pernalete,alberto j. executivemathesis 2014 · 5! introduction!...
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A HOTEL EXPERIENCE
A SOURCE OF HAPPINESS FOR THE GUEST AND A SOURCE OF
MEANING FOR THE EMPLOYEE
The Clinical Lens
The Hotel as an Object
Alberto Pernalete Cruces
INSEAD
Consulting and Coaching for Change
Wave 13
January 2014
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS……………………………………………..……………………………………...………………………P3
II. ABSTRACT…………………………………..….…………………………………………………………………….…………….... P4
III. INTRODUCTION …………………………..………………………………………………………………………………………..P5
IV. LITERATURE REVIEW……………………...…………………………………….……………………..……………………....P9
A. Happiness
1. The concept of happiness or well-‐being………………………..……………………...………….P9
2. Sources of happiness……………………………………………….………………………….………...P10
3. Experiences and happiness………………………………………………………………….………..P12
B. Meaning of work
1. Human search for meaning and meaning of work………………………………….…….…P13
2. Work meaning and performance………………………………………………………..……….…P14
3. Sources of the meaning of work……………………………………………………….…………....P16
4. Mechanism of meaning or meaningfulness of work……………………….…….….…...…P17
V. METHODOLOGY……………………...………………………………………………………………………….………….……P18
VI. RESEARCH CONTEXT…………………………………………………………………………………………………………P19
VII. RESEARCH 1. HOTEL EMPLOYEES & MEANING OF WORK………………………………….……….……..P20
A. Discussion……………………………………………………………………………………………..……….………P21
VIII. RESEARCH 2. MEANING OF WORK AND MOTIVATION………………………………………………...……P22
A. Discussion……………………………………………………………………………………………..……………….P22
IX. RESEARCH 3. GUESTS EXPERIENCES & THEIR EXPERIENCES………………………………………….…..P27
A. Discussion……………………………………………………………………………………………..………….……P35
X. CLINICAL APPROACH. THE HOTEL AS AN OBJECT………………………………………………………….…….P37
XI. ACTION RESEARCH……………………………………………………………………………………………….……………P48
XII. LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH……………………………………………………………………….……P52
XIII. CONCLUSIONS…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………P53
XIV. REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………………………………………………...……P59
XV. APPENDICES………………………………………………………………………………………….……………….………….P62
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express my deepest appreciation to:
My family, my beloved wife Carina for her support and sacrifice in helping me enter
and finish this program. ILY
My kids, I am sorry that I have missed so much of our time together to fulfill this
dream. I will make it up to all of you.
To my parents, who put a seed inside of me that is always growing and looking for
the sun. I wish this hadn't taken me so physically far away from you.
To my brothers and sister, for their love.
To the head and rest of the staff of the CCC program: Erik, Roger, Manfred, Elizabeth,
Sylke, Liz, thank you for this wonderful experience.
To all the professors and speakers of the program.
To my classmates, from whom I have learned and with whom I have shared a
beautiful time.
To my employer, for their economical and emotional support.
To my coworkers, for supporting me and making it possible for me to achieve this
dream.
There is a little bit of all of you inside this work.
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Abstract:
Studies in the field of Positive Psychology are helping us to better understand what
makes people happy. Some studies have shown that experiential purchases do the
most to make us happy, even more so than material purchases (Van Boven-‐
Gilovich, 2003). With that in mind, this paper will examine the following ideas: 1)
that spending a holiday in a hotel is a life event and a personal experiences that can
produce happiness (Filep & Pearce, 2013); 2) every hotel employee plays an
important role in constructing guests' experiences, therefore their work plays an
important role in creating a better world. Hotel employees help make people
happy, and happier people live longer, are healthier, work better and are better
citizens (Keltner, 2012). 3) Hotel industry employees can find meaning in life
through their work by understanding the impact their work has on others 4) The
meaning and meaningfulness in work has positive organizational consequences
(e.g. Work motivation, performance); and finally, 5) from a clinical perspective, the
object relations theory helps us understand the guest's expectations and the strong
connection that exists between the guest and the hotel as an object, and how this
affects the search for gratification and even the search for self-‐transformation
(Bollas, 1987).
Keywords: hospitality experiences, happiness, well-‐being, meaning of work, a
hotel as an object, hotel and psychoanalysis.
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Introduction
The following worldwide statistics for 2012 were obtained from the World Tourist
Organization:
• International tourist arrivals (overnight visitors) worldwide exceeded the 1
billion mark for the first time ever in 2012, with 1,035 million tourists
crossing borders, up from 995 million in 2011 and 25 million in 1950.
• 9% of gross domestic product (GDP) direct, indirect and induced impact.
• 1 in 11 jobs
• 5 to 6 billion domestic tourists
• 1.8 billion international tourists forecast for 2030
Looking at the key figures of the tourism industry, and in order to point out the
importance of this sector, we can see the impact of the hotel industry. According to
the STR Global (Smith Travel Accommodation Report), there are around
13,443,014 rooms in the world. A huge number of people are working in the hotel
business. It is also important to mention that in the Canary Islands, the place in
which my hotel is located, tourism is an important part of the economy. The
economy of the Islands is based primarily on tourism, which makes up 32% of the
GDP. The Canaries receive about 12 million tourists per year, and the
unemployment rate is very high (31%) with an even higher rate among youth
(48.5%). Both figures are above the national average (23% and 46%, respectively).
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In 2013, as I was working on my thesis, the book Tourist Experience and Fulfilment
by Sebastian Filep and Philip Pearce was published. In the introduction, Filep and
Pearce write:
This is the first book to evaluate tourist experiences from a positive
psychology perspective . . . Tourism is probably one of the largest self-‐
initiated commercial interventions to promote well-‐being and happiness on
the global scale but yet there is an absence in the literature on the topic of
fulfilment tourist experiences from a psychological perspective. (p. 1)
In the book's foreword, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of The Flow, writes:
Tourism is not only a rich and enriching part of life, but it is also one that
can be changed and improved with relative ease; thus it lends itself to a
variety of interventions that might add a great deal to the overall quality of
life. It is therefore difficult to understand why we do not have a stronger
presence of tourism research in the field of positive psychology. Or more
precisely, why we did not have one until now. (p. 12)
Not only is there a lack of literature on the relationship between tourism and
fulfilment, there is also a lack of awareness in the hotel industry regarding the
impact that our daily work might have on the lives of our guests. As we frequently
say but do not fully understand, these unforgettable experiences will become part
of the guest's memories and their sense of self (Kihlstrom, Beer & Klein, 2003;
McAdams, 2001; Wilson & Ross, 2003). The experiences guests have at our hotel
will become part of their autobiography, and they will be remembered and re-‐
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experienced for a long time. Our work, the human factor, is the most important
factor in the creation of these fulfilling experiences.
I am what I do, not what I have.
Travis Carter and Thomas Gilovich
I have a friend that was married to a rich man and had the opportunity to live a life
full of material possessions. At one point she decided to move out and start a new
life with a modest income and fewer possessions. I asked her why she made that
decision and she answered:
This person did not respect me. I couldn't be myself and was not able to
fully enjoy my life. I was living an empty life. Now I can be myself, I do not
have a big house and my capacity for buying things is reduced, but I feel I
can enjoy more life and be happier.
We hold these truths to be self-‐evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence, 1776
In almost every culture, people rank the pursuit of happiness as one of their most
cherished goals in life (Diener & Oshi, 2000; Diener, Suh, Smith, & Shao, 1995;
Freedman, 1978; Triandis, Bontengpo, Leung, & Hui, 1990). Throughout history,
philosophers considered happiness to be the highest good and ultimate motivation
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for human endeavours (Diener, 2009). In order to understand happiness, we must
ask: what is happiness, what makes us happy? In this paper I will examine why
experiences are considered to be such an important source of happiness, and how
the work of a room maid, a waiter, a dish washer, a front desk clerk, a maintenance
person or an accounting clerk can help make this world a better place.
Therefore the LORD God sent him out from the Garden of Eden, to cultivate the
ground from which he was taken.
Genesis 3-‐23
A mi me llaman el negrito del Batey porque el trabajo para mi es un enemigo el
trabajar yo se lo dejo solo al buey porque el trabajo lo hizo dios como castigo.
Merengue from Dominican Republic
Translation. I am called the black man from Batey [a batey is a company town in
Cuba or the Dominican Republic where sugar workers live]. To work I will leave it
only to the ox because the job did God as punishment.
I will review the literature regarding our need to search for meaning, and how
work plays an important role in humankind's search for meaning. I will also
examine how important it is for businesses and organizations in general to have
people that believe the job they do is meaningful. I did a survey with the employees
of the hotel at which I work and the results showed a strong correlation between
people finding meaning in their work and how motivated they feel about their job.
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Part of the goal of this paper is to gain an understanding of how the experiences
our guests have at our hotel add meaning to their lives. I will examine how they
think about their experiences, what emotions they feel when they think about the
time they spent in here, how they continue to feel connected to the hotel after they
leave, and what their expectations were before they arrived. I also interviewed
some of our guests, and in their words, we could observe the deep connections that
exist between them and the hotel. The results of these interviews have exceeded
my expectations, and the object relations theory may help us to understand these
deeper and more complex connections.
Finally, I organized a work shop with a diverse group of hotel employee from a
range of positions within the organization, age, cultural background and gender to
present my work, to reflect as a group about it, and to find out ideas on how we
could find ways to help people all throughout the organization, regardless of their
position, to experienced more meaningfulness on their work and by extension on
their live, and also to be more aware and sensitive of what is underneath of guest's
expectation, their desires, their illusion, their fantasies, their unconscious wishes
etc.
Literature review
A Happiness
1. The concept of happiness or well-‐being
Lyubomirsky S., King L., and Diener E. (2005) defined happiness as a
"preponderance of positive emotions." Seligman M. (2002) describes happiness or
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well-‐being, as having five elements: positive emotions, engagement, meaning,
positive relationships, and accomplishment or PERMA (Seligman, 2011). The
cognitive component of happiness is often conceived of as a more global evaluation
of one's satisfaction with life (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, and Griffin, 1985) or self-‐
realization and meaning (Ryan and Deci, 2001).
For the purpose of this paper, I will use the terms happiness and well-‐being
interchangeably.
2. Sources of happiness
Rousseau J. believed that happiness could be found in a good bank account, a good
cook, and in good digestion; Thoreau H. his follower, wrote that happiness comes
from activities. The philosopher Epicurus, on the other hand, claimed that pleasure
is the true sources of happiness. He believed that the most pleasant things in life
come from achieving inner tranquillity and being content with simple things, as
well as from having deep conversations with friends. By contrast, Aristotle held
that happiness originates from leading a virtuous life and achieving one's full
potential (Franklin, 2010). Carl Rogers' beliefs regarding happiness are also
associated with fulfilment: he suggests that we have a blueprint, an array of
possibilities that must be fulfilled if we are to have a good life (Rogers, 1961).
In his work Can Purchases Make Us Happier?, Wilson Bastos of the University of
Arizona grouped the factors that drive happiness into four general categories:
genetic, personality traits, life circumstances, and behavioural.
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Studies by Tellegen A. et al. (1988) and McGee R., and Christensen A., (1997)
suggested that genetics play a significant role in our happiness (40% and 27%,
according to their respective studies).
Research has also focused on stable traits to explain whether innate personality
characteristics influence happiness. Among the most investigated traits are
neuroticism, extraversion, and self-‐esteem. Costa P., and McCrae R., (1980) found
that extraversion correlates with positive affect, whereas neuroticism is related to
negative affect. Others found that neuroticism (Cameron, 1975; Hartmann, 1934)
is related to unhappiness.
Regarding to Life circumstances, Bastos means demographics (e.g., age, gender),
and life status variables (e.g., income, health). The extant literature has shown that
demographic factors (e.g., gender, age, race, marital status, and education) appear
to account for a low variance in happiness. Specifically, Campbell A., Converse P.,
and Rodgers W. (1976) reported that 20% of an individual's happiness is
determined by demographics. In explaining why life circumstances are responsible
for such a low portion of people's happiness, Kurtz J. and Lyubomirsky S. (2008)
suggested that "such factors as income, beauty, and even marital status are
particularly prone to adaptation and people generally don't dwell on them.
Instead, these circumstantial factors tend to exist in the background of your
emotional life" (p. 26). Other studies found a remarkably small association
between happiness and wealth, such as Meyers' (2000) observation that as
Americans' personal income has nearly tripled in the last half century, their
happiness levels have remained the same, and Diener E. and colleagues' finding
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that the wealthiest Americans – those earning more than U.S. $10 Million annually-‐
report levels of personal happiness only trivially greater than their less affluent
peers (Diener, Horwitz, & Emmons, 1985).
The fourth factor is behaviour. A substantial amount of research has been
conducted regarding the link between intentional behaviours and happiness.
Among the most researched behaviours were the expression of gratitude and the
practice of prosocial actions (Emmons and McCullough, 2003; Lyubomirsky,
Sheldon, and Schkade, 2005). In their role as consumers, people often choose to
engage in another type of behaviour in their pursuit of happiness—i.e., they
acquire material goods and life experiences.
Kurtz J. and Lyubomirsky S.(2008), for example, wrote that until fairly recently,
there was very little scientific data to tell us whether or not people can lastingly
boost their happiness. In fact, in previous years, researchers were doubtful about
the possibility of becoming happier. They have shown that after accounting for the
amount of happiness influenced by genes and personality traits, approximately
40% of an individual's happiness is determined by deliberate engagement in
certain activities
3. Experiences and the source of happiness
The researches of Van Boven L. & Golovich T. suggest that individuals will live
happier lives if they invest more in experiences than in materials possessions.
Their study revealed that the experience of remembering experiential purchases
makes people happier than the experience of remembering material purchases. In
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a 2011 study, Bastos found that experiential purchases lead to more sharing than
do material purchases and, as a result are more likely to promote happiness.
Bastos also wrote that in our culture, wealth, status, and power have become
powerful symbols of happiness. But symbols can be deceptive: they have a
tendency to distract from the reality they are supposed to represent. Aristotle
named them apparent goods. They give you pleasure but do not improve your life
(Franklin, 2010). The reality is that the quality of life does not depend directly on
what others think of us or on what we own, but rather on how we feel about
ourselves and about what happens to us (Bastos 2011). To improve life one must
improve the quality of one's experiences (Csikszentmihalyi, 1992).
B. Meaning of Work
1. Human search for meaning and the meaning of work
There is a lot of literature about humankind's searching for meaning. Frankl V.
wrote about height psychology (1938), which takes into account the so-‐called
higher aspirations of the human psyche: not only man's search for pleasure and
power but also his search for meaning. Height psychology is a supplement to depth
psychology: it focuses on specifically human phenomena – among them man's
desire to find and obtain meaning in his life. He has circumscribed this most
human of all human needs by the theoretical term will to meaning (1949). For
Frankl, one of the routes to meaning fulfilment is doing a deed or creating a work
(1984).
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Bettelheim B. held that Freud saw the good life as one that is filled with meaning
by the enduring, mutually helpful relations that we have with the people we love,
and through knowing that we are working in ways that help others live better lives
(Lieben und Arbeiten). “Sigmund Freud’s dictum that mental health consists of
lieben und arbeiten (loving and working) retains a ring of truth”. (Kets de Vries,
1999)
For Manfred Kets De Vries (1999), work holds an important place in humankind's
search for meaning. Because meaningful activity at work can contribute to a sense
of significance and orientation, work offers a way to transcend personal concerns.
In addition, it helps to create a sense of continuity. Leaving a legacy through work
is an affirmation of one's identity and thus fulfils an important form of narcissistic
gratification.
2. Work meaning and performance
In their theory of job enrichment (which is still valid today), Hackmann J., Oldham
G., Janson R. and Purdy K. (1975) state:
That by increasing the significance and meaningfulness of the jobs
performed in an organization, it is possible to bring about measurable – and
sometimes dramatic – improvements in employee work behaviour and job
satisfaction, and in the financial performance of the organization. To
experience meaningfulness, the individual must perceive his work as
worthwhile or important by some system of values he accepts. This
experience of meaningfulness in his work is one of the critical psychological
states that generates high internal work motivation, high quality work
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performance, high satisfaction with the work and low absenteeism and
turnover.
Relationship among core job dimensions, critical psychological states, and on-‐the-‐job outcomes (Hackmann, Oldham, Janson & Purdy, 1975).
On their work,” the meaning of work”, Rosso B., Dekas K., &
Wrzesniewski A. (2010), writes:
The meaning of work has been shown to influence some of the most
important outcomes in organizational studies, such as work motivation
(Hackman & Oldham, 1980; Roberson, 1990), absenteeism (Wrzesniewski,
McCauley, Rozin, & Schwartz, 1997), work behavior (Berg, Wrzesniewski, &
Dutton, 2010; Bunderson & Thompson, 2009; Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001),
engagement (May, Gilson, & Harter, 2004), job satisfaction (Wrzesniewski et
al., 1997), empowerment (Spreitzer, 1996), stress (Elangovan, Pinder, &
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McLean, 2010; Locke & Taylor, 1990), organizational identification (Pratt,
Rockmann, & Kaufmann, 2006), career development (Dik & Duffy, 2009;
Dobrow, 2006b), individual performance (Hackman & Oldham, 1980;
Wrzesniewski, 2003), and personal fulfillment (Kahn, 2007). The topic of the
meaning of work also appeals to organizational scholars since it moves beyond
hedonic perspectives of work behavior to deeper considerations of purpose
and significance (Heine, Proulx, & Vohs, 2006; Pratt & Ashforth, 2003) and
eudaimonic aspects of well-‐being (Ryan & Deci, 2001; Ryff, 1989).
3. Sources of the meaning of work
In their research on the meaning of work, Rosso B., Dekas K., and Wrzesniewski M.
identified four main sources of meaning or meaningfulness in work: self, other
persons, the work context, and spiritual life (2010).
The self or self-‐concept refers to how an individuals' values, motivations, and
beliefs influence their perceptions of the meaning of work.
The term others persons refers to how individuals' interactions and relationships
with other persons or groups (e.g., co-‐workers, leaders, groups and communities,
and family), both within and outside the workplace, influence the meaning of work.
The work context refers to the significance of the task, or the extent to which
individuals feel their work has an impact on others; the organizational missions
(which are representations of the basic goals, values, and purposes to which an
organization is dedicated) (Thompson & Bunderson, 2003); financial
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circumstances (which refers to the importance of financial incentives for
motivating employees and the meaning they make of their work); and the
connection between work and non-‐work domains and their influence on the
meaning of work.
In relation to the spiritual life and the meaning of work, research has found that
individuals frequently turn to spirituality or religion in their fundamental search
for meaning and purpose in life (Lips-‐Wiersma, 2002, Sverko & Vizek-‐Vidovic,
1995).
4. Mechanism of meaning or meaningfulness of work.
Rosso B., Dekas K., and Wrzesniewski A. identified seven mechanisms through
which work is perceived as meaningful or acquires meaning (2010):
1. Authenticity, which can be defined as a sense of coherence or alignment
between one's behaviour and perceptions of the true self (Markus, 1977; Ryan,
Deci & Grolnik, 1995; Sheldon, Ryan, Rawsthorne, & Ilardi, 1997). Authenticity is
often described as a central underlying self-‐motive which helps individuals
maintain a sense of meaning and order in their lives (Gecas, 1991).
2. Self-‐efficacy, which is the individual's belief that they have the power and
ability to produce an intended effect or to make a difference (Bandura, 1977;
Baumeister & Vohs, 2002). Self-‐efficacy has long been identified as a powerful
motivator of human action toward particular outcomes (Bandura, 1986, 1989).
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3. Self-‐esteem. Researchers suggest that feelings of accomplishment or affirmation
resulting from work experiences help individuals believe they are valuable and
worthwhile people (Baumaeister & Vohs, 2002; Gecas, 1991; Judge, Locke, &
Durham, 1977). Self-‐esteem is rooted in the sense of oneself as worthwhile.
4. Purpose. Scholars and philosophers alike have long maintained that a sense of
purpose provides life with meaning (Aristotle, 200, Dalai Lama & Cutler, 1998).
One of the ways purpose has been employed as a mechanism in the literature on
the meaning of work is in terms of the individual's perceptions of the significance
of their work (e.g., Grant, 2008; Wrzesniewski, 2003).
5. Belongingness, which is identified as a pervasive drive to form and maintain at
least a minimum quantity of lasting, positive, and significant interpersonal
relationships (Baumeister & Leary, 1995).
6. Transcendence refers to the act of connecting or superseding the ego to an
entity greater than the self or beyond the material work (Maslow, 1971).
7. Cultural and interpersonal sense-‐making (which is the way in which work
takes on meaning), is strongly influenced by those meanings that are considered to
be legitimate or prominent in the cultural context.
Methodology:
The aims of this work were:
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• To understand how meaningful the employees of my hotel find their work.
• To try to develop a theory that helps us find more meaning in the work we do.
• To try to understand the connection and the bonds that exist between the
guest and the hotel.
• To start working with this theory within my organization.
In order to meet these objectives, I decided to take a qualitative approach.
Although I had a good idea, I was not completely sure what I was going to find. I
conducted a number of interviews with hotel employees and guests. I also used a
questionnaire to find out on a scale of 1 to 5 the correlations between finding your
job meaningful, finding your job interesting and challenging, feeling that you work
is valued and recognized by the organization and the level of motivation on the job.
I used a phenomenology approach, which focuses on the basic structures of lived
experiences in order to understand the experiences of the interviewees through
their own eyes, and a hermeneutic approach especially in my interpretation of the
guest's interviews, which focuses on linguistic and non-‐linguistic actions in order to
penetrate the meaning of these experiences,. I used myself as a tool – my reflections
and my own experiences – along with some different types of literature on these
issues.
At the end of my work I tried to reflect and apply my findings through "Action
Research." I organized a focus group to involve other people in my work and to
help me make sense of this and use it within the organization.
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My experience in the EMCCC program, especially with the practicums, provided me
with the confidence and the resources to do this. I paid special attention to the
design, the preparation, the realization, and the interpretation of the interviews.
Research Context
I conducted my research at the hotel at which I am employed as a General
Manager. Because of contractual limitations, I was not able to perform this
research at hotels owned by other companies. Despite these limitations, I am
confident that my work and my findings will be valuable for other organizations
and professionals working in the hospitality industry. It is important to note that
because this hotel is a vacation resort hotel, some of its characteristics will not
apply to other types of hotels (for example, city or business hotels).
Research 1. Hotel Employees & Meaning of Work
I used a very simple questionnaire that focused on questions like "What is the
meaning of your work in your life? Why do you work? Is this the profession you
have chosen?" I interviewed 25 employees of different ages, cultural backgrounds
and from different levels within the organization. Some of their comments are
included below:
"Work is important for me because I can be independent, buy my own things, and I do
not have to depend on my parents."
"I am from Cuba. Working here is a blessing; it is like being born again. I can help my
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family that lives in my country."
"I studied tourism and I always wanted to work in a hotel, it is my vocation."
"I can help my family because my husband is not working now. My son can continue
in the university."
"This is my life's goal; I always wanted to be a Chef. My father was a cook and since I
was a child I have liked this profession."
"I feel fulfilled, I love my job. I started as a bus boy and I am now the head waiter. I
can also support my family. My family is proud of me."
Discussion
The financial rewards, including being able to support their family and be
independent, were the first things that came to mind for the majority of the
employees interviewed. In Spain at present there is almost a 30% unemployment
rate. We have many women working and they are supporting their families for a
variety of reasons, including the need for a supplementary income, the fact that
they are single mothers, or because their husbands are unemployed. This is in
agreement with the research. As financial demands from family increase, economic
rewards become more salient and work is likely to take on more of an economic
meaning (Brief & Aldag, 1989; Brief & Atieh, 1987; Brief, Konovsky, George,
Goodwin,& Link, 1995).
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We also have many immigrants working at the hotel, and despite having lower
status jobs than what they had in their home country, they are happy with their
work. This is in agreement with the research. Immigrants find positive meaning in
their new jobs due to the broader purpose for which they are performing the work,
which often relates to pursuing a better quality of life for their families (Bhagat &
London, 1999; Bullock & Waugh, 2005; Krau, 1981).
The employees who found more meaning from the work itself and the intrinsic
value of their jobs were the employees with the highest status within the
organization.
The results of this interview indicate that it would be beneficial to the organization
to increase the level of meaning of every employee's work. In order to do so it is
necessary to understand the intrinsic value of each employee's job. This
understanding or awareness, not only of the employees but also of the
organization, will reinforce, strengthen and complement the organization's
mission, which is an important source of meaningfulness in work. Finally, if
employees start to value their jobs, they will become more of a career or a calling
and less merely a job. Baumeister R., 1991; Bellah R. et al., 1985; Schwartz B., 1986,
1994; Wrzesniewski A. et al., 1997 proposed that individuals tend to see their
work primarily as either a job, in which people focus on the material benefits of
their work to the relative exclusion of other kinds of meaning and fulfilment; or as
a career, or a calling, in which the work is an end in itself. The more the work is
done for subjective reasons, and less out of economic exigency, the more it moves
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in the direction of inner potential (Connection to the self) and less it moves from
one about external constrain (The need to make a living) (Levine, 2010).
Research 2. Meaning of Work & Motivation
Discussion
In October 2013 we did our quarterly employee survey and we added an extra
questionnaire to help us get an idea of how meaningful employees find their work
and how motivated they are. Almost 60%of the total workforce (120 employees)
participated in these surveys. We can draw the following conclusions from the
results of these surveys:
• There is a strong correlation between employees experiencing
meaningfulness in their work and the level of their motivation.
• The department in which the employees scored lower in experiencing
meaningfulness in their work were the departments that are located in the
back of the house. That means they have almost no contact with the
customer.
• There is a strong correlation between employees finding their job
interesting, challenging, and believing that it makes a difference in the
world, and getting personal satisfaction from it and maintaining a high level
of motivation.
• There is a strong correlation between being proud of working in the hotel,
feeling that the organization understands the importance of your work,
being satisfied with the level of recognition you get from the company and
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the level of experienced meaningfulness in your work and the level of your
motivation.
These finding are in agreement with the model of Hackmann J. and Oldham G.,
which highlights the interconnection of meaning and motivation, establishing
experienced meaningfulness of work as one of the critical psychological states
necessary to the development of internal work motivation. (Hackman and Oldham,
1976). These finding are also in agreement with how individuals' interactions and
relationships with other persons, leaders, and the organization influence the
meaning of their work (Grant 2008, Kahn, 1990, 2007; Nera, Rice, & Hunt, 1980;
Pratt & Ashforth, 2003; Wrzesniewski, 2003).
Here are some of the characteristics of hotel jobs that could be of interest to this
work:
• Many of the tasks performed could be considered repetitive and monotonous.
• Some are stigmatized jobs that may be considered low or unskilled by society.
• The majority may be considered low income jobs
• Some jobs are in the front of the house with many interactions with the
customers, while others are at the back of the house with less or no interaction
with the customer.
• Many people are working in this industry because they could not find a job in
their preferred field or because of their low level of education and training.
The results of the survey (and the job characteristics mentioned above) indicate
that it is important to give a transcendental meaning to the work of every
25
employee. It should be made clear that each individual is important and plays an
important role, and that our job is about making people happy by creating fulfilling
experiences. It doesn't matter to which department of a hotel an employee belongs,
the work of each one is important in the construction of the experience.
The experience is built like a movie that is made from thousands of individual
moments, and each of them makes sense and carries meaning. The final experience
will not be constructed until each of the individual pictures is understood by the
guest. Each of these individual pictures is the job performed, and the valued
contribution made by each employee. The contribution of each one is a whole
picture by itself. If one does not play his/her role, it will affect the final experience.
Since many people are involved in the construction of the experience, there is a
risk of diffusion of responsibility. As a team, the organization constructs the guest
experience, but each employee is individually responsible for it.
The work of the employees in the front of the house (who interact directly with the
guests) is important, but so is the work of the employees in the back of the house,
e.g., the work performed by the gardeners, or the work of the maintenance
department. On our guest reviews, we get as many comments about how friendly
the staff is as we do about how well kept our gardens are, or about the excellent
conditions of the physical buildings and public areas (which are the tangible parts
of the experience).
Which person is closer to the customer: the receptionist who interacts face-‐to-‐face
with the customer, or the room maid who cleans the room and handles the towels
26
that touch the faces and bodies of the guests and the bed linens that touch their
skin? The guest, through the use of his five senses, experiences the work of the
room maid. The dishwasher is as close to the guest as the waiter who uses the
china, glass and silverware cleaned by the former. The cook who prepares the food
is as close to the customer as the waiter who served the food. Even the work
performed by employees in the controlling and accounting department has an
impact in the guest experience. They are looking for inefficiencies; first to support
other departments and help them to perform better, and second to avoid having
the guests pay for inefficiencies.
Being able to understand the responsibility each one has and to understand at a
deeper level the huge impact our work has on the lives of our guests can help us to
perform better in difficult or stressful situations and to better manage our
emotions. It can help the employees, as it has helped me, to mentalize and
empathise with guests even in complex situation. When I think about the
importance of the experience of each individual guest and my individual
responsibility in the construction of it, then I can mentalize, because we mentalize
when we treat others as persons (Mr/Mrs……) rather than objects (another guest)
(Allen, 2003).
Sometimes we need to interact with an upset guest who may be yelling and out of
control and who may be complaining about a particular problem. We need to be
able to regulate our emotions in order to handle this situation in a professional
way. The ability to mentalize could be helpful. We are mentalizing when we are
aware of mental states in ourselves and others (Allen, 2003). Mentalizing is a
27
cognitive skill; as such, it is a kind of psychological meta-‐competency. It serves as a
precondition for other skills and capacities, such as empathy. Good listening
requires mentalizing (Van de Loo, 2007). This skill will allow us to avoid being
defensive or reactive with the guest. It will help us listen to the guest and be more
understanding of the mental states that have caused the guest's behaviour, so that
we can use our technical skills to help the customer with the real issue. This type of
behaviour on our part is not about being a money-‐making resource for the
organization (i.e., the commercialization of the human heart) (Hochschild, 1983).
This behaviour is about being skilled emotional managers (Bolton, 2005) who
understand the importance of their work. This is not only for the benefit of the
organization, but also to create that final experience, which will be remembered
long after the guest has returned home. Solving a customer’s problem may be a
positive experience because it enhances an employee’s sense of competence and
achievement, as well as their self-‐esteem (Dormann and Zapf’s, 2004). Kiffin-‐
Petersen S., Murphy A., & Soutar G., (212) found that taking personal responsibility
for the customer’s problem and using their skills and abilities allowed employees
to be more effective problem-‐solvers.
Research 3. Hotel Guests &Their Experiences
1. Informal interview with Hotel's Guests (July – October 2013. Hotel Cordial
Mogan Playa). See Appendix 2.
28
"We have been in this hotel more than 25 times. It is part of us. We always speak to
our friends and relatives of this place and everybody knows this part of our lives.
When we come it is like coming to a second home."
"We have as a screen saver in our computer the picture of the hotel. Every time I go
to the computer I remember this place, the time I have spent here with my wife and
the people that work here and that makes me happy. I feel secure when we plan our
next holidays and we book the same place. I am so happy when I get here and I see
the same faces."
"When we are at home these are some of the things that remind us of Gran Canaria
and Cordial:
1. When I am tending my garden at home my mind goes to the wonderful plants you
have and maintain in the grounds of the Cordial.
2. Snr. Carmelo is the epitome of cool and calmness in the restaurant, if ever there is a
problem then he steps in and sorts the crisis in an unobtrusive way. When we
dine out in Peterborough and there is a problem with the waiter or manager, I
always think and try to imagine how Carmelo would deal with the situation.
3. We have, over the years, bought plates and salt & pepper pots etc., from the hotel
shop. When my wife is dusting the plates (a daily job) or we are having a meal
and using the salt pot we think of where they came from and from that we
recall fond memories of our time with you at Cordial.
4. As you may recall last year we brought my granddaughter, Sarah, to the Cordial. At
the time she was only two and half years old, but since she returned she often
talks about the lovely swimming pools and Carmelo's "holas! and "adios." This
29
shows to me that the hotel certainly made an impact on her. We hope to bring
her with us again next year."
"A couple of years ago I came to celebrate my 50th birthday with my husband, since
then I continue coming every year. Every time I celebrate my birthday or the birthday
of a relative or friend those memories of that special celebration come to my mind
and I smile."
"After an experience at Cordial Mogan Playa when I return to England I feel/do
Calm, collected, chilled, cared for, content, composed
Overwhelmed, overjoyed
Relaxed, refreshed, regenerated, return (when can I get back)
D-‐stressed, delighted, dream of returns
Invigorated
A live, an individual again, able to tackle back anything
Limber, Loved
Theme song from my perspective. Louis Armstrong "it's a wonderful world"
"I was in this hotel many times before and I wanted to invite my grandchildren. To
pay for it I have sold an old car I owned. I dreamed about being in the hotel with
them, arriving at the beautiful lobby, walking in the gardens and around the grounds
and watching the happiness and astonishment on their faces. I know well some of the
30
staff and I wanted to show them to my family. I wanted to show my grandchildren the
place where I spend my holidays and the people that have been so nice to me."
"I have come to this hotel many times with my husband. Last year he had a heart
attack and in the hospital I used to both pray and show to him the picture of the
hotel, where we shared many beautiful moments, to give him some encouragement
and strength while he was sick. I think this helped him to recover and we could come
back one more time."
"We came to celebrate the death of my father whom passed way 18 months ago. Four
years ago my husband and myself wanted to come with my parents, but because of
the cost they stayed home and we came to the hotel. We had a beautiful time and we
re-‐experienced those beautiful times and we always speak about how beautiful those
holidays were. To cheer up my mother we invited her to come back to this special
place."
"I am a bus driver from a small town in Germany. For me economically it is an effort
to come, but I am attached to this place. My work is a routine and sometimes while I
am working I remember the hotel, the people, and the beautiful gardens and it helps
me."
"We came every year to this beautiful place. Two years ago, we were here exactly
when the gas explosion occurred. I witnessed the death of the guest. This memory
always came back, and because of this traumatic experience, I thought I will never
31
return to the hotel. This year we took the difficult decision to come one more time
and we do not regret our decision."
"I come to this hotel every Christmas. I have 2 kids but they already have their lives
and we cannot be at Christmas together so I prefer to travel. I have met some other
guests that always come at the same time. Some have children, others don't, others
come with them. But it is nice to come to celebrate Christmas in this hotel, to see the
same faces. Guests and employees."
"I chose this place because of the good review on the Internet. I was looking for a
special place to propose to my girlfriend. It was so beautiful, the set up with the
candle, the music, most importantly she said YES. We will be connected to this place
forever. I am thinking about getting married here or coming for our honeymoon."
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Email from a guest
Good afternoon Alberto, I hope you are well. I just wanted to drop you a note of appreciation and thanks following our stay at your hotel over the past few weeks. It was a very difficult decision to make a holiday so close to the passing of Kelly, but after our ten nights I can say it was the right decision. You and your staff made us feel extremely welcome and looked after us. Superbly. Knowing that the hotel is very busy at this time of year, your consideration in dealing with my request of accommodating Harry and myself in the room that Kelly and I stayed on our previous two visits was greatly appreciated and I thank you for this kind gesture. It brought back great memories and a few tears were shed. Harry will be able to say when he is older that he stayed in the same room that his mummy stayed, and that means so much. You have done so much to make our stay as enjoyable as it could be under the circumstances and you have shown many gestures of goodwill and kindness that will never be forgotten. I am planning on a return visit hopefully in 2014 so I will drop you a note about that. Once again I thank you for making our holiday so special and please pass on my thanks to all our superb team. Kindest Regards R & H
2. Hotel Reviews. TripAdvisor
"DEFINITELY 5 STAR HOTEL" Chose this hotel for 50th birthday getaway, well worth it, great hotel. Returned from beach to find a bottle of sparkling wine and cake in room on birthday, nice touch from management. All the hotel staff was really nice, smiling and acknowledging you every time you passed them.
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"Sunny, superb, special, smashing staff!" Our second stay at this hotel was just as great -‐ if not greater -‐ than our first! Thanks again to the wonderful staff. In particular (in alphabetical order) I would like to mention Ana-‐Maria (cleaning staff), Christian (public relations manager), Juan (chef), and Juana, Lazaro, Lili, Marie-‐Sussi, Melchor and Tania (serving staff). But the staff are not the only special factor in this magical equation. The accommodation, gardens, facilities and food are all consistently first-‐rate. "Glorious hotel, very unique..." My wife and I have stayed in the hotel for 3 times of each 2 weeks, and we have already booked our next stay from March 29 to April to April 12, 2014. For us it seems only possible to really describe this phantastic place/hotel by self-‐experience, therefore we very warmly recommend travellers to stay at the hotel. Furthermore our plans are to book 2 weeks stay twice a year for the future to come. "A beautiful oasis in rocky surroundings" From the time we entered the reception area we were impressed by the exceptional attention to detail in this hotel. From the waterfalls inside the building, the live music performance in the reception area, the beautiful tiled panel on the stairway to the restaurant, the wonderful range of flowering shrubs and trees both inside the building and throughout the grounds, the huge variety of food in the restaurant and the standard of furniture in our hotel room. We arrived on 7th October and enjoyed blue skies and temperatures in the high twenties for 12 memorable days. We chose private taxi transfers from airport to hotel. "Another great holiday" Just back having had a week at Halloween half term and had a great time. The food was fantastic and the efforts made for Halloween and the kids were excellent. The hotel is spotless and room service and cleanliness throughout great. "Quality hotel with great staff, we'll be back" Had a lovely break in this hotel. Great pools, helpful and friendly staff, and close to the lovely village of Mogan. The hotel is even kind to cats and we encouraged some of our feline friends to visit in the morning and evenings. Lovely place. "We have been there 19 times -‐ and will go back" Beautiful houses, nice rooms, fabulous gardens. But very important is the professional way this hotel is managed. Since our first stay in 2005 we have seen a
34
continuous attitude to always improve the experience for their guests -‐ and with results. Those working there, on all levels, are professional, service minded, and friendly. Last time, this October, we went with our daughter and her son (2). Her family will come back next time we go there. "Super Hotel *****" My wife and I would like to thank all the staff at the Hotel Cordial Mogán Playa for their hard work in ensuring we had an enjoyable stay. The hotel is very impressive, all the amenities were 1st class from the fabulous reception area to the comfortable accommodation, beautiful grounds & lovely clean swimming pools to name a few. We found our stay very relaxing and came home looking forward to our return next year. Could I just mention the restaurant, the staff were very friendly and professional and the food choice fantastic (but don't take my word for it).We will return and look forward to seeing you all soon. "High quality hotel in great location" Our fourth stay at this hotel (we have never stayed at another hotel more than once)It is as good as ever. The lush green grounds make this hotel stand out. Food very good, staff, many of whom we recognised from previous visits in previous years, are very friendly and efficient, and seem happy in their work. Hope to return at some point in future. "Amazing Hotel -‐ We Love it!" We have to thoroughly recommend this hotel to anyone who is looking for great accommodation facilities, beautiful food, the most amazing staff and a place to recharge your batteries in whichever way you want. We have been to this hotel for the third time in September -‐ We are going back in May next year and will probably return every year after that. Rooms -‐ Try the Junior Suite, a nice treat :-‐) Facilities -‐ Something for everyone, you should never be bored. Staff -‐ They truly make Hotel the place it is. Always polite and helpful and they make you feel so special, from Managers to Cleaners -‐ you are special to them no matter who you are. Food -‐ You should never be worried about what to eat as the variety is amazing -‐ even if you are watching the pounds. Location -‐ With a short walk down to the fishing village and a supermarket directly opposite the Hotel, you will never be lost for that emergency thing that you need.
35
Discussion These guest reviews are from TripAdvisor, an important travel website that
provides directory information and reviews of travel-‐related facilities. By looking
at them we can see the positive impact we have on the lives of the people who stay
here.
Now we will look at how the guest reviews are related to some of the five elements
of Seligman's theory of well-‐being or PERMA. (A similar comparison was done in
Personal Transformation through Long-‐Distance Walking by Saunders, Laing, &
Weiler, 2013.)
Positive relationships: In almost all of the reviews, the quality of the staff – both
positive and negative – was one of the most important factors mentioned by the
guests.
Positive emotions:"The Pleasant life." What we felt: those emotions arise from the
beauty of the hotel, the gardens, the surroundings, the people, the food, the pools,
the grounds and most importantly sharing all this with loved ones.
Engagement: To engage you must first disengage. For Seligman this means losing
consciousness. For Csikszentmihalyi this is achieved by the "flow state," which is
the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else matters;
the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at a great cost, for
the sheer sake of doing it (1992). Thought and feeling are absent during the flow
36
state, and only in retrospect do we say "That was fun" or "That was wonderful."
While the subjective state for pleasure is achieved in the present, the subjective
state for engagement is only obtained in retrospect (Seligman, 2011). All these
reviews were written after the guest returned home, which makes them
retrospective accounts of their experiences. Many guests keep coming back even
though the hotel is not cheap; some even go to great lengths to afford it.
Meaning: It is a universally accepted fact that relationships and connections to
other people are what give meaning and purpose to life (Seligman, 2011). In these
reviews and in the guest comments from the interview, we can see the strong
connection between the guests and the people that work at the hotel. We can see
how thankful the guests are for the friendly, wonderful, smiling, professional,
service-‐minded, hardworking, efficient, helpful staff. The guests they show their
gratitude by sharing their opinions on the Internet with many more people around
the world.
Accomplishment: I have many guests that are very conscious of the relationship
between physical exercise and brain health. Some of these people are retired and it
is important for them to exercise in order to maintain a healthy mental capacity.
They walk every day and exercise at the gym. Our location, our sport facilities and
especially our all year-‐round good weather allow our guests to use part of their
holidays to exercise, and they feel satisfied and proud to have done this. Other
important ways in which our guests can achieve something during their vacation is
to use the time to strengthen the ties with their families, friends, loved ones, etc.
On page 45, where I talk about myself as a hotel guest, I describe how my holiday is
37
an opportunity to be with my family. During the year, my job and studies
prevented me from spending enough time with them. I tried very hard to use each
minute of my holiday to be with my family, and when it was over, I felt that I had
accomplished something important.
Clinical Approach.
A hotel as an object. Object relations theory.
A hotel has physical attributes and an important human component with which
customers form a very intense relationship, not only during their visit but when
they return to their normal lives.
The word object refers to any person or thing, or representational aspect of them,
with which the subject forms an intense emotional relationship (Kosciejew,2013).
An object can be a person, a part of another person, or indeed a material item. It
can be animate or inanimate, human or non-‐human (Woodward, 2011). Bollas C.
speaks about a process that is identified with cumulative internal and external
transformation in which the mother is less significant and identifiable as an object
than as a process (1987).
In the hotel industry and in the service industry in general, we speak about
customer expectations, which are what people hope to receive from the products
or services they have purchased.
38
Service quality is a comparison of expectations with performance (Lewis &
Booms, 1983).A business with high service quality will meet customer needs and
expectations whilst remaining economically competitive. Improving service
quality may increase economic competitiveness.
As we can see in the interviews with the customers, their connection with staff
members and their expectations about the hotel are very deep, intense, and
complicated. Kosciejew R. suggests that our thoughts and feelings about the
important objects in our lives, our behaviour towards them, and our expectations
from them are extremely complex, and that this complex form of relating begins
with the intricate interaction between the child and his biological objects in the
earliest weeks and months of life (Kosiejew, 2013). Early memories of object-‐
relations experiences are retained throughout adulthood, not in any direct way,
but very deeply and existentially (Bollas, 1987).
We could divide the whole process of the relationship between customer and hotel
into three parts:
The first part has to do with the time before the arrival, with the expectations,
desires, fantasies (or phantasies, using the Kleinian concept about unconscious
processes). Kosiejew R. suggests:
That every wish involves a self-‐representation, object representation, and
representation of the interaction between the two. There are roles for both
self and object. Thus, for example, the child who has a wish to cling to the
mother has, as part of this wish, a mental representation of himself clinging
to the mother. But he also has, in the content of his wish, a representation of
39
the mother or her substitute responding to his clinging in a particular way,
probably by bending down and embracing him. The idea of an aim, which
seeks gratification, has to be supplemented by the idea of a wished-‐for
interaction, with the wished-‐for imagined responses of object being as
much a part of a wishful fantasy as the activity of the subject in that wish or
fantasy (Kosiejew 2013).
The guests before arrival imagine, dream, and have a mental representation of how
the hotel is going to respond to their visit and to their conscious and unconscious
needs and desires.
Bollas speaks about the mother being experienced as a transformation, and that
the object is pursued in order to surrender to it as a medium that alters the self,
and that the memory of his early object relation manifests itself in the person's
search for an object (a person, place, event, or ideology) that promises to
transform the self. He also uses the term "transformational object" (1978).
Winnicott D. suggests that in later life, any object is desired not for its capacity to
assist in doing something in particular, but for its capacity to afford self-‐change as
an enviro-‐somatic transformer of the subject (1978: 98)
40
At a conscious level, we may look at the expectation of the guest in terms of the
cost of the stay, the number of stars the hotel has, previous experiences, what they
were told by other people, their Internet research etc. But at an unconscious level,
the guest may be looking for an object that alters the self.
It seems we are always searching for something, and that most of the time we do
not know what it is.
"In each of us there is an absence that we cannot, by definition, think about, because
we cannot name it. At the moment of the creation of the ego, the self, an absence is
created. It is an absence as big as everything, because it is caused by the removal of a
sense of unity with everything. But that removal created 'me,' gave birth to my sense
of self, so 'I' can't get back to it, because to do so 'I' would cease to exist. And so what I
want, I can't have. What I do is to try and fill this gap up with things, with all of the
The Transformational object In childhood:
Is experientially identified by the infant with processes that alterself-experience.
In adult life:
Looking for objects which will transform the self.
E.g. Winning in gambling. The perfect crime. The perfect partner. The perfect vacation. The perfect book.
Module 2 How we relate to objects Erik van Loo
41
things that I might think I am hungry for, like food and toys and books and cars and
houses and computers, and all the other goods, that seem so good, in anticipation,
but, when attained, seem to do no good at all, because the absence is not filled."
Theories of the Mind -‐ Tom Davis: unask.com
On my reflections back in Module 2 of my CCC program I wrote:
"I could understand the way I was changing the way I was, in some way losing my
authenticity and illusions. I am in certain way recovering or rediscovering the person
I was. I don't know but sometimes learning, reflecting, understanding may take you
to go back and try to be the best version you already were. Probably learning, the
reflecting experience helps you to see better which one is the best version of yourself."
Another important search for some people is the search for the Kingdom of God.
But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be
added unto you.
The Bible American Standard Version
Matthew 6:33
Neither shall they say, Lo, here! or, There! for lo, the kingdom of God is within you.
The Bible American Standard Version
Luke 17:21 It seems that many times what we are searching for is inside of us. According to
Alice Miller (1997), in order to become whole it is necessary to discover our own
42
personal truth. She said that we cannot change the past, of course, but we can
change ourselves. And when we change we transform ourselves.
The second part hast to do with the actual visit. It is about how the hotel will
respond in a particular way and fulfil the desires and wishes of the customer. Will
the hotel be a good mother? Will the customer split the hotel as a good or bad
hotel, or could it be both good and bad? (Klein, 1940). Will it be possible for the
customer to project good feelings and good parts of the self onto the hotel in order
to develop a good object relation with the hotel? (Klein, 1946). According to Bollas,
hope is invested in various objects (a new job, a move to another country, a
vacation, and a change of relationship) that may both represent a request for a
transformational experience and, at the same time, continue the relationship with
an object that signifies the experience of transformation.
I had a conversation with a family that came to honour a man that had passed
away 18 months ago. In this conversation, the widow could speak about the
meaning of being here and how nice it would have been to be here with her
husband. They were very thankful for our caring, and our relationship after this
period was completely different. I myself was deeply transformed by this
experience and I could feel that they were also transformed. I could sense a fusion
between the customer and myself; I was not a hotel manager and the customer
was not a guest, we were bonded as one: a transformational experience for both
the object and the subject (Bollas, 1987). A hotel, in my opinion, has the
opportunity to create a series of "aesthetic moments." For Bollas, this moment
occurs when an individual feels a deep subjective rapport with an object (a
43
painting, a poem, an aria or symphony, or a natural landscape) and experiences an
uncanny fusion with the object, an event that evokes an ego state that prevailed
during early psychic life.
Our hotel, for example, has beautiful gardens, waterfalls, and pool areas, as well as
excellent restaurants, bars with nice music and very friendly employees. Many
times I have been told by some customer that their holidays have been the best
ever for them. The conversation I had with the family mentioned above was in my
opinion an "aesthetic moment."
Some hotels like ours have been working on creating mindful moments for their
customers. Mindful moments are meant to raise awareness and engage the
customer's senses and thinking in order to create experiences that give not just
pleasure, but enjoyment. We can experience pleasure without investing any
psychic energy, whereas enjoyment only happens as a result of an unusual
investment of attention (Csikszentmihalyi, 1988). Enjoyment can also create self-‐
transformation. According to Csikszentmihalyi, after an enjoyable event, we know
that we have changed, that our self has grown, and in some respect, we have
become more complex as a result of it.
But an aesthetic experience, like the one that occurred in my conversation with
this family it will be difficult to explain, and might has, according to Bollas, it's
primordial location in preverbal childhood experiences. (1987). For this reason,
aesthetic experiences are desired for their capacity to surprise, challenge, provoke
and transform, but they must do so through non-‐verbal means – aesthetic
44
moments are not thought, but felt (Woodward, 2011). My intentions in this
situation had nothing to do with deliberately raising the customer's awareness of
how friendly and efficient we are; it was more the object (myself) being affected by
the subject and the experience.
The third part comes after the separation and during the physical distance from
the object. We say physical distance because, as we can see in the different
interviews, strong bonds have formed between our customers and the hotel. It is
true that in our society many people go on holidays at least once a year, and
choosing and staying in a hotel is an important part of the holidays. Some people
keep going to the same place again and again. We have a customer that has been in
our hotel 25 times in the last 8 years, with an average length of stay of 7days.
Some people will never go to the places that other people like to go and it is not
only a matter of budgetary limitations. It is true that people go to the same hotel
because they like the rooms, the service, the food, the cleaning, and the grounds,
but there are also diverse unconscious drivers behind this behaviour, a discussion
of which is beyond the scope of this work.
Regarding object relations theory: the hotel, the object, is a recurring source of
wish fulfilment and gratification, and this is extremely important in the context of
object relationships (Kosciejew, 2013). It has to do with evoking past feelings and
anticipating them, i.e., gratification and self-‐transformation.
45
Many guests say that entering the hotel is like coming home. They feel secure, and
that is an important part of what keeps them coming back. The hotel is then a
familiar and secure place that offers psychological safety. Kosciejew speaks about
affirmation and gaining a variety of reassuring feelings in the relationship with the
object. He adds that this need for affirmation and reassurance has to be satisfied in
order to create a sense of safety. As Bollas said, "to seek the transformational object
is to recollect an early object experience."One hypothesis is that at an unconscious
level, this "safety" has to do with returning to the mother, or to our biological
objects, from which, as we have seen, our thoughts and feeling about the important
objects in our lives originate.
So Freud's sexual desire by the child for the mother, a desire to return to the bliss at
the breast, which for Freud is a sexual act as literal as the incestuous love of Oedipus
for his mother/wife, is located by Lacan in a more general landscape of loss and
desire. The mother's unfulfillable desire for the child, and the child's unfulfillable
desire for the mother. All loosely located in the dreamy unreliable landscape of the
imaginaries. There they are, the child and the mother, in union, joined at the breast,
negotiating desire, dreaming together.
Theories of the Mind -‐ Tom Davis: unask.com
46
It may even have to do with returning to the uterus, the first place of freedom and
safety.
"Long before mothers could perceive any of these movements, their babies could suck,
stretch, scratch, yawn, and rub their hands and their feet. I was also struck,
particularly in the earlier stages, by the freedom of movement each fetus could enjoy
in the amniotic fluid. With the full impact of gravity at birth this freedom is lost at
least for a while and in this respect a baby may seem a much more impotent creature
than its predecessor."
Alessandra Piontelli
The customer is connected to the hotel in many different ways: through social
media, our loyalty program, and mail contact with some of the staff. There is also,
as we have mentioned, the case of the customer who has a picture of the hotel as
the screensaver on his computer. Every time he goes to his computer, he evokes
his experience at the hotel. Many of our customers use pictures of the hotel,
souvenirs, and other objects to remember the hotel and their experiences here.
These transitional or comfort objects remind them of the hotel and their lived
experiences.
Meeting customer expectations is important in creating experiences, but the
experience could be a "transformational experience" for both the subject and the
object. The hotel could become an object with a capacity for self-‐transformation.
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Returning to the example of the front desk clerk who has to interact with the upset
guest, we can think of ourselves as being the mother that contains the distress of
the child. About the mother as a container, "The Mother recognizes that the baby
has a problem without being clear what it is – she does, however, by and large have a
greater capacity to embark on the process of dealing with the problem and working
towards a joint resolution of the difficulty" (Obholzer, 1996). Using this model, in
this case the mother (the container) is the hotel,(specifically the receptionist). The
baby is the guest, the subject, and the distress the contained.
Myself as hotel guest
Last June (2013) I took a week-‐long holiday with my family on the Island of
Fuerteventura. Over the last 16 months, I have been almost exclusively occupied
with my work and my studies. I normally work 12 hours a day, and I have taken a
big part of my holidays to attend classes in France. For me, this holiday in June was
very special, because it was an opportunity to be with my family. My wife and I
chose a sport and club hotel. Weeks before the holidays, I imagined how it was
going to be. I could see myself in the pool swimming with my kids, going to the
beach, playing on the sand, going together for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This
awake-‐dreaming helped to ease my feelings of guilt for not having spent much time
with my family over the past year.
I still remember these holidays and the time we spent together. I am at present
working on my thesis and working 12 hours a day as a hotel manager. I still don't
have much time to spend with my family, but I think about our next holidays and
being together again. I would go back to the same hotel, but my wife would not.
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Our connection with the object was not the same, just as our connection with our
original objects was not the same.
Action Research Intervention
I have prepared a project for the Hotel:"El Proyecto Cordial." On the surface, the
goal of the project was to improve our image on the Internet, especially on
TripAdvisor and HolidayCheck. The underlying goal, however, was to reflect as a
group on my work, to share my thoughts on how constructing meaningful work
experiences impacts the lives of our guests, and to look for ways we could spread
these ideas throughout the organization.
I prepared a PowerPoint presentation for this project and started giving the
presentation to groups of around 20 people. The groups varied in their positions
within the organization and the departments to which they belong.
The main points of the presentation were as follows:
• 40% of our guests look at the different travel websites on the Internet
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• The meaning of work in our lives. We ask the participant to tell us what the
meaning of their work is and how important it is in their lives. I use the
sculpture of Alberto Giacometti (Swiss, 1901–1966) Invisible Object. (Erik
Van de Loo, EMCCC wave 13). We reflect on the term "existential vacuum"
used by Frankl:"Today, man's will to meaning is frustrated on a worldwide
scale. Ever more people are haunted by a feeling of meaninglessness which is
often accompanied by a feeling of emptiness"(Frankl, 1995).
• We speak about how each employee plays an important role in the
construction of the guests' experiences.
50
• We reflect on how as a team we create unforgettable experiences
("aesthetic experiences").
• In the last part of the presentation, which is very important, we speak about
the reality of the company: what is preventing some employees from
finding meaning in their jobs? We also asked what we could to show all
employees that their jobs are important and their work is meaningful.
Some of the answers we received are below:
o Some people find that their work is not valued by the company.
o Some people find that they, as a person and as an employee, are not
respected and treated as if their job were important.
o Sometimes the workload, the lack of organization and the
management style in some departments creates a stressful
environment with a lot of anxiety that makes it very difficult to keep
the best attitude when interacting with guests.
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o Some people expressed that their ideas are not heard and that they
are not able to participate in the decisions being made in their
departments.
o Some people said that it would be helpful to get more feedback
about how their jobs are important in the lives of our guests, not
only from the index of the guest's questionnaire and the information
about the different awards we have won, but from copies of their
letters, or videos, or stories etc.
o Some people mentioned that there are a few members of the staff
who are not that service-‐minded and efficient with our guests and
they need to be trained or fired, because they destroy the work of
others.
o We were told that it would be good if the staff could get more
training on different languages so that they could communicate
better with our guests.
o Some employees keep in contact with guests via e-‐mail or regular
mail. They asked if it would be possible for the company to somehow
facilitate this communication (e.g., by offering postcards and
stamps).
52
o Some people asked for more empowerment to solve problems and
attend to guests' needs faster and more efficiently.
o It was mentioned that we should continue with activities that
involve interaction between guests and employees.
o It was expressed that we should add these ideas to the staff
induction program.
It has been an incredible experience so far and the next step is to start working on
addressing all these concerns and obstacles and putting into practice some of the
ideas we are collecting from our team.
Limitations and future research
In establishing the impact our jobs have on the lives and well-‐being of our guests, I
took into consideration the comments of only our guests, in only one hotel, and in a
particular point in time. It would be interesting to do more diverse and
longitudinal studies to better understand the impact of the experiences we create
on the well-‐being of the guests over time. It would be helpful to conduct future
studies in others hotels of different categories and characteristics.
The employee interviews were also limited to one hotel. It would be helpful and
interesting to conduct these types of interviews on a major scale in order to better
understand the mechanisms that make work in a hotel meaningful.
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I have just begun conducting focus groups, and if I stay at the same hotel, it may be
possible to evaluate the influence of this thesis on helping the employees of this
organization find more meaning in their work and in their lives.
I have applied deductive methodology to analyse and interpret the results of the
different variables contained in the interviews and questionnaires. A deeper
quantitative analysis could be helpful in applying this thesis in a more general way.
Regarding the clinical perspective of the hotel as an object, and using the object
relations theory to understand the strong bonds that form between the guest and
the hotel, I honestly have to say that my knowledge in psychoanalysis is very
elementary. It would be very interesting for people with a thorough knowledge of
the subject of psychoanalysis to investigate this perspective further.
Positive experiences in a hotel play an important part in the well-‐being of the
guests; it may be interesting to study the effects of negative hotel experiences on
individuals.
Conclusion
"The self needs and seeks meaningful and purposeful work, and it is in the process of
attaining and functioning effectively within that work-‐related context that the self
finds the functional channels of expression and meaning that contribute to its own
structural integrity and evolution."
(Meissner, 1997, p. 58)
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Through this study I have found a new way to think about my work and the impact
I make on this world. I am living a second honeymoon in my profession, and it has
revitalized, rejuvenated, and strengthened my passion and love for my work. It has
also enhanced my personal mission as a hotel manager, which is now "To work to
create unforgettable, meaningful and transforming experiences for our guests and
to help the people working in the industry to understand that their work is indeed
helping to make this world a better place." This mission has become my "ethos,"
my guiding beliefs, my "North Star," or "Druv Tara."
Through this process I have seen how despite the fact that our hotel is probably
one of the most awarded hotels on Gran Canarias, some employees are not
connected to this success and do not feel a part of it. This is because: first, they are
not aware of the intrinsic value of their work, and second, they do not feel that
their work is valued by some of the leaders of the organization. My hope is that I
can help transform our work into a meaningful activity. We help create meaningful
experiences and a better world with our jobs. The work we do might give us the
opportunity to feel alive, and could be a pathway for the expression of being in
doing, to experience our unique presence of being, and to be alive (Levine, 2010).
The aim is to create a place where you can bring your true self and where, at the
same time, that true self can grow. You can only grow if you can be yourself and
are allowed to bring your true self to work. As we have already seen, one of the
important mechanisms through which work is perceived as meaningful is
authenticity, which is achieved through the alignment of one’s behaviour with
perceptions of the true self (Markus, 1977; Ryan, Deci & Grolnik, 1995; Sheldon,
Ryan, Rawsthorne, & Ilardi, 1997). Manfred Kets de Vries (1999) uses the term
55
"AuthentiZotic Organizations" in reference to those places where people feel good
about themselves, find meaning in and are captivated by their work; places where
people engage in activities that help to ensure congruence between workers' inner
and outer realities. As Bollas emphasizes, the true self is best understood as a
potential, the potential to invest life with a meaning whose source is within us
(1989)
This work has been very important in helping me understand what lies beneath
the surface of the attachment the guest feels for the hotel. It has been
extraordinary to listen to the different stories of our guests, and to understand
their psychodynamic and unconscious search a little bit better. From their stories
we can learn about their illusions, phantasies, their deep connection with the hotel
and its employees, how they feel at home here, and how they remember their
experiences for years after having stayed here. There is more to it than a search for
hedonistic pleasure, which may not have a lasting effect on emotional well-‐being
(Witsel, 2013). Nawwijn J. (2011) found that the effect of holiday trips on
vacationers' happiness was for the most part short-‐lived. It appears that longer-‐
term well-‐being and happiness is the result of pursuing eudemonia, which
incorporates virtue.
In my opinion, it is important that guests feel that they are visiting a special place –
we could call it a virtuous place – a place that makes them feel that when they go
there, they are doing the right thing. They should feel that the hotel truly cares
about them and their psychological needs, cares about its employees, takes care of
the environment, and as I mentioned previously, not only meets their expectations,
56
but is a source of growth and self-‐transformation. This should be a place, an event
or a series of events that provide the subject with meaningful and valuable
experience. A hotel experience may offer beauty, art, nature, relationships, good
food, good wine, etc. In this case, these elements, when taken all together as a
whole, have the capacity to create profound and transformative "aesthetic
experiences."
In his essay, “The end of Aesthetic Experience” Richard Shusterman suggests:
Aesthetic experience is differentiated not by its unique possession of some
specific element or its unique focus on some particular dimension, but by its
more zestful integration of all the elements of ordinary experience into an
absorbing, developing whole that provides "a satisfyingly emotional quality" of
some sort and so exceeds the threshold of perception that it can be
appreciated for its own sake (Shusterman 1997)
As previously mentioned, Bollas writes that in adult life, the quest is not to possess
the object: the object is pursued for its capacity to alter the self. The
transformational object seems to promise the beseeching subject an experience
where self-‐fragmentation will be integrated through a form of processing. (1978). I
think that we are always engaged in that search, because in both cases – when you
are transformed, and when you are not – you want either to be transformed again
or to continue searching for transformation.
One of the things that makes me believe in the hotel's capacity to create aesthetic
moments is the way some of our guest express their gratitude for the experience,
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and how they show a profound respect for our work. I cannot tell who guests are
(their profession, their status, their cultural background, etc.) by the way they offer
their gratitude. At these priceless moments, they look more or less similar to each
other: sincere, humble, grateful, honest, vulnerable, and with a reverential attitude
toward us.
"Pleasure comes and goes, but this kind of happiness is lasting; it´s there even when
we are hurting and when life is unkind to us. As long as we are in pursuit, moving
forward, developing, and fulfilling our potential, we have a good human life:
eudemonia or happiness."
Samuel Franklin
Franklin adds that everybody is different and has unique potential, but
importantly, all are in pursuit. There is no real destination or finish line, there is
only the journey. Travelling is happiness. Growing is happiness. Fulfilling potential
is happiness (Franklin, 2010). We as a hotel might be an important part of that
journey, our guests' journey and the journey of our employees. We could be Bollas'
transformational object and Aristotle's real good, the goods that move us toward
fulfilment.
I think that an important way in which we are part of that journey is by accepting
our guests for who they are. We really don't know them that well; we only know
and have observed a small part of their lives. We, however, can make them feel
important and valued regardless of who they are. According to Carl Rogers, this
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non-‐judgemental acceptance (or what is called Unconditional Positive Regards)
can bring positive change and growth.
I have not focused much on bad experiences and the negative impact they might
have on our guests. However, I can see how reciprocation plays an important role
in how people react to what they believed to be fair or unfair treatment. I have
noticed, for example, how some guests who feel that they were treated unfairly
tried to retaliate by sharing their bad experiences on the Internet. On the positive
side, those guests that feel they have been treated fairly tried to show their
appreciation by putting nice comments on the Internet, giving presents, writing
thank-‐you letters, simply saying "Thank You," and by being loyal to the hotel.
Another important source of happiness is making other people happy. I did not
want to introduce this concept in this work because in my opinion it is not
necessary to bring it up; it would be better if it remains hidden, otherwise it will
fade away.
"If you make an effort to search for joy, you will find it elusive, largely because you
will become engaged in the search itself. Your life will be about striving. However, if
you try to bring happiness to someone else, the joy will come to you."
Dr. Wayne Dyer
Finally, I would like to end by emphasising that a hotel is a business, a business
that depends heavily on the loyalty of its customers and the performance of its
employees, and it is my hope that this work will make a contribution in that area.
59
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APPENDICES
Appendix 1. The Result of the Employees' Survey
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Appendix 2. The Guest Questionnaire