Hospitality Re-Defined

Score Update: Union 1, Airline 0

2011-09-25T21:50:00.000-07:00

Don't you just hate it sometimes when you're right?

You know what I mean, you predict something that you actually hope won't happen, but every instinct that you have tells you this is going to go down just as you predict it, whether you like it or not.

That's the way I felt when I read a story in the Globe & Mail last week that said that Air Canada had narrowly averted a strike with their Flight Attendants by reaching a tentative agreement.

Here's the kicker. . . The tentative agreement was reached as a result of Air Canada agreeing, among other things, to shelve their plans to launch a low cost carrier as a branch of their main operation.

I wrote, in May of this year, in my post entitled; "Air Canada Discount Subsidiary - Does Anyone Really Believe it Will Ever Take Flight," that "Air Canada announced that the launch of their discount carrier would be contingent on the Air Canada Pilots Union agreeing to certain concessions and a two-tier arrangement, as it relates to the pilots of Air Canada and the pilots of the discount carrier."

I had further gone on to say that; "As soon as I read that, I knew the deal was dead. There is no way that the Air Canada pilots union will agree to anything out of the ordinary. They have a long-standing history of drawing a line in the sand and then standing on “their” side of that line and daring you to cross it, at your peril."

Apparently, I was close, but I predicted that it would in fact be the airline pilots union that would kill the deal and apparently I underestimated the flight attendants union who have now brought this venture to a close.

I've made it no secret that I didn't think Air Canada should launch another discount carrier anyway. They've already failed at the experiment on more than one occasion, but I was nonetheless disappointed to see that the deal was dead at the hand of the flight attendant's union.

It is, yet again, a clear indication of when unions have too much power over business, power that can bring a business to its knees, and in some cases, to bankruptcy and closure, but the union marches on, they have nothing to lose, nothing at risk.

I've said it before and I'll say it again; It’s a perfect example of everything that is wrong with unions.

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Technology - Friend or Foe?

2011-08-10T22:45:00.000-07:00

Sure, I know what you’re thinking; is he crazy? Look at all the advancements in technology that we have experienced over the last decade, and look at all the great things that have come from those advancements.

Fair enough, but have you also noticed that the technology that is supposed to “make the world smaller” and make us all so much “more connected” is also responsible for creating more distance between people than ever before?

Take a ferry between two cities, jump on a bus, take a look around you the next time you are at the airport or on a plane, or, just look around when you’re walking downtown and notice how many people have their faces buried in their IPhone or Blackberry and how many of them are wearing headphones at the same time, and as a result, how many people are NOT speaking to each other.

The same can be said, to some degree, in the workplace. That is, that the technology that was supposed to “make our lives easier” and contribute to “work/life balance” is instead increasing peoples’ workload, their stress levels, and their inability to have any work/life balance based on the fact that they are always reachable, and always expected to be reachable. There is no longer an “off” switch for many people.

One of the additional symptoms of this to me is when you receive an email from someone whose office is next to yours or around the corner about something that does not require a documentation trail. In short, they could have either picked up the phone or popped around the corner to your office to have had a conversation with you, but who has the time?

As simple as it may seem in the face of this situation, one of the simple solutions that I put in place to increase relationships and connectedness within the workplace in one of the hotels where I worked was to create “email free day” one day a week, every week.

The “rules” were simple and we got everyone on-board with participation. On email free days you could not send any emails internally, except where there was a sense of urgency around some form of documentation that had to be circulated on that day, such as BEOs or changes to BEOs for banquet events scheduled within that week.

External emails to/from clients, corporate office or other hotels within the company could be responded to, to ensure we continued to comply with our commitment to respond to all correspondence within 24 hours of receipt.

But if you sent an email internally on email free day, you were fined $1.00 and the funds generated from those emails was donated to charity.

At first, there were some people who responded as if we had asked them to work with one hand tied behind their back, but quickly people saw that their job was not in fact made any more difficult, and, as you would expect, there was a whole lot more interaction between people, not to mention that people who habitually had been locking themselves in their offices all day were now seen meeting and talking to people all over the hotel, and they turned out to be some of the biggest fans of email free day.

Give it a try. You may be pleasantly surprised to see how much more liveliness and fun get produced in your workplace.

We spend a good deal of our lives at work. Is it too much to ask that we have a little fun while we’re there? I don’t think so.

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Exceeding Conference and Event Clients Expectations – A Full Time Job

2011-08-08T22:42:00.000-07:00

We all know that our guests are exposed to a great deal of information every day, through the media, the web., etc., and as a result they are increasingly expectant that everyone that they come into contact with within a Hotel is equally as knowledgeable as they are, perhaps more so.

There is no greater example of this, to me, than the expectations and the role of meeting, event and conference services managers (CSMs).

Conference Services Managers have a tough role, made so by the fact that they will regularly find themselves dealing with multiple levels of individuals charged with organizing a meeting, conference or event – Everyone from the seasoned veteran who has done this 100 times before, to the novice who has never done this before.

As the demands within businesses has changed over the last several years, companies have combined positions, or eliminated positions entirely, sometimes associated with organizing their events and conferences, and the task has fallen on to some unsuspecting individual who may never have organized anything this complex in their history, and as a result, they in turn have come to expect that the meeting planners, or CSMs that they deal with, are experts in their field and completely knowledgeable on all of the latest trends and technology that could be employed to make their meeting memorable.

Although you could argue that the circumstances have changed, the need to exceed customer expectations has not, and as a result, it is and always has been critical to ensure the ongoing education and training of meeting planners and CSMs to ensure that they are adequately equipped to deal with the increased level of demand being placed upon them, and, the fact that a good or bad meeting or event at your facility could make the difference between securing a long-term relationship with a leading company, or, losing them to a competitor who is in a position to better provide what they need.

So, whether it’s participating in the necessary programs to have all of your key CSMs PCMA certified, or having your team members participating in other training or development that makes sense in your market, it is imperative that meeting planners and CSMs are continuously investing in their training and development.

Your clients expect it, sure, but more importantly, the increased level of confidence that emanates from your CSMs will be evident to them, and to your clients, and it will give both the platform for continued success, and that in turn will translate to bottom line results for your property that will far outweigh any costs associated with providing the necessary training and development to these vital team members.

The ROI on this one is a no-brainer.

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Airline Flight Departure Times - It's Anybody's Guess

2011-07-27T22:43:00.000-07:00

I recently returned from a quick trip to San Francisco, to attend yet another installment of the ongoing leadership course that I have been involved in for the past 5 months.

Periodically, our group of about 25 participants, which meets locally every week, merges with other smaller groups in a conference like setting for about 150 participants overall, and we meet in either Seattle or San Francisco.

This past weekend, we were in San Francisco.

Needless to say, this involved flying into and/or out of San Francisco for many of us who opted to travel in that way.

As I was sitting in the departure area, waiting for my flight to depart, now into my 4^th hour of waiting for what I dared to hope was the eventual departure of my United flight from Vancouver to San Francisco, a couple of thoughts occurred to me.

First, this certainly wasn’t the first time this had happened to me, and,

Second, when did the airline business get to be like the cable company or other utility companies used to be?

We all remember it well, we wanted a utility or service hooked up, and we were told; “we can be there 2 weeks from Monday, either between 9am and Noon, or, between 1pm and 5pm, which would you prefer?”

The day of our installation came around and we spent the day waiting, hoping that if we were lucky, maybe, just maybe, they would come at the beginning of the time slot, not towards the end, and then maybe we wouldn’t have to waste half a day.

But even the utility companies figured out that many of us took our displeasure out on them by going to another provider (where there wasn’t a monopoly on the service provided).

Yet for all the technological advancements that we have made, we still can’t accurately predict the departure (and arrival) times for our airline flights.

I’m not naive, I know that there are thousands of things that could interfere with the planned departure time, and obviously, weather is a huge factor, but how about when weather isn’t a factor, what then?

In our businesses, we have contingency plans, we plan for various alternate scenarios, and, we COMMUNICATE with our customers, especially when things go wrong, something sorely lacking in this situation.

So it occurred to me that airlines should just come out and admit that they have almost no idea what time our flights are going to depart, and instead of selling us a flight with a specific departure time, they should just offer us a 3 or 4 hour window. “That’s confirmed sir, we have you on flight #5357 Vancouver to San Francisco departing sometime between 9am and Noon on Friday, thanks for booking United.”

Then at least we would know what we’re in for, and, the airline would have an opportunity to exceed our expectations every now and then when the flight left in the earlier portion of our departure window. They would have under-promised and over-delivered against our initial expectations, and we, the flying sheep, would be thrilled. High fives all around.

I’m sure as soon as the major airlines get wind of my brilliant idea, they will be lining up to see who can implement it first. I can already see the slogan; "United Airlines, we’ll get you there, eventually."

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A Sense of Urgency

2011-07-12T22:46:00.000-07:00

Do you have a sense of urgency about what you do, or, are you a procrastinator?

I love people who have a sense of urgency; these are my kind of people, people who get things done and produce results.

It’s a delicate balance though, ensuring that those of us who have that high sense of urgency are not misunderstood. I know that for me, on occasion, my high sense of urgency has been misinterpreted by some and seen as either impatience on my part, or, an unreasonable level of accountability to which I have held my team members.

To avoid this, I have always made a habit of asking people who take on or are assigned specific tasks to set their own due dates. Sure, I may have to ask them to conform to a certain time table in some instances, but wherever possible, I encourage my team members to establish their own time lines for completing projects, to heighten their sense of ownership and control of the situation and to demonstrate my commitment to empowering them as leaders.

The flip side, and I always make sure that my team members understand this going in, is an associated high level of accountability. You take on a task and set your own time table, then I expect you to meet that deadline, and the majority of the time, if you have high performers in your midst, they will meet their deadlines and willingly take on more.

You know who these people are if they are in your operation and whether you recognize it or not, you have grown to count on them, and you hate it when they are not around. (I used to hate it when my number 2, who had a tremendous sense of urgency and an equally amazing capacity for getting things done, would take extra days off or go on holidays. It felt like nothing that I delegated to anyone else in her absence ever got done. I was so used to, (and spoiled by), her high sense of urgency and her energy and the fact that whenever I followed up with her on anything, her response was almost always; “done.”)

More so, if you have had a person with that great sense of urgency working with you in a pivotal role, and they have left, usually because their talents and results have been recognized, and they have been promoted and transferred to another hotel, it has felt like the momentum has been sucked out of the operation in the days and weeks that followed.

I think the hotel business just naturally lends itself to attracting a high percentage of people with that sense of urgency about them, there is just too much to be done, too much multi-tasking required, and too many people counting on you for you to able to exist with a lackadaisical attitude.

I also find that, for the most part anyway, people who don’t possess that sense of urgency simply don’t survive in our business, they can’t. As they try to exist by putting things off, and adding them to their ever-increasing list of things that they will get done, someday, their teams and their peers, grow intolerant of their lack of results, and sooner or later they are held accountable.

And you can’t teach it, you either have a high sense of urgency, or you don’t, it’s just that simple.

I wish you could teach it, then maybe I wouldn’t still be comparing every other leader I have ever worked with with that exceptional woman and expecting them to get as much done as she did.

We work with so many great, talented people that cross our paths, but every now and again, we work with someone truly exceptional who serves to set the bar higher for all those that follow in their footsteps.

"Without a sense of urgency, desire loses its value." ~ Jim Rohn

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Housekeeping Staff – Unsung Heroes

2011-07-04T22:45:00.000-07:00

It’s no surprise to me that another survey has just recently come out that confirms that a guests’ number one priority in a hotel is cleanliness.

Sure, free internet and complimentary coffee is nice, and everyone appreciates a great bed with lush linens, but none of it matters if your room is not clean, if you look over at your beautiful bed and it does not immediately say “clean” to you, and I admit, I like it when my room smells fresh and clean as well.

And who is responsible for delivering on this imperative unspoken promise of cleanliness? A dedicated group, made up mostly of women, who are responsible for cleaning an industry average of 15 rooms a day, each expected to exemplify, without exception, your company’s commitment to cleanliness.

And yet, I find all too frequently that the housekeeping staff are largely taken for granted. Maybe it’s because they are largely not seen in the operation, in the same way that front office, bell and concierge staff are.

I’ve always had a soft spot for the housekeeping staff, especially the room attendants. Maybe it’s because I worked during a strike, many many years ago, when I was first starting out in the industry, and when the staff first walked off the job, we were expecting a full house and as a result, the managers on duty had hundreds of rooms to clean. I remember distinctly because I myself cleaned about 40 rooms during the next 16 hours after the strike broke out, and I have never worked so hard.

I don’t know if that’s what it was, I never thought about it specifically, I just know that one of the habits that I seem to have adopted early in my career that has stayed with me to this day is regularly walking the floors, from top to bottom, stopping at every room where the room attendant is working to chat for a few moments, see how their day is going, if there was anything that they needed, and so on.

Periodically, I would walk the floors with the director of human resources, on particularly hot days, and the director of human resources and I would hand out ice cream bars, or bottles of cold water. The team was always so appreciative whenever we would do this.

But really, think about it, could you clean 15 rooms a day, in an 8 hour shift, every day, and clean them impeccably and to the standards that are required? Not me. I have cleaned rooms on several other occasions since that strike in the early days of my career and I am always struck with the same thought – how do they do it, every day, consistently and impeccably, and, with a smile on their face and a warm and welcoming demeanor?

Everyone works hard in a hotel, there is no denying it, but if for whatever reason you don’t find yourself in the heart of the house with any frequency, recognizing your unsung heroes, make a point of doing so today.

After all, these are the people consistently delivering on your brand promise, even when no one is looking, and a little encouragement goes a long way.

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Crisis Management at an Unprecedented Level

2011-06-29T22:43:00.000-07:00

I read with horror recently of the terrorist attack that took place at the Hotel Inter-Continental Kabul, in Afghanistan, that ended with a NATO rocket attack on the last of the terrorists who were making their final stand on the roof of the hotel.

11 civilians were killed in the attack, excluding the terrorists, and needless to say, the hotel has sustained significant damage from the initial attack and the battle that followed.

While I was horrified for a number of obvious reasons, I could not help but wonder what it would be like to be the hotel general manager in this circumstance. What must he or she have been through in the last 24 hours and what were they facing now, in the aftermath of this crisis?

Like many hotel general managers that have been in this business for any length of time, I have seen my share of crisis situations over the years; political protests, labour disputes, bomb scares, floods, fires, deaths, and terrorist threats, but it all pales in comparison to what this general manager is experiencing.

And having prepared crisis management plans, and as I said, having had to execute those plans at various times in my career, I wondered what the crisis management plan might look like at the Hotel Inter-Continental Kabul. Did they in fact have a plan for an event of this scope and magnitude? I hate to say it, but it is highly likely that they did, given their location and the state of unrest in Kabul and much of Afghanistan.

Still, I cannot really think that anything would adequately prepare you for this. Who gets up in the morning and goes to work expecting that their hotel, and their guests, will be attacked by terrorists later that same day, and, that the fighting will only be stopped when a series of rockets are launched at your hotel rooftop?

Maybe, if nothing else, it reiterates the importance of always having an up to date, relevant crisis management plan, and ensuring that everyone knows their role in the event of a crisis – whatever that crisis may be.

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How Long is Too Long?

2011-06-28T22:55:00.000-07:00

If you’ve been involved in the recruitment process at any time in your career, you have undoubtedly gotten in the habit of looking for gaps in employment in peoples’ resumes, and, given the opportunity to do so, you have asked the applicant to explain those gaps.

Not a bad thing to inquire about.

Often there are good reasons for people to have had gaps in their employment, which are easily explained, and other times, those gaps in employment are not so easily explained, and can draw your attention to problems that deserve greater attention, if they are to be overcome, or, they may have led you to decide that this was not a risk that you wanted to take.

But how long is too long?

That’s the dilemma that I am currently facing. It’s been over a year now since I finished up my last full time, long-term project, which has as a result created a sizable gap in my employment history.

I have no problems speaking to that gap, given the opportunity to do so. I have in fact been very busy over the last year and taken on and completed a number of short-term projects and initiatives that I am very proud of, but, they have yet to produce the opportunity that I am ultimately looking for – the opportunity to once again lead a team, either as a Hotel General Manager, or in some other senior capacity within this industry, and so, I continue to look for that position that is the right fit for me, where my values and work ethic are appropriately aligned to that of my prospective employer, and where I can make a difference.

I mean, that’s it, isn’t it? Isn’t that what we all want?

And to be frank, there have been opportunities along the way, but as I have delved further into them, I saw that they were not the right fit for me, for any one of a number of reasons.

When I speak with my peers about this, they get it, they understand the importance of creating and being a part of a company culture that is inspiring, that lights you up, and in turn inspires you to go beyond that which you previously thought was possible, to produce exceptional results, for yourself, and, for the teams that you are leading.

But how long is too long? How many people will potentially look at that resume, (or others like it), see the gap, and never go to the next step? Never engage into the inquiry about why the gap? Therein lies the dilemma.

I’d love to get your feedback on this. Let me know what you think. Have you been in this situation before? Or, have you been or are you someone who is responsible for the recruitment process in your company and you have come across this situation before? What did you do?

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Graduation Day

2011-06-22T22:59:00.000-07:00

I love to learn, and I welcome the opportunity to participate in engaging and interesting ways to expand my knowledge, in general, and, as it relates to the hospitality industry and leadership in particular.

It’s one of the reasons that I went back to school a couple of years ago with the intent of obtaining my Bachelor’s Degree in Hospitality Management.

I started out in this business over 25 years ago now, as a bellman, and at that time you could still advance in this business on the basis of hard work and commitment, and I was also fortunate enough to work for managers who saw my potential and embraced the concept of promoting from within, and so I was able to continue to advance over the years, to eventually reach the positions of general manager and asset manager, learning along the way and taking individual courses that complimented my experiences.

But, I did not have a degree, which is I confess something that I always wanted to obtain, for a number of reasons, and so when I was presented with an opportunity to obtain my degree, while continuing to work, I jumped at the chance and I enjoyed every minute of the experience.

I officially finished my degree program in November 2010, but the convocation ceremonies weren’t held until the middle of June 2011.

I had debated whether or not to attend, with mixed feelings of both pride for my accomplishment, and a little embarrassment at the fact that I anticipated being about twice the age of most of the other grads that would be in attendance, but I did attend, and I’m glad that I did.

As I suspected, the majority of those in attendance were probably about 22 or 23 years old, if that, and I found myself in my cap and gown in the midst of a sea of giggling young women who were obviously excited about this special day that they and their friends had worked so hard to reach. Their friends and their family in the audience snapping off photos whenever the opportunity presented itself, all of us waiting anxiously in line to proceed to the stage, hear our name called out, and receive our degree.

Eventually, the waiting was over, my name was called, and I proceeded across the stage to receive my degree and congratulations from the faculty and president of the college.

Afterwards, someone asked me if I was glad that it was done, the work that is, the classes, the papers and other projects, and my immediate response was “no.” I am glad to have completed the necessary work to have obtained my degree, but I am always looking for new opportunities to expand my knowledge and stay current in our industry, which is one of the reasons that I am involved in some of the initiatives that I am at present, and why I will continue to look for ways to learn and grow, to expand myself, and to share what I have learned with those that are just starting out in the hospitality industry.

"Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

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A Few Bad Apples

2011-06-20T21:56:00.000-07:00

We’ve all heard it before and most of us have seen it in action at one point or another, the inescapable impact of “a few bad apples” in the bunch.

That thought came to mind for me the other day when I awoke to news reports and newspaper articles that detailed the circumstances of what was reported as the overnight riots in downtown Vancouver just last week following the 7^th game loss of our beloved Vancouver Canucks to the Boston Bruins for the coveted Stanley Cup.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when I turned on the morning news, and they were showing the scene from the night before; store fronts being smashed, stores looted, police cars lit on fire, people fighting in the streets, with each other, and, with police.

I was saddened and disappointed to see these images and know that they would be broadcast all over the world - such is the impact of the media in the era that we now live in.

It was particularly disappointing in light of all of the incredibly positive images and articles that had been generated just last year as a part of the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler. Before, during and after the Olympics story after story had been generated about what an amazing city we lived in, for so many reasons, not the least of which was the hospitality and demeanor of the residents of our beautiful city.

And now, instead, we will be remembered for the hooliganism of a few bad apples.

The mob mentality is a fascinating thing, on some levels. It fascinates me on the level of how easily influenced some people can be by those “bad apples” where they might otherwise use their good sense to either head in the other direction, or, better yet, help to put a stop to the unacceptable actions of a few people who were obviously intent on causing trouble no matter what the outcome of the game had been.

From a hotel perspective, it also served to remind me of the importance of consistent and effective communications and the value of relationships in our business. Without that foundation in place, a few “bad apples” can get a foot-hold and influence others with their own agenda, which is almost certain to be a negative agenda, meant to cause or further inflame disharmony in the workplace.

Don’t let a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch in your workplace.

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Destination Marketing Funds – Who Doesn’t Have One?

2011-06-06T22:41:00.000-07:00

The list is getting shorter every day.

I picked up a newspaper the other day and saw yet another City in Canada that has added a destination marketing fund (“DMF tax”) to their room rates.

I certainly don’t fault the hoteliers in this or any other City for implementing such a tax, in an attempt to offset declining commitments from Government, at all levels, for the marketing of their destination.

What choice do hoteliers have?

They certainly can’t afford to ignore the problem, and it is widely accepted that you could lobby the Government until the end of time and they would still not increase the funding to the necessary levels to properly market their special and unique destinations.

I have a couple of problems with this.

The first, and arguably the biggest problem that I have with this continuing situation, is the fact that the Government either does not know just how much tourism generates in the way of tax revenues and jobs, or, they just don’t care.

In short, this industry does not get the respect that it deserves - it never has.

Tourism, in its many forms, creates billions of dollars of revenue for the economy and more jobs than anyone can really accurately estimate, due to the number of secondary or support jobs that may be once removed from the obvious link to tourism, but are nonetheless in business as a direct result of primary tourism businesses, yet the Government seems blind to this.

One of the reasons may be that tourism always finds a way to survive, in spite of the circumstances thrown at us, we always find a way to keep moving forward, to overcome adverse situations, compared to some other industries that have failed entirely, or, been on the brink of failure, and the Government sweeps in and makes special concessions, or subsidizes their operations, to keep them in business.

Should we (tourism) be punished because we are resilient, problem solvers?

My other problem with this issue is that it always seems to fall to the hotels to find the solution, to come up with the money necessary to offset the latest shortfall in funds.

What about the other tourism businesses? The businesses that obviously benefit from tourism, and, from the guests in our hotels, such as attractions. Why aren’t they part of the solution?

One can easily make the argument that there are several other business sectors, besides hotels, that benefit directly from tourism, and yet, repeated attempts to convince these business sectors to add their own “tax” to their admission price, or the like, in aid of marketing the destination, have largely fallen on deaf ears.

Why?

Unfortunately, the reason is simple – they don’t need to do anything to be part of the solution. Attraction owners, and other similar tourism business owners know, (much like the Government), that the hoteliers will not allow the situation to deteriorate to such a level as to negatively impact the flow of visitors to the destination. They can’t.

It’s the ultimate irony. The only way for hoteliers to prove their point would be for them to allow visitation to their destination, and to their businesses, to decline, to fail, and they will never do that, so we can expect more of the same – hoteliers coming to the rescue while others stand by and watch.

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Gossip - What You Permit You Promote

2011-06-01T21:56:00.000-07:00

Hotels are notorious for gossip. It’s inevitable when you have so many people working so closely together day after day.

Gossip is defined as; “casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true.”

I’ll add one more component; when the person in question is diminished by the content of the conversation.

Gossip can be cancerous is an organization.

It’s often been amazing to me how many unfounded rumors can circulate around a hotel, based on absolutely no facts, but strictly on the basis of conversations pieced together by people who think they know what’s going on, and who then go about telling everyone as a point of fact.

And it’s never good news, what these people are spreading around amongst the team, and that is one of the ways in which I draw the comparison to cancer, which I also realize is a serious topic unto itself. But think about it, it starts out as a whisper between one person and another, and then it starts to spread, conversations in the designated smoking area, in the staff cafeteria, and one by one individuals and groups are infected by this garbage. And once it has taken root, it’s twice as hard to remove.

It’s one of the things that I have found frustrating, on occasion, as a General Manager, when a junior manager has approached me and told me of a conversation that they have heard, and I have asked them what they did about it, only to have them respond by telling me that they did not contribute to the conversation, as if that was enough.

What you permit, you promote.

Doing nothing, taking no action, is not the same as taking action. Even in your silence you are speaking, loud and clear.

Don’t tolerate gossip. Make it clear that it is not acceptable in your business, as a part of your culture. If people are the foundation of your business, your culture, what can be more important than preserving their self-esteem and supporting them in whatever they may be facing?

“The time is always right to do what is right.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

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Air Canada Discount Subsidiary – Does Anyone Really Believe it Will Ever Take Flight?

2011-05-30T21:53:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year Air Canada announced their intent to launch yet another discount carrier, under an as yet to be determined name. Apparently, they have not learned their lesson from their past failed attempts to launch and run a discount carrier.

After I initially rolled my eyes in disbelief, and stopped laughing, at the fact that Air Canada seems bent on their own self-destruction, (I mean really, how many times can the Canadian Government bail them out), I read the rest of the announcement and noticed what I consider the clincher, as it relates to why this venture will never take flight.

Air Canada announced that the launch of their discount carrier would be contingent on the Air Canada Pilots Union agreeing to certain concessions and a two-tier arrangement, as it relates to the pilots of Air Canada and the pilots of the discount carrier.

As soon as I read that, I knew the deal was dead. There is no way that the Air Canada pilots union will agree to anything out of the ordinary. They have a long-standing history of drawing a line in the sand and then standing on “their” side of that line and daring you to cross it, at your peril.

Arguably, the Air Canada pilots union has not been the only Air Canada union body that has come close to forcing the airline out of business, on more than one occasion. Flight attendants and customer service representatives’ unions have contributed equally to the near failure of this airline, but it has always been the pilots union that has been the most steadfast and obstinate in past negotiations aimed at keeping the airline aloft.

And then, just the other day, there was a story in the Globe & Mail (Labour dispute threatens to delay Air Canada discount airline), in which they stated; “Air Canada’s plans to launch a discount leisure airline next winter is at risk of being delayed after pilots rejected a tentative labour pact.” “The rejection of the tentative deal casts uncertainty over the carrier’s proposals for starting a low-cost carrier and introducing pension reforms.”

Gee, what a surprise.

It’s a shame, because as a consumer I would love to see another discount carrier, to increase competition and maybe, just maybe, give us some addition cost-effective options when we’re planning that next trip. And as a business person, I would love to see an opportunity to potentially make Air Canada’s business model more successful, and competitive as a carrier, not to mention creating hundreds if not thousands of jobs in an economy that could dearly use them.

But don’t hold your breath. I’m laying odds that this discount carrier will never take flight. Air Canada’s pilots union will make sure that this subsidiary stays grounded for the foreseeable future.

It’s a perfect example of everything that is wrong with unions.

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Are You So Quick to Judge a Book by its Cover That You Are Missing Out on Some Great People?

2011-05-24T22:23:00.000-07:00

I am a VERY judgmental person. I know that I am. I often wish it was not the case, but it’s a reflex that I simply have no control over.

If I walk into a meeting, or a function, my eyes move around the room with android-like precision, judging and assessing everyone in the room. Who is wearing what kind of suit, how do their clothes fit them, what kind of shoes are they wearing, and what condition are they in, what kind of watch are they wearing? Are they over-weight, thin, tall, short, appropriately dressed for the occasion? Do they look “put together” or like they just rolled out of bed?

Over the years I have come to recognize that I do this, but fortunately, what I have also learned over the years is to keep my opinions to myself, which I would have to admit, was not always the case.

There was a time where if I was attending that same function with a friend or colleague, I would have been sharing my assessments in great and vivid detail with that person throughout the evening. “Can you believe that guys pants, they must be four inches off the ground.” “Do you think he can feel the draft on his ankles when he goes outside?” “Doesn’t he own a mirror?”

You get the picture.

Unfortunately, as much as I realize that I do this, I still do it, but as I said, it is not a conscious decision that I make, it really is like a reflex, and it is not a trait that I am proud of, in any way. I wish I could actively turn it off.

Case in point . . .

I was attending one of the first meetings of the leadership group that I have mentioned before. It has people from all walks of life, different age groups, etc., and at that time, I had not met all of the members.

When I first entered the room that evening, I happen to notice a woman, quite a bit older, over-weight, and with a distinct food stain on the upper portion of her blouse, and of course, I had an immediate opinion about that – enough said.

She ended up seated next to me and there came a point in the evening when we needed to share something specific with the person next to us, and solicit their feedback on that point, and when this was first announced, my immediate reaction was one of disappointment that my partner for this exercise was my food stained friend from earlier in the evening. What was she going to be able to contribute to me?

I know, what an arrogant thing to think.

It gets worse.

She invited me to go first, and as instructed, I shared my situation with her. She listened intently to me until I was finished, and then to my great surprise, she gave me some of the most insightful and beneficial feedback that I have ever received from another individual.

Needless to say, I felt like a colossal ass, and that could be the end of that, but what it really made me realize in that moment was the fact that by drawing the initial judgments that I do of people, from time to time, based solely on my first visual impression of them, I was missing out on the opportunity for others to contribute to me.

That may sound like a selfish conclusion, but I don’t mean it that way. Obviously, there are greater things at stake here – missed friendships, relationships, etc.. Things that I could in turn contribute to that person. All true, but my point is that I did not initially think that they had anything to contribute to me, and by drawing that conclusion, I was the person who was missing out.

It was an embarrassing reminder of the importance and value of people, all people. And that one chance encounter changed my outlook forever.

It’s really quite amazing what can happen when you openly share yourself with others, and in so doing, allow them to contribute to you. The possibilities are endless.

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Are Spas the New Starbucks?

2011-05-16T21:50:00.000-07:00

I live in an urban centre and I had arranged to meet someone a few blocks from where I live, at a nearby Starbucks, just the other day.

As you can probably imagine, almost no matter where you may live, it wasn’t hard for me to find a “nearby” Starbucks, because there is one every two or three blocks, everywhere, not that I’m complaining.

However, what I noticed for the first time that day, as I was walking to my appointment, was just how many spas I passed along the way. And then, in the last few days as I have been in various parts of my city, I found myself noticing just how many spas I passed in what seems like every district of my city, and I know that this is not unique to where I live.

Spas are not new to me, nor did they pop up overnight, but I realized that I have become immune to what seems like the weekly occurrence of yet another spa opening and they have grown to the point of saturating the city to such a point that it occurred to me that there may now be as many spas in any given city as there are Starbucks.

I can remember when we first started to introduce spas into hotels and there were some people who questioned whether or not we were chasing a fad or temporary trend that would be over before it really got started.

I did the research in one of my hotels to demonstrate the significant impact that adding a spa would have on revenue for that property, and even though the argument was compelling on a number of levels, the project was turned down. I left a couple of years later after having pitched the idea a couple more times over those years, only to have it turned down repeatedly.

About three years later, they used that same proposal of mine to justify the addition of a spa to the property, after several other hotels in that market had introduced spas and were puling market share as a result.

Now, just about every hotel of any significance has a spa within its walls, unless for some reason it just isn’t feasible, due to physical building limitations, or, something of that nature, and certainly any hotel spa that I have been in is leaps and bounds ahead of the multitude of day spas that have popped up on virtually every street corner, but there is no denying that the demand is there, not just for hotel guests and/or the travelling public, but for the residents in these various neighbourhoods.

Spas, as we all know, are here to stay. As we find ourselves downsized, working harder, smarter, longer, we will continue to look for ways to escape, to pamper ourselves, if only for an hour or two at a time.

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A Little Encouragement Goes a Long Way

2011-05-10T23:11:00.000-07:00

Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?

But how often do you make a point, find a reason, to acknowledge your employees for their contribution to your success?

I can remember some years ago when I was a Front Office Manager at a major hotel, being asked by another manager why I was thanking my employees for having done such a great job that day with what had been a very heavy check out, further complicated by a lot of early check-ins due to an incoming convention.

When I told him that they had done a great job managing the demands of the shift, while at the same time delivering consistently exceptional guest service, and, had kept things on line for the afternoon shift as well, he said; “that’s their job.”

It’s ironic that I remember that conversation to this day, perhaps it’s because I simply couldn’t understand his response then, or now.

I have always made a point of thanking my team, as a group when appropriate, and, as individuals for their individual contribution when appropriate, in whatever way made sense at the time.

Granted, encouragement, or recognition, or whatever you call it, must be honest and genuine or it will simply be seen as creative manipulation with an underlying objection to achieve something – increased guest service numbers, increased revenue, whatever. Regardless, if that is your objective, your employees will see through it, and you. If you have an objective, any objective, in recognizing your team, then your recognition or encouragement is not genuine.

I think sometimes people lose sight of where they came from, the struggles that they endured to reach their positions, and, those special moments where someone inspired them from a little encouraging statement.

The other thing that you need to remember is that there is something that you can find to acknowledge every single person that you know. Everyone is good at something, or has made a difference or a contribution, but in order to see it you have to be committed to seeing everyone as individuals and not try to fit them into your perspective of what they should be like, and then acknowledge them for their contribution. A little encouragement goes a long way.

Kids are a great example. If you ever want to see how big an impact you can have by providing a little encouragement, think about when you have told a child that they have done something well. Their face lights up. You can immediately see how proud they are, and then they immediately set out to do more of what you just recognized them for.

We may learn (unfortunately) how to suppress that outward appearance of delight and pride, but the impact is the same – I promise you. People want to do a good job and they want to know that what they do matters, that someone cares, is noticing the effort that they are making.

Do that, without an alternative agenda or objective, and I promise you your revenues will increase and so will your guest service statistics and your levels of employee engagement.

A little encouragement really does go a long way, so be generous with your praise.

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It All Starts with Integrity, or, Happy Birthday Hospitality Re-Defined !!

2011-05-05T23:45:00.000-07:00

Hospitality Re-Defined is celebrating its 1st birthday and in light of that, I have been doing a lot of thinking about how to best mark this milestone.

In the process, I have been reviewing some of the blog posts that I have published over the last year, and I found myself all the way back to post #1, which was simply entitled; Integrity - The Foundation of Strong Leaders.

It occurred to me as I was reviewing that first-ever post of mine that unless you had, for some inexplicable reason, reviewed every post that I have ever written, it was doubtful that you had ever read this post, as I had virtually no subscribers when I first wrote this post. And although I have written a lot on the subject of "Integrity" over the last year, it all started with this post, so in the spirit of celebrating the 1st birthday of Hospitality Re-Defined, and, recognizing that much like this blog did, everything starts with Integrity, I present you with the re-print of post #1, unedited, as it originally appeared.

I hope you enjoy it. . . .

Integrity - The Foundation of Strong Leaders (May 2010)

When I sat down and thought about what I wanted my first blog entry to be about, I didn’t have to think long, in fact, it became obvious to me at the same time as I decided that I would create and write a blog. A blog about what I am truly passionate about, the Hospitality Industry.

And while there are many, many things that I could have written about, I wanted to lead off with a simple entry about integrity. I wanted to write about integrity because at the heart of my beliefs, as it relates to the components that contribute to a successful business, I have always held the belief that your business must be built on a sound foundation, and what better word to describe the strength and importance of a sound foundation, than integrity.

In preparing for this entry, I looked up the word integrity in the dictionary, and I found a couple of interesting entries:

1) the quality or state of being of sound moral principle; uprightness, honesty, and sincerity, and,

2) The definition of integrity according to Webster's Dictionary is, "a rigid adherence to a code of behaviour."

There are though many ways to look at a persons’ integrity. A person with integrity possesses many qualities. Three of these qualities are honesty, the ability to follow a moral code, and loyalty to yourself and your beliefs.

Integrity shows up in many places and has many faces. The faces of truth, moral code, and loyalty are all parts of integrity and show up everyday in many ways. To have a true sense of integrity one must posses all three. You have to be honest to yourself and to others, follow your personal beliefs and stick to what you think is right, and you have to be loyal to yourself. Integrity is to be truly honest, and fair, and to uphold the beliefs important to you.

I recently came upon a definition, through my participation in a life changing course, that I have adopted as my personal definition of integrity, the statements that define my integrity, and they are:

- Being true to your ideals and standards.
- Keeping your promises.
- Being your word.
- Being true to yourself. (Shakespeare said it best when he said; “to thine own self be true”).

Now ask yourself, do you live by these standards? Do those around you? And especially, do those around you that you would define as “leaders” within your organization live by these standards? Are they truly leading by example?

I hope so, because a true leader of people recognizes that he is defined by his or her actions, not by words and that the example that he sets needs to consistently be of the highest standard if he is to be worthy of being called a leader.

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Is the fear of "no" stopping you in your tracks?

2011-05-03T22:45:00.000-07:00

Really, is it?

Think about it. Can you think of an instance or instances where your fear of hearing “no” has kept you from making the request in the first place?

It will take being really honest with yourself to see if this has been the case, and I would argue that everyone has been at the affect of this unrealistic phobia at one time or another in their lives.

I heard a great example the other day that I’ll share with you as an access to giving you an example to look for yourself.

Peter, a successful business man, has just left work and is headed for home. He has about a 45 minute commute to get home. He is married to a great woman, Mary, who is successful in her field as well. They bought a new house a few years ago and they have been very focused on paying down their mortgage, as a priority above everything else. Peter sees the importance of this, but it has been Mary that has been the driving force on this issue.

Over the last couple of years, there have been a couple of opportunities to deviate from their mission for a little self-indulgence, but after having discussed the matter each time, they have always decided to stick to their original priority – pay down the mortgage.

Just before leaving work today Peter received a great opportunity for him and Mary to take a quick trip to Mexico, deeply discounted, but he is sure that she will say “no” because that is money that could be put toward the mortgage.

So sure is he that she will say no that he spends the next 45 minutes on his way home having a fictitious argument with her, imagining what he would say, followed by her responses and on and on, with the obvious conclusion that after having argued back and forth, they will not be going to Mexico.

Peter arrives home after his commute, and now he is frustrated and angry, having lost his imaginary argument with Mary on the way home.

The irony of course is that he is frustrated and angry with Mary, and she has no idea why?

Sound familiar? If you said no, you are kidding yourself. We’ve all done it. Been so sure of an outcome of a conversation that we haven’t even bothered to initiate it in the first place, and then we blame the other person.

It’s what we make “no” mean that gets in our way, as well as our firm belief that we know that person so well that we can in fact predict their response. We can foretell the future. Wow.

Sounds kind of ridiculous when you really look at it doesn’t it?

No means no, and that’s it. It means no now, to that request, singularly, and it is not necessarily a predictor of future behavior, so the next time you are stopped by no, before you have even started, try letting go of all of your attachments to what it will mean if they say no, and just go for it, imagine they will say yes instead and you may be surprised to find that you approach the conversation in a completely different way, (because you haven’t already given up), and you may, in the process, create an environment where yes is possible where it wasn’t before.

Think about it. If no one has been able to successfully predict the future up ‘til now, what makes you think that you can?

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Environmentally Friendly Bathroom Amenities

2011-04-27T21:50:00.000-07:00

What ever happened to the push to move towards amenity dispensers in hotel guestroom bathrooms?

I can remember being with two hotel companies, at different times in my hotel career, that were at one time exploring the possibility of installing dispensers into the shower/bath area in their guestrooms.

In both cases, we actually installed dispensers into a select number of guestrooms as well as having created specific guest comment cards for those rooms, in order to solicit specific feedback and to gauge how well guests accepted this environmentally friendly option.

That was over 10 years ago, and it occurred to me today, as I was reflecting on recent trips that I have taken, which have for the last year or so been confined to the United States, that I have not seen a dispensing system in any of the hotels that I have stayed in, and they have ranged from 3 star to 4.5 star and represented the major industry brands.

The same can be said of hotels that I have stayed in, within the last 5 years, within Europe. All major branded facilities, both urban and resort locations, and all still using those tiny little amenity bottles.

So, what happened, and how did this seemingly pressing need suddenly fall off the radar?

Are you aware of any hotels that have successfully moved away from individual amenity bottles to a more environmentally friendly alternative?

If so, please let me know.

I recognize that the industry has continued to move forward with the recycling of left-over amenities, and with the use of more environmentally friendly amenity bottles and wrappers, but is that it? Is that as good as it gets?

I’d be the first to admit that some of the dispensers that I saw, at the time when we were doing testing, about 10 years ago, were both unattractive and problematic, but I would have thought, in the same way that we have made so many advances in virtually every other field, that someone, arguably smarter and more creative than I am, would have invented a “better mousetrap” and then convinced one of the industry leaders to be the guinea pig and away we go.

So again, what happened?

If you were involved in testing of amenity dispensers at your hotel, or, you have any other insight in why this seemingly good idea never took off, please share your comments with the rest of us.

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Free Coffee - Yes Please

2011-04-25T21:49:00.000-07:00

First of all, can we all agree that the majority of guests have now come to expect that there will be an in-room coffee maker in their hotel room, regardless of the brand?

That’s my belief.

I think guests now associate in-room coffee as just another room amenity, like shampoo and soap. They assume when they walk in their room that they will find some sort of coffee maker waiting for them, and that, depending on the brand, it may be anything from basic to extravagant, with the simplest of coffees or the addition of potentially elaborate offerings of various teas and other hot drinks.

Unfortunately, I also think the same is true of the coffee provider. That is to say that there is a wide range of the level of attention or importance, or lack thereof, that this in-room amenity receives from hoteliers depending on whether they see this as an opportunity to elevate the level of guest service and guest loyalty, or, if it is simply viewed as an unnecessary and irritating expense.

This is apparent in many ways, not the least of which is the type and brand of coffees being offered out there in the hotel world. As a guest, I myself have experienced everything from brown coloured water masquerading as coffee to Starbucks (which I admit to being a fan of).

You can tell a lot about the level of importance placed on the coffee service by the type and condition of the coffee maker and the coffee “caddie” and its contents.

I stayed in a hotel not long ago that offered a simple basic in-room coffee service. Being the organizational freak that I am, (according to friends and co-workers over the years), I like to prep my coffee before I go to bed, so that I can simply push the “on” button as I stumble by on my way to the shower. I did so in this instance as well.

When I got up, en route to the shower, I pushed the button as usual, and off I went. When I returned to the coffee maker about 10 minutes later, there was about a half a cup of coffee in the pot, where there should have been 2 cups. I checked the reservoir and it was empty. I carefully pulled out the filter basket to find it filled to the rim with boiling hot water. Obviously it was clogged or blocked in some way.

I was running behind by now, and I decided I would mention this problem to the concierge on my way out, unfortunately, when I entered the lobby, there were line-ups everywhere, so I left for my meetings, thinking I would call the hotel later, during a break. The day got away on me, as did the evening, and I never called before returning to the hotel quite late that night.

Before bed, I gave my coffee maker the once over, I couldn’t tell if it had been replaced or not, but obviously the room attendant would have seen what happened and had it fixed or replaced, so I prepped my coffee and slid between the sheets.

Next morning, push button, have shower. Return to check the state of my much-needed coffee. Too bad for me, half a cup in the coffee maker, probably another half a cup spilled over onto the counter, and a basket full of boiling water.

Needless to say, I was disappointed, but what was most apparent to me, and the greater source of my disappointment, was that my room attendant obviously saw in-room coffee service as a pain in the rear, and as such was not even slightly concerned that my in-room coffee maker was malfunctioning, which left me to question both the commitment to guest service at this hotel, but also, to question what message had been passed on through the ranks with respect to the importance of providing this guest amenity with a level of commitment and professionalism that mirrored the brand commitments of this hotel.

Bottom line, if you’re going to provide a service, then it should be reflective of your commitment to your guests, and be viewed and treated with a level of commitment from you that demonstrates to your employees that EVERY aspect of a guests’ stay has the potential to create a defining moment and nothing should be left to chance when it comes to creating and providing that which has an impact on your guests experience.

There are no second chances to create a great first impression.

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Bed Linen – Do Your Guests Really Know the Difference?

2011-04-20T21:43:00.000-07:00

I’ve just returned from a quick trip to San Francisco, during which I had occasion to stay at a couple of different hotels, in different price categories, in order to be close to the conference that I was attending on leadership.

Both hotels were clean and comfortable, and both had similar amenities and services, both within my room, and, as it relates to the additional services and facilities to be found within the hotel properties themselves, but, as you may have guessed, there was a substantial difference in the room rate.

(As an aside, ironically, as I find more and more often, it was in fact the 3.5 star hotel that included free internet access, although I was paying a significantly lower rate than at the other property, and at the 4.5 star hotel there was a significant daily charge for access to the internet).

There was one notable difference between the two hotels – one featured Egyptian cotton sheets from a major supplier of high quality linens, and the other did not.

Now, I am as you know a hotelier that has been in the business for more than 25 years, during which time I have purchased my share of linens, as well as having participated in and facilitated blind comparisons of linens, so I recognize certain names and identifying marks when I see them, and, I’d like to think that I can also tell the difference between Egyptian cotton linens, and those of a slightly lesser caliber, but can your guests?

Before you get all excited and think to yourself; “of course my guests can tell the difference,” I’d like to reiterate that I am not talking about comparing Egyptian cotton linens to those paper thin, see-through, thread bare sheets that we’ve all run into at one time or another in our career, but rather, as I said, Egyptian cotton sheets compared to those of a slightly lesser caliber.

The answer is no, so stop wasting your money.

Only the most discerning of guests can tell the difference, and even then, it is a very small percentage of those guests that can tell, and I would argue further that their recognition would largely be influenced by whether or not you are openly promoting that your hotel features Egyptian cotton linens in the first place. If you didn’t give them a hint, they wouldn’t know the difference.

There are so many top quality linens available right now, that are not nearly as expensive as Egyptian cotton, that it is simply not necessary to spend the extra money, money that could be spent on other things – things that your guests do notice, such as higher quality towels and bath robes. That, they do notice and can appreciate.

So spend your money where it will have the greatest impact, where your guests will both recognize and appreciate the investment that has been made on their behalf and in the interest of providing them with the highest level of comfort.

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A Great Server Creates an Equally Great Experience

2011-04-18T21:46:00.000-07:00

Don’t you just love it when everything seems to come together in perfect harmony to create an exceptional experience?

It’s what we strive for, certainly, with every guest that walks through our doors, and I had just such an experience recently, thanks to a truly exceptional server.

A very good friend of mine contacted me a few weeks ago. Told me she would be coming to town for a quick business trip – did I have time for dinner?

First of all, I wouldn’t have missed that opportunity for anything, she’s become one of my very best friends over the last several years, and her visits are a highlight for me, whenever I am fortunate enough that she pops into town.

We have had great meals and service in the past at a place called Joe Forte’s Seafood & Chop House, here in Vancouver, and, they happen to have the best Cobb Salad that either of us have ever had in our lives, as well as specializing in providing a good and diverse selection of raw oysters, which we also both enjoy, so there was no discussion about where we would go – we were destined for Joe Forte’s.

I won’t bore you with all the particulars of what we ordered, because that really isn’t the point here, although I will say that, as always, the oysters were exceptional, but what really made the difference in our experience, from the moment that we were first approached at our table, was our server, Cheryl.

If you looked up “perfect server” in the dictionary, Cheryl’s picture would be there, or it certainly should be, and as we went through the evening, I was struck by what an exceptional job she was doing, at every moment, and I might add, while managing a very busy section in what was, as always, a full restaurant. We were certainly not her only table, although we were made to feel like we were.

Cheryl was knowledgeable of the menu, in every sense, and she was equally well versed on the wine list, and the all-important selection of raw oysters available that evening, and while those attributes certainly contributed to a successful dining experience, it was, more than anything, the way in which she adapted her service to perfectly suit what we wanted, from what I’ll call a time, attention and timing perspective, and if you’ve ever experienced this, you know exactly what I mean.

That seemingly uncanny ability to know when to approach the table, how often and when, to recognize that we were engaged in great conversation and not in a hurry, at which point she offered to delay our main courses after our oysters, to give us some additional time to chat and catch up, but again checking back with us enough to let us know that she had certainly not forgotten us, but without being annoying by checking in too often or at the wrong time.

I could say a lot more about what Cheryl did to make our evening enjoyable, but the point is this – it was apparent that she was a dedicated, engaged and empowered professional server. Someone who takes pride in being of service and does not see serving in a restaurant as “something to do until I find a real job,” but rather the opportunity that it is – to provide exceptional service that creates an equally exceptional experience, time and time again, and I have no doubt that Cheryl leaves all of her guests with this impression. Joe Forte’s is lucky to have her.

And I would be remiss if I did not extend credit to the owners and/or managers at Joe Forte’s because they have obviously created an environment where Cheryl can do what she does best. She could not have done everything that she did for us that evening, both in the way of her service, and, the modifications that she managed for both of our entrées if she was not fully supported to do so.

A great leader empowers and enables his staff, provides them with the tools and support necessary to do their job, and then, once they have everything that they need, gets out of the way so that they can harness their own greatness, and pass that on to our guests, creating consistently exceptional guest experiences.

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Executive Chef – Aint What It Used To Be

2011-04-14T21:52:00.000-07:00

Used to be it was enough for an Executive Chef in a hotel to be a great cook, someone who could consistently put out attractive dishes, that tasted good, while also having the skills to deal with multiple outlets, potentially putting out different kinds of food, and a reception and banquet for 1,000, all at the same time, without losing your cool.

Well, truth is, lost of them did in fact lose their cool as well, but back in the day, everyone put up with that too for some inexplicable reason. (I can still recall working in a hotel where I have to referee a battle between an angry executive chef and some poor underling who had inadvertently spoiled a sauce, at which point the executive chef had thrown a fair sized sauté pan at him, narrowly missing his head).

I can also still recall having a conversation about the situation with my general manager at the time and having her tell me to lighten up: “he’s a chef, if that’s the worst you’ve ever seen, then you haven’t seen anything.”

But that was many years ago, and the culinary playing field has changed along with every other discipline in hotels, (or any business for that matter), as people came to understand and value their employees and work to foster positive relations that would not tolerate those kinds of behaviours.

Aside from the issues of employee relations, there was a much greater influencer at work that has forever changed the role of the executive chef – the Food Network.

Along comes the Food Network showcasing all of these interesting and in some cases flamboyant chefs scurrying about in their respective kitchens in various cities around the world, and suddenly, those people that were responsible for putting beautiful and delicious food in front of us had a face, an identity, and now, we wanted to know more about them.

As a result, you suddenly had more patrons under the impression that there was some kind of a culinary magician at work behind the scenes, and, they also assumed that these same culinary geniuses were always to be found in their kitchen. (It never occurred to them that someone initially crafts a menu, perfects the recipes, etc., then trains a series of line cooks to reproduce their masterpieces when they’re not there, which, when it comes to the celebrity chefs, is most of the time).

Regardless, for the mere mortal executive chef, his or her role had forever changed. Now, you had guests asking to meet the chef, asking if perhaps he could come out into the dining room, so that he could be properly thanked for what had been an exquisite meal, and, at the same time, you had owners, or perhaps general managers, recognizing the value of this kind of a seemingly spontaneous appearance in the dining room, at which point someone decided this was now to become a nightly occurrence.

Now, the executive chef had a new role to add to his or her other duties – public relations, but there is no arguing that it has worked. People love it when the chef puts on fresh whites and comes out of the kitchen and gracefully moves from table to table, inquiring about how everything has been proceeding so far, and asking if anyone has any comments or suggestions. It makes them feel special, important.

Everyone has always appreciated a good server for their ability to take good care of the guests at their tables, adjust their service to the many different needs and moods of their clients, while also doing an awesome job describing the items coming out of the kitchen, but the guests know that he isn’t the one doing the cooking – that’s the guy that they want to meet. Well, now, more and more often they’ll get to do just that.

And if you’re opening a new restaurant, who do you want making the circuit of morning news shows, cooking up little samples and tasters for the hosts of the show?

Executive chefs – now half culinary genius, half master of public relations, perfecting their recipes and their 30 second sound bites. Hmmmmm, who’s hungry?

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What Does the Future Hold for Hotel Restaurants?

2011-04-11T21:43:00.000-07:00

Not that long ago, I wrote that hotel dining is dead, (“Hotel Restaurants. Put a Fork in the, “Cause They’re Done”), for all intents and purposes, as it has historically existed, and I haven’t changed my mind, but that leaves the question of what will fill the void?

Hoteliers have a number of issues that they’re going to need to deal with, if they want to successfully answer this question, and the answer will likely be largely affected by their various locations, and the answer is not going to come cheap.

A number of years ago I found myself faced with that question. The hotel where I was working had a “fine dining room” and an all-day restaurant, as well as a lounge, room service and extensive catering facilities.

Catering did very well, and we had an enviable reputation in our market for putting out excellent banquet meals. Similarly, we had an excellent reputation for our facilities and our service.

Both the fine dining room and the all-day restaurant put out very good food, and the service was exceptional, but both rooms only managed a modest capture ratio and it was clear that the majority of our guests were going out for lunch and dinner, and we were not attracting very many locals to eat and drink in our outlets.

It was clear that a number of things had to be done to improve results, and I did take action that immediately improved the food and beverage departmental profitability, but it was equally clear that in order to produce the kind of results that we were looking for, we needed to produce an extensive food and beverage redevelopment plan.

While we worked to improve the food and beverage departmental results, with what we had, we worked to compile the necessary data to support the redevelopment plan and we came up with a price tag for the necessary renovations, as well as the costs of new menus, uniforms, glassware, dishes, and kitchen modifications.

Simultaneously, we set about to meet with all of the staff to find out what our guests had been saying for the last couple of years about what was missing in their dining experience at our hotel, and we paid particular attention to where the bellmen and concierge staff had been directing our guests, in response to their requests for other places to dine, locally, and armed with all of this we came up with our concept, followed by a contest amongst the staff to choose a name for our new restaurant.

I was fortunate to have a very supportive owner and he subsequently approved our plan, and the funds necessary to carry out what we proposed, and we set about to create a destination restaurant and bar in our hotel.

One of the keys to its success, in my opinion, is that we based everything on opening and operating a free-standing restaurant, an independent restaurant that would be able to compete in the local marketplace, that just happened to be in a hotel, but it would not be a hotel restaurant in the traditional sense. Not that we didn’t think of our hotel guests as important, quite the contrary, but we didn’t build the restaurant around them, but rather to include them. We created a place where they would want to go even if they weren’t staying with us.

My owner was rewarded for his support. As promised in our redevelopment proposal, we increased overall food and beverage revenue by over 25% over the next 3 years, and departmental profitability went from - 5% to + 18% during that same period.

Hoteliers are going to need to determine what would make their guests want to eat and drink in their restaurants and bars, and at the same time attract the locals as well, and that will take looking at things in the way that they have not traditionally done, and making some tough decisions about what works and what doesn’t.

Fundamental to this process will be the need for hoteliers to ask themselves; “what would I do if it was my hotel, my money, my business on the line?” A question that should be at the forefront of every decision, but this is not always the case.

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Boutique or Big Box Brand – What’s Your Preference?

2011-04-07T21:40:00.000-07:00

Aside from some very aggressive growth from several of the major brands, whose growth is mostly being driven by greater opportunities in emerging markets around the world, like China and India, I think one of the fastest growing sectors in the Hotel business in North America must be the “boutique” hotel.

What was once a smattering of Mom and Pop operations that were one step up from a road-side motel, has blossomed into some of the most unique and specialized boutique properties located in every major city in North America.

Many of these boutique properties that have come on the market in the last decade have established enviable reputations for providing the finest level of service and amenities, rivaling the big box branded hotels in their market. And, many of these same properties have attracted the “A List” from the social and entertainment fields, which has in turn only served to enhance their reputation as “must stay” locations in certain cities.

Not that I would include myself on any “A List” of any kind, and the people that I consider my friends are an eclectic mix of people from every socio economical level you can imagine, but suffice to say that they all enjoy travelling and do so for both business and pleasure on a regular basis. So I conducted my own unofficial poll to see what the preference was – boutique or big box brand.

I wasn’t really that surprised to find that there was a preference to the big box brand, for business, and, the boutique style property for pleasure trips.

In the case of business travel, and the associated preference of the big box brand, it was primarily a factor of the business needs that might encompass the trip, and the propensity for the major brands to have a greater assortment of technology in-house, both in the guest room itself, and with in-house business centres, and of course, conference services personnel to assist with meeting and presentation needs and the like. Fair enough.

In the case of leisure trips, and peoples’ preference for the boutique properties, the overwhelming sentiment that came up again and again was the enhanced level of intimacy of these hotels, as well as a genuine level of warmth and personalized attention that they felt when they stayed at the boutique properties.

One of my friends commented that she has been staying at the same property in Seattle, an average of once or twice a year, for the past five years, and they remember her and her partner every time they stay, and they feel like they are treated as much like friends as they are guests. The environment is that much more personal and the pace is that much more relaxing, although prompt and attentive.

Another common occurrence I found amongst the boutique hotels, was that they were more prone to hosting special evenings for their in-house guests, such as evening wine and cheese get-togethers, or other small, intimate receptions, where the managers would mingle with the guests, and, guests could meet each other and get to know each other as well.

It’s just a different kind of experience, and I think that no matter how great the service and facilities are of the major brands, you cannot help but have a more personalized, more intimate experience when you stay at a boutique property, where the focus may be on a maximum of 100 guests at any given time, compared to 1,000 potential guests or more in the big box branded hotel. Their whole business model is built upon providing exceptional and unique experiences to each and every one of their guests, personalized to such a level to create the highest level of guest loyalty and repeat guests.

What’s your preference? Let me know . . .

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Politics – A Vivid Demonstration of Everything that is Wrong with the World

2011-04-04T21:59:00.000-07:00

If you’re a Canadian, you know that we are now in the midst of the latest political campaign, in an attempt to influence our vote for the upcoming Federal election in May 2011.

I know that we are fortunate, especially when compared to many other countries in political turmoil right now, that we have the democratic system that we do, the very right to vote, and on and on, and I am appreciative for where I live and the liberties that I enjoy, I really am.

That said, I would like to be “inspired” by my political leaders, not driven to choose where to cast my vote based on who I dislike the least, and I know that I am not alone. I admitted to a friend recently, that, for the first time in my life, I did not vote in the last Federal election, because I was so disillusioned and disgusted with the campaigns of each of the candidates, I just couldn’t bring myself to vote for any of them, because I was not willing to use the formula that I just described – he who sucks the least wins.

And now, here we are again, being bombarded with images and messages of everything that is wrong with the “other” candidate. Here’s a thought, how about, instead, you tell me about you, move me, inspire me, by demonstrating who you are and what you are committed to on my behalf and on behalf of my country.

What I see and hear in these negative ad campaigns is everything that is wrong in the world, manifested in the words and images broadcast across the televisions and radios throughout the Nation.

I see bullying, I see discrimination, I see unnecessary fighting and arguing, I see unfounded accusations, lies and defamation, I see initiatives designed to separate us, not bring us together, messages designed to create fear amongst us. All of this from the people who want to lead us.

What is perhaps most astounding to me, is that all of this is somehow, inexplicably deemed as acceptable behavior, which hardly seems to raise an eyebrow from most people, or, people shrug it off with statements like; “it’s politics, what do you expect?”

But imagine if we ran our businesses like this, if we embraced this kind of leadership style as our own? How long would we last?

Consider you open your newspaper tomorrow and there is a full-page ad, by say Fairmont Hotels, telling you how awful Four Seasons Hotels are. It goes on to accuse Westin and Sheraton of being dirty, Marriott Hotels of having terrible service, and concludes with some negative caption under a photo-shopped photograph of Bill Marriott. Would you think to yourself, wow, I want to stay with Fairmont Hotels; I am moved and inspired by their ad. I think not.

What’s more, we would be disgusted and outraged, because it is simply unacceptable behavior, at any time, but perhaps even more so when it is seen to be spearheaded by those that would label themselves as leaders, pillars in our community.

That which was intended to drive us to one brand would instead send us running in the opposite direction. Why then is this acceptable behavior from those that would lead us at the highest level, representing our country and our values to the world.

I admit, I don’t have the answer. It is I confess one of those moments in life when I feel about as significant as a grain of sand on the beach.

But, it all starts with one voice.

Martin Luther King once said; “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

If you’d like to see a new era of politics in our country, add your voice.

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Orientation - The Basis of a Strong Foundation

2011-03-30T21:45:00.000-07:00

I have always appreciated the value and importance of a proper, thorough orientation for new employees, regardless of the level of your position when joining the company.

A proper, well thought out orientation is no less important to the manager joining your team than it is to the first-time employee, perhaps more so.

As a manager, you are counting on him or her to model the behavior consistent with the brand, and in doing so, to lead by example and help to reinforce and instill in your employees the fundamental principles of your brand, and what defines it and differentiates it from other hotels.

That point was probably never more apparent to me than when I joined a new company a number of years ago and received virtually no orientation whatsoever.

Let me paint the picture for you. My role was at a corporate level, rather than at a hotel specifically. I had inquired in advance of arriving for my first day if there was anything that I should orchestrate related to my orientation, and was told “no”, that would not be necessary. I was asked what time I usually liked to arrive at work, and when I said that I like to be in the office by 7:00am or 7:30am, I was asked to come in at 8:00am, at which time I would be met by the president of the company.

I arrived a few minutes before 8:00am and was able to access the floor that the company offices were located on, but there was no one out front, at reception, so I made my way down the corridor to where I had previously met with the president of the company, in his office.

The president was seated at his desk, in his office, with the (glass) door closed, I approached, knocked and he gestured for me to come in, at which point he invited me to have a seat across from him. I did so and after a few minutes of exchanging cordialities, he stopped abruptly and looked at me and said; “so, what can I tell you?” Fortunately, I had prepared a number of questions that I had hoped to have answered through the course of my first day of orientation, and so I began to ask my questions.

Periodically, during the next 20 minutes or so, as I was going through my questions, the president would stop to check his voice mail, make a few notes, or, make a call, and I could see that he was becoming annoyed as he had other things that he clearly wanted to address, that did not include talking to me.

Without any warning he got up and asked me to follow him, said he would show me around. We walked around the perimeter of the offices and he stopped to introduce me to the handful of people that had arrived early that day, first names only and without telling me what their role at the company was. We continued on until we reached what I was to discover was my office, at which point he said to me; “and this is where you will work out of.” He gestured for me to go on in at which point he said; “okay, we’ll talk some more later,” and he left.

I spent the next couple of hours with the company directory organizing my own orientation, and I remember thinking at the time what a missed opportunity it would have been, had I not been the kind of person to take charge of the situation, as well as being someone who sees the value of properly orientating people to the specifics of their job, the tools or resources available to them, the expectations for the position, and, the values and guiding principles that are the foundation of the company.

Sure, I managed to flush all of that out over the next couple of days, but imagine how much more powerful it would have been for me to hear that message delivered by the company president.

It’s another reminder of the important role that the hotel general manager should play in the orientation of every employee.

It has, and continues to be a priority that I meet every employee before they are hired and I have also always played a key role in employee orientations, using my time with the new-hires to focus on our commitment to service and to lay out the foundation of our values and guiding principles and to ensure that each and every employee understands their role in contributing to our mutual success.

Not to do so would, in my opinion, be a missed opportunity. After all, this is your culture we’re talking about, can you afford to leave it to chance?

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Are You Making Enough Mistakes?

2011-03-28T21:40:00.000-07:00

One of the best interview questions I have ever used is; tell me about a mistake you made and what you learned from the experience?

It’s always interesting to see the response that I get, because all too often people do not want to think about the mistakes that they made, usually any longer than they have to, trying to banish the experience from their memory as quickly as possible, which is too bad, because they are missing a rich opportunity to learn and grow.

Often, when I am speaking to hospitality students and they ask me what piece of advice I might give them, I tell them; don’t be afraid to make mistakes, and when you do, don’t run away from them, but rather use them, as an opportunity to expand yourself.

Unfortunately, people are generally way too caught up in the need to be perfect to embrace mistakes and be willing to share them, and in doing so, to share the learned experience so others can benefit from their mistake.

And when someone tells me that they rarely if ever make mistakes, it automatically makes me wonder whether or not that is true of course, but also, if it is true, then it also makes me wonder whether or not they are risk takers or not.

I spent a lot of time in my earlier article entitled; Risk, Playing to Win or Playing Not to Lose, discussing this situation and peoples’ inherent need to look good or avoid looking bad, and also one of my favourite quotes on this subject; “in order to succeed you must fail, so that you know what not to do the next time.”

As I said in my earlier post, I’m not suggesting risk for risk’s sake but rather someone who looks for opportunities which may involve some degree of calculated risk, which tells me that someone is willing to risk looking bad, risk making a mistake, in pursuit of an idea – that’s a leader.

If you’re not taking a risk now and again, then maybe, just maybe, you are guilty of playing it safe and living in the world of complacency, and that is no place to live, certainly not for any length of time anyway.

I can certainly appreciate that there are times when it is more appropriate not to take risks, where it may be (incorrectly) seen as being reckless, depending on what is at stake, and especially in volatile or uncertain times in the marketplace where brand managers or owners have no appetite for risk, calculated or not.

That said, the key is always in communication. If you are consistently in communication with your brand manager or your owner, discussing and presenting your well thought out ideas and proposals, then you will know when you have their support for your idea or proposal, and they will be fully aware of the potential benefits, AND, the potential risks.

So, ask yourself, if you were being interviewed right now and someone asked you to tell them about a mistake that you’ve made and what you learned from the experience, what would your answer be? And, how far back in your career would you have to go to think of an example worth sharing?

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Nothing Works Without Integrity

2011-03-23T21:40:00.000-07:00

Sounds pretty obvious, doesn’t it?

And depending on how that statement landed for you, you may even be wondering what’s new, or different, that I could possibly bring to this topic.

For starters, put aside your traditional view of integrity, which is still important, and forms part of the conversation on the subject, but what I am suggesting is that you look at whether or not you are bringing integrity into everything that you do, even when you may think that it doesn’t matter.

You see, people think of integrity, as an example, as “keeping your word” which again, is important, but in the leadership group that I have recently been spending my time with, they think of integrity as “honouring your word” which is much more than simply keeping your word.

To compound that further, they consider it giving your word any time you commit to something – in short, if you say you are going to do something, be somewhere at a certain time, etc., they consider that having given your word to the situation.

Now you may have jumped ahead and thought to yourself; that’s impossible, no one can keep their word to everything that happens, things come up, unexpectedly and out of your control, which is true. It’s also why they emphasize honouring your word, because they too know that there are times when you are not going to be able to live up to what you promised, or, you simply need to break your word. Sh** happens.

The difference is, when sh** happens in their world, they are committed to taking immediate action to restore their integrity, by honouring their word and taking responsibility for the impact that not having kept their word has on those around them, and they “clean up” the situation. They get in contact with the people who have been impacted by the situation, they genuinely apologize for the impact on them, and they take responsibility, without adding any excuses, reasons or justifications.

As a result, people know them as someone whose word is golden, someone who means everything that comes out of their mouth, regardless of whether one item may appear to be more significant than the other, they know nonetheless, that if they said it, they meant it, fully and completely – not in degrees of importance or shades of gray.

Consider another example; let’s say a four-legged chair that is missing one leg. The chair is out of integrity. Sure, you could use the chair, if you’re careful, which is to say that you can operate when your integrity isn’t at 100% but it takes some effort, and it’s not sustainable, but you could make it work.

Is anyone going to want to sit on that chair? Not if they don’t have to, because they can see that the situation is not stable, they can see the integrity that is missing, so they’ll use the chair, if they have to, but they will do so cautiously.

Then consider that a lot of the people that we deal with are much the same as that chair, we think of them as people that we can probably count on, most of the time, for the big stuff, but if pushed on the subject, we’d admit that we can see instances where promises were made, that were subsequently broken, phone calls not returned, meetings missed or late arriving, all without so much as a word to recognize the impact on those affected by their actions. In short – they are not their word.

If you’ve pushed through to this point but seen all of this as a morale judgment or preaching on my part, let me just say that it was intended as neither. But it is important to remember that as leaders, what we say matters, people are counting on us, and if you are willing to continuously evaluate your leadership, then in this case, it will mean asking yourself if you really mean everything that you say, when you say it, or, are there degrees to which you are your word?

It’s just a question, and no one really knows the answer, except you.

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R E S P E C T

2011-03-21T21:51:00.000-07:00

Aretha Franklin knew what she was talking about, (or, to be more accurate, singing about), when she first belted out the lyrics to her now infamous song; Respect.

I’ll go you one further and suggest that it’s really the issue of mutual respect that makes a difference with the people that we work with, and for that matter, everyone in our lives.

It is somewhat ironic to me that many people walk around perplexed about why they have the challenging relationships that they do with some of the people in their lives, and, instead of looking inward and asking themselves who they are being in that relationship, they look outward, only, at what they perceive is “wrong” with the other person.

I’ve said it repeatedly and I have no doubt that I will continue to reference that I believe, particularly as it relates to the hospitality business, that it’s all about relationships, and if that’s the case, then how can you expect to have a solid relationship with your co-workers, the people who report to you, whomever, if you do not first start with a solid foundation of mutual respect.

It reminds me of a great quote that I came across recently, which said; “putting icing on mud does not make it a cake, it’s still just icing on top of mud,” and that’s like a lot of the relationships that we have with the people in our lives, especially the people that we work with. We don’t get to the real source of knowing, understanding and respecting people, but instead we try to cover it up by pretending or being nice – icing on top of mud.

And don’t be fooled into thinking that you’re fooling anyone – you’re not. Your staff know when you are not being genuine with them, they know when you do not respect them, respect their contribution, and in an ironic twist of fate, as a result, they lose respect for you as a leader.

It’s not unlike the classic golden rule; do unto others as you would have them do unto you, or in other words, treat others as you would want to be treated. It’s a simple and straight forward concept, and yet many people cannot see it.

I was in what would best be described as a coaching conversation the other day with a person in a significant leadership role within a hotel, and he was expressing his frustration to me that, in his opinion, his employees did not respect him, to which I asked him the question; “do you respect them?”

In the conversation that ensued I discovered that his version of respect was based on hierarchy. He was running around with the misguided belief that his employees should respect him because of his position in the company, regardless of his actions and who he was being, and whether or not he respected his employees had no bearing on the situation as far as he was concerned. It served to remind me of how far we have come in the hospitality business, (well, most of us), from the era of; “if I want your opinion I’ll tell you what it is,” to the world that we operate in now, that is respectful of the individual contribution that each and every one of our employees makes when we enable and empower them to be all that they can be.

As I said when I posted my article; Labour Relations – Out With the Old, In With the New, managers, all managers, need to take a new look at the relationships that they have with their employees and remember a few simple facts along the way:

Manage your relationships, all the time, not just when you need them, and,

“People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”

Want to take your relationships to an all new level, make sure that they are built on a foundation of mutual respect, and not icing on top of mud.

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Good Morning, This is Your Wake-Up Call

2011-03-16T21:47:00.000-07:00

The recent events in Japan, resulting from the almost unprecedented 8.9 magnitude earthquake and the tsunami that followed should serve as a wake-up call to hoteliers all over the world.

You could argue that there was nothing more that could have been done to better prepare the hardest hit areas from experiencing the devastation that they have. Earthquakes in Japan are nothing new and as a result, they have implemented a great many technological advancements in this area over the years to protect their people, their businesses and their infrastructure.

But this isn’t about Japan. This is about you and your business, your employees and your guests.

How prepared are you, in the event of a natural (or man-made) disaster? Could you, your employees and your guests survive, without any outside assistance, for 7 days?

It’s a tough question, but I would suggest that it is an important one to ask yourself, and, if you don’t like the answer, to take action, now, to ensure a more positive outcome than you would likely project at this moment.

I am confident that if I polled the major branded hotels in major destinations, they would all have an emergency plan and/or a business continuity plan – I know, because I participated in the exercise and helped to write some of them, but I also know that when we first wrote many of these plans, we identified what we would need, as dedicated emergency supplies, in order to withstand and survive a major disaster situation for 5 – 7 days, and it wasn’t cheap.

That, at the time, created a problem – the cost to adequately stockpile the necessary amounts of bottled water, blankets, flashlights and other essentials was cost prohibitive, and then there was the challenge of identifying a dedicated space to store these supplies, where they would (hopefully) be accessible in the event of a crisis, depending of course, on what that crisis was.

So what was the answer?

In many cases, the answer was to develop a long-term plan to purchase the necessary supplies over time, to offset the costs, as well as identifying and preparing a space to store the supplies, and to develop some sort of policies and procedures to deal with the need to rotate the stock to some degree, to ensure that any of the consumables, along with things like flashlight batteries, were not rendered useless over time.

So what has happened since then?

I would speculate that the honest answer would be; “not much.”

In the face of the economic challenges that seem to have plagued our industry for at least the last decade, I would wager, with considerable confidence, that most, if not all, of the items that were once deemed necessary to survive a crisis, have repeatedly been deferred in favour of more immediate demands on limited funds.

So, what’s the answer?

The answer will vary somewhat from property to property, to some degree, but I would argue that the case needs to be made, now, to hotel owners and/or management companies, while the horrific images coming out of parts of Japan are still fresh in peoples’ minds, that this issue needs to be dealt with, now, because continuing to delay on the necessary emergency preparedness essentials is akin to playing Russian roulette with your business and the lives of your employees and your guests.

Many hotels and/or hotel companies share a common commitment, which manifests itself in the statement that; “the safety and security of our guests and our employees is our #1 priority.”

I believe that’s true, so now it’s time to walk the talk . . .This is your wake-up call . . .

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Fine Dining - The Death of an Era

2011-03-14T22:04:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week the news was all a buzz about 2 major restaurants, owned by renowned chef Daniel Boulud, that announced that they would be closing in the next few weeks.

Daniel, and his partners, were quoted as having blamed the closing on the “perfect storm” of economic factors, which they have been unable to overcome, and certainly I can empathize with restaurant and bar owners who have had to deal with the new HST, and the tougher drinking and driving laws that have recently come into place.

Everyone knows that the profit margins in restaurants are low, and in particular if your restaurant’s food to liquor ratio is quite high. At least if you are serving higher percentages of liquor, beer and wine, you have the benefit of higher yield from beverage sales to at least somewhat offset the low profit margins from food sales, but if the majority of your sales is food, good luck.

The other friend of the successful restaurant is volume. If you can turn the restaurant over two or three times an evening, the majority of the days that you are open, and assuming a decent average check as well, you are doing well.

Regardless, some restaurants will make it, and some will not. As I sited in my previous post; “Opening Soon – Are You Crazy?” 80% of all new restaurants do not survive past their second anniversary, but these two restaurants had several good years under their belt at this point.

I believe that they were doomed to failure for another reason – a failure to adapt from what was “fine dining” to what a truly memorable dining experience has become.

People are no longer looking for white table clothes and fine linen napkins as the definition of the environment of an exceptional dining experience. In fact, I would argue that in many, many cases, the sight of an overly formal “dining room” can be enough for people to turn around and promptly exit stage left in search of an alternative location. Who hasn’t been turned off by finding themselves in an overly formal room, where you feel like you need to be in a suit and tie and that whispering is the only form of acceptable conversation over dinner. The serving staff looks like they have just come from the opera and everything about the restaurant screams pretentious.

What people are looking for are any one of a number of variations of a simple common theme; good, fresh local ingredients, prepared and presented in a unique and captivating manner by knowledgeable and friendly staff, highlighting and celebrating the region where the restaurant is located. Sure, the setting plays a role, but not one of pretentiousness, but rather a clean, warm and inviting room where people feel truly welcome and comfortable to settle in for a while, to enjoy the company of their friends and family in an environment where the food is the star, not the room. It’s about the experience.

That’s the formula for sustainable success in the restaurant business today. The time for table clothes and stuffy rooms where you feel like you need to pass a social status test in order to enter is over. Special occasion restaurants, as many of these tend to be, are not sustainable. If it takes an anniversary or other special occasion, for everyone to feel the need to dress up to go out for dinner, that won’t be enough to keep people coming through the doors, and your days are numbered.

Fail to adapt and you face extinction.

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Leadership, Even When No One is Watching

2011-03-09T21:49:00.000-08:00

I’ve just returned from what could best be described as a leadership conference, where people from Western Canada and the Pacific Northwest of the United States met for 3 days to discuss a multitude of leadership issues – to expand our thinking, challenge our preconceived notions of what it means to be an effective leader, and in the process, develop ourselves to be better leaders as a result.

This conference wasn’t singularly about leadership as it applies to business, and as such, there were leaders in the room from every walk of life, with a wide variety of interests, but all of us were clearly focused on the common traits of great leaders, and what it takes to lead a life committed to leadership, and in doing so, to change the world, one person at a time.

One of the themes that we spent some time on over the weekend struck a particular chord with me.

We’ve all heard the expression; “do the right thing, even when no one is watching,” in one setting or another at some point in our lives, but what we spent some time talking about this weekend was the need to “be the great leader that you are, (or are aspiring to be), even when no one is watching.”

You might think that the leap from “doing the right thing even when no one is watching” to “being the great leader that you are, even when no one is watching,” is not a leap at all, but a given. Surely, someone who is committed to being a great leader would consistently do the right thing, even when no one is watching, but what I’m asking you to ask yourself, as we did this weekend, is; are you being the great leader that you are, in every facet of your life, all of the time?

As an example, do you demonstrate your commitment to leadership, and what it means to be a great leader, to your children? Do they know you as a great leader?

Take the morality out of what you’re thinking right now, this isn’t about right and wrong and teaching your children the important differences.

THIS, is about who you are, who you are being in life, and how you choose to approach your life. Are you standing as a leader in your life, or, like many people, are there times when you turn your leadership on and off, choosing instead at times to take a back seat, let life unfold and “see how it goes,” leaving it instead for others to take the lead.

I found it to be an interesting question, one worth spending some time on, and I encourage you to do the same.

For me, it brought a whole new meaning to the expression; leading by example.

Leadership is a life-long learning and the path to mastery lies in the questions and our ability to be open to experience new things, challenge ourselves, and allow ourselves to be challenged by others, and in the process to continue to learn and grow.

What kind of leader are you, even when no one is watching?

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What We Can All Learn About Leadership From an 18 Month Old

2011-03-07T21:49:00.000-08:00

I went out to visit my long time best friend, Richard, at his new house on the weekend. He had just recently moved there with his wife Alison and his two children; Lauren, who is 4 years old, and Justin, who is 18 months old.

When I arrived, I was greeted by my friend and we chatted briefly at the door, at which point Richard looked at his son Justin, who was cradled in the safety of his father’s arms, and said; “can you say hi to Uncle Dale?”

Justin’s response; “why?”

Sensing an opportunity for some fun banter with Justin, I launched into a conversation with him that went something like this . . .

Dale: “Why, because I came all the way out here to see you and your sister, your Dad and your Mom.”

Justin: “Why?”

Dale: “Because I like your Mom and Dad, and I think you and your sister are pretty cool too, so I thought I’d come out to see you.”

Justin: “Why?”

Dale: “Because your Dad told me he’d feed me if I came out to see you.”

Justin: “Why?”

Dale: “Because he knew I wouldn’t drive all this way if he didn’t bribe me with food and wine, lots of wine.”

And so our conversation went for about another 10 minutes with me trying to think of ever increasingly creative answers to his single continued response to everything that I said, which you might have guessed was “why?”

On my drive home later I was reflecting on my conversation with Justin and it reminded me of the power of that question; why?

All too often, and even when time does permit, decisions are made, action is taken, without anyone ever asking the question, why? Why is THIS the right decision? Why is THIS the right course of action?

I was telling my friend Richard that I was going to write this article, based on my conversation with his son, and after we had been speaking for a while, he told me that one of the best managers that he ever worked for, early in his career, used to ask him why all the time. He told he that at first he resented the fact that she always seemed to be questioning his decisions, but then he realized that by asking him why, she was creating an environment where she was making sure that he had the proper background for his proposals and such, and as a result, when he had to brief a member of the government on a sensitive issue, (which he needed to do regularly), he was exceedingly knowledgeable on the topic, which always led to a positive outcome because he had done his homework. He had made sure that he could answer the question of why, even when it was never asked. He felt that this in turn had contributed to making him a better manager.

For me, it is always important to ask why, but perhaps in particular when it comes to decisions that are made on a repetitive basis, almost as a reflex. You know the type. An issue comes up and everyone immediately says “this is what we need to do,” and when you ask why, the automatic reflex again is for everyone to say; “because this is what we always do.” That, in my opinion, is one of the most important times to ask why, to challenge the status quo. Maybe the answer is to do the same thing as you have done the last few times that this issue has arisen, but maybe it’s not. Maybe this is just the easiest, most convenient way to handle the situation without making waves.

When I work with the hospitality students that I mentor, I make it a habit to ask them why, to challenge their assumptions, all the time, and I have spent the time to explain the importance of that question to them, and how they, as the future of our industry, must challenge the status quo, and overcome the question of why in order to take the hospitality business to the next level and to be effective leaders.

We can all benefit from asking why more often, from challenging the status quo.

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The Evolution of “Human Resources” (Surrounding Yourself with the Best)

2011-03-02T21:48:00.000-08:00

Many things have changed since I first entered the hotel business, now over 25 years ago, and many roles within the industry have also changed, as a result of the evolution of our business, and perhaps most significantly, the evolution of our workforce.

I can certainly recall with great clarity the shifts that I have seen over the years as I have been in various discussions and meetings over the years, where we have been discussing how to work with baby boomers, gen x’ers, gen y’s, as well as having witnessed the shift in the employee’s mentality and what was and is important to them in an employer. This too has changed dramatically over the years, and then there are the unions, or lack thereof, depending on where you are in the world.

This and many other factors has contributed to the shift in what it means to be an effective Director of Human Resources in today’s hotel business, although I would argue that the fundamentals have largely remained unchanged – look after your employees, and they will look after the guests.

Still, the role has changed, there is no argument. Our human resource professionals have had to evolve to keep pace with the changing needs, and the changing demographics, of our employees. A director of human resources who once spent a good deal of his or her time managing benefits and organizing the occasional staff recognition event or party and concentrating on managing the flow of paperwork in support of progressive discipline, now spends his or her time largely functioning in a capacity that I call relationship management. It is, in my opinion, the future of human resources, and our industry.

Sure, benefits administration is still important, as are employee recognition events, but far more important is the responsibility to manage the relationships within the hotel in pursuit of a truly harmonious environment where employees feel valued and appreciated, and as a result, they in turn deliver the highest level of service to our guests, while providing unconditional support to each other.

This takes a commitment from everyone in a leadership capacity, and it could be argued that it is equally incumbent on all of the members of the leadership team to work to achieve this goal, and I would agree. That said, I also believe, in as much as we surround ourselves with “experts” and “champions” in different roles and with different responsibilities, that it is ultimately the responsibility of the director of human resources to champion this cause and ensure in doing so, that it is indeed a key focus of all of the members of the leadership team – without exception.

That takes a special person, a person who must be confident in their role, they must know that they have the support of the general manager, and everyone on the leadership team for that matter, to hold the general manager and others accountable when he or she sees something that deviates from their path, something that threatens the very relationships that are the foundation of their commitment to their employees, and to each other.

The director of human resources was always an important member of a successful team, but perhaps now more than ever before in the evolution of the hotel business, it is imperative that you have the right person in this role in your hotel, and, that they be given the support that they need to fulfill on the obligation to maintain a harmonious environment where employees can flourish and relationship management is a top priority.

At the end of the day, this is the service industry and certainly one of the most important groups to focus on providing the highest level of service to is our employees. Take care of your employees and they’ll take care of your guests. It’s all about relationships.

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Beware of Cheerleaders

2011-02-28T23:08:00.000-08:00

Have you ever worked with a cheerleader?

They’re very clever, and if you can’t bring them back to reality, they can be very difficult to get rid of, because everyone loves them, and if they’re really clever, they can deflect all of their shortcomings on to their immediate manager or general manager, so no one necessarily realizes that they are a cheerleader.

Cheerleaders hide their inadequacies by being overwhelmingly positive. Staff initially love them because they are so friendly, so positive, and they appear to be so supportive of staff issues and/or concerns.

Unfortunately, they cannot deliver the bad news, they cannot hold people accountable, and as a result they are ineffective as managers or leaders, and they get almost nothing done, or at least nothing of any substance.

Sometimes the staff will figure things out, given enough time, and, depending on the team dynamics of the rest of the leadership team. They will come to see that this person is indeed very positive, empathetic, etc., but the same issues have been raised repeatedly and nothing has changed, nothing is being done to resolve the problem.

I’ve worked with two cheerleaders in my career and in both cases I spent a disproportionate amount of time managing these two people, each of which were division heads within their respective hotels. They never got things done on time, and they were always ready with a series of excuses and reasons to validate why they could not accomplish what everyone else on the team could.

And because, as I said earlier, they are incapable of delivering the bad news or providing constructive criticism or discipline, I had to repeatedly follow up on issues that would arise with their staff members, which they in turn would fail to follow up on, repeatedly, again offering reasons why it “wasn’t the right time” or other excuses, to the point where I had to get directly involved, or, insist that HR get involved to “help” these senior managers to have what should have been a simple conversation with a staff member or manager who was not performing to an appropriate level.

Another symptom of the cheerleader is that everyone who reports to them has a perfect performance review – there is nothing that his or her team members need to improve upon, they are all 10 out of 10, and as I already referenced, often, when someone else needs to step in to bring a little reality to the situation, they are seen as the devil, because of course, until they came along, everything was perfect.

Ironically, the cheerleaders see nothing wrong in their behavior or their tactics. When confronted with the observation that their department is in fact performing increasingly poorly, as a result of poor performers being tolerated and star performers becoming increasingly disillusioned because sub-performers are not being dealt with, and they can see the decline in standards and service, the move towards managing to the lowest common denominator, and they want no part of it, the cheerleader is perplexed and in a state of denial. How can this be?

Things are great, until they’re not, so don’t be fooled by the cheerleader. Not to suggest that every manager who gets along with their staff is a cheerleader, hardly, but it’s about balance, so watch for the signs and make sure that the members of your leadership team possess the necessary skill-set to provide balanced leadership to their teams.

There’s a reason cheerleaders are often found on the side lines, instead of “in the game.” They are fun and entertaining, but do they influence the outcome of the game? I think not.

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Leadership Team Dynamics

2011-02-23T21:45:00.000-08:00

We strive, as leaders, to surround ourselves with the right people – people who challenge us to be our best, people that we can equally challenge to be their best, and when it all comes together in perfect harmony, we have a great leadership team – a team that can consistently achieve exceptional results.

If I was to ask 100 people what they think makes for a strong and successful team, I would likely get 100 different responses, with some common themes or overlap in some instances, but it is safe to say, everyone has their own opinion, which I would suggest is largely based on their individual personality traits and the kinds of people that they enjoy working with. Fair enough.

While I would not try to prescribe the “right” team dynamics that should be present in every leadership team, I would like to suggest two things worthy of your consideration in this regard.

First, make the effort to actually know what the various traits or attributes are that each of your leadership team members possesses, and then share them openly with each other for the benefit of the team. Whether it’s Myers Briggs, establishing your “colours,” or other similar “tests” that you and your team members can cost-effectively take to establish what makes you and them tick, it is a worthwhile exercise in my opinion.

Understanding the kind of person that you are, the kind of people that you like to work with, what motivates you and what motivates your team members, and ultimately your teams’ dynamics, is access to creating a high performing team.

Sharing these results, recognizing and celebrating the differences among your team members – who excels in a particular area, and who does not, can create a powerful format for creating prolonged successful results. When team members come to realize that they are not expected to be experts in everything, and that they can rely on their team members to offset their shortcomings in certain areas, as they can count equally on them in areas where they may be lacking, amazing things are possible, driven by the strength and the vulnerability of the team.

Second, a certain amount of conflict is good.

I have come into situations before and asked the question; “how does everyone on the leadership team get along?” And when someone tells me as a result that everyone always gets along famously, no disagreements, no debates or arguments, my radar goes off. Not that I think that the leadership team should be at each other’s throats, but I do think that if the team is too worried about getting along, too worried about rocking the boat or offending a team member by challenging an idea or an observation, then that team is limited in their ability to maximize on their effectiveness as a team.

As it often is in our business, it’s about balance. It’s about being comfortable to respectfully challenge the GM when he presents a new idea, and vice versa. It’s about creating the best outcomes possible, by openly looking at things from all sides and embracing the differences in our team members, which is likely why we hired them in the first place. It’s about openly recognizing that we are better, more effective, more unified, when we work as a team with a common goal or objective in mind.

However, there must also be agreement in this open environment that while there is an opportunity for everyone to have an opinion on the subject, and while everyone may not be in agreement, once the decision is made, everyone on the team must leave their differences in that room and put on a unified front. It is imperative that the team is seen to be unified in their commitment to each other, and to the principles and values that are the very foundation of the property. Unconditional support.

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Sorry, I Couldn't be Bothered to Shave Today

2011-02-21T22:10:00.000-08:00

What else am I supposed to think when I walk into a business and run into a staff member, or worse, a manager, who is sprouting a two day growth on his face?

I can’t wait for the trend of men not shaving and not wearing neck ties in business settings to end.

I’m tired of walking into various businesses and seeing people who look like they might just as well have just rolled out of bed moments before their shift started standing behind the counter waiting to serve customers.

And I love my Son, but he is currently one of “them.” Granted, he works in a major electronics store, which arguably is trying to appear cool and trendy, and appeal to the younger, cooler, trendier people who have an insatiable appetite for the latest technology, and are willing to spend the necessary cash to get the latest toys. Understandably, they want to purchase from people who look like they do. I get that, but nonetheless, I have seen my Son when he is just finishing up a shift, wearing his wrinkled clothes, his pants down around his ankles, his multiple tattoos exposed, his hair a mess and two days growth on his face, and I’ve asked him; “Your manager is okay that you look like this?” “Oh yeah, it’s all good” he tells me, and I shake my head in disbelief.

There’s a new BMO bank that just opened in my neighbourhood, and they too are trying to make their mark. They are open longer hours, into the evening, and they are also open on Saturdays and Sundays. Nice, and convenient, no argument from me, from they are the embodiment of what I am whining about at this precise moment. Everyone that I have seen that works in this bank is younger, attractive, and dressed in the latest fashions – it’s like the “W” of banks. Okay, good so far. However, I have also noticed that the men who work in this bank regularly do not shave, opting instead for the rugged look, and it is here that I have a problem. I don’t think it looks professional when the bank manager looks like he couldn’t have been bothered to shave this morning, using the extra time for another cup of coffee before he left for work instead – not cool.

In hotels, I will confess that I haven’t seen much of the unshaven look in my travels, although I have seen it. What has been more prevalent is the trend of “dressing down” with managers not necessarily wearing suits where we might have traditionally seen them in the past, or, not wearing neck ties with their suits, in an attempt to up their cool factor, and I’m sure there are people who do like it, I’m just not one of them. If I’m paying in excess of $200.00 - $500.00 a night at a leading hotel, I want to see professionalism, everywhere I look, including in the attire of the staff and managers at the hotel.

When I was overseeing a Renaissance hotel for an owner a couple of years ago now, I started to notice that the general manager, and subsequently his department heads, was frequently not wearing a tie when I popped into the hotel, and he was also wearing a lot more trendy colours, and when I asked him what was going on, he told me that Renaissance was in the process of updating their brand image, and in so doing, adopting a more business casual approach to dress for the management – in short, they were trying to be more “W” in their new image.

No disrespect meant to this particular GM, because he did look good, but I still felt that he did not look as professional as he would if he chose to dress exactly the same, but add a coordinating neck tie to finish things off. This is business and at the heart of business is professionalism, and while I would agree that there are plenty of people who look professional but certainly are not, I still also believe in first impressions, and to make the most of that first impression, let’s make the effort to dress up a little.

It reminds me a little bit of how annoyed I get every time I see Larry King dressing like he’s 20 years old. Come on Larry, the time has long since passed when you can pull off wearing a pair of baggy jeans, a tie dyed t-shirt and a pair of skater shoes. It just screams of “trying too hard to look cool.” If you’re not careful, you’re going to trip on the laces of your cool shoes, fall and break a hip.

As for the rest of us, let’s agree to make the effort to dress professionally and represent our industry as the example of what to wear to make the right impression and to demonstrate our commitment to the highest level of professionalism.

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Cleanliness – Is There Anything More Important?

2011-02-17T21:59:00.000-08:00

Cleanliness, directly, or indirectly, comes up every day in our business, and it’s not surprising. Is there anything more fundamentally important to our guests than cleanliness?

In my recent post; “Hotel Fundamentals . . . Since the Beginning of Time,” it didn’t make the list, as I chose to speak about the key components that I believe that everyone is looking for in a hotel experience, but in hindsight, it would be fair to say that I missed an underpinning value, or assumption on the part of the client, that you could argue is on the top of the list of requirements or expectations of our guests – all of our guests.

Look at how much coverage the recent top 10 dirtiest hotels in America list, as identified by Trip Advisor, has seen in the last few weeks, since it was first publicized, and of course the topic of bed bugs seems to come up again and again, just when it seems to be fading to the background.

It is somewhat unfortunate, and unfair, that some hotels that have found themselves at the source of bed bug stories have been labelled as “unclean” as a result, especially when you consider that the issue of bed bugs is completely out of the hands of the hotelier, and NOT necessarily a factor of their commitment to cleanliness. You can have the cleanest hotel in the world one moment, and be seen as “unclean” moments later, based on some unsuspecting guest having brought bed bugs into your hotel, riding in their luggage.

That said, hotels can and must at this point, have a detailed and extensive inspection program in place to compliment their commitment to cleanliness.

And it’s not enough to have clean guest rooms and public spaces if the back, or heart of the house, is not of equal importance to you, when it comes to the topic of cleanliness.

I can still remember, many years ago when I was working as a department manager within a hotel, when my General Manager had a conversation with me about cleanliness that has stuck with me for the rest of my career.

I found myself at a property where there had been a consider lack of funds injected into the property for some time, and when money was made available to address any shortcomings, the emphasis was always on the front of the house, areas where the guests would access and could easily see if things were unclean and/or in a state of disrepair. As a result, the team at the hotel had become somewhat resigned to the fact that the heart of the house did not reflect the same level of the commitment to cleanliness as did the front of the house.

It was shortly after the new General Manager arrived and I was touring him around the property that he shared his simple but profound philosophy with me on the subject of cleanliness and the importance of an equal emphasis on cleanliness or the front AND heart of the house.

How, he asked me, can we expect the employees to feel proud of what they do if we are not equally proud of our surroundings? How, can we expect the employees to believe in our commitment to cleanliness, (on behalf of our guests), when our commitment is not evident within our own areas and in how they are treated? We cannot expect our employees to flip a switch whenever they cross from the heart of the house to the front of the house and suddenly start to care about cleanliness, simply as a result of having crossed that threshold.

We met regularly after that as we crafted a plan to address every area of the heart of the house and raise the standard of cleanliness with the intent of achieving a level of cleanliness that rivalled a hospital corridor, and once achieved, to maintain that level of cleanliness, all on a cost-effective basis.

It was one of the projects that I am most proud of in my career, as we worked to raise the standards for our employees, and, as I saw the definitive difference in the attitude of our employees as they saw that we clearly valued them, and in so doing, were committed to providing them with a work environment that reflected that value and commitment.

You could feel the level of pride and engagement rising up, and our guest service scores reflected that pride and steadily rose as well, as did our revenue stream. It was one the earliest and most memorable demonstrations that I witnessed of the positive impact of treating your employees with a level of respect and value that you would readily provide to your guests, and seeing the positive results that follow when that becomes a commitment within your organization.

The other thing that I would have to credit this General Manager for teaching me along the way was the ability to get a lot done with a little money, depending on how you get things done, and that a shortage of funds does not necessarily need to dictate your surroundings. He was very creative about ways to make an impact that our employees could see and value that didn’t necessarily costs a lot, but they produced results far in excess of what little they did cost.

Not surprisingly, he went on to greater leadership roles within that company and helped to raise the level of standards throughout the company as a result.

Is your hotel as clean as it should be, in both the front AND heart of the house?

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Vandalism - Who Can Understand It?

2011-02-16T21:39:00.000-08:00

When I was about 18 years old, I spent the better part of a year building a 1965 Chevelle SS to the point where it would draw attention whenever I drove it, or parked it somewhere. Black with a white interior and lots of bells and whistles under the hood. It doesn’t compare to the hot rods that they build today, but to me, it was something special, and I can still remember how I felt the first time that I returned to my car after having carefully parked it on the street for a few hours, to find that someone had run a key all the way down one side of the car.

Why? How could someone possibly benefit from this action? (With the exception of the paint shop that touched that car up for me on more than one occasion).

I didn’t understand it then, and I don’t understand it any better now.

Fast forward to today – I’m out for my usual morning run, which takes me through my neighbourhood and past a new little shopping plaza with about a dozen little shops in it that opened about 6 months ago now. In an effort to make the little plaza more inviting and attractive, the owner has installed a few park benches so people can stop and rest for a moment, and they also have about 10 large decorative ceramic plant pots along the exterior walkway, with a nice selection of seasonal plants in them – well, not anymore.

Today when I ran by the little plaza there were only remnants of plants and plant pots, as the plant pots had been smashed into a hundred pieces, with dirt and rocks and plants and assorted pieces of the plant pots scattered for 2 blocks. Why?

After my initial shock and disappointment, I found myself wondering as I continued my run, what would be going through the owner’s head, when he discovered what had happened. Clearly, they could have avoided this problem if they had left the exterior walkway a barren landscape of concrete, but they chose to make the effort, at considerable expense no doubt, to try to enhance the area, to contribute to the neighbourhood.

I will be interested to see, in the coming days, whether or not the owner decides to replace the plants and decorative plant pots again, now that they know what could happen. It’s a shame and at least to some degree it answers the question of who benefits from vandalism – no one, we all lose.

It’s also why I have always made it crystal clear to all of my employees that I will not tolerate vandalism in my hotels. It is unacceptable.

Vandalism in hotels demonstrates a lack of respect for the owner, for the brand, for the hotel itself, and perhaps worst of all, a lack of respect to fellow employees.

I had the unfortunate circumstance once to be faced with a situation where we had an employee who was smearing human feces on the walls in the men’s employee change room. Other employees were appalled and wanted this vandal caught as badly as I did. They were as disgusted as I was and felt as I did, that this person had no business in our hotel, no business being a member of our “team” if he could behave this way. Perhaps most upset was the night cleaner who came upon this situation on several occasions before the person was caught, which he was.

It took about a week to narrow things down to determine when this was happening, who was on shift at the time on the various days when it occurred, and then, once we knew that, we started scanning the security camera footage for the dates and times when we believed it had happened to see who was coming and going from the men’s change room during those times.

That was the ironic thing, for our employees’ safety, we had cameras in the back corridor leading to and from the staff change rooms, in order to ensure that no one got in from the street, etc., got down that hallway, and possibly entered one of our staff change rooms, and everyone knew we had cameras in that hallway. That didn’t deter our vandal and the next time that he was on shift we monitored the cameras until he went into the change room, and we gave him a few minutes to incriminate himself, and sure enough, he did so.

I probably don’t need to tell you that we fired him. Once confronted, he confessed. Why had he done it you may be wondering? He was upset with his manager about what he felt was a less than favourable performance review he had received. But, had he said anything to anyone? No, not his immediate manager, not the Director of HR, and not to me. He decided instead to take his anger out through vandalism, and where did that get him?

It’s a shame and as I said earlier, it at least to some degree answers the question of who benefits from vandalism – no one, we all lose.

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Social Media - The Wild Wild West

2011-02-09T22:11:00.000-08:00

You can’t go to a hospitality industry meeting or get into a conversation with someone else in the hotel business these days without the topic of “social media” coming up, and specifically, the seemingly unlimited power and influence of social media.

It was in just such a luncheon meeting earlier this week that I found myself referring to the current state of social media as the wild wild west, and the more I thought about it, the more it resonated with me. Here’s my point:

In the old west, before the law came to town, you might have an incident where Billy Bob believed that Billy Joe had done something wrong, something that deserved punishment. Armed with nothing else but his belief that Billy Joe had done something wrong, he would go and tell everyone in town that he knew, but of course when he told the story, he told it as a point of fact – he knew that Billy Joe had done this awful thing and now it was time for him to be punished, and before long there would be a mob intent on punishing Billy Joe for his crimes – let’s hang em!

Armed with a rope and on a mission, the towns’ folk would band together and hunt down Billy Joe intent on hanging him. And as they dragged Billy Joe off to find a good hangin’ tree, he would be pleading for his life, professing his innocence, possibly even providing a good argument for why the accusations could indeed be false, but his pleas would fall on deaf ears.

Why couldn’t they hear whatever Billy Joe was saying? Two over-riding reasons:

1. The mob mentality that he must be guilty, everything he is accused of must be true. Why? Because all these people said so, and they couldn’t all be wrong – ergo it must be true.

2. Then there’s the classic; of course he says he’s innocent, he doesn’t want us to hang him. He’s screaming so loud about being innocent, he must be guilty.

Guilty until proven innocent, only there was a catch, you didn’t even have the opportunity to prove your innocence. A no win situation.

Of course, after hanging enough innocent men and with the advent of bringing law and order into these frontier towns, people came to see that there may be a need for a process in order to more accurately punish the guilty, and not the innocent.

Fast forward to today, and the circumstances are eerily similar.

Someone, right or wrong, makes an accusation that they believe to be true, and they write and post a review, because they want others to know what they experienced. (Indirectly, although in some cases they would dispute my accusation, they want the topic of their review punished, they may not actively think about it, but they have to know what the potential outcome could be).

Now, their review gets posted to Trip Advisor, they tweet it out, they put it on Face Book, and in the blink of an eye it goes viral – everyone is reading it, and everyone believes it to be true. (And maybe it is, but that isn’t the point – or at least, it isn’t my point).

The hotelier in question can write a rebuttal, but let’s face it, everyone expects him or her to do so, so again, depending on how detailed the accusation, and how compelling the rebuttal, the hotel probably has a 50/50 chance of convincing people that the original accusation is without foundation, but again, the damage is done – the story is out there, and because it’s on the web, it’s potentially out there forever.

I’m not a fan of “big brother”, nor am I one to want to attempt to restrict free speech, and I wouldn’t even begin to speculate on how to regulate these comments on the internet.

So why write this at all?

Because it reinforces my point that I previously made about the need for hotels to develop a social media strategy, now. If you want to be ahead of the curve and not a casualty, you need to develop a strategy to deal with social media, now, and then dedicate the necessary resources to effectively implement your strategy.

This is no different than crisis management and the need to have an effective crisis management plan in place before the crisis hits, not after. Many businesses suffered the consequences when they put off the development of their crisis plan and found themselves standing in front of the media with their pants around their ankles, because they foolishly believed it couldn’t happen to them, and guess what – it did.

The power of the web is infinite. Doesn’t that sound like something worthy of your attention?

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People Don’t Know How to Write Anymore

2011-02-07T22:01:00.000-08:00

It’s true, peoples’ ability to write, properly, is diminishing by the day, partly because people don’t write as much as they used to, and partly because of peoples’ reliance on technology such as spell check.

When is the last time you got a hand written thank you card? You probably can’t remember because it has been so long. People just don’t take the time anymore, which is one of the reasons that I make a point of sending out hand written thank you cards – because people instinctively know that it took some time and effort in order to select, write and then mail (you remember mail) a thank you card, and as a result, they are touched by the gesture. But I digress . . .

I’m big on delegating and really empowering the people that I work with. I believe that you have to trust people, give them support and encouragement, and let them make mistakes and on occasion, experience failure.

But along the way, I also learned that a lot of people do not know how to spell or put a sentence together in a way that makes sense, and as a result, I became known as somewhat of an unofficial editor in the last few positions that I have held. And while I find it tedious to proof read an entire guest directory from cover to cover as an example, I am happy to do so if it means that the finished product does not contain spelling errors, and is, as a result, a more accurate reflection of our commitment to attention to detail.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t consider myself one of the great writers of all time or anything – I’m sure professionals would have a field day with my run on sentences and great love of the comma, but I also know that if I need to put together a strategic plan, a business plan, or a marketing plan as an example, I can pull together the right content to make a compelling read, one that will create the right vision and pull you in to where I want you to go. And sure, I’ll use spell check, but what’s more important, and much more valuable, I’ll proof read my final copy several times before it goes out, and I’ll get someone else to proof read it as well, because I know that sometimes we can’t see our own errors.

I could be wrong but I think it’s got to do with pride, I take pride in everything that I do and I see everything that I do as an extension of myself, a reflection, and I don’t think that a lot of other people necessarily think that way.

Sure, other people take pride in what they do, but I think they also think some things are just more important than others, which in one sense is true, but as it relates to the reflection on themselves, it is not.

If you send me a report or a proposal and it is littered with spelling errors and sentences that don’t make any sense, then I assume that you didn’t think that this project was important, or certainly not as important as some other things you may have been working on. And, if you didn’t think it was important, how compelled should I be with your findings, your argument, and how confident should I be in the calculations that you provided?

Company web sites are no exception and I frequently find errors in content, spelling, and in some cases, sentences that just stop in the middle of a point with no clear conclusion.

And don’t even get me started on cover letters. Am I really supposed to think that you really want to work at my hotel when you couldn’t be bothered to spell my name correctly, or the name of the hotel? And that was just in the opening paragraph – it got worse from there.

What we say is a reflection of who we are, who we really are, and what we put out there in the world for others to see is no less of a reflection of who we are and what is really important to us – perhaps more so, because what we put out there in print, especially with the implications of technology, now has the potential to be out there for a long time.

Bottom line – regardless of technology, if you are committed to walking the talk, then that should be reflected in everything that you do.

Take pride in everything that you do, and set the right example for your team members to emulate.

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Mini Bars - Major Problem

2011-02-02T22:11:00.000-08:00

I checked into a 4.5 star hotel not long ago and was surprised to be handed a key to the mini bar along with my room keys, as part of my check-in package.

It struck me as odd, with all the advances that we have made in so many areas of the hotel business to think that there is still a place for these dinosaurs in a hotel.

Then, as I was proceeding to my room, I thought, well maybe what they have done is taken the mini bars that they already had and they have re-stocked them, to reflect the more health conscious traveller, taking advantage of the fact that they had these mini bars anyway, so why not appeal to the healthier traveller with some more up to date offerings. No such luck.

Imagine my surprise when I popped open the mini bar door and found what I might just as easily have found 15 years ago – miniatures of scotch, gin, vodka and so on. Really?

I could not help but wonder why anyone would want to have mini bars in their hotels anymore? (Or why they ever did for that matter). They have never been money makers, not with all of the associated labour required to stock and re-stock them, as well as the challenge of keeping stock fresh and properly rotated.

And then there’s the issue of theft – guest and employee.

As sad as it is, there have been instances where employees have been caught drinking from mini bars and replacing their consumption with water.

And guests, who either take out a vodka or a gin, drink it and refill it with water, the oldest trick in the book, or they simply dispute that they drank anything, accusing the hotel of not having properly checked and re-stocked the bar after the last check out, which unfortunately, also happened on occasion.

In short, mini bars are just more trouble than they’re worth.

When I was a front office manager many years ago, I hated mini bars for a number of reasons. I hated them for the extra labour we spent posting, re-posting and correcting charges, when we could have been spending that time with our guests, enhancing the service experience. And I hated them for what they did to our impact on guests’ experiences, when we presented an otherwise happy guest with a copy of their bill to view before settlement, and they got upset about the mini bar charge on their account that they were adamant was not theirs. We would apologize and remove the charge of course, but the damage was done – many guests thought this was some attempted cash grab and would get very upset.

And then there were the calls to dispute charges applied to guests’ accounts after they had checked out. Holy molie was this group ever upset. How dare we charge something to their credit card without their permission, I’ll never stay there again, and on and on. I’m sure we must have rebated a full 80% or more of the late charges that we applied to guests credit cards, and every time we did so, we negatively impacted our guest satisfaction scores.

The fully automated systems worked better, but they were of course significantly more expensive to purchase and install, and they weren’t fool proof either.

Guests would remove a bottle or something for some reason, then put it back in the fridge and not realize that these programmable vending-type mini bars had automatically processed a charge onto their account when they first removed the bottle, not until they went to check out anyway.

Or one of my favourites, people travelling with a baby or other small children who would remove all of the contents from the mini bar, in order to use the mini bar as a fridge, and then just about have another baby on the spot, when they went to check out and saw that they had a $250.00 mini bar bill.

Given all of this, and the many other negative impacts that I have left out, why would anyone still want to have “traditional” mini bars in their hotels?

Is there really any place for the traditional mini bar in today’s hotel and the hotels of the future? I think not.

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Concierges – The Ambassadors of Exceptional Guest Service

2011-01-31T21:59:00.000-08:00

Is there anything more fabulous than arriving at a hotel and looking across the lobby and spotting the concierge, or better yet, checking in on the exclusive club floor and finding yourself in concierge heaven?

A great concierge is worth their weight in gold, and I have had the pleasure of working with some great concierges, but I have my favourites, it’s just true. I think they know who they are but nonetheless I’ll tell you who they are; Alison, Anita, Tracy, Matt, Rick and Stacey. I’m skipping the last names and locations because I don’t know how they feel about being listed on my greatest concierges of all time honour roll, but I want them to know how much I think of them when they read this post, because they were my inspiration for this post.

Truth is, someone else also provided inspiration for this post as well – Cinderella. Yup, I said Cinderella, or more specifically, her “fairy godmother,” who clearly was, a concierge.

Think about it, who else is going to be able to hook you up with a ball gown, hair and make-up, the perfect shoes and a horse and carriage, with less than 24 hours notice? Clearly, the woman was a concierge, and like so many other concierges she had spent the time to get to know her city inside and out, and she had built relationships with the many business people in her community so that when the occasion called for it, she could reach out and find everything that Cinderella needed, and make it appear like magic, and, as so many concierges do, without it appearing to require any effort whatsoever. I’m telling you, the woman was a concierge.

I love watching the greats do their thing, and what I loved about all of the people on my greatest concierges of all time honour roll was the genuine joy and enthusiasm that they brought to their work, each and every day. These people really embodied what it means to be a concierge – there was no challenge too great, and no task so small as not to warrant their full effort and attention. If we could clone them, we would have the first hotel with a 100% satisfaction rating, and likely, the highest level of repeat guests, ever.

It’s one of the many reasons that I have been a long time supporter of Les Clefs d’Or here in Canada, an International society of hotel concierges whose aim as an organization is to facilitate the exchange of ideas between their members and to provide mutual assistance in order to better serve our valued guests.

Members of Les Clefs d’Or are easily recognized by the gold keys that they wear. The golden keys worn by concierges signify their membership in Les Clefs d’Or and are granted exclusively to those who have not only consistently demonstrated an unsurpassed knowledge of their respective communities, but by those who demand excellence of themselves when meeting the needs of their guests.

And while I respect that there are many ways to provide service, and that there are many stand-outs, regardless of the fact that they may not be concierges, what I love about the concierge position, as such, is that the position is solely and exclusively there to provide guest service. They are not there to check people in and out, or to otherwise be distracted from their mission – to provide individual, personalized and genuine guest service, and in so doing, to build guest loyalty – and do they ever build guest loyalty.

The stars that I referenced above, on my greatest concierges of all time honour roll, generated the highest volume of positive guest comment cards on an ongoing basis, and repeatedly, the theme was often the same – they had made such a positive impression on the guest that they simply could not imagine staying anywhere else ever again – gold, pure gold.

It will be interesting to see what the future holds for these ambassadors of exceptional guest service.

Certainly, the luxury hotels will continue to embrace the use of concierges as they look to stand out among their competitors, and arguably, those hotels should be generating a sufficiently robust ADR to offset the cost of providing this level of exclusive service, but what about the mid to upper level hotels, where we see concierges now, but where we are also seeing a steady migration toward technology and to “folding in” concierge duties into existing front office positions, assuming that bellmen and GSA’s can provide the same service as a concierge, while saving the cost of having dedicated concierges?

I guess we’ll have to wait and see, but I know, for me, and regardless of any additional star performers in a hotel, I will always be happy to walk into the front doors of a hotel, look across the lobby, and see the warm and inviting smile of the concierge, the ambassadors of exceptional guest service, as they look to ensure that each guests’ stay is truly exceptional.

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The High Cost of Apathy

2011-01-26T21:59:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wondered why turnover in a particular department seems uncharacteristically high, compared to other departments in your hotel?

Or maybe, you’ve been frustrated because you have lost one or more star performers, but for some reason that mediocre employee that everyone seems to be clear is just that, manages to keep his job in spite of what seems like his limited abilities?

Could it be that you have a manager that is committing one of two particular hospitality sins? Is he or she either managing to the lowest common denominator, or, apathetic in the management of their team members? Either one will net you the same affect.

It’s one of the reasons that I like exit interviews.

Granted, employees have to be confident that what they share, in confidence, will indeed be held in confidence after they leave, in order for them to be willing to share, but it’s worth it if you are able to coach departing employees into sharing what’s really going on in their department, and perhaps, why they are really leaving, despite what they may have told their manager, and he in turn told you.

All too often when you scratch beneath the surface you may find that you have a manager that does not hold his employees accountable, or, he doesn’t hold his employees equally accountable, and after a while, those star performers that you were so excited to have on board in the first place, get frustrated with the lack of consistency, or worse, the lack of commitment compared to what they were told when they were hired, and they decide to try their luck elsewhere.

They joined your hotel because of the commitment to service, they read about your company’s values on your web site, they read testimonials from existing employees on your recruitment pages, and then once they were hired, they were subjected to your extensive orientation for new employees, where manager after manager came in and spoke about your unwavering commitment to service.

Then, they landed in their new department, all excited about what they were a part of, and sooner or later they found themselves on a shift paired up with that mediocre employee I referred to earlier, (let’s call him John). They watched as John repeatedly arrived late for his shift, unprepared. They watched as he dispensed the minimum of service requirements to guests who were clearly unimpressed, and most importantly, they watched as they saw that their manager could see these things too, and did nothing. They saw their manager roll his eyes as John fumbled to move a guest who had been sent to a dirty room, and most likely, before becoming so frustrated, and embarrassed by John’s service standards, they approached their manager, probably more than once, to complain.

Unfortunately, their manager likely responded by telling them things like; he’s only a few minutes late, or, there’s nothing I can do (about his lack of service) because I haven’t received any guest complaints, or, he’s always been like that and he’s been here forever, or other responses that clearly demonstrated that their manager either did not know how to hold his employees accountable, or what’s worse, he chose what he perceived as the path of least resistance, an apathetic choice to manage his employees to the lowest common denominator.

It has never ceased to amaze me when managers don’t realize the impact on other employees when they do NOT take the necessary action, to hold sub-performers accountable to the high standards that their company stands for, and that their guests expect, bringing down the whole team as a result.

Employees who are proud and passionate about what they do – the service that they provide to their guests, will not stick around in that environment. They become frustrated and they actively choose to vote with their feet, and it doesn’t end there, not with the technology that we all live with now. They tell all of their friends, on facebook and twitter, their fellow students in hospitality programs, that your hotel may talk about service, but it’s just that, a lot of talk, so if you really want to work at a hotel that is committed to service, don’t work there.

And if you don’t think that impacts your ability, over time, to attract the best and the brightest as they search out ways to make their mark in our industry, you’re kidding yourself.

No one can afford an apathetic manager or a manager that manages his people to the lowest common denominator. It’s like a cancer, it starts out small, it goes unnoticed for a while, then it pops up in one area and before long, if it goes untreated, it spreads to other areas, and left untreated long enough, it will kill your business.

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The Battle for Brand Supremacy

2011-01-24T21:57:00.000-08:00

I think we’re in an era where the value and identity of your brand is going to take on a whole new level of importance, especially as it relates to building and maintaining loyalty amongst your customers.

Contrary to that statement, I do still believe that there is also a large sector of the average consumer segment that, while they may consider brand when choosing a hotel, are much more driven by their quest to achieve the lowest possible rate, the best “deal” when staying at a hotel.

Then, once they are armed with their rate information, they will secondarily look at the brands where they have found the best rates and ask themselves how they perceive the value relative to the brand that they have initially chosen and ultimately make their decision – rate first, brand second.

Let’s put that group of consumers aside for the moment and talk more about the importance of a clearly defined brand identity.

Arguably, there are many, many brands to choose from when selecting a hotel, and the number of choices is continuing to expand as well-established hotel companies create new sub-brands to try to capitalize on changing consumer interests and trends.

That, I believe, in and of itself is part of the problem, as companies are striking out with new sub-brands in pursuit of additional revenue, but perhaps at the potential expense of their previously loyal guests, who felt that they knew what to expect from their brand, and are now concerned that they have taken their eye off of the ball, to chase after the “new” guests, the new shiny pennies. And I would say the same about those hotel owners, who have also put their faith in the brand and are now wondering if they, and their long-term loyalty, are as important to the brand as the new owners that they are chasing after to open the new sub-brand hotels.

It all comes down to focus, consistency, confidence in what you are doing, the path that you have chosen, and then continuing to refine and improve, but doing so from the basis of what you stand for, and continue to stand for, where your brand is concerned, so that you do not lose your loyal guests, those guests that believe in what you’re doing and actively, consciously, choose your brand over the others, again and again.

At the upper end of the brand spectrum, I believe there are a couple of clear winners:

Westin – successfully tapping into our senses . . .

I think Westin has been on to something ever since they rolled out the heavenly bed. That, to me, was the start of something, and clearly they saw it too. Since then they have rolled out the heavenly shower and other heavenly options, and that’s great, but it’s not my point. In and amongst those product introductions, I believe that they came to see something else – the value of focusing on the senses, and that’s what I think they have really excelled at over the last several years, and they continue to do so now.

Some of our strongest memories are triggered by smell for example and whether it’s the different fresh, natural smells that they have permeating through their public spaces, at different times of the day, or the changes in lighting and the addition of simple candles in the latter part of the day and evening, they have got this figured out and they have expanded their focus on the senses, on their customers’ “whole body & mind wellness” into every facet of their business, and people are taking notice.

I see other brands trying to catch up and keep up but that’s exactly what their doing, trying to catch up, to emulate Westins success in this area, instead of focusing their efforts on what matters to their existing customers, trying, unsuccessfully instead, to be all things to all people.

Four Seasons – relentlessly focused on service. . .

One of the things that I love about Four Seasons is that they are very, very clear on their brand identity, and for them it is also about uncompromising service, from beginning to end. Sure, there is much more to any Four Seasons than just great service, but the foundation for everything that they do is still their commitment to service. And their actions are always consistent with that commitment, right down to their choice not to be listed on discount booking sites such as Orbitz, Hotels.com and the like. They are clear that they do not want to be listed as “on sale” or “deeply discounted” and devalue their brand as a result.

They know who they are and what they’re good at, and they’re sticking to it, and for that, they get my vote.

There are other examples of hotel companies that provide great service, but I highlighted Four Seasons because of their unwavering commitment to service as evidenced in their brand identity.

Who do you think will win the battle for brand supremacy? What hotel brand stands out for you?

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Lessons in Leadership, from the NFL

2011-01-19T22:10:00.000-08:00

Like many people, I tuned in to watch the NFL division semi final football games last weekend, and as I watched, I was struck by two particular instances during the games that coincidentally reminded me of two important examples of leadership, or perhaps more accurately, a lack thereof.

The first example came through a series of botched plays, where the commentators were united in their criticism of the player involved for what they described as “taking his eye off of the ball,” (during a hand-off), so that he could look around at where he might run after he received the ball.

To me, it served as a great reminder that we too must constantly keep our eye on the ball, as it relates to our commitment to our brand, to service excellence, to producing exceptional financial results for our owners, and, our commitment to our employees.

We must always ensure that we have a clear focus on what is important in our business, what sets us apart from our competitors and is the basis for our unique selling proposition.

In an industry that is constantly changing and evolving competition is fierce and like our friends in the NFL we risk losing the game if we allow ourselves to be unnecessarily distracted and as a result, take our eye off the ball long enough to create a negative impact, or, an opportunity for one of our competitors to step into the void that we have created and steal share.

I don’t know of anyone who is willing to give up some of their loyal guests to their competitors, so remember, keep your eye on the ball, always.

My second example came much later in the same game when a player was fortunate enough to run into the end zone to score a game changing touch down, taking the lead away from their opponents, with only a few minutes left in the game.

After the player ran into the end zone and the touch down was confirmed, that same player proceeded to run around the field as if he were flying, in a self aggrandizing display in the end-zone at the expense of his team, and the potential outcome of the game as well. Because of his unnecessary display his team was penalized by 15 yards after the next kick off.

In short, he gave his opponents a significant benefit in field position, with only a few minutes left to play in the game. This could very easily have cost his team the game, and their chances to advance to the finals and ultimately to the Super Bowl, and for what? So that he could run around the field showing everyone how great he was.

I actually have two comments here:

First, isn’t this what he gets paid to do, his job if you will? Not that he shouldn’t be proud of his contribution to the teams’ success, but he knew, in prancing around the field for that long, that his team would incur a penalty for his actions that could jeopardize the outcome of the game, and he did it anyway, placing himself above the needs of his team.

Which brings me to my second point, and the oldest cliché of all: there is no “I” in team, something that this individual clearly lost sight of as evidenced by his self aggrandizing display.

This served to remind me of a common trait that I have found among many great leaders.

Leaders see the world through the eyes of others, they recognize that it isn’t about them, and that the more you take self-interest out of the picture and instead do for others, the more you end up benefiting your own interests, in both the short and long term.

Regardless of our position, we all have the opportunity to demonstrate effective and compelling leadership when the opportunity presents itself, to set an example that others will want to emulate.

Ghandi said: Be the change you want to see in the world.

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Energy Management - A Responsibility

2011-01-17T15:57:00.000-08:00

Energy management has been one of the hot topics of the last decade. Tremendous advancements have taken place, which have yielded substantial savings for hotel owners and operators as they have taken advantage of implementing the new technologies, as well as benefiting from grants that many governments offer for conversion and retrofitting of older buildings.

So, imagine my surprise when I toured a hotel, just recently, that was celebrating its one year anniversary, and found virtually no evidence of responsible energy management anywhere in the building.

As we walked through the common areas, I could not help but notice that all of the lighting was out-dated and there was not an energy-efficient light bulb to be seen anywhere. There were, as you might expect, many ornate and elaborate lighting fixtures in the lobby and other common areas, and they were quite striking, but at the same time, I could not help but notice that they all had “old school” light bulbs in them – a sharp contrast to the modern environment I was standing in.

As we moved on, through some of those same common areas and on into the restaurant and bar on the ground floor, I was also struck by how many thermostats that were visible in the areas. It seemed that you could not look around without spotting one every fifty feet or so. Now you could be guilty of initially thinking that is quite a good idea, in order to get a good level of readings throughout the space, instead of one poorly placed thermostat at one end of the room. However, these were not just sending units, providing readings to a central system control. Nope. They were in fact simple individual units throughout the space that each had to be set in order to attempt to get some balance in the space.

When I spoke with a hotel representative, understandably he told me that the heating and cooling system for the hotel was a “nightmare” and that they had to run around and reset dozens of individual thermostats whenever there was a need to increase or decrease the temperature due to weather changes or significant changes in the level of business in the bar or restaurant.

There was, I was told, no central system installed for controlling and effectively managing the use and consumption of energy within the property – a missed opportunity, to say the least.

Another item that caught my attention was the number of light switches in both the restaurant and bar, which as I watched, seemed to cause some confusion amongst the servers as they attempted to set the lighting levels for the room, not to mention the fact that the light switches themselves, given that were so many, were unsightly in an otherwise visually interesting space.

Staying with lighting for the moment, I was equally surprised, (well, not really at this point), to find that the public washrooms were each equipped with several light switches, rather than opting for motion detection to minimize energy costs.

The same situation occurred in the meeting space, a sea of light switches and individual thermostats, throughout the rooms themselves as well as the pre-function space, and, no energy efficient lighting.

Lastly, guest rooms. And again, individual thermostats, which of course we all want in order to manage the temperate to our own personal preferences, but also again, I was advised by the hotel that there was no way of adjusting the temperature in unoccupied guest rooms without having the room attendant enter every single room and adjust the thermostat.

I must admit, once I got the thought in my head, I could not help but see the shortcomings and missed opportunities in energy management as I toured the property. Everywhere we went, it was evident that this issue had either never been raised during the construction of the property, or, as I have previously experienced, it was viewed as “too expensive” to implement and install these items, regardless of the long term savings, and also, in my opinion, the (missed) opportunity to establish your property as a leading edge, environmentally conscious hotel.

With the focus on the environment, and especially on our ability to continue to generate sufficient energy to sustain our lifestyle, should anyone be allowed to build a hotel anymore without a key component of energy management within their plans?

I know none of us want more government involvement in our businesses, me included, but I would support some form of building regulations that mandated a minimum amount of energy management into any new builds based on the implementation of cost-effective and proven technology.

It’s the least we can do.

Have we learned nothing from the random blackouts in California a few years ago?

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Balanced Scorecard

2011-01-12T21:50:00.000-08:00

I’m a big fan of the balanced scorecard approach to management, or leadership, as I prefer to look at it.

I think it can (and should) form the base of your operation and be your organizations over-riding focus when it comes to everything that you do.

Assuming it has been developed from your company’s Vision, Values and Guiding Principles, it should, in my opinion, be the gage by which you measure everything, and the means from which you set your goals and objectives, for your Hotel, every division within it, and every division head.

And it should be widely and regularly communicated to every team member within your Hotel. Everyone in your organization should know what the priorities are for your business, what they mean to the success of the organization, and how each of them can and do impact the results for those areas of your business that you have defined as crucial.

The reason, in particular, that I think that it is so important to identify the components or themes of your balanced scorecard, and to ensure that everyone is equally aware of your commitment to these areas, is so that they are not forgotten in the decision making process, which seems to happen all too often.

All too often, especially it seems when times get tough, people seem to forget the commitments that have been made to run the business from a balanced perspective and decisions are made in isolation, and no one stops long enough along the way to look at the impact that these decisions will have in other areas of your operation, most often service.

As an example, someone comes along and says that “we need to cut costs” and with that wide spread changes are made without a thought for how this will impact employees’ ability to deliver service, or, how it may even directly impact guests and their perception of service at the Hotel as a result.

To me, the components of a balanced scorecard, the areas that you have identified as critical to your business’ long-term success, are like the pillars of a building, forming the foundation, that supports everything else.

Assuming, for the purpose of my argument, that there are four pillars, (let’s say; strong financial results, exceptional guest service and guest loyalty, and employee engagement.), you can imagine what would happen if you remove one of the supporting pillars, or, if you start to chip away at one of them. The integrity of your foundation is compromised at the least. Remove the entire pillar and your building is going to come toppling down.

Based on that, can you really afford to ignore any of your pillars?

You may be able to make subtle changes to the structural components of one or more of your pillars, but you must consider the impact on the remaining pillars and potentially take action to reinforce them in light of the changes that you feel it is necessary to make.

It’s a great reminder that there is no one component that can guarantee business success, but rather it is the combination of a number of things, brought together and combined in the right way, that creates a successful formula for success. In a number of presentations I made to newer managers several years ago now, I used to describe it as the “recipe for success” and in that instance, draw the comparison to baking a cake and the impact of removing any one of the key ingredients from the recipe. It was a simple but effective message that has stood the test of time.

It is a complicated task to create, refine and hopefully, perfect your own recipe for success. Once you have done so, do you really want to risk throwing it all away in an instant by making decisions in isolation?

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Hotel Fundamentals . . . Since the Beginning of Time

2011-01-10T21:52:00.000-08:00

As far as I’m concerned, as soon as you decide to hang a sign on a building that says “Hotel” you have certain minimum responsibilities, regardless of how many diamonds or stars your property is.

I believe it’s fair for the consumer to make a few assumptions based on seeing that sign, encouraging them to check-in for the night at your Hotel.

You could certainly argue that there are more than the minimum requirements that made my list, but I would hope that you would not argue that these are, at least, the minimum expectations of any Hotel, dating back to when the first Hotels began to pop up around the world, and regardless of what part of the world you are in.

A Decent Night’s Sleep

You’ll notice that I didn’t specifically reference the bed, although that is, of course, one of the key fundamentals required for “the good night’s sleep.” However, it is not the only thing, which is my point. You can have an absolutely fabulous bed, but if it is in a room that has lousy climate control, or the room is overly noisy, or maybe you can’t get the drapes to close properly, preventing light from outside streaming through the windows, you are not going to get a good night’s sleep, and isn’t that the #1 reason you check into a Hotel for in the first place?

A Good Shower

This is definitely a personal preference for me. When I get up, after my good night’s sleep, and after having returned from my morning run, and I am ready to begin the day, I want to have a good shower, which I define as enough consistent hot water, with good water pressure. After that, I don’t care. I don’t need a shower massage, and I don’t need multiple shower heads. Sure, they can be nice, but they don’t make my list of shower fundamentals. For me, water pressure is king. It doesn’t need to have the ability to rip my skin off, but to me, there is nothing worse than having to dance around in the shower to get wet, and, after having spent the appropriate amount of time in the shower, to feel like your body is still covered with soap, and your hair is still full of shampoo.

A Good Cup of Coffee

Now some of you might expand this to be a good breakfast, and I don’t necessarily disagree, but there are those of us who prefer not to eat first thing in the morning, and for us, and arguably, as a key component to the good breakfast as well, would still be a good cup of coffee.

Now this is a tough one, given people’s many different preferences, but regardless of brand preferences, we all know a good cup of coffee when we have one, regardless of whether or not it is our own personal “favourite” brand or not, or perhaps more so, we all know a bad cup of coffee when we experience it.

If you are not committed to providing your guests with a decent night’s sleep, a good shower and a good cup of coffee, you have no business calling yourself a Hotel and it’s time to take down the sign and close your doors.

And for those of you who are appalled that I didn’t mention service as a fundamental requirement, please remember that I did say “minimum” requirements, for ANY Hotel, regardless of whether it is budget or luxury or anything in between. Great service can, and often does, offset shortfalls in other areas of a Hotel experience.

You may wonder why I went to the trouble to state what must seem so obvious to everyone who reads this, and I’ll tell you, it’s because there are far too many Hotels who fail this test on one or more of my minimum requirements, and what’s worse, they either don’t know it, or, they don’t seem to care.

When is the last time that you stayed in your own Hotel, and attempted to experience your property as a guest would?

When did you last use the health club in your Hotel? (Another hugely important area I might add). Not just walk through, but actually use the equipment?

It’s not enough to simply do a walk-through of the various areas in your Hotel, and to “assume” that everything is fine, just because you have not received complaints to the contrary. Remember, a huge percentage of people never bother to report their complaints to the Hotel, but they do go on to tell their friends about what happened, and what’s worse these days, they’ll go on-line and write a negative review for everyone to see.

Want to know what your guests are experiencing? Then put yourself in their shoes from time to time. You’ll be surprised what you see, from this perspective, that might otherwise have gone unseen.

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The Golden Rule

2011-01-05T22:01:00.000-08:00

I have often described myself as a student of leadership and I value the opportunity to continuously learn and grow.

There is it seems, an endless supply of resources, both tangible and intangible, from which we can learn important lessons in leadership, good and bad, you just need to open yourself up to see what is out there.

One of the many resources available to us is the wide variety of books on leadership that have been written by many recognized and celebrated leaders.

It was while I was recently reviewing Isadore Sharp’s book; FOUR SEASONS: The Story of a Business Philosophy, that I was reminded of one of my favourite guiding principles – The Golden Rule.

The Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts credits much of their success on their unwavering commitment to the application of The Golden Rule and for me, it reinforced both the importance of that message, but also the simplicity of it as well.

As Hotel companies strive to outdo each other, and to introduce new service components, I often find myself thinking about the fact that, in many instances, these same companies have lost sight of the forest for the trees.

Service, genuine, sincere, authentic service trumps everything else – everything, and the right attitude trumps experience, every time.

And imagine, as a team member at Four Seasons, what you have to think about as you welcome guests and serve them in your respective area – one thing and one thing only – The Golden Rule. The simplicity of it is genius. Instead of having to think about the “10 Key Service Standards” or the like at some other Hotel companies, all you have to think about is one thing, and how you apply that one thing as you go about carrying out the duties of your position.

Sure, Four Seasons will have other standards that need to be applied, but regardless, the foundation that they are built upon is about as straight forward as you can get, and what I also love about it, is that anyone and everyone can understand it.

Long before I first became aware of Four Seasons’ commitment to The Golden Rule, I introduced the concept to my employees when I first became a department manager and I have continued to reinforce my belief in the simplicity of service to managers, supervisors and employees that have worked with me ever since, and what simpler way to convey that commitment to the simplicity of service but through the application of The Golden Rule.

It has served me well, and I suspect many of the people who have worked with me over the years as well.

As I've been guilty of saying before; service 101 - it aint rocket science...

The more that we can simplify things for our employees, and leave them with a sense of ownership in how they can individualize their service delivery, the greater the likelihood that they will deliver the genuine, sincere and authentic service that exceeds guests expectations, creates guest loyalty, and sets us apart from our competitors.

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Virtual Meetings – Virtually Fabulous, or, a Virtual Flash in the Pan?

2011-01-03T22:06:00.000-08:00

I know that I could very well end up being known in the same manner as those people who said that talking movies were just a fad, but I just don’t see virtual meetings taking hold to an extent that gives Hotels any cause for concern.

I love technology and I do think a great deal of this particular technology, but I just don’t see businesses running out to rent these technology suites to use instead of travelling to the location of their other offices, and it’s expensive, from the quotes that I have seen from Hotels that have invested in the technology.

I have a bias as well, just to be up front about it, in the interest of full disclosure.

During a time when I was functioning as an Asset Manager for a company that owned a number of Hotels, some branded and some not, we were approached by one of the major brands that we worked with to put in a technology suite, which we could in turn rent out to clients who wanted to defer the cost of travel in favour of a virtual meeting with their counter-parts in other parts of the world.

According to the brand, our city was identified as one of the major cities where this need was identified as being significant in the coming years and we were being given the opportunity to jump on the band wagon to capture on this market when it takes hold.

Problem is, the technology required is VERY expensive, and, even if you use the suggested rental prices that the brand felt were appropriate, (which I could not imagine anyone paying), the ROI on this investment just isn’t there – not in my opinion anyway.

In case you haven’t already guessed, we did not invest in the technology suite. I told the owner I thought that the brand was being irresponsible with his money by proposing this investment, and that it was my strong recommendation that he not authorize this expenditure, at that time. He agreed.

I can see this technology being tremendously successful with companies who have multiple offices in multiple locations around the world, but I would see those same companies investing in the technology themselves, to have in their own offices, so they could meet whenever they please, and with little or no notice required, potentially saving them a great deal of money on travel, and giving them a respectable ROI that would justify their investment.

That was another problem that I had with the brand proposal – they were suggesting that by investing in this technology in our Hotel, in our city, people would travel to our city and choose our Hotel so that they could use our technology for their virtual meeting. In short, they were suggesting that business executives would still travel, albeit shorter distances, then have a virtual meeting, from our Hotel, with their company executives, at another of our brands’ Hotels, presumably which they too may have had to travel too.

I’m sorry, but I think that’s crazy. The whole point of the virtual meeting is to avoid the cost of travel, not just reduce it a little bit.

And let’s not forget that the real cost of travel is not just the hard costs associated with air fare and Hotel costs and the like. As big a consideration is the loss of productivity. In spite of the improvements in technology, people are not as productive on the road as they are in their offices, it’s a fact.

Also, given the speed with which companies like Skype are improving their platforms, I suspect that it won’t be long before we can have a virtual meeting in any number of ways that may work for us, and at a significantly reduced cost that makes sense for the majority of us.

Lastly, and as important as anything that I’ve already said, is the argument for the benefit of travel as it relates to relationships. Sure, you can have a good and productive meeting using virtual meeting technology, but it does nothing to maintain or enhance relationships, and as I have been guilty of saying repeatedly, I believe that the hospitality business is all about relationships.

If you agree with that assessment, then you would also agree that there will always be a need, and a benefit, to travel in our industry. In a business that is all about people, it will always be important to meet, face to face, with the people in our business.

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Opening Soon - Are You Crazy?

2010-12-22T22:14:00.000-08:00

There is a restaurant on my daily running route that I have noticed under construction for the last six months or so. It’s a new build, from what I have seen, which is to say that it isn’t one of those oh so typical situations where someone is going in to take over the location of the last restaurant that failed, minimizing their investment, given the presumption that there is already a kitchen, a bar, etc…

Any of you that have been involved in construction know that the cost to take a shell of a building, and then add everything required, to turn it into a functioning restaurant (or Hotel) is considerable. It’s probably 10 times more expensive than taking over a failed location, throwing a fresh coat of paint on the walls, making a few other improvements, slapping on some signage and announcing your new concept to the world.

For months now I have been running past this location, taking note of the construction, the various trade vehicles coming and going, and like many others, I have been wondering what is coming, and, when it would open.

Just to put this into further perspective, I should tell you that this restaurant is not located in the heart of the business or tourist district. It is on a busy street with strong vehicular traffic, and I would guess, little foot traffic on an ongoing basis.

A couple of months ago now I noticed that they had placed several large banners on the building that said “opening soon,” leaving me to wonder just how soon they would be opening. I’ve seen instances where owners have erected signage such as this six months or even a year before the location was scheduled to open, hoping to create awareness in the community, a curiosity, a level of anticipation.

My question was answered, at least partially, today, when I ran passed the restaurant and saw that the brown paper was down from the windows, the interior appeared to be largely completed, and, the most telling sign – the bar was fully stocked.

Presumably, this restaurant will open within days, in the latter half of December, which leads me to wonder one thing about the owner – is he or she rich, or crazy, or both?

Why, in heavens name, would you open a restaurant just after everyone has done their pre-Christmas entertaining, and spending, and just as those same people are about to go into their annual self-imposed freeze on spending, while they assess the damage from Christmas and sit around calculating how long it is going to take to get their credit cards back under control.

No one is spending money in January, or at least not on discretionary items like dinner out with family and friends. How could someone not know that?

I was involved with a company once; where I was brought on to open a Hotel, among other things. When I first arrived I was told by the owner that he wanted to open the Hotel in November of that same year, and my immediate question was why?

Why would you want to open at a time when business is historically slow for the destination and remains slow until probably April or May when things traditionally pick-up?

Why would you want to endure months of negative cash flow, high labour costs, made even higher by the fact that you would be open over Christmas and New Year’s, requiring you to pay additional statutory wage costs, and on and on?

It made no sense – a point that I was able to make clear after producing several budgets for the owner, based on opening at different times, and of course taking into account that there were still financing costs that needed to be taken into consideration, if we delayed opening as I was suggesting. Regardless, it was clear that the right answer was to delay opening, which we did, resulting in a very successful, and appropriately profitable, first year of operations.

So, back to the new restaurant opening in my neighbourhood. Do they know something that I don’t? Have they found the secret to opening in a mediocre location, at a time of year when everyone is curtailing their spending?

Or, has the owner got deep pockets? I sure hope so, because in as much as I do not want to see anyone go out of business, I cannot help but think that these people have set themselves up with a significant challenge as they open their doors and try to make it in the fiercely competitive restaurant business.

Statistics show that 80% of all new restaurants do not survive past their second anniversary. In North America, restaurant failure rates are much higher simply because most are under-capitalized and in many instances owners or managers fail to understand all aspects of the business.

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The Happiest Place in the World

2010-12-19T21:42:00.000-08:00

I know what you’re probably expecting, based on that headline, but no, this is not a story about Disneyland or Disney World – but admittedly this is my pre-Christmas “feel good” article.

Granted, that Walt Disney was no dummy, and most people, if asked, would say that Disneyland or Disney World are the happiest places on earth.

I’m not here to try and argue the point – Disneyland and Disney World are unique products with unprecedented levels of success.

However, for me, my personal happy place is a Hotel, most any full-service Hotel in most any major city around the world.

I love everything thing about a Hotel, and it makes me happy, instantly I might add, to step inside of a busy full-service Hotel and come face-to-face with everything that makes for a great Hotel experience.

I’ve known for a very long time now that I was destined to work in the Hospitality business, and specifically, in Hotels, and that point is never clearer to me than when I walk into a Hotel that I have not been in before for the first time.

I can feel a warm smile cross my face and I have an almost overwhelming sensation that I am home again, no matter where I might actually be in the world.

At that point, I become aware of the cleanliness of the lobby, the attention to detail in the layout, the furnishings, all things physical.

Simultaneously, I become aware of the many conversations taking place, between staff and guests, guest to guest, and amongst the staff.

There is a steady and consistent buzz in the lobby as everyone is set on their individual course, they all have their own priorities, and for the most part, all are indifferent to the activities and conversations of the other groups, but it all works.

To the lay person it must look like controlled chaos at times, but I see it for what it is; a symphony, where everyone in the orchestra knows their respective part and instinctively goes about their tasks with a harmony and efficiency that is rarely seen in other business environments.

A Hotel is a truly special place.

And the only thing that makes me happier than being in a Hotel that creates that positive environment that you sense as soon as you cross the threshold, is being the “orchestra leader” in that scenario.

I’m always so proud of my team when I can see them in action, sense their confidence as they each do what they do and know best, and support each other in pursuit of a common goal – to create consistently exceptional guest experiences, different, special and unique to each and every guest that we have the privilege to come in contact with, but exceptional nonetheless.

It may not be Disneyland, but Disneyland is not for everyone.

Everyone should be so lucky as to find their true calling – to live their dream.

It reminds me of a great quote that I was recently exposed to – regrettably I do not know the author.

“A person who is a master in the art of living makes little distinction between their work and their play, their labour and their leisure, their mind and their body, their education and their recreation, their love and their religion. They hardly know which is which and simply pursue their vision of excellence and grace, whatever they do, leaving others to decide whether they are working or playing. To them, they are always doing both.”

When you do what you love, you do not think of it as “work.”

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Value - One of "the" Buzz Words of 2010

2010-12-16T21:50:00.000-08:00

Value became one of “the” buzz words for 2010 and I suspect that it is with us for a while yet.

It seems that every Hotel company came to recognize the importance of value to their customers in 2010 and worked to position themselves against their competitors as providing better, or more, value than their competitors.

It certainly served to ramp up competition, and I suspect, get many Hoteliers to examine what their value proposition was, and once they figured that out, how to creatively and effectively communicate that point to their prospective customers.

The big winner in the chase for customer dominance has to be the customer themselves.

Every time they turn around, another company is trying to court them and to entice them with yet another perk for choosing to stay with them over their competitor.

But I believe something has gotten lost in this fast-paced race between Hoteliers.

As they have been busy trying to one up each other, many of them have somehow managed to (incorrectly) translate value into “cheaper is better” and they have devalued their product and experience, along with their competitors, along the way.

Value can be an elusive target, and it means something different to everyone.

I have found myself paying $300.00 or more for a dinner for two and left feeling very happy, very satisfied, and, feeling like I got great value for my dollar, based on my expectations, and, my overall positive experience.

How much it cost never crossed my mind, because my expectations were exceeded and I had an exceptional experience.

Conversely, I have gone out for lunch for two and spent $50.00 and left feeling entirely ripped off. Food was mediocre, service was largely the same, and my overall experience was one of aggravation and frustration.

How much it didn’t cost was not the issue.

What was the issue was the impact of the overall negative experience.

Therein lies my point; you can’t put a price on value.

And if you can’t put a price on value, then it’s entirely possible that all you are doing is unnecessarily discounting on your product and experience, and, you’re leaving money on the table.

The one, and only, company that I have seen that seems to truly understand this is Four Seasons Hotels.

They have remained steadfast in their support of, and commitment to, the value of their brand and what it means to stay at a Four Seasons Hotel and to have a Four Seasons experience, and it’s not for sale.

You won’t find Four Seasons Hotels on Expedia, Hotwire, Orbitz or any of the other on-line discount channels – they flatly refuse to get into the discount wars with other Hotels of their caliber in their various markets.

I won’t pretend to know the level of business that Four Seasons has been able to maintain during these tough economic times, but I will speculate that if this was a losing proposition, they wouldn’t still be holding out.

Also, when the economy improves, Four Seasons won’t be faced with the same challenge that other companies will face – how to now significantly increase their rate from the depths to which they have sunk, and, how to convince their guests that their increased rates are suddenly justified again.

Hotel companies that are out there teaching consumers, by their actions, that there is always a better deal to be had, are going to face a long and hard return to profitability as and when the economy returns into positive territory.

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Asking for the Business

2010-12-12T21:39:00.000-08:00

If you don’t ask for the business, then you shouldn’t be surprised when you don’t get it.

It’s been my experience over the years that the difference between a good Sales person and a great Sales person often lies in their ability to ask for the sale, and, to a lesser degree, to know how to deal with “no” and not get paralyzed in the face of “no.”

There are lots of great sales people out there, who do a great job in many facets of their role in sales, they know their value proposition, your property’s points of differentiation, they research potential clients, and their prep work and attention to detail are second to none.

Those are all strong and admirable attributes.

But are they closers?

After it’s all been said and done, and the (potential) client has taken the bait, can they reel them in?

If not, you may find if you tag along on a few sales calls that they are stopping short of actually asking for the sale.

They assume, albeit unconsciously, that if they have done a god job in making their case, the client will book with them, and on many occasions that has probably worked out for them, and for you.

But I can guarantee you that if you actually ask for the sale, your chances of securing the business go up exponentially.

It’s long been a practice of mine to do two things, in particular, when it comes to supporting the sales effort in my Hotels:

1) Telling clients that I want their business.

Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? You’d be surprised how many people don’t actually, clearly and with conviction, tell clients that they want their business.

I used to do this in particular when we had a client on site for a site inspection and/or property review.

I would introduce myself, and then I would tell the (potential) client that one of the reasons that I wanted to personally meet them, among other reasons of course, was that I wanted to tell them personally that we wanted their business and that each and every one of us was keenly aware of what it meant to get this piece of business, and we were committed to working with them to secure their business, and to delivering a program or event that would leave no doubt as to why we were chosen.

2) Asking for the business.

On a similar vein, I would always conclude a site visit or a sales call by asking for the business.

Again, I would make a point of being direct and specific, leaving no doubt that I was asking for the business, and in the event that I ran into any hesitation or reluctance, I would simply ask what the obstacles were that was preventing them from committing.

I know I said this before, but I will say it again; I know full well that what I am saying sounds obvious.

But I’ll tell you this too; I had clients tell me time and time again that other Hotels were not telling them that they wanted their business, not directly anyway, and, that virtually no one was asking for their business.

And on more than a few occasions, I had clients tell me that was why they were going with us for their conference, event, etc…

Sure, our product and service were important factors, but when it came down to comparing a number of seemingly similar properties in a single destination, what put them over the edge, and differentiated us from our competitors, was our commitment to getting the business, to servicing the client from this day forward, and, the fact that we asked for the business, further demonstrating our level of commitment.

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Learning and Development – The Gift You Give Yourself and Others

2010-12-05T21:20:00.000-08:00

How committed are you to continuous learning, both for yourself, and for those who work with you?

I, for one, love to learn, to see and be exposed to new ways of looking at the many and varied components that make up our dynamic industry, which arguably, is always changing.

As I write this entry today, I am awaiting the final grade, on my final assignment, for my last subject, to obtain my Bachelor’s Degree in Hospitality Management.

For a variety of reasons, I had to leave home when I was 15 years old, and started working shortly thereafter.

As a result, I was unable to complete high school, at the time, let alone pursue any post-secondary education.

I tried to continue my schooling, for as long as possible, but I simply couldn’t manage the demands of working, full-time, with a full course load at high school, and since I had to eat and keep a roof over my head, the choice was fairly clear – I had to quit school.

I worked at a number of entry-level jobs for the next several years until I began what I thought would be my career, as an electrician – a job that I worked at, as well as several others in construction, for the next several years.

But, as I have written before, it was, quite by chance, a few years later, that I landed a job in a Hotel as a bellman and came to realize that I had found my calling.

I knew as I began to progress into Supervisory positions that I was going to need to complete my high school education at some point, and so, a few years later I applied to take my grade 12 equivalency test.

I obtained the study materials and spent as much time as I could reviewing the material before taking the exam, which I did, and for which I passed and obtained my GED.

I would have loved to have then pursued post-secondary education, but now I was enjoying continuous advancement in an industry that I loved and had a natural ability for.

I was far too excited and enjoying myself far too much to have even considered leaving the Hotel business long enough to obtain my degree at that time.

And so I worked, and as I worked I participated in any and all of the training and personal development that I could along the way, both from within my respective companies at the time, as well as through outside sources, such as local Colleges and Universities.

Ironically, in spite of enjoying an enviable level of success over the years, including hosting world leaders in the first G8 Summit post 9/11, among other significant accomplishments, I always felt that there was something left unfinished.

And so it was that I was fortunate enough to find the Executive Cohort Degree Program – Bachelor of Hospitality Management, being offered at Vancouver Community College and specifically geared towards people just like myself.

I applied as soon as I became aware of the program and I have spent the last 2 years enjoying the company of many senior Hospitality executives who had a similar history to my own.

Although I was no stranger to any of the topics that we studied, I have enjoyed being exposed to new points of view, and perhaps in particular, how the many developments in technology and social media have drastically changed the Hospitality landscape forever.

And when I “officially” receive my degree, which I will shortly, it will indeed be a proud day for me, having achieved my goal of obtaining my Bachelor’s Degree in Hospitality Management, a testament to my passion for continuous learning, personal growth and development, and a commitment to excellence that can only be achieved by constantly challenging yourself, and the status quo.

What are you doing to challenge yourself, and as importantly, what kind of an environment are you creating at your Hotel when it comes to training and development?

Our industry is always changing, always evolving, and as a result, if we hope not only to keep up, but rather to stay one step ahead of our many competitors, we too need to be open to change and the continuing evolution of the Hospitality industry.

You can be a leader in this area, an example to others, or, you can spend your career playing catch-up to those leaders that are changing and shaping our industry for the future.

Which will you choose to be?

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The Importance of a Genuine Apology

2010-12-01T22:04:00.000-08:00

People don’t know how to apologize.

They think that if you say you’re “sorry” that magically makes everything better.

But haven’t we all been on the receiving end of an insincere apology, when you knew that there was no meaning behind the words, they were, just words.

Often reminds me of when we were kids, and you’d get into a fight with your Brother, and your Mother would grab you and tell you; “apologize to your Brother.”

I don’t know about you, but when that happened to me, and I subsequently apologized to my Brother, it didn’t mean a thing, not to me, and certainly not to him.

He knew I was just going through the motions.

We weren’t fooling anyone.

Or, someone sets out to apologize and approaches you under the premise that they want to apologize, but instead of apologizing, they attempt to justify or explain what happened, instead of taking responsibility for the situation.

Drives me crazy.

And I’m not someone who judges an apology by how much time and effort that they spend falling all over me, quite the contrary, sometimes, “thou doth protest too much.”

All I want, when the situation calls for it, is a genuine apology.

For me, a genuine apology involves someone taking responsibility for their action, and recognizing the impact they have had on another, and with that in mind, apologizing for the situation – period.

Don’t embellish, don’t try to get in my shoes or in my head, resist the urge, and just say “I’m sorry.”

The only other thing I might add is, and again, when appropriate, to take the necessary action to correct the situation, or, to simply ask; “what can I do to make this right?”

Sometimes, rather than assuming what a disgruntled guest might want when something is in order, it’s just more appropriate and more effective to ask them what they feel would be fair.

These circumstances, although they often start out as a negative, if handled correctly, can be turned around and generate a positive outcome, and can in fact enhance your reputation.

When things go wrong, and invariably they will go wrong from time to time, what makes the difference is how the situation is handled.

In effective crisis management we see this time and time again.

The story starts out with a problem that has occurred, but then, the rest of the story turns to how quickly the company got out in front of the problem, took immediate responsibility for the situation, and took action.

I can think of many instances where something has gone wrong during a visit to a restaurant or a Hotel, and instead of choosing never to go there again, (and telling everyone I know not to go there either), they have turned me into a loyal customer based on their handling of the situation.

Things go wrong, it’s inevitable, but it’s what we do about it that makes the difference.

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Work Life Balance - In Search of the Secret Formula

2010-11-28T21:48:00.000-08:00

Can anyone really define what work life balance means?

(If you think you can, I would love to hear from you, please).

I think it means very different things to different people, and at varying stages of their careers or career progression.

I know, for instance, that for me, especially early on in my career, my thirst for knowledge and progression was insatiable.

Learning, development, and personal growth remain at the top of my priority list and even now I am in the final days of completing my Bachelor’s Degree in Hospitality Management.

I love to learn, I love to be challenged, and as I once said to a friend of mine, I am happiest when I have about 20 things that all need to be done, simultaneously.

I prefer to be going 100 miles per hour with my hair on fire – giddy up.

But, I also love my kids, and I love my down time, when I can get on my motorcycle and take off for hours, with no particular destination in mind.

I think the key is to be committed to whatever you’re doing at the time, without guilt or regret, and, to be “present, truly present.”

What do I mean by that?

Well, as an example, you can’t be trying to get 20 things done at work, simultaneously, if you are distracted by the fact that you should be at your daughter’s ballet recital right now, and not at work.

Or, if you are feeling guilty about something that happened yesterday, and now you are stuck in the would of, could of, should of cycle of second guessing yourself, or regretting your actions and feeling guilty about how you handled something.

And in either case, you are not truly “present” to what IS going on at the time, and that, is the worst part, especially when it is time to spend some quality time with your kids for example.

How present are you, for example, at that ballet recital if you are already thinking of where you need to be tomorrow, what you need to get done, what you didn’t finish, etc.?

You’re not.

You may be there physically, but you sure as heck aren’t there mentally, you aren’t “present.”

People miss a lot when they aren’t present, and it’s my observation at least, that that shows up more so in peoples’ personal lives than it does at work, although it shows up in your work as well.

What’s the bottom line?

Find your own balance, establish your own priorities, but once you do, be happy with your choice and live in the present.

Don’t live in the past, it’s gone, and don’t live into the future, who knows what tomorrow will bring.

Live in the present and be present.

I promise you, if you do, if you really commit to being present, you’ll notice a whole new level of what’s possible at work, and, the people in your personal life will notice that when you’re with them, you really are with them, and they’ll appreciate it.

If you think I’m mistaken, ask your wife, your husband, or your kids, if they think that you are fully present when you’re with them.

I guarantee you’ll be surprised to hear that they have noticed that your head is elsewhere much of the time when you are with them.

You want work life balance?

Get present.

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The Simplicity of Service

2010-11-23T21:52:00.000-08:00

Have you ever noticed how, sometimes at least, the simplest thing can have an unexpected impact on you?

And, how sometimes the best examples of service can seemingly be the simplest?

Case in point . . .

I live in a new condominium complex in a newer, developing area, where, arguably, there has been quite a bit of development in the last 3 – 5 years.

As a result, my building, which is generally smaller and more intimate, and includes about 60 units in all, is only about 50% sold at this point.

And as a result of this situation, the newspaper carrier won’t go to the trouble to access the building to deliver my newspaper to the door (because I am 1 of only 2 tenants receiving this particular National newspaper at this time). Instead, they drop it outside the main front door of the complex.

I like to read the local and National newspapers early every morning before I go for my morning run.

So, every morning when I get up, I throw on some clothes and I stumble down to the street to get my newspaper from outside, and some days, as you would expect, it’s raining or very cold, or both.

Now, this isn’t the end of the world or anything, and I have managed to survive this situation.

But recently, a new caretaker started for our building, and he gets in pretty early to start cleaning the main lobby and other public areas of the complex.

I know this because shortly after he started I started finding my newspaper neatly folded on a little corner table in the corner of the lobby every morning.

I didn’t immediately know who was doing this because the caretaker can be anywhere in the building, and all of a sudden my paper just started miraculously appearing on this table every morning.

Then one day, I happened down into the lobby just as he was coming in the building, and I saw him unwrapping my newspaper and carefully placing it on the table.

I made a point of thanking him for going to the trouble of doing what he was doing. Unfortunately, it turns out that his command of English was minimal, but I made sure, nonetheless, that he understood that I appreciated what he was doing.

This may seem like a small thing, an insignificant thing, and maybe it is, but I have always believed that it is in fact the little, seemingly unimportant or insignificant little gestures that staff provide to our guests that have the biggest impact.

You see, the caretaker could easily ignore the newspaper sitting out front, off to the side of the door, it’s not like he has to step over or around it to get in the door, and as a result, he feels that he is obliged to bring it inside.

And once inside, he could easily throw it in the corner, but no, he doesn’t.

Why?

I think it’s because of who he is, he takes pleasure, and pride I might add, in what he does, and he applies that to all of the facets of his life.

He simply can’t ignore that newspaper – that would probably be impossible for him.

That’s probably also why he looked at me like I was a crazy person when I went to such great lengths to let him know how much I appreciated him.

You know what they say; "take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves."

Regardless of whether you believe that or not, I think we can all agree that attention to detail always pays off.

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Uniforms - Making a Statement

2010-11-21T21:41:00.000-08:00

How much emphasis do you put on ensuring that your staffs’ uniforms are in good condition and that they are making the right statement, one that supports your Brand?

Gone are the days when there were staff “line ups” where employees were given a quick once over to make sure that they looked like we expected them to, before they stepped out onto the floor to face our guests, and represent our Brand.

From personal hygiene and cleanliness to whether or not their uniform was properly cleaned, pressed, and in good condition.

Granted, those scenes might have been a bit extreme, but what it did do was drive home the importance of how employees looked, relative to their connected representation of the Hotel in which they worked.

What I come across more often now, is not so much employees who don’t recognize the (negative) statement that their torn, tattered, faded or frayed uniforms are making, but rather Managers who see that their employees’ uniforms look unacceptable, but tell me that they can’t afford new uniforms.

I can’t pretend that I don’t know how expensive uniforms can be, especially of course, depending on just how many employees you need to uniform. It is a significant expense for any business, no argument.

However, what’s often missing in the first place, is a uniform plan, with respect to the issuing, cleaning, maintaining and on-going replacement of uniforms.

As a result, uniforms are often dealt with rather haphazardly and then everyone seems surprised when one day they realize that every uniform needs to be replaced and they are overwhelmed by the potential total cost of such an undertaking.

You need to find a solution to this problem, for two particularly compelling reasons:

1) Whether you think so or not, your guests are noticing the state of your employees’ uniforms and it is making them call into question whether or not your Brand stands for the level of quality that you have stated, or, whether those are just words on paper.

Whether you like it or not, the two are connected, or at least they are to your guests.

2) Your employees are embarrassed to be in these uniforms, and as a result, I can promise you that they are not putting their best effort into their job every day, not because they are embarrassed, but because this issue is distracting them from doing their job.

I am a firm believer that as General Managers, one of our most important responsibilities is to provide our employees with the tools and resources to do their job, period.

When employees can work without distractions they are far more productive and engaged, and their level of guest service reflects this as well.

Lastly, don’t you just feel good when you know that you look good?

Sure you do.

And when you feel like you look good, don’t you stand just a little bit taller, a little bit prouder and more self assured, and isn’t that reflected in your body language, the smile on your face, and on and on.

Isn’t that the kind of person that you want representing your Hotel?

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High Season - A Thing of the Past

2010-11-17T21:59:00.000-08:00

I found myself in a debate just the other day, with a group of Hotel and other Hospitality Industry Professionals, on the topic of seasonality in the Hotel business.

My point?

I don’t believe that what was the traditionally busier summer “high season” exists anymore.

That’s not to say that there aren’t specialty destinations and resort areas that have clearly defined “high seasons,” whether in summer or at other times of the year.

Nor am I suggesting that there aren’t client shifts throughout the year where we see definitive peaks and valleys of demand from different market segments.

What I am saying is that for centres that used to see a specific, significant rise in their transient or IT business in the summer, those days are gone, or at least for the foreseeable future.

Time was when we could sit back and wait for the (much) higher rated summer season travellers to start trickling in, starting in the latter part of May, and continuing throughout the summer, until the end of September.

You could count on it, you could have set your watch by it, and as a result, we would confidently turn away or limit lower rated business during that period, because this was the time to generate some significant revenue for the year.

And conferences and major conventions weren’t booking during this period either, usually because it was cost prohibitive, assuming that their delegates didn’t mind holding their conference in the summer in the first place.

Now, you just don’t see those dramatic increases in the transient or IT business in the summer, there are just too many factors preventing Mr and Mrs Smith and their 2.5 children from taking that (perceived to be expensive) vacation in the summer.

You could argue what those factors are, and there are lots of opinions about what is causing the current reductions in travel to Canada; increased international competition, strength of the Canadian dollar, the continued negativity in the US economy, and Canada’s reliance on the US traveller.

Regardless of the reasons, it’s a fact, or at least that is my position.

To further support my position, I can tell you that we have had more city-wide conventions this summer than ever before, and, I know what the average rate was for many of them at the downtown 4 star Hotels, and it certainly doesn’t compare with the traditionally higher transient rates that I referred to earlier.

The other basis for my opinion is the market intelligence that I gather on the street.

I am in and out of the downtown Hotels every day, and I always stop and talk to the front staff, the bellmen and doormen in particular, and I ask them how it’s going, and what their telling me just reinforces my argument.

They are very clear that they are NOT seeing the levels of business in the summer that they used to, and specifically not from what was that summer leisure traveller that I alluded to earlier. It just isn’t happening.

The bell curve just isn’t as dramatic anymore. Sure, there is still more business, overall, outside of the colder late-fall and winter months, than there is when the climate is perceived to be better in the Spring and Summer, but the curve just doesn’t have that mid-year spike that it used to.

It’s just another reason that I think Hoteliers need to re-think their business models and adapt to the changing demands of the market.

We’re not in Kansas anymore Toto.

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