How Royal Caribbean transformed innovation with a weird acronym
- At a constructive 1990s meeting, it was made clear that Royal Caribbean Group was not “Easy To Do Business With.”
- Rather than brush off the feedback the company created an “ETDBW” plan which drove meaningful improvements across departments.
- The ETDBW initiative served to highlight how the best innovations are often ones that happen when people “really listen.”
Behind every cruise, every smile, every unexpected thrill, there’s a world of non-ship-related innovation making it all possible. These innovations create new destinations, streamline the guest experience with technology, design for a more sustainable future, or otherwise enhance the experience. These efforts aren’t sexy, but they are powerful.
While my suggestion of Project Archimedes was considered too difficult for a project name, ETDBW (which is even harder to remember or pronounce) turned into one of our best. It was not just a name but a rallying cry — something that sparked real alignment across Royal Caribbean.
It all started back in the early 1990s at a meeting with our travel agent advisory board. This was a group of about a dozen standout travel advisors from across the country chosen by our sales team not just for their sales volume but for their creativity and sharp business instincts. They came from a variety of backgrounds, brought different perspectives to the table, and had all built successful businesses from the ground up. Most importantly, each was seen as savvy and articulate.
We’d already had several productive sessions with them before with good feedback and candid dialogue. They got a look behind the curtain at how a cruise line operates, and we got thoughtful suggestions on how to improve. Those meetings were enjoyable and useful but not exactly transformational.
As usual, we prepped carefully. And when we walked into the meeting room at 9:00 a.m., we were looking forward to another pleasant but not earth-shattering session.
What we didn’t know was that they had also been preparing. The group had convened a pre-meeting of their own over breakfast at the hotel. And when our head of sales stood up to open the meeting, they cut him off and hijacked the meeting.
“We appreciate everything you’ve planned,” they said, “but we have our own agenda this time.” I reacted to this the same way I react every time my wife starts a sentence with “I never told you about this, but …”
It felt like someone had just told me that my zipper was down. I was sorry to hear it but was appreciative to have friends who cared enough tell me something I wouldn’t see on my own.
“We love your product and your people,” they said. “But we also want to love how easy you are to do business with, and today, we don’t.” Booking policies felt like red tape. Communication gaps left people guessing. Our systems required workarounds. The stories came one after another — some big, some small, but all pointing in the same direction.
It felt like someone had just told me that my zipper was down. I was sorry to hear it but was appreciative to have friends who cared enough tell me something I wouldn’t see on my own.
After the meeting, we organized a meeting of our in-house team to discuss what we should do to address their concerns. Everyone agreed that the discussion that morning had been “incredibly helpful.” Everyone acknowledged that the advisory board’s complaints were justified and that we needed to do better. And then the buts started:
“ … but some of their complaints seemed trivial.”
“ … but we are a big organization and some problems are inevitable.”
“ … but some of our policies are dictated by others, such as credit card companies.”
As the internal meeting was drawing to a close, it felt like a business-as-usual conclusion — everyone would return to their normal routine and feel good about a “productive session.” Then we would make small, incremental steps to address a few of the specific issues they had raised.
In other words, not much would change.
So, we didn’t end the meeting. Instead, we restarted it with a determination to rethink our response. As with the design of new ships, if we wanted transformational change, we couldn’t achieve that with a series of incremental improvements.
Once the meeting restarted, we reminded ourselves of the need for true change, and we agreed to approach the issue with intentionality. We all wanted to be Easy To Do Business With, and ETDBW became the natural acronym for the effort. Interestingly, the very weirdness of the acronym served to instill it in the organization; it became embarrassing not to be able to recite the expression smoothly and naturally.
In the months and years that followed, ETDBW drove meaningful improvements across departments. We simplified contracts. We cleaned up confusing communications. We invested in tools that made booking smoother and faster. And perhaps most importantly, we reminded ourselves — often — that being great partners was just as important as building great ships.
One early commitment we made was to provide immediate confirmation of a booking. In the early 1990s, when electronic access to your bookings hadn’t even been imagined, booking errors were common. Even misspellings caused problems; you would be shocked how many ways humans can mess up the spelling of Smith.
Mailed confirmations were too slow, so we developed an innovative system to give immediate fax confirmations (remember faxes?). Unfortunately, fax machines were still rare and expensive, so few people had one. We decided that we would provide a free fax machine to our top 1,000 advisors. Each machine cost $600, which was a huge expense for us at the time, but it helped us in our quest for ETDBW.
It may have started as an unscheduled breakfast rebellion, but ETDBW reminds us that sometimes the best innovations aren’t the ones you invent; they’re the ones that happen when you really listen.
