Then we talked about the Stages of Relationship Development. The criteria Marty and Jean established for determining the health of their relationship were the number of times they met and the number of unresolved conflicts that needed to go to the general manager. Clearly they had increased the number of times they met. They were meeting at least once a day in the morning to talk about the schedules, and sometimes they met more than once a day. They also agreed that all their conflicts had been resolved in a win-win manner. They gave me an example:
At one point, a housekeeper and a maintenance person quarreled over who was to be in the room. The housekeeper was upset because it was the last room on her shift and she wanted to pick up her child at daycare. The maintenance man needed to change the air conditioner compressor, a messy job that would take more than an hour. Jean managed to reassign the room to a housekeeper who worked a later schedule. The housekeeper was happy because she could leave; the maintenance man was happy because he could get the job done and then have the room serviced.
Most of the larger manufacturers will require you to sign their submission documents before they will look at your information. These documents are designed to protect the manufacturer against an individual’s claiming that the company took his idea. The submission documents usually state that by signing them you are aware that they may have already seen, been working on or previously rejected the same or a similar idea. If you want to move forward with them you must sign these forms.