Our lives changed Tuesday.  So did yours and those of everyone you know.  Our worst nightmares became reality in our living rooms as terrorists struck the World Trade Center the Pentagon and the passengers on the four hijacked commercial airline flights.  They tried to destroy the heart of America, killing husbands, wives, neighbors, friends, children, loved ones and associates, permanently scarring the symbolic landmarks of New York�s financial district and America�s military command post while disrupting the very fabric of American life. We are all left feeling robbed of society as we have known it, recognizing with chilling clarity that we, too, could have been the targets. It is a tough reality that life will never be the same.  

When we experience significant change in our everyday lives, the event triggers an important transformation process and opportunity, especially for leaders and managers.

People tell us that there are five steps to the grieving process. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross pioneered the recognition of loss and grief as a predictable process in her seminal work On Death and Dying. In this book, she proposes the five steps of grieving as denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  It�s tempting to think we can cope by simply moving through these stages. It is also tempting to think that our employees should now be in one stage or another and if we can just hurry them through the process to acceptance, all will be well and we can go back to business as usual. But we should recognize, from personal experience, that grieving is a process that ebbs and flows, a transformational process that takes time.  It is a process, not an end point.  It�s one that affects organizations as well as individuals.

As leaders in the hospitality industry, how should we respond? What do we do to lead our people through this transformation, not only during this time of worldwide grieving but afterwards, when all segments of the travel industry will suffer disproportional impact?
 
As leaders, we have the opportunity to put forth our highest and best leadership efforts. We can start by recognizing that grieving is a universal process that each individual must go through on their own terms. However, as supportive, empathetic and compassionate people, we can help ourselves and our employees to transform into better people than we all were when this started by acknowledging and helping others-without ulterior motive or myopic focus on the commercial implications.  We can transform our businesses and our industry into better ones by defining and moving our enterprises towards a clear vision of our business and our role in society. 

Now is the time to do it right. We have read about those who are doing it right and those who are doing it wrong. Those who are doing it right are people like Hilton Hotel Corporation, who have set up a family crisis center at their property at the Hilton Boston Logan Airport to help and comfort those families who were on the perilous flights from Boston on Tuesday. Major chains including Holiday Inn and Hilton waived cancellation and no-show fees for reservations made through early next week. Radisson hotels are waiving cancellation fees until further notice. Choice Hotels pledged $50,000 in matching funds to the American Red Cross. Of course there is the searing, heroic example of the rescue professionals and volunteers on site, and their leaders, in New York and Washington.

Among those who are doing it wrong are the folks in reports from Texas who viewed the situation as an opportunity to profit. They are the gasoline resellers who have raised their prices, the hotels that have nearly doubled their rates to take advantage of stranded travelers and the car rental agencies who have practiced price-gouging.  

These actions, pro and con, underscore what we believe is the most important issue: the first order of business must be to focus on people. The messages and letters that we have read on the websites of Marriott, Hilton, American Airlines and others demonstrate heartfelt concern and these companies� internal focus upon that which matters most - their people, their clients, their vendors. We all need to shine the light upon our employees, our guests & clients and our vendors and reach out to help. Now is a good time to let them know how much they really matter to us and to our industry. 

In an odd way, we have all been given a gift-not only life, but time. Time in which to  execute a foundation effort to be close to our family, friends, colleagues, business associates and clients. We must reach out and speak to all of them, inquiring about their health and well-being as well as that of their families, friends and colleagues. 

Now would be a good time to revisit your crisis management programs and practices � again focusing especially on the people element -- to make sure they are up to date and make sense for now and the future. The Westin Copley Place, Boston, Ma. put their crisis management plan into action this past week, as the Boston Police Department SWAT team descended upon them. They did a good job of managing their guests, the media and the community at large, calmly and professionally. 
 
This gift of time should be used to step back and assess the state of our industry. What works and what does not, how can we transform what we do within the industry and within our own companies?  

We work with people around the world. Through the years we have consistently heard that the one driving force for choosing to work in hospitality, travel and tourism is the opportunity to serve people. Yet, with all of the mergers, acquisitions and industry consolidation, our desire as an industry to serve people seems to have been changed or been redirected. 

It would seem, particularly in the last few years, that we spend our time writing and rewriting financial statements, re-forecasting, writing and rewriting business, marketing and sales action plans, over and over. Who and what do we serve if this is what we do? Is it our employees, clients and vendors or is it a large, and up until now, faceless financial system?  

We are all for a healthy ROI, ROE and ROA. And we know that cash is king. But when did we move away from being a service industry that was noted for serving people in the best way that we knew possible? You don�t need an MBA to know how to serve people.  You do need to make serving people a core competency, a core value and a driving mission for your business.  

The unfortunate reality is that the short-time impact of these events will be an unanticipated hiatus in the full operation of  much of the US travel industry (along with global repercussions).  In that pause, let�s take advantage of this opportunity to transform our vision, our mission and our core business practices starting with how we manage and lead. If we can transform ourselves then we can do a small part to help transform our industry while focusing upon helping this country to get back on solid footing. We can each help lead this industry which is more likely to be affected than any other into refining itself, merging security with service and by thinking of travel and leisure in new ways.

It is going to be a long haul and many uncertainties lie ahead. For the near future, we have the opportunity to be the best that we have ever been while focusing upon becoming the best industry that we can be.  

Carol Walter and Mark Haley are principals and Bill Watson, the managing director of The Prism Partnership, a consulting firm based in Boston. The Prism Partnership specializes in bridging technology with marketing and operations in the global hospitality, travel and tourism industry.