There is a reason successful leaders come together at the Milken Global Conference: quality. This morning the quality was Steve Wynn. And his advice to the crowd: Tell stories. "It's the most profound insight, by orders of magnitude," he said, "and I offer this in public for the first time."
After a fond introduction by Michael Milken, Wynn embarked on an inspiring and thought-provoking discussion, punctuated with warmth, humility and enthusiasm that served as reminders of the great goodness in mankind and how important it is for service businesses to institutionalize processes that enable every employee at every level to receive recognition for the positive differences they make.
Wynn's ability to achieve this simple concept on a grand scale is in no small part why Fortune magazine ranked the Mirage Corporation the second most admired company in America under his leadership; and today his namesake Las Vegas hotel, the Wynn, is the only resort casino in the world to earn, and then earn again, the highest honors awarded in the hotel-resort industry.
"The people who work at the Wynn achieve notable accomplishments that few are able to attain," he said, "and they do it with consistency. They achieve this because they apply common sense and consideration of the guest as a person, and this is the most fundamental affirmation a customer can receive. It is the dominant experience of their stay because people are moved by these wonderful experiences, and every act of personal consideration, every act of kindness, is never forgotten."
Achieving that spirit among his employees, said Wynn, is both the challenge and one of the greatest joys of his work. "If any of us in the service industry could get one wish, it would be for employees who related to the customer as people. Who wouldn't want that in their employees? For someone to walk up to you as a guest and be able provide them with instant gratification, and to do so unsupervised and when no one else is watching. To surprise and delight. ... These employees could change the history of the entire service enterprise, because if you have the people who relate to your customer person-to-person, they will never go anywhere else."
Wynn attributes the successes at Wynn Las Vegas to his human resources manager, Peter Early. "It was brilliant," he explained of the management innovation they established. "In our business, our line supervisors hold meetings throughout the hotel-casino before every shift, three times a day, seven days a week. These line supervisors are the core of the company. They carry the culture of the institution and know what's going on in their area and how well their people are doing for the 12 or so employees they oversee.
"Before discussing the business of the day," he continued, "every supervisor asks if anything of interest happened the day before. An employee stands up and tells something good that occurred. Within our internal network throughout the hotel-casino, we publish it, extol and glorify it. The individual gets immediate gratification, and the next day, everyone is out looking for ways to do good deeds they can report and get recognition for, as well.
"Pretty soon all these people were lit up with storytelling," Wynn recalled of the hotel's early efforts, "and it continues through today. It is storytelling: enabling and encouraging people to share their experiences, celebrate the good things they do and provide positive examples for others."
His success didn't magically happen. It took a superb human resources management, training of line supervisors and the contribution of many others to put the system in place. Yet the obvious advantage is that it overcomes one major liability of traditional "employee of the month" program by eliminating the need for a supervisor to observe the good behavior in order to earn recognition. "After all," said Wynn, "we all want employees who do the right thing when they think no one is watching. My success will always depend upon the people around me and their ability to behave in a considerate and compassionate way.
"It is always about the people," he said. "It is also the most fun, for nothing is more personally enriching and enlightening than the enrichment and enlightenment of other people."
When asked about how to build a single culture among employees to achieve these results, Wynn replied, "We don′t." Every one of the Wynn's employees' names should be on the Wynn Hotel, he said, and "while their diversity represents a challenge, it also is our strength. We seek a higher ground that allows people to be different while asking they be at their best."
When asked if his employees are made or born to this higher calling, Wynn answered, "Does it matter? It is what it is, and whether it is the natural person who lights up the room or the person we empowered to blossom, they are wonderful. We recruit for personality and train for skill, but they come to work for many reasons and our employees are fundamentally no different than those found elsewhere. We found something, sort of Buddhist, sort of common sense, and I am excited about it at 66 years old. Storytelling and the chance for people to be responsible for their own recognition is real stuff!"
His philosophy on those who make mistakes? "The fiction of infallibility is our worst enemy because it leads to cover-ups. I′m not talking about the person we shouldn't have hired," he added, "but everybody has bad days. Let us acknowledge it and trust that it is OK to tip off your supervisor and co-workers so they can cover for you that day. We're not afraid of screw-ups, and the difference between saying it and making it exist among 7,400 employees is what good businessmen do."
On business in Asia and future ventures, Wynn noted, "Most Americans don′t get what is going on in China. The government is diligently working toward creating a better life for its citizens, and they are sharp, they want the real thing, not copies or fakes. Some of the stores in our Macau casino do as much business as stores 10 times larger in New York City." He said he was looking forward to putting a Wynn Hotel in Beijing and in other Asian capitals when the conditions are right. "I like to build fetching hotels," he said, "and the casino helps pay for them."
In response to a question about the legacy he′d like, Wynn replied, "A legacy is something for an old man, and I plan to grow old ungracefully and cling with the desperation of a drowning man to my immaturity.
"Thankfully, I have a wonderful wife who makes that possible," he said in closing. "I think of hotels as an exercise, about getting one more hotel down that is just perfect, and when that's done, there seems to always be another. If I could be known for being consistent and setting a good example, if people said they were well treated and I had something to do with it, that would be enough."
And with a standing ovation, the audience celebrated.
Global Conference 2013
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair, philanthropist Bill Gates and Strive Masiyiwa of Econet Wireless discuss advancing prosperity in Africa.
