Hospitality Leadership Solutions Series: Goal and Priority Setting
New leaders eager to prove themselves by taking a plethora of visible and impactful decisions and actions – aka “Caesar on a march” – can fall into a trap of doing much but accomplishing little. With respect to setting priorities and achieving goals, the problem is that even seasoned leaders can confuse important and urgent, as well as fail to realize they cannot do everything. Important means a task needs to be done, whereas urgent means it must be done immediately. Knowing the difference between the two simplifies priorities. Leaders can forget in the moment that tasks and projects have a domino effect. If you do one task, yet fail to do another, you may have wasted effort on the first task. There are seven tactics that make goal- and priority-setting easier for you and others. Read about these below.
Read moreA Welcomed Metamorphosis of the Chief Human Resources Officer Function
Following a breakfast meeting with a senior executive from the UK restaurant industry, my attention was drawn to the fact that a small number of Food & Beverage businesses has started to hire marketers for their most senior human resource roles. Although this is not yet an overwhelming trend in hospitality, I wondered whether this approach made sense from a competency perspective. And, if so, would others follow suit? Could this be such a “butterfly moment” – one that defines roles to come as well as HR and talent management best practices for the greater hospitality industry?
Read moreProfiling Successful Chief Commercial Officers: The Rising Role Driving Alignment and Enterprise Value
A 2009 article in Supply & Demand Chain Executive was perhaps the first authority that began publicly highlighting the increased emphasis and value-proposition of having a Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) in the C-Suite. This role has complexity, nuance and diversity that transcends that of a President, Vice President or even Chief Operating Officer. The aim is to better harness the entire commercial power of an organization and brand. In simple principle, this means being responsible for aligning commercial strategy and the development of an organization, but in practice it entails a myriad of competencies and activities tied to marketing, sales, product development and customer service, which when properly integrated, drive business growth and market share. The role can be notoriously difficult to fill with a “superstar” because it demands a professional with domain knowledge of the relevant field combined with strong marketing, financial, business development and technology skills. Arguably the role becomes even more specialized in the hospitality industry, whereby internal and external brand promises hinge on a dedicated people-first mentality.
Read morePutting ‘Job-Hopping’ in Proper Perspective
Executive search clients consistently voice concerns about candidates who appear to be “job-hopping”– i.e., frequently move to new opportunities after relatively short stints. These concerns are reasonable and can be justified in many circumstances, although other times, movement early in an individual’s career can be both beneficial and rational. For instance, one Aethos™ placement talked about how he sought different companies and experiences in the beginning years of his career to make himself more well-rounded and adaptable in the future. Aiming to understand better these different views on job-hopping, an analysis was conducted on the career paths for eleven of our recent placements in hospitality real estate related positions, including Development, Acquisitions, and Asset Management roles. The idea was to gauge the first eight years of each placement’s career for the number of different companies represented. This does not include multiple positions within the same company, graduate schooling, or internships.
Read moreInside The Wild Brains Of Trailblazing Leaders
Over the years spent collaborating on in-depth studies of hospitality leadership — including over 100 analytical interviews and assessment tests — my interest and co-research in the “anatomy” of leadership and the interplay of nature versus nurture has led to several studies published in the North American Journal of Psychology and the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly. Our work in this area has consistently found that leadership is more a mental state than a professional role or pursuit. The human brain has evolved over tens of thousands of years into an approximately-three-pound organic computer whose sole task is to make things more certain.
Read moreHospitality Leadership Solutions Series: Effective Teamwork
Individuals will only think and act as “managers when focusing on the tactical aspects of business, or the first three characteristics. These speak more to the “cognitive engagement” of team members. However, managers evolve into “leaders” when they focus on maximizing the most weighted characteristic, i.e., relationships. Indeed, research shows that “emotional engagement” with a brand promise or mission drives the greatest loyalty and performance. This lesson is typically not taught in business programs, but rather is learned the hard way during one’s climb up the corporate ladder. Save some time by using the cheat sheet below to foster more effective teamwork.
Read moreInnovating Brand Experience in the Cruise Industry: The Royal Caribbean Case Study
Hospitality companies can profitably study and learn from the business, branding and technological lessons born from the cruise sector. What this “niche” accomplishes is nothing short of remarkable - it is a unique amalgam of hotel, restaurant, gaming, entertainment and travel-tourism components, all packaged within a mobile resort that is typically global in its operations. It is also a fierce competitive force for the broader hospitality industry. According to the ‘2018 Cruise Industry Outlook’ report published by Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), the demand for cruising has increased over the last five years by nearly 21%, with 27.2 million passengers expected to cruise in this year alone. The vast majority of passengers still hail from the US, followed now by China and Germany. This means that growing the market share is an opportunity to be tackled by the various cruise lines.
Read moreQ&A with Kristie Goshow, CMO at Preferred Hotels & Resorts
Quick quiz, what do these leaders have in common -- “Jack Welch of GE, Steve Jobs of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Steve Wynn of Wynn Casino Resorts, Elon Musk of Telsa, Richard Branson of Virgin, and Donald Trump of well… Trump”? They are all past and present individuals that arguably have developed their company brands around “cults of personality.”
Read moreA Review of the Global Restaurant Investment Forum
Optimism Prevails as Artificial Intelligence and Process Engineering Provide Untapped Upside Potential. Undoubtedly, though, the restaurant sector across EMEA is facing numerous challenges. These range from higher business rates and landlords wanting to up rents to significant changes in the consumer behaviour, technological advancements altering the business landscape as well as broader socio-political issues. The latter ranges from Brexit in the UK, which continues to put a strain on prices, costs and the supply chain, to continued localisation efforts in some of the Middle Eastern markets, which sees a large expat community leaving. In both these markets and instances, the consequences of the socio-political movements has also had a marked impact on the availability of qualified talent. Moreover, there is of course more competition in the form of new brands. Many of those new concepts, as well as some of the more established players, have sought private equity money to help speed-up their growth plans. Burdened with an already high pressure to perform and deliver returns on investment, some of these organisations are now beginning to falter in the current difficult trading environment. In short then, it is tough out there and trading conditions are not the best either. So, why the optimism?
Read moreThe Lost Power of Voice
My son has recently started to pester me to buy him an iPhone X. A couple of his friends’ parents have Apple’s latest smartphone and for some unknown reason he thinks this means he has a chance of acquiring one for himself. I think deep down he knows that there is more likelihood of his beloved Arsenal finishing top of the Premier League this season than him getting an iPhone - any phone for that matter - but still he keeps trying to wear me down. He is 8 after all. Of course he has no interest in an iPhone for it’s phone capability but rather for it’s i-ness, specifically, its ability to play FIFA Mobile. He is not alone however. Over 1.5billion smartphones were sold around the world in 2017 and yet, in my completely unscientific opinion, people seem to be using their phones less and less for the purpose they were designed for, namely speaking to other people.
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