attend a free webinar offered by Corina Walsh of Shift People Development Inc. (Shift PD) on delivering constructive feedback. An opportunity soon arose to implement one strategy from the training. Not only did she feel equipped to address the issue but she walked away from the conversation feeling like her personal relationship with that employee was stronger than ever.
“If I see this level of improvement in one-hour, what kind of improvement would I see with a full leadership development program?”, Marieke asked herself.
When choosing a leadership development program, Marieke wanted someone who would work with her to discover new opportunities for her and her business. She needed encouragement, understanding, and motivation to make changes – and to see the benefits behind them. Marieke signed up for Managing Made Easy™ because she knew Corina had a candid but welcoming approach to coaching and training. She still however had one common concern:
“I think many people hesitate to sign up for leadership development because they are fearful they will be told what they did wrong. I had the same concern. Corina’s approach, however, is to help you identify your mistakes and use those situations to become a teacher for your employees.” – Marieke Gow
Shift PD’s program, Managing Made Easy™, helped Marieke look closely at her management style. With gentle nudges from Corina, Marieke was able to understand what improvements she could personally make to enable better performance from her team.
She implemented lessons from each module immediately and started delegating, equipping employees with the necessary tools to do their jobs effectively, welcoming their input and encouraging communication between departments. She educated herself on what motivated each employee and how to reward those motivations to inspire top performance.
The difficult conversations module was particularly valuable in Marieke’s development. It empowered her to feel confident walking into any discussion. She knows she has the necessary tools to make both parties feel at ease and leave the table feeling heard and satisfied. As she began implementing what she learned from Managing Made Easy™, Marieke realized her past mistakes don’t have to hold her back, but she can use them instead as her SUPERPOWER.
“My mistakes help me be a better coach. I can tell employees that ‘I have been where they are, and this is how I handled it’. These mistakes I made became these wonderful lessons that improved my ability to coach.” – Marieke Gow
The cohort-based approach was also a valuable aspect of the learning experience. Marieke’s first impression in her cohort was ‘it’s not just me experiencing these challenges’. Many business owners and managers see their challenges as individualistic when in fact leading a team of employees often comes with the similar challenges regardless of the industry. “Getting to see Corina coach other people on-the-spot in the program is also eye opening and allowed me to think about how I would deal with an issue someone else had. I often wish I had access to Corina’s training my first year as a manager. With the lessons learned from my cohort, I could have avoided some costly mistakes. But, it is never too early or too late to take the program.” – Marieke Gow
“We’re always told people are born a leader. I never considered it was a skill I could learn. The skills are so transferable. They’ll help you anywhere in life, not just in business.” – Marieke Gow
Marieke obviously understands the value of training and education – and how to share it with any employee through common interests and experiences. Marieke decided she also wanted to provide her management staff with specific modules from Managing Made Easy™. Her team leads have an amazing work ethic and she wanted them to feel comfortable with the responsibility of delegating and training new employees. To create a safe learning environment for her team leads, Marieke introduced the training by asking for their help in implementing the new standards she had set by learning the same approaches she had learned. By giving her staff the knowledge and resources they need to work together, they can take better care of customers without involving Marieke.
The Results: Empowered Staff, Happier Customers, & a Better Business
Despite the many challenges these past years have presented, the Managing Made Easy™ program helped The Artisan Inn generate more profit in 2022 than in May 2019.
“Investing in the program is worth it. Between retention and customer satisfaction, you get your money back tenfold. Through my new ability to coach and delegate and my team’s ability to communicate across departments everything has become more efficient. I get just as much support and understanding back from my team as I give them. Getting to go to work in an environment where everyone has your back is pretty amazing” – Marieke Gow
After Managing Made Easy™ Marieke shifted her management style to one where she provided more space for feedback on changes she wants to make at the Inn. Rather than saying, “We are going to do ‘this’”, she now asks the staff what is working and how they feel about a particular change. This approach leads to collective decision making with everyone getting on board quickly and taking more ownership over their work. Even the toughest situations and conversations became easier as they could see that she was leading according to guideposts she learned in the program and not making it up as she went.
This shift in management style and team culture means that staff are more comfortable handling issues on their own, Marieke has seen a 75% decrease in staff approaching her with problems. This means she only must deal with issues if they’re significant – and has both the energy and the tools to handle them efficiently.
Difficult conversations have been drastically reduced, but when they do come up, Marieke sees them as an opportunity to make the business a better place for everyone. Her team also discusses issues more openly, trusting they’ll receive support for a solution rather than blame or shame.
“The difficult conversations module, especially, was the difference between retaining staff and not retaining staff. The program has provided me with guideposts to handle almost any situation. If there is a problem, instead of reacting in the moment, I take more time to listen, reassure my team member that I hear them and ask for time to step back and consider it,” Marieke says.
The Inn has seen significant savings through successful employee retention. With a returning workforce training costs are minimized and losses through mistakes have decreased. Word has spread about the workplace culture at the Inn which helped in establishing trust in the community during a competitive time. Now Marieke finds herself with a steady stream of amazing potential employees. She was also one of the few tourism businesses able to increase staff over the pandemic.
Finally, the customer experience at the Inn has hit a whole new level. Guest requests are resolved quickly, and they see the benefits of an empowered, happy team. Guests have even mistaken the employees as the owners of the Inn because of their attitude, energy, and attention to detail.
“I love overhearing guests say to employees “you must be the owner.” I know that means guests are assuming such a high level of service could only come from an owner. This tells me how much care employees are putting into the guest experience. I enjoy my workplace so much more now. We have a comradery as a team and my workload has decreased. I was even away from the Inn for 7 days without worrying about what was happening back at work.” – Marieke Gow
Kickstart Your Leadership Journey with Shift PD
Since starting her leadership journey with Shift PD, Marieke has gained insight into ways she could have handled past situations differently. She’s found that the more she learns, the more she wants to develop and seek out new ways to improve her leadership skills. Marieke continued with her leadership development by registering for Corina’s next-level leadership program Middle-Management Maximizer™.
Marieke wants to explore emotional intelligence and learn other tools for her own personal happiness and to grow the business.
If you struggle with communication, difficult conversations, or any of the other problems Marieke faced, know that you are not alone!
Shift PD has helped hundreds of leaders and employees unlock essential skills that benefit their business. Are you next? Learn more (and sign up for our next cohort!) at https://shiftpd.com/management.
“It’s the best decision you could make. The more leadership skills you learn, the easier your job will be. It will reduce stress AND improve your day-to-day life in the long term.” – Marieke Gow