Episode 5
Cruise Convos | Dr Grant Van Ulbrich, Royal Caribbean Cruise Line
This week Claudine speaks all things diversity, inclusion and self-improvement, with none other than Dr Grant Van Ulbrich, Director of International Sales Transformation at Royal Caribbean Cruise Line!
Having worked at sea for 10-15 years, and now been with Royal Caribbean Cruise Line for over 15 years, Grant shares his secrets to being successful as a cruise industry leader, and how this goes hand in hand with pushing diversity, inclusion and equity as core values.
Plus, find out how his career in cruise led to him creating the worlds 1st accredited personal change model - Scared So What.
Transcript
What is currently happening in our cruise industry today? Join me for Cruise Convos as we discover and learn from cruise industry leaders across the globe all within 28 minutes Welcome to Cruise Convos. I am Claudine with Lemoneight and today we're part of Cruise Convos! I am here today with a really good friend, someone you will absolutely love. Dr. Grant. Dr. Grant say hello to everybody.
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: Hey, everybody, how are you doing? It's good to see you today. And Claudine. It's always great to be with you. feels just like yesterday.
Claudine Pohl:Exactly. And grant, you have worked with Royal Caribbean group for a long time. Right? Yeah, 15 years now. 15 years. And you also have your own side business?
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: Yeah. A little bit.
Claudine Pohl:Yeah, I do have a side business. I live here in London. And I've got a side company called scared. So what. And as part of my sales role in leading sales transformation for Royal Caribbean, I had to go back to school back to university in my adult years. And in my 40s, I was scared to try to. But there is a sales masters program. Now there is one in the world. And it's here with the consultative sales business school in Minnesota University. And I went into that, and that's where I had to learn how do you lead people through change? And how do you facilitate to transformation. So it was quite an adventure.
Claudine Pohl:Amazing, amazing. Let's back up a little bit. And let's talk about how we met because it's a pretty cool story. It is and then we're gonna dive into, you know, what your role at Royal and as well. Let's talk about scared. So what and how epic that program is and all the cool things you've got. So backing it up. I first heard about you on LinkedIn. And I was like, Oh, this guy's pretty interesting. And I saw something about you were on the show. TV show. Home. 100
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: International House Hunters. Yes.
Claudine Pohl:Yes. You were looking for a place. You were on TV. You were looking for place. I think it was in Spain. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So that was super cool. You've worked everywhere to write Yeah,
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: well, I mean, my role for you know, I spent between Royal, Celebrity and Norwegian. I spent, you know, about 10 years working on ships. 10- 15 years at sea. It's been all over the world. And where I work now I work in international. So it just made sense for me to live overseas. And we actually got on House Hunters International moving to Barcelona. And that's right. That's when you and I met right from that show. I forgot.
Claudine Pohl:Yeah. So cool. And how did you get into this cruise business? Like, first of all, how did you end up? You know, tell us a little bit about your background. How did you get into tourism? How'd you get into cruise? Jump in my friend?
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: Oh, my friend. Well, you know, it's a long history. But I'll try to keep it short and brief. But I grew up literally on the travel agency floor. My mom was a travel agent. And so back in the days yeah, so I'm dating myself those back to the red ticket tape, where we had ticket stocks in the red carbon copies and the back rooms and the two machines that would print your live tickets to go around the world. So it's always been within in my blood. But getting into the cruise industry itself was after a major traumatic experience. I had a skiing accident and fell off the top of a cliff and went headfirst over the top, fell 20 feet into the snow. My head went this way. And Iraq went right across my shoulder and broke my whole shoulder. So the whole arm was down four inches. And literally, I didn't realize it at the time, but that was going to make me homeless. And it sure enough did. I went from a six figure salary, a very good job in sales in San Francisco Bay Area. I'm managing apartment communities to about $700 a month in state disability. Well, that doesn't pay for anything. So I lost the home, lost the cars, lost the furniture, got out of everything and literally had to go and rent a room and start over. Yeah. So a whole year of surgeries is start over and replace. And one day I was reading the San Francisco Chronicle and there was a job for a new startup company called Norwegian Cruise Line America in Hawaii, three ships and they needed all American Crew. And you know, I had learned the lesson that life is so short, you know you could be here one day and gone the next. So I said I want to make the most of my life. And I love travel. I love what my mom does as well too. So how can I do that? And I applied and I applied and I applied for about a year and in front I got a call and got in. And it was an entry level job as important cruise consultant in Hawaii, making about 20,000 a year and doing nothing. But just helping people to
Claudine Pohl:enjoy their voyages, see all they're going to do and help with the shopping and the sales program. And that's where I started. That's how I got in. That's been many years ago.
Claudine Pohl:Grant, I did not know that story.
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: Well, if you watch my TED Talk, by the way, my TED Talk As of recording is about ready to hit 1 million views. And I go back in time in my life that I went homeless, the first time I went homeless was after serving in the military. And I served three years, six months. And unfortunately, I was asked to to leave the Navy because of being my identity. We knew I was. And so I got an other another honorable and I was discharged in the San Francisco Bay Area after serving in the war. So right, so that was the first time the second time was this accident. But you know what, if it doesn't kill you, it doesn't make you stronger. And I refused to give in. And I refuse to let that define who I was going to be, which I didn't realize would set me for the stage of where I am today. And especially to be in the sales master's program and to challenge the, you know, lifelong institution of what sales should be. And I said, You know what, I think there's something different my experiences have told me there's something different. And so that's, that's why I'm here today.
Claudine Pohl:It's incredible. When you got into Norwegian, so that was your first taste of career. Yeah. And you went from San Francisco, you took off and went to Hawaii.
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: Aloha. It was fun. It was such a great adventure. I spent three years in Hawaii, working on we took out three ships. And it was a pride of Aloha pride of America and pride of Hawaii. And I just really enjoyed it got to know the islands extremely well. My sales career path from the apartment industry and my diligence that I had from the Navy just really served me well on a ship instruction and ship environment. And I was just able to build build programs, build sales programs, build sales curriculum. And so that's really where it started. For me and my career within the cruise industry. Yeah. Then you went from Norwegian. You went over to Celebrity Cruises? Yeah, celebrity. Okay. So I went onboard ships, backstage onboard ships and went to Celebrity Cruises as a marketing and revenue manager. So from there, what you do is onboard the ships in that role at that day, we were the one person in charge of all of the outlets, you know, the spawns the stores, the boutiques, the shore excursions, any, any service to the guest, even supporting the food and beverage in the revenue generation onboard the ship. I stayed within celebrity, did many different roles, got into guest services on board the ships, did associate hotel director for a small stint. And then I went shoreside and just navigated my way through the Royal Caribbean family.
Claudine Pohl:That's amazing. And how did you work your way up to this director role, because you are the Director of Global Sales, right?
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: There's, there's many of us, there's a lot of directors, there's a lot of teams throughout the world. But my last four roles in the company I've actually built myself. So it wasn't an established role that was needed. I've actually just created them. So to go through and build them, find the niche and build the department hand and build up my right hand members so that I can hand it over to somebody else. That way I could go off and do something else and something different. I've launched the first office of diversity inclusion within the Royal Caribbean family. We did that we've we've built the Future Cruise programs built out luxury travel offices and centers on partnerships. And then I was asked in 2018, to come to Europe, and to build out the first sales manual, believe it or not 50 plus years in the industry. We didn't have a Bible or a book that said, How do you do your roles and within sales? And so we actually had to build it. Yeah, but I did a lot of investigation throughout the whole corporation to find out what we had. And I came back to my supervisor said, I just don't relate a lot. There's not a lot of content on how to do your job as a sales professional, a territory manager, Key Account Manager, regional manager, whatever it may be. And so he said, You know what, there's a school, there's a master's program. You're in your 40s How do you feel about going back to university? I said, Wow, I don't know about this. But it was very scary, but I agreed and I went through and that's where everything just took off for me.
Claudine Pohl:Wow, incredible grant. That's incredible. Talk to me a little bit talk to us, our listeners about the diversity and inclusion program. Because you know what I was talking to my friend just last week he, and he worked for one of the cruise lines. And they are looking to make sure that their program is really diverse. It's everybody's included. And how do they do that even more? Right? And it was very interesting that we think a lot of these workplaces have this, but a lot of them are trying to get there. Yeah, but they may not be fully there yet. Right. So how did you lead that and talk a little bit about how royal really does this? Well,
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: yeah, well, we did it very organically. We wanted to learn from industry experts that had the knowledge and had experience. So back in 2014, is when I started the first office of diversity inclusion within the cruise industry. And we didn't have any Guiding Light or getting instructors the best that I had was a strong leadership team from the brand presidents and even the Chairman Richard Fain, at that time, and my HR leaders, they said, Go and find out what is best in class and how do we do it? Because many people think that the cruise industry is diverse and intimate itself. It is many different nationalities, different genders, different celebrations of people, and we truly think believe that peace is possible because of the conglomerates of people we have on board our ships, but how do you then support that for land base as well and to make sure that you truly are inclusive? So what I did with my right hand, we actually went and met global chief diversity officers. And in that community, those people are willing to speak and share. There's no competition whatsoever. So we met with Hyatt we met with Marriott we met with United Airlines, American Airlines met with the US Coast Guard. We went to the CIA twice and actually visited with them and met their whole diversity inclusion teams. No way, man easily. Yeah, yeah, it was very, couldn't take anything with us. You have to check your phones and everything in the lockers before you even go through. But it was an experience. And what we did get was we got our diversity and inclusion certificates from the CIA. So that was fun.
Claudine Pohl:That is so cool.
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: But we just learned and they freely gave us forms, documents, files, folders, you name it, they give you everything. And from there, you go back and you build the bespoke process of how you're going to support, you know, your executive diversity councils, your employee resource groups, how will their charters be? How will you support them and guide them? community aspects will you look for what will you relate to your brand identity and your people and who you are, and then you build a bespoke program. And to your point of what you said earlier, you know, many people have some and many people don't, you'll never be done. It's a continuous continuous journey of inclusion. And where I've gone far beyond diversity inclusion is even in my current role to what I'm doing today. Even though I lead global sales transformation, I am now focusing more on sales change, and the people side of change and change management. And that's where scared so what, which is my model for personal change has come to fruition. It is the inclusive model for change. And so I've brought my background and my history and leading diversity and inclusion to the change management methodology. And how do I make change management be inclusive for the individual?
Claudine Pohl:I love that. Talk to us a little bit about the model scared thought so someone who's never heard of scared to watch. Tell us where first? What is the YouTube link? Yeah, go hear your TED Talk. Tell us that. And then jump in and tell us about this model, how it works, how it helps people, and why it's important.
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: First and foremost, where do you find it scared.Sowhat.com, it's just as it says, scared. So what. And if you want to find the app, you can go to the Apple Store or the Android store and find it just the same way scared. So what just put it all together? My TED talk all the resources, the App Links, everything is on the website. And so what is it? Well, scared. So what is the world's first bespoke personal change model? There are an array of organizational change models out there, which is what I had to learn in the sales masters program. But what I learned was, all of these organizational models are prescriptive. And they say that you will go through a feeling or a stage and then you will magically accept. And I challenged my professors and I said that's just not true. And my explained history, my go new experiences said well, you can reject change. What are you going to do then? These models don't account for that. So scared. So what does so it focuses on the individual, and it's two parts scared allows you to look at your feelings. And it's the first model to help you critically reflect on how you should feel about change. And then it guides you to make an informative decision based on facts and information versus making an assumption and that's what we do each and every day. So we want to avoid assumption And, and so scared allows you to look at the change situation you're happening, and then make an informed decision about it. And once you've done that, well, so what? So what can you do about the change? Or so what does it mean? And just like in business, we can make strategies and plans, well, you can do the same thing for yourself, you can make your own strategy plan for managing your own personal change. And so that's the side of looking at personal change for yourself scared, so what? I'm using it together, you're taking control over personal change, you have less stress, less worry, less fear, less anxiety, and you start to control
Claudine Pohl:personal change for yourself.
Claudine Pohl:That's amazing. Grant. How has this helped in the industry? I know that your this has been used by Royal Caribbean as well, right?
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: Yes, I built the model in late 2018 and solidified it in 19. But then we went into the global pandemic. So we started to heavily, urgently need to use something to help and there just wasn't anything out there. And so human resources asked me this grant, you made scared, so getting your masters, will you start teaching that to everybody in actual workplace scenarios. And we did. And it was so effective, that we started to give it to our travel agency partners through RCL cares. So we gave it to 1000s and 1000s of travel agents throughout Europe, Middle East and Africa. And they were using it and their kids were using it. We had kids as young as 14 years old, learning how to manage personal change for the first time. And so it's it's embedded with us in international sales. It's with our travel agency customers. We've packaged it up, it's over and university and Middlesex University, University of Westminster has it as well, too. I personally make it free for universities to use. And then I certify agencies and partners to go and teach it themselves. But it has a profound effect on people.
Claudine Pohl:Wow. And if we think about it, manage personal change. And there's never been a course...
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: No!
Claudine Pohl:there's never been anything on this. Right.
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: So Right!
Claudine Pohl:We all go through changes.
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: Yeah. Well, it might it started in my TED Talk. The the the TED people, they said, Well, what's your title going to be? And I said, you know, what, how do you manage personal change? And they said, I don't know. And I go, that's the title. And so my opening sentence sentence in my talk is, have you ever been taught how to manage personal change for yourself? And I looked throughout the audience, and everybody was just shaking their heads no. And time after time, again, podcast after podcast webinar, after webinar, keynote speech, after keynote speech, I asked the same question. I have yet today to find one person say yes, but yet, it's the one thing we all are connected with.
Claudine Pohl:Grant asked me because I took your course. So I would say yes, of course. That's amazing. And you have some other big news I saw on LinkedIn, you just announced you are accredited.
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: Yes. Now scared, just became accredited with the Institute of training and occupational learning here in the UK, which is backed by the United Kingdom Government. So it's an independent external body. And what they did is they looked at the app, they looked at all of my curriculum, the syllabus, the actual training itself, and they accredited it. So that makes it incredibly valuable. Because it's not just me through my research. I did this in the master's program. And then I actually carried it on into my doctorate. So it has a master's research, a doctoral research, and now external validation. And it's also published in my book, which is transforming sales management. So it's out there, right, you have a book as well, I have a book out yet another one's coming in April of next year. And it's also been published in multiple journals, which are on my website for you as well.
Claudine Pohl:Yes. Wow. Grant, that's incredible. You've done a lot. And I remember you've done some teaching at universities as well.
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: Yes. So you know, where do I find the time I have a full time day job with Royal and I love it 15 years and going strong, and I support all of our teams with sales transformation, but with scared so what I believe that this has the power to transform generational thinking. And so my, my core inner self, what I do is I give it to universities for free. So, my alma mater, Middlesex University, I teach it there. I'm just enrolled to I'll be starting to teach it at University of Westminster as well too. And there's a couple of other universities here in England that hopefully will be able to share it as well, too.
Claudine Pohl:Wow. Congratulations.
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: Thank you.
Claudine Pohl:Incredible! It's also touches my heart to see your journey. Because we think people just have it all together, right? We don't and we we don't, but to see your journey like From you sharing you started at, you know, you lost your job you were doing really well, you didn't have that type of money anymore. And then you had to make some choices to climb back up. Yeah, you did it.
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, and and I think that all of my journey allowed me to create this because it's it started from one pivotal moment in university, when they said, these are the models you should use. And I thought, that is not what my life has taught me. And I think that we don't do that often enough. We don't trust our inner instincts and question. And that's what university really taught me was to find the evidence, question the status quo, and try to make your own way forward. And with creating scared, so what we haven't been taught how to manage personal change, and the immediate first thing we do is we go into assumption. So when somebody says to you when you're stressing out over something, and someone says, oh, Claudine, don't worry about it, you're going to be fine. Does that make you feel good? No, no, exactly. Your body in your mind scientifically and chemically goes back to the state of something's wrong. What are you going to do this? And we haven't been taught how to think that through. And that's what scared. So what does it helps you think that through?
Claudine Pohl:I love the steps that you have for because I've gone through the course. And it's so simple, right? Yeah, it's simple. It's easy to follow. It's easy. I love it. And this is a great tool, that a lot of you know, I think destinations companies, you have lots of companies already taking your model and using it for their employees. Absolutely great.
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: Well, and you know, you're so you're so right, because it also has great use within customer service. And I see a lot of what you're doing, you're teaching people, you know, customer service engagement, how to deal with conversations, you know, and, and helping people. And think about this from a customer service perspective. Have you ever been at the airport, or the port and seeing the customer standing there, slamming the fist at the desk, having just a horrible day? And the person who's working it, they're sitting there smiling and saying, Oh, I'm so sorry, there's nothing else we can do? Copy down the line, exactly what we've always been taught, we've been taught to smile, and thank you and apologize, when actually, that's not true. As human beings, we can learn for ourselves, how do you manage personal change? And how does it feel to be in that situation when you start to learn how to manage it, because once you learn it for yourself, you can then empathize with others and help them to get through the journey. So if you have if you're the employee, and you have a customer that's freaking out in front of you, number one, reflect to yourself on scared, they're scared. They're in a personal situation, it's a personal change, and they are making rash assumptions. They don't know how to think of it. So you can become the coach. I know you're surprised about this. And it's obvious that you're conflicted about it. But what actions could we do? Now you as the employee, you have the history? Have you seen this happen probably over and over again, what you could do, instead of saying, I'm so sorry, there's nothing I could do. You could say, This is what my customers have done in the past. Some have gone here. Others have gone there. Here's a phone number, this can help you. Now you're getting information. You're transforming information to the person who's experiencing the personal change, and you're also diffusing the situation.
Claudine Pohl:And then you start to ask them the questions again. Does this help you feel a little bit better? Yes, I've got some information. Okay. Have you made a decision about where you are now? Yeah, I think I can move forward. Great. This is how you reverse engineer managing personal change to help your customer. And that is valuable. And you think of differentiating yourself between your competition. You keep sitting there, and you keep saying, I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do and smile. While the one over here is going, Wait a minute, there is something I can do. And I should be helping this person.
Claudine Pohl:Yeah. I love it. And it's looking at it. How do we say things differently? Yeah. It's like so be the same outcome. But how do we guide someone through that conversation? Yeah, to make them feel like you know what, I'm not just leaving you there. I'm gonna guide you through this.
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: And I'm not a robot. There is something I know what I know what historical customers have had. So again, where we both work, you and I have the most within destinations and cruise ships and hotels and airlines and all of this all transportation and holiday experiences. Every employee unless it's your first day on the job, you've probably seen customers go through the same scenarios. It's okay to reflect and share what others have done because you're offering real life scenarios and real life solutions. Versus again, just saying, I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do.
Claudine Pohl:Definitely. Dr. Grant Wow, you're even teaching us things here today. I love that.
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: Scared. So. What!
Claudine Pohl:love this. We're almost done. And I feel like I could just keep talking and talking to you. Grant, I'm gonna ask you our last question, which is one of the questions we asked all of our guests already. Okay. All right. If you look back at your younger self, what is one piece of advice you would give your younger self now?
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: save more money earlier, save, invest in yourself, invest in in that can mean different ways as well to invest in yourself through monetary means, but also invest in yourself through knowledge. Years ago, I chose to go into the Navy versus university because I thought that that was the way I was going to get out and see the world and do something. I was always afraid of university, and go into there at that time, when in hindsight, even though my navy experience was one of the best things that ever could have happened to me. I'm very thankful for where my life is today. But Never be afraid of investing in yourself. investing early in your finances, and learning how to do that and investing in your education.
Claudine Pohl:Wow, great advice. I love it.
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: Probably not what you expected. But there you go. The doc,
Claudine Pohl:no, it's great. You don't want it's interesting. Everybody has different answers. Yeah. And no one has given your answer. But I think it's such a great point. Because we could be growing, growing, growing, but we need to invest in ourselves in order to be able to get somewhere right? Well, we
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: we always think we have so much time to do it. And just think you know, if somebody had told me just on finances, compound interest and how to how it appreciates and grows or don't be afraid to go to school, you know, actually start and start slow. Learn, learn, learn as you go. Would I be in a different place, but maybe not. I'm very happy where I am today. But can you learn how to manage that change? Yeah, you can. Yeah. Yeah,
Claudine Pohl:I love it. Dr. Grant, what an honor to have you on Cruise Convos today. Thank you so much for being my guest.
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: Oh my friend anytime every time it's so good to see you.
Claudine Pohl:So good to hear you and to see you. Take care and to our listeners. Thank you for listening.
Claudine Pohl:Grant Van Ulbrich: Bye for now.
