Notes on group fitness regimes and music as organisational technology

Photo license:  Flickr image by cooyutsing at http://www.flickr.com/photos/25802865@N08/6853984341/    

Introduction

The purpose of this article is to discuss literature about music in relation to organisational activities, and especially in relation to group fitness class businesses. It arose out of my interest in the Les Mills group fitness business, and a funded project on Music and Work. This article is a general introduction to the use of music in fitness. It mainly mainly discusses the cultural meaning of the group fitness 'dance'. 

Music as technology

It is often said that we now live in an ‘experience’ economy. Businesses of all kinds try and find ways to ‘add value’ to products and services through enhancing ‘experience’ factors (Ashforth & Tomiuk, 2000; Minor et al., 2004). Accompanying this interest in exploiting the profit-making potential of enhanced experience has been a raft of organizational processes that support the cultural/aesthetic properties of the organization. Several writers have attempted to critically engage with the implications of the service and cultural milieu for ordering or ‘manufacturing’ the subjectivities of workers and consumers. Music, like that in a group fitness class, can be seen as an organizational discourse or ‘text’ used in the activity of organizing people.

Music pervades organizational aesthetics and life: communication technology is musical with cell phones’ intrusive ring-tones, work-place elevator musak anaesthetizes with its deliberate blandness and non-ness (Lanza, 1994), shopping malls advertise their strangeness with odd disembodied music to encourage a sense of being lost in time and space (Kowinski, 1985), and in fashion retail outlets to help customers imagine themselves enjoying wearing a dress (De Nora & Belcher, 2000). Coffee (Starbucks CD range), and even furniture comes with its own range of mood-music now (Freedom Furniture, 2002).

Music is also used inside organizations to induct employees or subjects through organizational song (Nissley et al., 2003), or through the highly ordering 2-2 beat of the military march (Hockney, 2002), and has been used deliberately in factories to facilitate the production process by merging the body’s movements with the rhythms of the music (Korczynski & Jones, 2004).

Clearly music in say, a Les Mills group fitness class,  is being used to evoke, coordinate and entrain emotional states in service environments (e.g. Minor et al., 2004). Even further than  emotional and physical experiences, spiritual experiences are also being encouraged (Belk et al., 1989; Casey, 2002). We feel strongly about music and its ability to enhance our lives, but to companies music is an  aesthetic design element to be manipulated to enhance ambiance and experience and increase company profits (Bitner, 1992).

Agents interact with and use the musical material. Music is an aesthetic prosthetic technology according to De Nora (2000): a material that can extend what the body can do. Work involves labour — the activity of the body, intellect or emotion to add value in the business process. Music may extend the capabilities of the mind, the body and/or emotion to add value to products and services. Service, which by its nature is intangible, simultaneous, reciprocal and perishable, is a natural companion for music in the service production process. Service is facilitated by the sounds of music. 


Dancing in time to the labour process

Unlike music, dance cannot be disembodied. We may watch someone else dance, but you can only dance when you dance. Dance in group fitness is the performance of the ‘musical consumer’: dance pulls the music in, moves it through the body, and then it is turned out in a cultural display. Dance displays are historically and culturally situated; gender relations are reproduced and accentuated; conflict and emotion is expressed and controlled; young people mate through dance; gods are worshipped and cosmology expressed; rituals of power and control are produced and reproduced; and cultures are fused and intertwined (Jonas, 1992; Buonaventura, 2003). Dance can be a safety valve, a process of social control, self-generational, educational, a form of initiation, competitive, ritualized dramatic theatre, and a challenge to established power, showing alternative possible realities (Spencer, 1985). Through dance, cultures enact life, and music fuels the show.

Music and dance in the context of a group fitness class is an organising technology. Music is not value-free and musicians have always used the language of music to manipulate perceptions of time and space. The language of this creation is sophisticated and for timing involves rhythm — pulses, beats and rests (Holst, 1963). Musically proficient people (not only musicians, but producers, marketers, choreographers, designers and other symbolic analysts) can use music — for instance, its genre or place of origin — to evoke in the listener moods and experiences. In short, time and space is organized through music.

Liquidity in time and space echoes with liquidities in gender and racial identity (Butler, 1993). The exercise-dance is a dance that expresses fluid gender identity through androgyny and camp. Camp is a common theatrical device in modern rock music (Rodger, 2004): women become men; white women become black women; white women become black men; and men become women. Participants stomp — using the body as a percussive instrument, pretend to be John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever as they disco dance down the Step box, surf to the Bee Gees, box like Mohammed Ali, or pretend to be a voodoo priest shaking his totem stick. Racial identities (stereotypes?) are also played with through doing different aspects of different dances like flamenco, cha-cha, stomp, hip hop, disco, soul and gospel. In the imagination one travels to a Latin American Mardi Gras, the ghettos of Harlem, nightclubs in 1970s America, or stomp in a West End stage production. The actions of the dance are about transience through space - walking, climbing, surfing, running, dancing, flying through space, scooting, skiing, even riding horses. The pleasures of travel and movement itself are evoked: travelling in a car, in a plane, in a bus, a train, stopping off in an airport and at all the major destination places in between. Music evokes exotic other places — tourist experiences in other words (Connell & Gibson, 2003). Some songs evoke ‘blasting off’ in a rocket, travelling between planets in outer space, and even flying like superman. In short, you can take a trip and never leave the room. Yet, these movements all take place in a very confined space.

The activity almost always takes place inside. The step exercise routine is based on walking up a hill and, as with outdoor walking (Edensor, 2000), the movements of the body symbolise process and expansion of the self. Walking can be a spiritual practice, and is used in the fitness-to-music session to help participants achieve a meditative rhythmic state (Slavin, 2003). Constantly moving feet give the impression of movement, but spatially the activity happens almost on-the-spot. This is in direct contrast to the other gym activity most participated in by men, circuit training, which has considerable mobility and spatial conquering involved (Crossley, 2004). Group fitness is mainly participated in by women.

Gyms as cultures

There has been considerable literature written about gym cultures and the aesthetic discourses around physically perfect, fit bodies that gyms convey, encourage and sustain (Sassatelli, 1999;Wacquant, 1995; Lloyd, 1996; Crossley, 2004; Monaghan, 1999; Frew & McGillivray, 2005). Gyms are social and technical environments with specific discourses around the body that encourage “an ongoing activity of enhancing bodily aesthetics” (Monaghan, 1999: 267), where participants attempt to stabilize their self-identity through attention to the body, changing its ‘plastic’ form (Thompson & Hirschman, 1999).

Generally speaking this discourse is a technical/scientific one, where the body is seen as machine. People are building cyborg bodies (Haraway, 1991) as they work on themselves to lose weight, strengthen, tone, and enhance themselves. The exercise regime is often filled with patter from instructors about the body as machine – its capabilities, its inside workings, how to make it run more efficiently through nutrition. The body is the machine being ‘fixed’. If you look good, you’ll feel good. Or alternatively, if there is no chance of that, if you feel good, then you’ll think you look good. By changing the body the intent is that the Self will be transformed. What is currently wrong - esteem, confidence, relationships, sexual fulfilment - will be set right through physical renewal.

Conclusion

Dance is an expression of culture, and so what culture is expressed in the aerobics-dance? In an organizational context the group fitness session is an organizational dance where the consumer and the instructors dance and so embody and produce the labour that has the value in the commercial exchange. There is a creation of fantasy and desire. There is the manufacturing of a ritual of 'escape' from everyday life. There is an obsession with looking and being looked at. There is an affirmation of admiring looking as a virtue.

Nothing wrong with all this. But if this is a cultural dance, and it is, what does it say about our culture?

References and Further Reading

Ashforth, B., & Tomiuk, M. (2000). Emotional labour and authenticity: Views from service agents. In S. Fineman (Ed.), Emotion in organizations (pp. 184 — 203). London: Sage.
Rodger, G. (2004). Drag, camp and gender subversion in the music and videos of Annie Lennox. Popular Music, 23(1), 17 — 29.

Belk, R. W., Wallendorf, M., & Sherry, J. F. (1989). The sacred and the profane in consumption behaviour: Theodicy on the odyssey. Journal of Consumer Research, 16(June), 1 — 38.

Bitner, M. J. (1992). Servicescapes: The impact of physical surroundings on customers and employees. Journal of Marketing, 56(2), 57 — 76.
Buonaventura, W. (2003). Something in the way she moves. Cambridge: Da Capo Press.

Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity (1999 ed.). New York: Routledge.
Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of ‘sex’. New York: Routledge.
Casey, C. (2002). Critical analysis of organizations: Theory, practice, revitalization. London: Sage.
Cohen, S., & Taylor, L. (1992). Escape attempts: The theory and practice of resistance to everyday life. London: Routledge.
Connell, J., & Gibson, C. (2003). Sound tracks: Popular music, identity and place. London: Routledge.
Crossley, N. (2004). The circuit trainer's habitus: Reflexive body techniques and the sociality of the workout. Body and Society, 10(1), 37 — 69.
De Nora, T. (2000). Music in everyday life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
De Nora, T., & Belcher, S. (2000). When you're trying something on you picture yourself in a place where they are playing this kind of music: Musically sponsored agency in the British clothing retail sector. Sociological Review, 48(1), 80 — 101.

Edensor, T. (2000). Walking in the British countryside: Reflexivity, embodied practices and ways to escape. Body and Society, 6(3), 81 —106.
Fitzsimmons, J., & Fitzsimmons, M. (2006). Service management: Operations, strategy, information technology (5th ed.). Sydney: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Frew, M., & McGillivray, D. (2005). Health clubs and body politics: Aesthetics and the quest for physical capital. Leisure Studies, 24(2), 161 — 175.
Gluck, P. (1993). The use of music in sports performance. Contemporary Thought, 2, 22 — 53.

Haraway, D. (1991). A cyborg manifesto. In Simians, cyborgs and women: The reinvention of nature (pp. 149—181). New York: Routledge.
Hockney, J. (2002). 'Head down, Bergen on, mind in neutral': The infantry body. Journal of Political and Military Sociology, 30(1), 148 — 171.
Holst, I. (1963). An ABC of music. London: Oxford University Press.

Jonas, G. (1992). Dancing: The pleasure, power and art of movement. New York: Harry N. Abrams Inc.
Korczynski, M., & Jones, K. (2004, 1 — 3 September). Instrumental music: The social origins and meaning of tannoyed music in factories. Paper presented at the Work, Employment and Society, Manchester, United Kingdom.
Kowinski, W. S. (1985). The malling of America: An inside look at the great consumer paradise: William Morrow.
Lanza, J. (1994). Elevator music: A surreal history of musak, easy-listening, and other moodsong. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Monaghan, L. (1999). Creating 'the perfect body': A variable project. Body and Society, 5(2), 267 — 290.
Minor, M., Wagner, T., Brewerton, F. J., & Hausman, A. (2004). Rock on! An elementary model of customer satisfaction with musical performances. Journal of Services Marketing, 118(1), 7 —18.

Nissley, N., Taylor, S., & Butler, O. (2003). The power of organizational song: An organizational discourse and aesthetic expression of organizational culture. In A. Carr & P. Hancock (Eds.), Art and aesthetics at work (pp. 93 — 114). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Sassatelli, R. (1999). Interaction order and beyond: A field analysis of body culture within fitness gyms. Body and Society, 5(2), 227-248.
Seitz, P. (2005). Starbucks perking in music business as it expands its CD-burning outlets. Financial News, Investor's Business Daily Retrieved 16 March, 2005, from http://biz.yahoo.com/ibd/050216/tech01_1.html
Slavin, S. (2003). Walking as spiritual practice: The pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Body & Society, 9(3), 1 — 18.
Spencer, P. (Ed.). (1985). Society and dance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thompson, C., & Hirschman, E. (1999). An existential analysis of the embodied self in postmodern culture. Consumption, Markets and Culture, 2(4), 337 — 464.
Wacquant, L. (1995). Review article: Why men desire muscles. Body and Society, 1(1), 163 —179.
Wasserman, V., Rafaeli, A., & Kluger, A. (2000). Aesthetic symbols as emotional cues. In S. Fineman (Ed.), Emotion in organizations (pp. 140 — 165). London: Sage.

Exploring Service Issues Creatively - Poster on Queuing

The poster below was compiled by students in my undergraduate managing services class. The purpose of the activity was to  raise awareness of the amount of queuing that occurs in everyday life, and so the amount of time spent in queues (and only physical queues are represented in this poster). One of the basic issues service managers deal with is the queue, which is a bottleneck in the service process. 

People find waiting very frustrating. On the other hand, a queue can also signal the desirability of a commodity, and so sometimes managers deliberately increase waiting time to signify to the consumer the desirability of a service (e.g. a queue at a nightclub). 

The poster features student's queuing experiences in traffic (Auckland!), retail, sporting events and concerts, museums, mini-put golf, airports, food, government services and other situations.  

Exploring Customer Service Issues Creatively - Comic Strip

Below is a cartoon drawn by two students in one of my service management classes. These students kindly gave permission for their  work to be published (I used it in a journal article which can be found here) and so please if you want to use of it, make sure you attribute it correctly to Katy and Sammi and make sure you say where you got it from (this blog) or cite the reference below as it is published in a journal. 

The cartoon is a response to an assignment to create a multi-media artifact that explores the tensions service employees feel between managers and customers, both agents of control over their behaviour at work.  

Katy and Sammi have very cleverly depicted a very keen 'BS' employee (denoted by the cap she is wearing) working in your typical fast food restaurant.  A series of demanding and tiresome customers are depicted, and although managers are absent (as they often are in front-line service work) there are a number of ways that managers are controlling the interaction (especially through the limited menu-board). The cartoon, by using a comic format, exaggerates some of the idiosyncrasies of customers, and management, and so makes it more obvious where points of tension are. 

Reference


Ralph Bathurst, Janet Sayers, Nanette Monin (2008). Finding beauty in the banal: An exploration of service work in the artful classroom. Journal of Management & Organization: Vol. 14, Re-conceiving the Artful in Management Development and Education, pp. 521-534.

Service Strategy and Best Practice - Disneyland's Strategic Process

Disneyland is an organization that many service industries look to for best practice; that is, when 'Learning from Others'.

Disneyland's strategic vision is a bit different from the usual Plan, Do, Check and Act cycle around which most strategic cycles rotate, although of course, Disney's version is similar in some respects as they still have to take action and plan and so on.

However, Disney's strategic planning involves the imagination in ways that are very appealing and often not recognized quite so much in other organizations.

Their cycle 'embraces the Disney spirit' and is Dream, Believe, Do and Dare. which is a principle or value-driven strategic process. Although other organizations will not be the same as Disney, it pays to remember that values and beliefs about service culture should always underpin the strategy process so that it is not just 'business as usual' and innovation is pushed to the forefront of all activities.

Below is a diagram showing the Vision Align Process for realignment of Pleasure Island to the Disney criteria. Pleasure Island became a problem for Disney because it was more 'adult-themed' and so was not aligned with the family values the park that was central to the park's mission and values. To begin to solve the problem the Island was strictly gated. However, eventually, the entire Island was closed down because it did not align with Disney values.

Service Strategy and Learning From Others - Singapore National Library and Te Awahou Nieuwe Stroom (Foxton Library)

Below are some links to information about the NSL and also another best practice example: Te Awahou Nieuwe Stroom (Foxton Library). The Te Awahou Nieuwe Stroom (Foxton Library) provides a great local example of best practice about social and cultural innovation. The trend is for public libraries to become community information and social hubs with flexible spaces for use by both business and the community; 'living rooms of the city'.

Resources

There are a number of resources you can use to prepare for answering this case study. They include:

NSL- Best Practice

1. National Singapore Library Document - this is a long report prepared by one of the authors of your textbook

2. There is a descriptive case in your textbook of the SNL in Chapter 7.

3. Check out the SNL website. https://www.nlb.gov.sg/ Go to their research and annual reports page. Anything there of interest? There is so much information! Just skim it to see if anything looks interesting for you. 

Sources on Library Strategy

Use the three-pronged strategy for research we have been using this semester:

1. Journal articles and research literature using search terms related to the concepts from the textbook chapter you have identified. Do a journal/research article search for issues facing the industry. What are the issues facing the public library system and libraries more generally? What are the trends? (use google scholar search and other databases)
2. What are the challenges facing the industry and what has been the best practice response? (general google search)
3. What is going on in the case organization you are looking at. Check out the specific organizational website and any other reports or articles you can find to tell you what is happening, including your own experience of the service, feedback sites, user social media and so on ... (HINT: See if the website has a research and information link - they often do!). Libraries are run by local councils. Is there anything on your local council site about local government strategy and how the library might fit into plans for the town/city in the future?

SNL is a Best-Practice Example. Are there Others?

The Te Awahou Nieuwe Stroom (Foxton Library) is a unique facility and showcases how a library can be much more than just an information hub, or even a 'living room'.

Their website is https://www.teawahou.com/Home. Take a look. 

There are a number of services offered. As well a providing the usual library services using the latest technology, the facility supplies:

• exhibition spaces
• meeting rooms and spaces that can be booked by community groups
• two significant cultural showcases - for local Maori and for the local Dutch community 
• Council services like paying rates and dog registrations
• the library is designed to integrate with the Windmill attraction, a local cafe, and some immersive tourist experiences like horse-drawn vehicles, flax making (a historic industry) and so on
• integrate into local paths and walkways in the area on the Manawatu river - a significant port and center of commerce in the past (e.g. a boom and bust flax trade)
• gateway to the Manawatu estuary at Foxton beach, a World Wildlife Heritage site
• cycleways

Other Aspects of Library Strategy

Libraries are capital intensive resources for cities and towns; local authorities. Libraries are usually big buildings that require large budgets and staff to provide the facility. Consequently, public libraries have been under pressure for many decades now because of cuts in public spending and in some countries have become under threat. For instance, in the USA the public library system has been eroded. 

Libraries are also under threat because according to many commentators people have stopped reading. However, although the printed book might not be as prominent as it once was, reading modes and habits are changing, they are not disappearing. People are reading more online and through their phones. They are watching more multi-media. They are learning and engaging more through gaming (what is often called gamification). 

Library design is fascinating. Libraries don't need to be boring spaces built like factories for computers. Library design is now about creating 'Living rooms in the city' and developing library concepts with users.

There has been a renaissance in prestigious library development projects across the world. Rather than the digital revolution signaling the death of libraries as was often foretold, libraries are undergoing a transformation. The contemporary library is both as a public facility and a learning space. They are places for people to place to meet, read, share and explore ideas. Check out this article on contemporary library design - http://bid.ub.edu/en/38/bonet.htm. You can see examples of libraries being built with theatres and stages; that is, places for creative collaborations.  And for children to play in. The old stereotype of the library being a place where you are shushed all the time is no longer appropriate (although it is still important to have quiet spaces where people can work quietly alone!)

Designing libraries is about investing in people, about the changing ways in which libraries are perceived and used, and about rethinking concepts of the ‘typical’ user. The library is no longer a grandiose architectural spectacle lined with acres of books, but about the exploratory nature of information seeking, and collaborative creative learning. 

Photography Ethics and Research

There are a number of resources available about the use of photography and filming in research and these are directly adaptable by people wishing to explore any type of filming or use of visual media in their teaching and learning praxis. I recommend the InVisio site 'Inspire' which focuses specifically on visual research methods - you can find it here. The website provides resources for visual researchers but there is much of use also for teachers and students.

For most student research projects I advise common sense and avoid filming anything that might raise any ethical issues. Follow normal university protocol about ethics and don't film or photograph identifiable people (with the exception of ourselves and friends and family's doing things we don't mind sharing) or any sensitive situations. Common sense has to apply here so if you have any worries do ask your teachers and lecturers. Ask permission when filming in organizational contexts, even as a customer, if you are doing it for research purposes.

Professional guidelines are available, like for Journalism Photography, but they would not reach the level of ethical expectation expected at a university, and they have different priorities. Makes for interesting reading though. 

FYI NZ Police on photography and the law: https://www.police.govt.nz/faq/what-are-the-rules-around-taking-photos-or-filming-in-a-public-place

Customer Facing Workers - Call Centre Staff in Banks

The work satisfaction of bank call centre staff was the focus of research we conducted in Auckland at three large bank call centres. Although the contexts have changed a bit since this research was published the problems that the research outlined are very common still; call centre workers are under work intensification pressures and want to do work that is meaningful; for many of the call centre workers we interviewed, this included being able to resolve customer problems from beginning to end. Staff felt invested in ensuring customer problems were resolved and if the technology didn't enable them to do this, they felt frustrated. That said, New Zealand call centre staff in banks were relatively satisfied compared to their overseas counterparts.


You can find the full paper here: Sayers, J., Barney, A., Page. C. & Naidoo, K. (2002). 'A provisional“thumbs up” to New Zealand bank call centres'.University of Auckland Business Review, 5, 1: 2-12.

Les Mills International - Service Case Study Part 2

Continued from Part 1  - Les Mills International - Service Case Study Part 1

The Les Mills System: the Nuts and Bolts

There are several parts to Les Mills fitness, including Les Mills Gyms, Les Mills NZ and Les Mills International. The Les Mills International system is complex and dynamic and this article merely provides some features of their system in order to help a student understand service systems generally, and especially aspects of service systems that are common to all. It is an educational resource, and may not be completely accurate as businesses are in constant flux. This article focuses on Les Mills International, but aspects of their systems are in all branches of their business. 

Education and organisational learning systems

Instruction and teaching are central to what Les Mills does. For each new release, they have about 3 months trialing and then teaching fitness classes in order to produce 'world-class’ fitness classes. The create video classes and distribute them through their system and release them in mass events such as those you can see on Youtube, and shown in Part 1 of this article of a BODYSTEP® release. The training includes producing modules to train teachers, instructor training and management training in GFM (Group Fitness Management). For extension, reading see an article about training and group fitness instructors here. 

Relationship with Owner of the Club and Marketing

Like all successful franchise service operations, Les Mills has tight control over its image and processes. They "write the rules on studio design, recruitment of staff, measurement of performance, marketing, and staff training" according to Phillip Mills (Go Global talk, 2005). By doing so they instill their brand through the behavior and conduct of their staff, including the vision and values that underpin their organisational culture. They produce a wide range of promotional material, and are constantly developing and thinking about ways to build 'community' for their customers, as a community, as Phillip explains in the video above, is a strong motivating factor to join and stay involved in fitness and health initiatives. For managers and instructors resources, they need to promote, manage and run classes are all available online. They can access adverts, guerrilla marketing material, as well as order popular décor items, decorative posters, clothing and so on. "Our branding is in people’s faces" said Phillip Millsin his Go Global talk.

Music as technology

Licensed music is what gives LM its competitive edge according to Phillip Mills, “With the cooperation of the NZ music industry” (although I have to say NZ music didn't feature much in the sessions I attended). In 2005 LM was the only company worldwide to have rights to distribute the top forty music tracks. "We can distribute just about anything”, and they "pay millions of dollars in royalties". Along with the music is the choreography which is centrally important to the ways that people interact with the music. Tia De Nora has written a scholarly book that includes research with group fitness participants on the ways they use music in fitness sessions (De Nora, 2000). 

Going Global

Les Mills keep calling themselves a small NZ company, although it is hard to understand how they can still call themselves that, except it is part of their origin story and culture. They were limited by capital constraints and so opted initially for an independent owner-distributor model. They considered growth through other models as there are bigger margins to be made in owning the whole business, but they couldn't afford it. In their first growth spurt internationally they did 'take over' a couple of organisations.

Their business model uses licenses. Clubs pay LM agents a monthly fee per programme, and agents are paid on a sliding scale. Percentages are also divided up according to sales of training, music merchandising, and equipment and other tangibles. One lesson learned by LM is not to undercharge for their service. They offer high-end programmes and need to charge a premium for them.

For LM agents are crucial to success. Initially LM recruited the 'best' agents in each country they expanded into and “Networked, networked, networked”. According to Phillip Mills, most agents in this initial growth phase were great but there were a few were "dodgy" ones. LM made mistakes but they learnt from those mistakes. One issue was that they learnt existing retailers did not make great agents as they could be protective and competitive. Best local agents had the commitment and local knowledge.

However, sometimes local agents did not have had the same commitment to quality or buy-in that is expected of a LM agent, and so it was sometimes necessary to remove agents. An agreement process was essential - service contracts needed to be developed and adhered to.

So, for instance, commercial contracts needed to include:

1. performance minimums (fees that they charge; the number of clubs covered); 
2. exclusivity in a product category (to eradicate copy-cat problems; enforceable restraints of trade; engage expert international legal advice);
3. obligation to sell to all reputable companies (minimum number of dedicated sales staff; dedicated sales manager);
4. Standard procedures around quality;
5. Reporting requirements (benchmarking; monitoring compliance)

In general, according to Phillip Mills, “He who drafts wins” (the agreements that is). It was essential to politely enforce all agreements, and if waivers were given they had to be in writing. 

Living the Brand

As inferred earlier, LM requires a strong adherence to Brand values, an adherence that people that work for LM seem to fully comply with. The LM package is 'world-class', and so LM invested in the top creative agencies in NZ for sales and pitch documents. All LM representatives, affiliates and employees must represent this world-class brand. As Phillip Mills puts it, it is required that you put your “skin in the game”. Commitment comes from the investment, both in terms of dollars, but also in physical and emotional commitment.

Fitness instructors, for example, represent the brand, but they also deliver the experience. They are the most visible customer service representative for participants. It is the instructor that participants 'look up to' both literally (they are almost always on an elevated stage) and figuratively (as a model of a fit person to aspire to in looks and fitness). Instructors co-produce (see Note 1 below about what this means) with participants the group fitness experience - everyone in the class is enlisted into the same enterprise. 

LM has a strong, perhaps even alarming, brand commitment - "they would die for the cause" said Phillip at the Go Global event. Nevertheless, people buy into LM and they have an almost evangelical fervor about them. Becoming a LM licensee requires one to undergo a life-changing event. In terms of achieving this commitment to the brand LM has employed a variety of techniques: e.g. 'Life-changing staff training' using tools like theater, motivational psychology,  personal development, team building, and cultural rituals in order to create passion, enthusiasm and the commitment of staff. “We became a virus” says Phillip and took over hearts and minds of staff. "We took their attention". Its not all hard work: they also focus on having fun, delivering great conferences, and creating great teams. They also use celebrity endorsements and have a very strong NZ flavour in their brand. See the video below of their own haka performed in Stockholm in 2010 'gifted' to their participants. This is also an example of using a cultural ritual to enhance the community, a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technique. More information on this is available here. 

Best Practice

How does a top fitness business stay at the top? By comparing itself to the best and learning from industries that are perceived to be the best in the world, even if they have ostensibly nothing to do with the fitness industry itself. In the video below Philip describes what he was learning during a recent study tour in the U.S.

Other Issues

LM continuously offers its licensees techniques to help them grow their businesses. For instance, the recent announcement of the Clubcount system. This announcement says: "CLUBCOUNT™ is new web-based software that will keep track of your numbers for you. This means you will have numerous ways to report on, and evaluate, your success in Group Fitness. All you need to do is take a quick headcount for each class, grab a few moments to enter the class attendance into the software and CLUBCOUNT™ will take care of the rest..." CLUBCOUNT™ enables clubs to understand Group Fitness attendance trends over time, create timetables based on proper information, and identify top instructor performers (instructors become minor celebrities).  

Another recent innovation has been their 'Globesity' initiative, which has been launched with the publication of a book and is LM's sustainability initiative. The following video explains how this works: 

 

Other Links of Interest about Les Mills

Les Mills was recently nominated for a NZ International Business Award.

Les Mills on Facebook

Notes

Note 1: Service work production processes are different from those in manufacturing, and so the labour process itself is different. In service work, the consumer and the producer are involved in a reciprocal and instantaneous exchange of production at the same time as consumption occurs. Labour is produced with the customer – they are co-producers of its meaning or, in another way of putting it, the customer is a partial employee (Halbesleben & Buckley, 2004). The value of the labor is in its synchronicity. 

Other References


De Nora, T. (2000). Music in everyday life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Halbesleben, J., & Buckley, R. M. (2004). Managing customers as employees of the firm: New challenges for human resource management. Personnel Review, 33(3), 351-372.

Personal notes from Phillip Mills talk on Thrive TV (http://www.thrivetv.com, now no longer operating). The presentation was given as part of the Go Global Conference held in Auckland in 2005.

Service Experiences - Paying to be Terrified - Haunted Houses

This post is about paying to be terrified.

Photo from Flikr

Photos from Flikr

The NZ Herald published a story on haunted house attractions recently that is worth a look - see Terror worth paying for. The article is written from a first-person perspective, where the writer experiences the 'service journey' (being terrified). The experiences he describes are quite terrifying in and of themselves - psycho-sexual abuse, water-boarding, claustrophobia, prison abuse, and so on ...

Why do people seem to find such pleasure and enjoyment in vicariously experiencing torture, or sexual abuse, and are more than willing,  even eager, to part from hundreds of dollars for it? Horror and the enjoyment of it have been around for a long time (haunted houses have been part of fairs since their inception) but terror, as large scale paid entertainment, is a relatively new phenomenon, fueled no doubt by the popularity of the horror film genre.

Horror and enjoyment intersect, and the philosophy of why this is so is interesting reading. Books like The Philosophy of horror argue that comedy and horror are closely related.  People clearly enjoy being horrified, and with the rhythm of fear and release (being frightened and then relieved) being a key to the enjoyment people get from horror.  Comedy works in a very similar way with a build-up of tension and then release. 

The type of writing in the Herald newspaper article is typical of an ethnographic approach where the writer enters the world they are writing about and describe it.  Ethnographic writing after a period of participation is a useful method for understanding customer service provision because it enables thinking about social and cultural issues instead of the narrow issue of 'service quality'. In service management, most likely the approach to understanding the 'experience' might be a mystery shop, or an emotional audit (where consumers are asked to record how they feel as they engage in a service experience). A participatory, reflective perspective such as you gain in writing an ethnographic account encourages thinking about wider issues so that the growth in these types of business could be understood more.
    

On a more technical note, photos at places like the Nightmare Fear Factory's Flickr feed tangibilise the experience making the experience of being frightened in the dark visible through flash photography.  This is a variation of the traditional memory photograph (e.g. the photograph as you go over the edge of a theme park ride), but adds a freaky-funny element, and makes the experience publicly available so that friends and family can share. The terror experience has fan sites, chat rooms and plenty of other ways that users can share their experiences, and these all work to further commodify and virally spread terror as an experience worth paying for.  

Service People - McDonald's

Below you can see a slideshow presentation about McDonald's, a USA originating fast-food company. The focus is on staff issues - HRM and in particular the way they use recruitment in their values-based service strategy. 

McDonald's is the focus of intense interest, of business people, academics and activists. McDonald's is practically worshiped in franchise and service professional circles. McDonald's have provided the template for service growth that is followed by many other services, including other food retail services like Starbucks, and seemingly unrelated services who have adopted the limited menu option format including professional services like optometrists (OPSM) and hairdressing (Justcuts). 

Note there has also been a great deal written about McDonald's in critical scholarship because McDonald's has been of tremendous significance, not only as an influence on business models and growth strategy but also as a cultural and social phenomenon. McDonalds is even credited with the spread of the worst and the best of 'American  culture' (whatever that is) more generally. McDonald's responds to the criticism - or 'relationship dialogue' - with society in a variety of ways.

The following is a video advertising McDonald's focus on job-readiness and employment for young people.

References

Gunther, Marc (May 17, 2006). 'Yoga … Soy … McDonald’s?' Fortune.
Lord, Simon (2002a). McDonald's: The myth and the magic. Retrieved from the Internet, November 25, 2002, http://franchise.co.nz/

Ritzer, G. (2004). The McDonaldization of society. Sage, London.

Sweeny, Mark (April 20, 2006) 'Fast food giant says no to 'McJobs', Fortune. 

Vignali, C. (2001). McDonald’s: “Think global, act local” – the marketing mix. British Food Journal, 103 (2), 97 – 111.

Strategic Human Resource Management - Breakers Basketball

Sports are classic service organizations, delivering an intangible experience-product. I recently published, with a colleague, a research article in the New Zealand Journal of Human Resource Management which investigated the Breakers basketball organisation's HRM strategy. The article uses concepts like co-creation, strategic co-creation of values and story-telling methodology to unpick how the Breakers use stories to help manage their values-based culture. You can find the full paper here.

Abstract: Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) is often described as the alignment of internal human resources to external threats and opportunities. Values-driven goals have been increasingly interwoven into SHRM practices. If there is a disconnect between values-driven SHRM and staff enactment of values then strategic goal achievement is less likely. Research is underdeveloped as to how values-based SHRM is implemented at the micro-process level; the level at which people within the organisation engage with SHRM. Research examining the successful implementation of values-based approaches assists understanding of best-practice. The research question is, ‘How has a successful values-based SHRM approach been enacted? We investigated values-driven SHRM in the New Zealand SKYCITY Breakers’ basketball franchise, using a narrative methodology. The preliminary stage of the study involved content analysis of secondary sources and interviews, which highlighted the Breakers are a 'storytelling' organisation. The second main stage involved narrative analysis of 250 shared stories identified from 16 in-depth interviews with organisational members. Findings are that the Breakers use a monomyth story-sharing process to embed value-driven behaviour. The key contribution is to show how values-based SHRM is embedded by the organisation’s monomyth story-telling process. Practice-based implications are discussed.