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And It shows there’s a framework. There’s a framework that works that large organizations use to actually engineer the development of a cultural transformation. And the way that starts is not like immediately going in and changing this and that, you have to first answer this question. Why change in the first place? Why do you need to change? And then when you know why you’re going to change, you can think about what it is you want to change. And then you can get to the question of how.

Now, one of the interesting things about operations, I’ve discovered here in the hospital, is they very quickly want to go how, how, how, before actually stepping back and answering the question, “What’s the why?” And then, “What actually do we want to bring about?” And then we can get into “Let’s look at the how.” I can give you some examples. When Marina Bay Sands was being constructed, you remember that? Remember driving by going, “Oh, my God. Look at that thing.” And then finally came out. So big, so beautiful, so iconic. And the people who worked there were so proud, they literally launched and said, “We are magnificent!” Except they weren’t. And maybe you remember when the integrated resort opened up and the quality of service wasn’t so good and they got a lot of flak online.

Remember that? Remember that? So I went to work with them, we worked very intensively, and we changed “We are magnificent!” Do you know what, “It’s a journey to magnificence.” And then H.R. was able to use that for the recruitment and said, “Hey, are you in? Come on, let’s do this together. It’s going to be a journey.”

Now, the journey that they had to actually do required a change. Here was their why. They had to become more humble, they recognized they had to actually work harder, couldn’t take it for granted just because you had a beautiful, iconic building. You had to deliver iconic level service and you had to learn more because as an integrated resort, you think about somebody who stays there. They could be at the restaurant and ask a question about the museum. They could be at the museum and ask a question about the shopping area. They could be in the shopping area and ask questions about the rooms and the suites. And if you think I only work in this area, then you miss the point of being an integrated hospital. I mean, resort. You get my point? Right?

Now, fortunately, it worked. And so their TripAdvisor score shot up from in the 75% range to the 90% range and in a very short period of time. NTUC income was another example. Income started a long time ago. It was to provide insurance coverage for police and bus drivers and port workers. And it worked. And it really became this national institution. And it still is today. But over time, they got a little bit complacent and actually people started thinking of NTUC like government connected, bureaucratic, kind of boring. Difficult to succeed when you have Prudential and you have AIA and you have Manulife and Great Eastern and they’re pushing. And so they realized we have to change. Our “Why” is we need to be perceived by the nation as more colorful and contemporary and more professional. And their version of incredible care was this one.

They said “Service alive!” That’s a little strange for an insurance company where you go when somebody dies. But what they meant by that was any time anyone interacts with any part of our organization, whether it’s a question, it’s a sale, it’s a new policy A change of address or a claim, we want to leave that person feeling more alive. That was their “why”. And you know what? They knew it was going to take years and it was a three year journey to create what they called a cultural revolution. SingTel, another large, complex organization. Complex because they do B2B, and they do B2C, and they have infrastructure, and they have frontline and they’re selling devices and we all have our plans, etc.. But you know what? Over time, because they had no competition, they became very siloed.

Network is over here. Product is over here. Customer care is over here. And they all got defensive internally and even arrogant towards each other. But that got in the way and they realized they needed to change their culture. So their why was to become more connected, to become more supportive of each other, to be even kinder. And they recognized that they could do their version of incredible care, what’s called amazing “Let’s Create Amazing Together.” And they really leaned in on the together part. You know what happens when we all work together and they even run, you know, whole contests and talent shows to demonstrate ‘Can we do it together?’ Actually ended up creating, like we’ve created here, these SIPs and RIEs And next you really hear about them is sprints.

We call them huddles where you bring people together from different parts of the organization who normally don’t get along so they could work something out together. And the phrase became “Huddle until we cuddle.” We’re talking to network engineers. Right? But it worked. But it took time.

It was a three year journey to get from being almost the worst to being in the first. And they’ve stayed there ever since. I’ll give you one more example in the hospitality industry. Hospital, hospitality, you notice they share a certain root about being a host to a guest, right? And so it’s a great industry, except when there’s a global financial crisis. And then every year they start to crash. In a hospital, you’re always going to have patients. They won’t always have guests. And so there was one particular group based out of Mauritius that had nine properties, it was called Naiade, and they were crashing. And part of the reason they were crashing is because all of the resorts were basically saying, “We’ve got the great beaches”, “We got the great sea”, “We’ve got the great poolside”, but then it sinks in.

How are you going to be different? And so what they said is we need to be better than best. We want to be shining above all others. And so they changed the brand and they changed the focus where it’s not about us, it’s about them, meaning the guest. And over time, they trained and trained and taught and trained and trained and taught, and they actually started earning the results. And they built such a culture of new ideas, new insights. “Why don’t we try?” “Everybody else is doing this. Let us do that”, that they were able to focus on contests and get people to look at “How do we make our guests more loyal?” “How do we make our team members more loyal?” “How do we become more productive?” And it worked! It took years, but it worked. And now they dominate TripAdvisor, which means that fortunately, they are making a whole lot more money. And when you’re doing really well like that, you can take really good care of your staff. So they’re rated the number one place to work in Mauritius and they win all kinds of industry awards. So their rankings are up right at the top.

But there’s one more that I’m especially proud of. They moved their global office from Mauritius to Singapore.When you’ve got a good sense of “Why change?”, then you can think about “What to change?” and when you know what you want to change, then you can focus on “How to change?” and the examples I gave you are clients who basically took this structure, this framework and said, “Let’s put it to work.” And it can be exciting because when people are learning about how to create more value with the action that you take, that’s the definition of service. Taking action to create value for someone else. It can be exciting when you come up with a new idea and try the new idea and it works and you get the compliment. And then on top of the foundation of educating people, you build the building blocks and then you put the leadership top in place and you know the framework works.