The identity test has two parts. The first is a half page stating what your operation is and is not, in terms specific enough to decide a case: ingredients, pace, tone, the things you will never do for a guest and the things you will always do. The second is a log of every request to change something during one week, from a guest, a colleague, a manager or a review, each scored against the statement as sharpening the standard, eroding it, or making no difference.
Where it comes from
Chapter 11 of the book is about staying true, and the chefs and hoteliers in it describe identity as the thing that lets them say no. Albert Adrià, then chef of Tickets and the elBarri group in Barcelona, put the balance in a sentence.
“The key is to stay as pure as possible while trying to evolve.” Albert Adrià, then chef of Tickets and the elBarri group, Barcelona
Sjefke Jansen, then general manager of Belmond Grand Hotel Europe in St. Petersburg, drew the commercial line: selling a commodity is not difficult, offering something authentic is. And Gerrit Graef, then general manager of The Ritz-Carlton, Riyadh, said that if The Ritz-Carlton were merely a hotel, guests would find the same product for less elsewhere. Every one of them could say, in a sentence, what their operation was. The test asks you to do the same, and then shows you how often a week’s requests pull against it.
What is on the page
The statement, with prompts: what we serve and how; the pace we keep; the tone we take; what we will never do for a guest; what we will always do. Then the request log: date, who asked, what they asked for, the score (sharpens, erodes, no difference), and one sentence on why. A line for the one sharpening request you acted on, the one eroding request you declined, and the one element not yet at standard that you improved while leaving an element already at standard untouched. A final box for the corrections you made to the statement at the end of the week.
How to use it for a week
Write the statement on day one, before the log begins. Record every request, including the ones you said yes to without thinking. Act on at least one request scored as sharpening and decline at least one scored as eroding, politely and with no more explanation than the person needs. At the end of the week, reread the statement and correct anything the week proved wrong.
What to look for
Look at how often your first instinct was to say yes to a request the test later scored as eroding. That count is the pressure your identity is under in an ordinary week. Then look at whether the statement survived. A statement that needed heavy correction after one week was written for the brochure. The floor has now corrected it, and the second draft is usually the true one.