Why Cruise Ships Don't Reinvent Dinner Every Week

My 11-year-old picked our vacation this year, which is how I ended up on Icon of the Seas. 

The ship is huge, and what fascinated me most was the operation behind it. They serve 15,000 meals a day, and for the most part, nobody seems to be waiting around for food.

One night in the main dining room, I ordered pecan-crusted salmon with garlic mashed potatoes and asparagus.

On Latin night, I had jerk chicken and a Colombian take on crème brûlée. That was also the night they encouraged everyone to wear white, and somehow thousands of people actually did.

(I can’t get my own family to agree on matching pajamas for a Christmas card, but this ship got thousands of people into white on a Tuesday.)

Obviously none of that was figured out that afternoon. The menu, staffing, quantities, timing, service — all of it has been worked out months ahead of time, based on learnings from thousands of cruises over decades.

That same menu isn't just for one week. The next group of passengers gets on and they do it again. Then another group gets on and they do it again.

For the passengers, it’s a brand-new experience. For the crew, it’s a process.

That’s a pretty good comparison for communications work in a nonprofit.

You get a new donor. You need another story. Year-end comes around. The annual report is due. An event needs promoted. None of those things are new, but a lot of teams still end up rebuilding them every time.

When I worked on a lawn and garden equipment business 20 years ago, we used to joke that they were surprised every year when the grass started growing.

The opportunity is to get more deliberate about what happens next time.

If you figured out a good donor follow-up, keep it. If you found a good way to collect stories, make that the way you collect stories. If last year’s campaign timeline worked, don’t make yourself recreate it from memory next year.

That doesn’t mean every donor gets the same message or every campaign looks the same. It just means you aren’t wasting time re-solving the same problems.

For a small team, that matters.

That’s a lot of the work we do with our clients — helping them figure out what needs to be thoughtful and custom, and what can become a repeatable process so they have more time for the things that actually require their attention.

The grass is going to grow again next spring. Year-end is going to show up again next December. And another boatload of people is going to get hungry next week.

Some things really can be planned for.

What’s something your team does over and over that still feels harder than it should?

Lori