Hospitality Paradigm

The hospitality sector has begun to recognize the need for constant training and up gradation of human skills: they also understand that training is a motivator and one of the many reasons for staff wanting to stay with an organization, if done professionally. So here’s the upside of training: while the principle reason is for improving skills, whether technical or behavioural, the subsidiary reasons of employee motivation and employee retention are enough to justify the training efforts… in fact a lack of adequate and quality training is considered as a “dissatisfier” for Gen Y, if one were to refer to Herzberg on motivation.

Alvin Toefler had an interesting perspective on the definition of an educated person of this millennium: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

In an earlier blog, I had talked about a recent training session conducted where it was interesting to note how the participants unanimously felt that the guests they engaged with were targets for achieving their revenue budgets. Traditionally this would not be viewed as a doodah since the bottom line of all business is profitability. However, what if we were to try another approach…service the customer empathically and watch how he helps you with your revenue targets and conversions in the long run?

Hence training is not just about cramming ideologies and skills into the employees – it is also about helping them relearn and let go of their mindsets of the past… for as the world is fast changing, so is our industry… into a newer paradigm.

Remember – The truth will set you free… Happy Independence Day, India!

When organizations grow from a young to mature stage, they pass through five phases of evolution where each phase ends with a period of crisis and revolution. Evolutionary periods are characterized by the dominant management styles to achieve growth, while Revolutionary periods are characterized by the dominant problems that must be solved before growth continues.

• Phase one of a newly-born organisation is characterized by creating a viable product in a promising market. However, by the end of the first phase, a crisis of leadership emerges. The solution usually lies in locating and installing a strong business manager who is acceptable to the founders and who can pull the organisation together.
• Phase two happens when the manager is given a free hand and zealously accepts most of the responsibility for initiating direction. In the course of growth for the organisation, the lower level managers demand more autonomy in decision-making and the stage is set for the crisis of autonomy to come to the fore.
• In phase three the crisis of autonomy is resolved through the delegation of authority which helps in gaining expansion through heightened motivation at lower rungs. But one serious problem that eventually evolves is the loss of top management control over highly diversified field of operations. The crisis of control emerges here when field managers run their own shows without aligning plans, money, technology, or manpower with that of the organization. In order to achieve more efficient allocation of the organization’s limited resources, an elaborate network of cording mechanisms is usually introduced at of the organization’s growth.
• In phase four the organization becomes typically much more formalized; rules, regulations and rigidities increase almost exponentially. For some time, the new systems prove useful for achieving growth through coordinated efforts. But soon procedure takes precedence over problem-solving, the chronic conflict between line and staff become acute. The organization becomes too large and complex to be managed through formal programs and rigid systems. Thus begins the crisis of red-tape.
• Phase five of an organization’s growth is characterized by strong inter-personal collaboration in order to overcome the crisis of red-tape. Developing the team becomes the theme, social conflict and self-discipline take over formal control, more flexible and behavioural approaches are adopted to attack the problems of managing a large organization.

Here’s an interesting insight by Bob Lonsberry into how one of our hard working communities converted the US citizens’ failures into their strength.

Gujarat is a state in the west of India, home to the Gujarati people, some 60 million of them, who speak their own language and have their own history. Mahatma Gandhi was born there… and so was the guy who runs most motels in the U.S. of A. In the United States, some 40 percent of all the hotels and motels are owned by Indians – almost all of them from Gujarat. Among American economy motels, more than half the owners are Gujarati. The Asian-American Hotel Owners Association is a powerful professional group with more than 10,000 members. Some 90 percent of those members have the same last name – Patel – a name dominant in Gujarat.

How did Indians, particularly from one relatively small region of India, come to dominate the American lodging industry? The answer is in short ‘hard work’.

Over 30 years ago, Gujaratis began immigrating to the United States. They typically brought with them the clothes on their back and an ancestral work ethic. They also carried the desire to be the boss, to be business owners, to not be another man’s employee. Like generations of previous immigrants, they carried an American dream of their own creation and distinctive bent. Coincidentally, about 30 years ago, there was a downturn in the American motel industry. Low-end motels were hard work and offered limited return, and owners were eager to get out of them. A handful of Gujarati stumbled across this opportunity. The motels could be had for almost nothing up front, and they came with housing for the immigrant family. And that immigrant family provided a round-the-clock workforce. It was incredibly hard and endless work, but the efforts of the immigrants were up to the task, and these first few families found first a living, and then success. And they told their friends. And they expanded, by buying more motels, and by moving up the economic ladder to larger and nicer motels and hotels. Back home, as others sought to emigrate to the United States, word of success in the lodging industry spread, and newcomers replicated that success, finding for themselves motel opportunities. Interestingly, these people came with almost no money. And they came with no background whatsoever in the lodging or hospitality industries. All they brought was a willingness to embrace any opportunity and to work hard to make it a success.

And they have done that. In something between 20 and 30 years, Indians – who are about 1 percent of the American population – have come to dominate this industry. They have built solid lives for themselves and their employees, and their children have gone on to be educated and move into the professions. It is a stunning success story and is a reminder of the potential prosperity of immigrants who go to work instead of to the welfare office. It is proof of the continued vigor and opportunity of the American economy and the free-enterprise system. It is the American way proven again by newcomers’ hands. But it is more than that. It is also something of an indictment of native-born Americans who have lingered in poverty and government dependence. Part of the horrific welfare plague is the curse of idleness it imposes on recipients. The slavery of dependence takes initiative from people, and strips them of the instinct of self-reliance. They become good at nothing, and particularly good at doing nothing. And with the cloak of entitlement drawn over their eyes, they fail to see liberating opportunity, they become unwilling to do the backbreaking work necessary to lift themselves out of their circumstances.

When the first few dozen essentially penniless Gujarati discovered the opportunity of the then-dying motel business, there were tens of millions of native-born Americans, food stamps in hand, who were blind to the opportunity around them. While the newly arrived Indians worked day and night, the entitled Americans kept drawing a check, and now that the Gujarati children are successful business people and college graduates, the dependent Americans wallow in the mire of another generation of welfare shame.

Play to win but win with fairness

Life is competitive and of course, you play to win. But think about the balance. Will you do anything, to win? Perhaps not. Think deeply about how and where you draw the line. Each person draws it differently, and in doing so, it helps to think about values. Winning without values provides dubious fulfillment. The leaders who have contributed the most are the ones with a set of universal values, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King for example. Napoleon inspired a ragged, mutinous and half-starved army to fight and seize power. This brought him name and fame for twenty years. But all the while, he was driven forward by a selfish and evil ambition, and not in pursuit of a great ideal. He finally fell because of his selfish ambition. The Pierre de Coubertin Fair Play Trophy was instituted in 1964 by the founder of the modern Olympic Games and here are two examples of its winners… A Hungarian tennis player who pleaded with the umpire to give his opponent some more time to recover from a cramp… A British kayak team trailing the Danish kayak team who stopped to help the Danish team whose boat was stuck. The Danes went on to beat the British by one second in a three hour event!

I always say that at the end of the day, if I can look myself in the mirror and be proud of who and what I see in the mirror, then I have won the game for the day. Play to Win, but with Fairness.

The jury is still out on Hotel Flash Sales Sites…

In my post dtd 01 Feb 2012 – A Revenue Manager’s ‘yes’ and ‘no’ for 2012, I had mentioned that OTAs may be used for need periods: weekends, group cancellations, low season, etc., and not as a replacement for or alternative to the direct online channel. Also mentioned was the danger of flash sales sites which cause your hotel to rebuke the principles of rate parity leading to “The Law of Unintended Channel Share Loss”

Despite the immense popularity and relative newness of flash sale websites such as Groupon, BloomSpot, JetSetter and Living Social, hoteliers are still wary of the effectiveness and real value of these sites for a hotel’s marketing plan, according to a recent survey from TravelClick.

Forty percent of the approximately 900 global hoteliers surveyed have used a flash sale website. Of the 40% who have tried these sites, 38% have found it less successful than they had hoped and do not plan to use again. Hoteliers believed that the sales gave up too much revenue to the site operator (25%), did not attract the right caliber of customer reflective of the brand (21.7%) and did not see enough return business from the promotion (21.7%).

Nearly 40% of those surveyed have not tried a flash sale promotion and have no interest in executing one in 2012, while 23% say that they will try a flash sale site for the first time this year. When asked which flash sale website hotels chose to use, 53.3% of hoteliers polled had partnered with Groupon.

Leadership Mythology

Leadership is about getting things done and helping people reach their potential. My experiences have shown me many organizations do a pitiful job helping people reach their potential. One reason for this is due to old-fashioned leadership concepts or what I call, “leadership mythology.”

Myth 1 – Leadership is a rare ability only given to a few
Most people have the potential to become good leaders. Leadership is not like a diet pill. Like most learned skills, it takes time, training, and lots of trial by error. The key ingredient making people good leaders is the ability to care about others. The second ingredient is a sense of purpose, vision or mission. A good leader charts a course and provides direction to those they lead.

Myth 2 – Leaders are charismatic
Closer scrutiny shows that most leaders are not. Some of the world’s most famous leaders had some sort of shortcoming or personality issue. In a leadership role, people skills are very important–more important than technical skills. However, the best leaders are those who work toward a goal. Your cause, your purpose and your mission in life will make you charismatic, not the other way around.

Myth 3 – The person with the title, most rank or the highest position is the leader
True leadership is based on action, performance, ability, and effectiveness. We all relate to working for those people who were placed in leadership roles who did more to demoralize and destroy the business than anything else.

Myth 4 – Effective leadership is based on control, coercion, and manipulation
Leadership is about the future, not the past. “A leader is someone you would follow to a place you would not go to by yourself.” Good leaders gain followers out of respect and their ability to cause people to work toward a particular goal or achieve a destination. People follow because they can relate to the vision or goal personalized by the leader. A good leader helps people become better than they are. A good leader creates a work environment that attracts, keeps and motivates its workforce.

Myth 5 – Good leaders have more education than other people
Educational degrees may mean you have a good education, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you are a good leader. When it comes to leadership, experience is the best teacher.

Japanese Fish – Don’t create success and lie in it.                                                  

The Japanese have always loved fresh fish. But the waters close to Japan have not held many fish for decades. So to feed the Japanese population, fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever. The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring in the fish. If the return trip took more than a few days, the fish were not fresh. The Japanese did not like the taste.
To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer. However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen and they did not like frozen fish. The frozen fish brought a lower price.
So fishing companies installed fish tanks. They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks, fin to fin. After a little thrashing around, the fish stopped moving. They were tired and dull, but alive. Unfortunately, the Japanese could still taste the difference. Because the fish did not move for days, they lost their fresh-fish taste. The Japanese preferred the lively taste of fresh fish, not sluggish fish.

So how did Japanese fishing companies solve this problem? How do they get fresh-tasting fish to Japan? To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies still put the fish in the tanks. But now they add a small shark to each tank. The shark eats a few fish, but most of the fish arrive in a very lively state. The fish are challenged.

As soon as you reach your goals, such as finding a comfortable job, paying off your debts, having already achieved your pre-set targets or whatever, you might lose your passion. You don’t need to work so hard so you relax.
Like the Japanese fish problem, the best solution is simple. L Ron Hubbard observed it in the early 1950’s. “Man thrives, oddly enough, only in the presence of a challenging environment.” The Benefits of a Challenge – The more intelligent, persistent and competent you are, the more you enjoy a good problem. If your challenges are the correct size, and if you are steadily conquering those challenges, you are happy. You
think of your challenges and get energized. You are excited to try new solutions. You have fun. You are alive!
Instead of avoiding challenges jump into them. Beat the heck out of them. Enjoy the game. If your challenges are too large or too numerous, do not give up. Failing makes you tired. Instead, reorganize.Find more determination, more knowledge, more help. Don’t create success and lie in it. You have resources, skills and abilities to make a difference. Put a shark in your tank and see how  far you can really go!