A Few Bad Apples

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.

Need an experienced hospitality professional to help your property reach its full potential?  Contact me.

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

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.

Need an experienced hospitality professional to help your property reach its full potential?  Contact me.

New to this Blog?  Click here to subscribe by email and never miss another post.    

Nothing Works Without Integrity

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.

Need an experienced hospitality professional to help your property reach its full potential?  Contact me.

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People Don’t Know How to Write Anymore

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. 

Need an experienced hospitality professional to help your property reach its full potential?  Contact me.

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Commitment – How Committed Are You?

I haven’t worked for some time now – 6 months to be exact.

That isn’t to say that I haven’t worked at all for the past 6 months, I have in fact taken care of a couple of smaller one-off projects since leaving my last full-time contracted job earlier this year.

However, it has been 6 months since I left my last significant project, where I was responsible for overseeing 3 existing Hotels, while opening a 4^th Hotel for the same company.

As often happens when you find yourself with some time in between projects, you have the time to reflect on a number of factors that you wouldn’t otherwise either have the time to think about, or, you just wouldn’t necessarily be thinking about these things in the course of your normal day.

Such is the case with me and the topic of commitment.

As I said, I haven’t had a full-time, continuous project or job for the last 6 months.

That doesn’t mean that I haven’t had opportunities or job offers since leaving my last job.

I have in fact had about a half dozen offers or opportunities in the last 6 months, but they weren’t right for me, and as a result, it simply wouldn’t have been right to pursue them.

It wouldn’t have been fair to my prospective employer.

Along the way, I’ve had people say to me; “why don’t you take the job, and then you can look for something better?”

Even as I write that statement, I can’t fathom the concept, and yet I know that people do this, every day – they settle.  They settle for less than what they are capable of, and, for less than their employer deserves, which is a 100% commitment.

You see, when I take something on, I am committed to it, 100%. 

I am committed to my team, to my Brand, to my Owner, to everyone and everything that encompasses that job and what it means to take it on with velocity and integrity.

So how could I take a job, only to use it as a springboard to get a better job?

And what does that say about my level of commitment, (and integrity I might add), when I am discussing my “next” job with my next prospective employer, and he or she invariably asks me why I want to leave my current position?

Can you imagine looking across the boardroom table and saying; “oh, I only took that job while I was looking for a better job.”

Outstanding!  Now there’s a person that I want to hire, right now – NOT.

I also had a very flattering and generous offer to teach, albeit part-time, in a Hospitality Degree program, and I would have enjoyed that for the time being, although as I mentioned, it was only part-time, and it’s not what I am ultimately meant to be doing.

I realized when I sat down to review the situation that I couldn’t accept the position.

In this case, it was because of my commitment to myself and to finding the right opportunity for me, and for my future, for the long-term.

I know myself and my level of commitment well enough to know that if I had taken on the teaching position, I would have dedicated myself to being an exceptional instructor.

I would have been keenly aware that I had a responsibility to my students, to the College faculty and to the reputation of the College, and as a result, I would have been obsessed with the quality and content of my teaching materials, audio visuals, etc…

I knew that I could not accomplish this without sacrificing on my commitment to finding my next long-term project, and as such, I had to regrettably and respectfully decline.

I remain committed to the school, and to continuing on with my advisory, mentorship and occasional speaking engagements for them, and thankfully, they understand the level of commitment that I demonstrate in everything that I do, and it is one of the qualities of mine that has earned their respect.

Commitment is an important quality to me, and it shows in everything that I do.

How committed are you to what you’re doing right now?

And how committed are the people in your organization?

As a Leader, you have a responsibility to inspire those around you.  To create a vision for the future that others want to be a part of.

Can you do that if you aren’t committed to what you are doing? 

Need an experienced hospitality professional to help your property reach its full potential?  Contact me.

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The Value of a Great Mentor

I’m lucky, I have a friend, a successful designer and colour expert, her name is Maria Killam, and she has been writing a very successful Blog, Colour Me Happy, for the past several years.

It was in fact Maria that initially inspired me to start writing my Blog, about 7 months ago now.   

She encouraged me to take my years of knowledge and experience, and my passion for the Hospitality Industry, and share it with others who share my interest and my passion.

As I mentioned earlier, Maria has been writing her Blog – Colour Me Happy, for several years now, and it has significantly benefited and contributed to the success of her business.

She has learned a lot about Blogging since she began, and luckily for me, she is more than willing to share her knowledge with me in an effort to assist me and to help me make sure that my Blog stays true to me and what I intended when I started out.

It is, in that regard, that I consider her a mentor to me.

What I knew about Blogs when I first started, you could have fit on the head of a pin.

Sure, I know plenty about the Hospitality business, but Blogging, not so much.

But I think what I value the most about my friendship with Maria is the level of our friendship, which translates into the kind of conversations that we have.

You see, Maria and I aren’t what I would call superficial friends, which is, if we are honest with ourselves, the way that most of our friendships are.

Most friends, if you meet them for lunch, or see them socially, regardless of the venue, your conversation sounds something like this:

A: How are you?

B: Oh, I’m great, how are you?

A: I’m great too, thanks for asking.  How’s work going?

B: Work is great.  How about you?

A: Oh, me too, work is great.  The kids, your family?

B: Great, kids are great, husband’s great, everything is just super.

Superficial.  Everyone is WAY too busy worrying about looking good, and avoiding looking bad, to ever admit that they are having any difficulties or challenges in their life.

When Maria and I get together we honestly share how things are going in our lives, where we might be struggling or challenged, what’s working and what’s not.

The level of integrity that we bring to our relationship, and to our conversations, is without compromise.

As a result, when Maria gives me feedback on my Blog, and various articles that I have written, I know that she is genuine and sincere in her feedback, and she knows that is what I want – honest feedback.

There have been several occasions, since I started writing, where Maria has called me up and said; “I just read your last post and I didn’t get it, at all,” or, “that last post didn’t sound like you,” “don’t preach, people don’t wanted to be lectured to.”

So, conversely, when  she has called me up to tell me that she loved my last post, or that it really spoke to her, or reminded her of the importance of a particular issue, I KNOW that she means it, she didn’t just say it to make me feel good.

She knows, and I appreciate, that no one benefits from feedback that isn’t honest.

Maria understands, as do I, that I can only get better from hearing ALL of the feedback, not just the good stuff.  She knows how to deliver the bad news when it's called for.

That is why I value her, and her opinion.

And that, is why I constantly seek out her opinion, I know that she knows much more than I do about Blogging, and, I know that I will get her honest and direct feedback and suggestions.

To me anyway, that has the makings of a great mentor relationship, (and in our case, a great over-riding friendship, period).

I have always made a point of aligning myself with people who know more than I do and that are generous enough to share their knowledge and experiences with me, so that I might continuously improve. 

It’s also why I have always been active in providing my mentorship to hospitality students and junior managers, in particular, as they seek to learn and grow.

Do you have a mentor, or perhaps more than one?

Or are you mentoring anyone in your organization?

No one knows it all and we can all benefit from a little help along the way. 

Need an experienced hospitality professional to help your property reach its full potential?  Contact me.

New to this Blog?  Click here to subscribe by email and never miss another post.            

Integrity - The Foundation of Strong Leaders

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.