Lessons From The Road: Part 2

The latest edition, Lessons From the Road: Part 2, continues exploring some of my top take-aways from being on the road in 2024. While some are a bit nuanced, I believe most are applicable for nearly all industries, especially when entering into uncharted waters:

6. Shift From Reactive To Proactive

With every assignment this year, the culture was reactive and felt stuck. The cause was slightly different at each property, but for most it was due to the lack of care from the previous leadership. Unfortunately, they either lost their sense of care for the culture, lost the vision, allowed poor performers to not be held accountable or they were did not foster a culture of empowerment. The team lost its direction and no longer knew what they were working towards.

Start by asking what issues are keeping the leadership team up at night. Listen deeply to their concerns and try not to interrupt with solutions.

Have them provide the solutions (capex, SOPs, staffing, etc.) and work with them to create a plan. It is our responsibility to advocate with ownership on their behalf and work with the team on implementation.

The mindset and culture across the property will begin to shift immediately. With consistency, time and support, the gears will slowly begin to turn in the opposite direction. They need to be nurtured and responsible-empowerment and trust take time to be reestablished.

7. Back of the House Pride & Cleanliness

Stuck on where to start? Focus on the Back of House cleanliness. Walk all the closets, the mechanical rooms, the kitchen, breakroom, hallways every place your team walks by.

If the team can start by taking pride in the back of house, this pride will extend out into the front of house and guest experience.

The goal should be that you can prop open any door and the guest would be impressed and may not even know the difference between front and back of house. This may involve cleaning, organizing, a great purge, painting and updating boards. By showing that you care about the cleanliness and pride in this space, it will send a message to the team that it is important and that they should as well.

8. Generate Excitement Through Creativity

If we spend too much time in the sandbox of cutting costs and limited time creating ways to grow revenue, it will dim the light of our creativity, joy and innovation.

Give the team something to get excited about! Work with ownership on creative ways to grow revenue and then work with the team on buy-in and execution. Innovation and adoption of their ideas bring value to the team and excitement. It will also bring clarity to the direction and vision for the property.

9. Do Not Overshare

It takes time to fully understand where the operation is currently at and what strategic next steps need to take place. I had so many ideas, many of which would not have been as impactful as I first thought.

Your words have weight, use them wisely.

Be strategic. You don’t have to justify your effectiveness through massive change. In fact, we must be very mindful of the pressure that a large volume of change in a short time period came impact the team and the impact this will have. You may have thoughts or frustrations, but these must be properly communicated to the ownership team you are working with and not at the property level. Try not to oversharing too many creative ideas or voice frustration that doesn’t inspire the team.

10. Inspire Through Advocacy

In every assignment, I have encountered several leaders who unfortunately just stopped caring. The reason for nearly all of them was they feel they did not have the support or felt genuinely cared for by their leader. ?

Would you work hard for someone who doesn’t genuinely care about you?

Most would say no and seek another job. While every situation is unique, I have found that even the smallest bit of advocacy can mean the world. It could be a timely compliment, a promotion, a raise, an ear to listen and learn, accountability for poor performers, supporting a vision for excellence or a wonderful idea they have brought to life. Any of these go a long way to reignite the care you are looking for, but it really starts with us.

Bonus Lesson: How To Earn the Buy-In

For folks brand new to a position or even operating on a contract basis, this assignment will eventually end. Your job is to do the best you can to support the operation and team while you are there and be of service. This is a challenging position to be in and will bring with it fear and skepticism of your leadership, You may also inherit the sins of the previous leadership team. The best leaders I have worked with know how to Be a good listener. They deeply listen without speaking and certainly don’t jump straight to problem solving. I had a contract GM in my past who made key decisions about nearly every department without involving people or asking questions and he never fostered the buy-in from leadership. Don’t be that guy.

To know where you need to go, you have to understand where the team has been. It is easy to cast judgement but when you take the time to understand, the support and buy-in will be waiting for you on the other side.

As leaders, one of our goal is to be effective. Buy-in is a product of trust, advocacy and impactful problem solving. Encourage your team to come up with business decisions that impact them the most, and not the other way around. This will empower them and provide confidence in also shifting the mindset from reactive to proactive for the long term.