A few years ago I wrote an essay called ‘The Good Docent, Reflections on a Year of Touring’. It was based on my experiences as a volunteer architectural and garden tour guide at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California. Time moves on and so have I. My home is now in the leafy confines of Glencoe, Illinois, a lovely old village (started 1869) near Lake Michigan on the north shore of the Chicago area. Yet, my interest in touring remains as strong as ever. Fortunately, I found a new outlet for this passion.
Arriving in the heartland during the late spring of 2015, I found another docent experience to enjoy. My home is close to the world famous Chicago Botanic Garden, also in Glencoe, a 385-acre water world of nine islands among interconnected lagoons. While quite different from the hilltop campus of the Getty in sunny Southern California, the CBG is an equally amazing place. From pristine prairie to formal gardens of stunning Midwest beauty, The Garden offers 27 display gardens and four different nature areas, designed in a variety of landscape architectural styles. Right after relocating to the ‘third coast’, I starting volunteering there as a walking tour guide. The walking tour season here is 18 weeks, from the beginning of June through mid-October.
After two years of conducting my assigned tours once per week, I was asked to co-lead the whole 2017 touring program with one other guide. Our 2017 program started with 17 docents providing six tours per day, Monday through Friday. Needless to say, ensuring the success of over 500 tours that season was new territory for me, really quite a challenge. After that season though, I now know what it is like to be responsible for a large tour program. In addition to my own tours, I had to lead the way for many others.
This essay will describe what I learned, especially the leadership practices necessary to provide what the garden terms ‘5-star service’ for our visitors, well over a million per annum lately. I will do so by discussing four essential leadership processes: recruitment, training, organization, and management.
RECRUITMENT
Any program that informs and entertains the public starts with talented people. Tour guides are a special lot, with particular talents. They have to enjoy leading tours and interacting with a great variety of people. As I said in my earlier essay about the Getty, they should be enthusiastic, prepared, and flexible. You can read about these qualities in my previous piece. Here though, I want to cover something not discussed before. Each year, we need at least a few new guides. Plus, earlier ones leave the program for many different reasons. Folks move. They develop serious health issues. Or they just decide they want to pursue other activities. Thus, we need to ensure remaining guides want to continue with us, while finding new guides. So, how do you recruit and retain good people?
A word about demographics. Glencoe, home of The Garden, is a very upscale, suburban community about 15 miles north of the Chicago city limits. Unlike the Getty, which is located in the midst of hip West Los Angeles, the CBG is clearly out aways from the urban action that young folks crave. Except for school groups and families with younger kids, our volunteers and visitors tend to be older. Many are retired. Thus the pool of potential guides is different from my Getty experience where the docents were a wider span of ages, from college age on up.
Older people do bring a wealth of real world experience. Many of our guides are or have been professionals, executives, or played other roles of significant responsibility. Among others in my group, I have teachers, musicians, librarians, judges, doctors, and business leaders. They have a broad perspective on how a touring program works. Often my colleagues have volunteered or are still volunteering at other well known attractions and institutions in the area, such as the Lincoln Park Zoo, The Shed Aquarium, local hospitals, colleges, parks, museums, you name it. Some folks contribute at three different organizations. This is a phenomenon that will only increase as more of us Baby Boomers retire. We just can’t stop doing!
Still, such a potential pool of people can be challenging. For one thing, touring is a physical activity. Week after week, we are out in heat and cold, humidity and wind. Touring means a fair bit of brisk walking. Once per week, we typically do two tours of 40 to 50 plus minutes each back to back on our assigned day. As a result, one can walk two hours straight and cover several miles. For some of our older guides, who are in their 70’s and beyond, there comes a time when the rigors of this activity are too much. It is always a delicate matter to help them decide when to stop touring. If they don’t, their tours can become truncated and the visitor experience declines. Fortunately, my colleagues have a great deal of common sense and know when to make beneficial changes. After all, there are other, less strenuous volunteer opportunities at The Garden.
What about motivation? Why do folks want to be tour guides? There are numerous reasons of course. I want to focus on one that keeps coming up in surveys about older people and well being. According to the literature I’ve seen, the number one characteristic of happy, healthy seniors is ‘social integration’. In other words, these folks regularly interact with a variety of people. They are truly connected in their community. Whether it’s just saying hello to a stranger or an in depth conversation with a new acquaintance, those who reach out and keep refreshing their relationship networks reap critical benefits. They avoid the scurge of the senior years, loneliness. Tour guides meet new folks every week, lots of them! Guides may not consciously work on social integration, but it is always there, active in the background, as they volunteer.
Now as to recruiting, The Garden, which is largely volunteer staffed, makes a constant effort to attract dedicated people. We have a well designed website as well as a free smart phone app. Since we already have around 1,500 active volunteers, there are always a few folks every year who want to switch from their current involvements to tour guiding. Also our volunteers tell nonvolunteers. Word of mouth is just as important as formal publicity.
We hold a formal two-day Spring Volunteer Fair annually in March. At that event the public can learn about many opportunities at the CBG. I help man a booth there. When an individual inquires about tour guiding, we tell her in person about what we do while learning about that person’s background and interests. If she remains interested, we ask her to submit a written application form. We can add notes about that person depending on our impressions. Our administration vets the applications and forwards ones they think are qualified. Then, I and my co-lead do one-on-one phone interviews to learn more about them. Based on that, during April we reach a consensus between co-leads and administration about whom to invite to join our ranks. Most of our new guides result from the Volunteer Fair.
Usually we accept new guides only in the spring, as they have to go through training before the season starts in June. However, exceptions have been made when more guides are needed at other times. Then we have to train them on the fly, so to speak.
There is no one personality we are looking for. In fact, I like to have a variety of different people in our group, for reasons I’ll explain shortly.
TRAINING
Let me describe my theory of Garden touring. The fundamental purpose of touring with a guide is to have an experience that visitors cannot achieve on their own. Thus a guide has special knowledge to share. There can be many reasons for this sharing but they tend to fall into two broad categories. Some visitors seek learning, some want entertainment. From many years at several different cultural institutions, I have found that guests usually want a combination of both. Therefore, a tour guide should educate with rational descriptions, basic facts and figures, but also should entertain with an artful mix of insightful comments and amusing anecdotes. My overarching theme pervading my posts on this website of ‘the head and the heart’ applies once again here!
It’s important to grasp at the outset of a tour how familiar visitors are with the Garden. First time visitors typically want an overall orientation to the Garden: its layout, history, types of displays, etc. In contrast, repeat visitors often want to know what’s new, different, or coming soon. So it’s important to poll the assembled group at the beginning of a tour to see who’s a first timer and who is more of a regular. The guide should adjust his presentation accordingly to fit the audience.
Let me be very clear on this next point. The Garden wants repeat visitors. Our walking tours play a key role in achieving that goal. Like a successful restaurant, we encourage our guests to come back, hopefully often. But if our tours are truly uniform the opposite occurs. A ‘one and done’ attitude prevails.
Therefore I offer one simple insight about what makes a great touring program. That is, each of our walking tours should be ‘the same yet different’. There is a core of information which all our guides must know and impart to visitors. Beyond that, I encourage each guide to customize her tour according to her own interests. That customization takes full advantage of the differences among our guides, from life stories to temperaments.
To begin training, first we ask new guides to do some homework. We direct them to the CBG website where there are excellent descriptions of the 27 display gardens and four natural areas on site. We also hand out literature for further study of subjects such as landscaping styles and the Garden’s history, which starts with the 1890 founding of The Chicago Horticultural Society.
Last year I produced a four-page document I entitled “Walking Tour Core Facts”. This handout summarizes the really important facts and figures about the Garden. These include its history; planning, design and landscaping; display gardens and attractions; present and future plans; and our continuing mission: “cultivating the power of plants to sustain and enrich life”. Thus every guide has a ‘cheat sheet’ for reference, both at the beginning of the season and any time he needs a refresher. This handout should suffice for many seasons.
We also had a special theme for the 2017 season, ‘Brazil in the Garden’. So I developed supplementary core facts for that season only. In the future, when the Garden incorporates another special theme, new supplemental information should be produced as needed.
During the spring, I (or my co-lead) meet with each new guide and review the program. I explain my ‘the same yet different” philosophy of touring and challenge each new person to come up with a unique theme for her tour. For example, my own tour is based on the Garden as a ‘triumph of environmentalism’. Another guide bases hers on ‘trees’. I encourage the use of written index cards – easy to carry – to outline tours and remind the guides of their narrative flows.
Well-crafted theming differentiates our tours from other tours elsewhere. It leverages the unique stories and emotional contexts from one’s own life. As I haver stated throughout this blog series, the heart, i. e. our emotions, are powerful communications tools. When conveyed in a heartfelt manner, they truly resonate with other human beings.
We usually walk around the Garden afterwards. At that time, I demonstrate a typical tour structure of pre-show warmup, opening, transitions, stops, and conclusion A week or so later we meet again and the newbie presents her proposed theme and customized tour outline. Once we are in agreement on the content, the tour guide is ready to ‘shadow’ during the first week of the program in June. Shadowing involves accompanying and observing a experienced guide on an actual tour with visitors. After one or two of those, most new guides are ready to try their own tours. I like new folks to witness how a couple of our seasoned guides perform. That gives a broader background to improve their own tour. Touring is a dramatic performance. Even with a similar script, every player performs the same role differently. That’s good!
ORGANIZATION
We host a general kickoff meeting in May to welcome both new and returning guides. We review everything about the program then. Before that meeting, my co-lead and I develop a tentative weekly tour schedule, taking in consideration everyone’s preferred days and times. Some only want mornings or afternoons, some only certain days or hours. It gets complicated. We do the best we can, giving priority to returning guides. This is not easy! Not everyone gets what they want! Needless to say, diplomacy comes in handy.
At the meeting we hand out the first spreadsheet / calendar version of weekly schedule commitments. Everyone then knows who is doing what. We give out a comprehensive contact information sheet for the guide group that year. We also circulate a list, asking everyone to write down anticipated absences for the entire season.
While most of the guides commit to one ‘slot’ of two tours (around 40-50′ each) back-to-back every week, a few become ‘floaters’ who fill in when needed. The floaters are absolutely essential. We always have both expected absences (vacations, jury duty, other commitments) and unexpected absences (sudden illness, family issues, job changes, etc.) to fill. New guides often start as floaters so they can ease into the program. However, some experienced guides also like to be floaters so we try to accommodate them. Unfortunately, last year midway through, several long-time guides suddenly dropped out of the program entirely. Consequently, we ran out of floaters towards the end of the season. We will do better next year.
Our policy for filling holes has been for the soon-to-be-absent guide to inform one of the c0-leads at least two weeks in advance of the absence. Then I or my co-lead colleague would contact other guides, starting with floaters, seeking to fill the slot. This had worked reasonably well in the past. However, last year it seemed like more absences occurred and this protocol was less effective..
In consequence, I advocate a different absence protocol in the future. When a guide realizes she will be absent, it will be her sole responsibility, starting with floaters, to contact at least five other guides seeking to fill her slot. She should also inform the co-leads of her progress. We will get involved only to document the schedule changes, unless she is unable to find someone. Then we’ll help further. This policy was very successful at the Getty.
We try to reissue the weekly schedule in PDF form by email on a regular basis. This can be challenging. I went to a monthly schedule last year in the second half just for convenience.
The group communicates by email over time. We share ideas about tour improvements, slot changes, etc. These are often due to visitor questions. It amazing how human beings come up with new queries every year. Meanwhile, I usually check in with the new guides several times during the season to see how they are doing. I think people appreciate that.
Tour guides carry handheld radios so we can communicate with our admin and / or security folks. This technology comes in very handy, especially to manage accidents or inclement weather. There are times, for example with lightning storms or during the unprecedented flooding last July, when tours are suspended. Usually that means the whole Garden closes temporarily. Radios keep us in touch in real time.
MANAGEMENT
This program is largely self-managing. Each tour guide is both independent, yet part of a larger whole. If a serious issue develops, we will consult with the Garden’s administration. They naturally get the final say in how to proceed. We collect plenty of feedback on the tours too, which helps with future planning and tour refinement.
All guides count and record the number of visitors on their tours after their shift. They also record what areas they visited plus other comments. So we have good data on what happens every day.
Regarding our six tours a day, Monday through Friday, the midday ones (11:30 am, 12:30 am) are consistently more popular, while it is not unusual for the 9:30 am tour to be cancelled. That’s just too early for many visitors.
We tell folks our names up front at tours and we wear name badges as well. We tell them at the end of tours about paper comment cards at the Information Desk in the Visitors Center which allow visitors to write down feedback. We do get those. Also, sometimes the Garden even receives good, old-fashioned visitor letters or emails, usually with nice things to say about a particular guide. And of course there’s Yelp, TripAdvisor, and other online forums.
At times a walking tour guide does not perform well. It could be just a bad day, like we all have occasionally. But If poor performance becomes chronic, depending on the severity that person in question may be monitored and/or counseled. (Usually another guide, out of concern, tips us off.) I involve myself in that process as necessary. There may be other Garden volunteer opportunities that she is more attuned to. But it is important to remember that all our walking tour guides are volunteers and we respect their commitment. We don’t want to lose enthusiasm and dedication.
*****
Let me end with “Guidelines for 5-Star Customer Service”. These are the main practices the Garden embraces for exceptional visitor interaction. I teach them and look for them in all the guides and their tours.
- Make eye contact and smile.
- Greet and welcome every visitor.
- Seek out visitor contact. (Listen, answer questions, offer assistance.)
- Provide immediate service recovery. (Resolve visitor problems; find answers.)
- Display appropriate body language. (Attentiveness, good posture, amiable facial expression.)
- Preserve Garden Experience Quality. (Act positive, no matter what.)
- Thank every visitor. (Leave them satisfied, wanting to come back.)
Even if a guide is having a bad day, the visitor does not need to know that. In fact, being good to visitors is being good to oneself. I find it just makes the volunteer feel better!
So that’s it. Largely common sense and learning by doing. And to my c0-lead and all my other colleagues at the Garden, thank you! It’s a privilege to be with you in this very special place. You’re the best!