After 3+ years as Chief Operating Officer of a fast moving, positively disrupting and creative Hospitality company, I decided to take a 4 month creative break spending my time travelling, searching for new inspiration, recharging and re-energising.
During the past 4 month I took 28 flights, travelled on boats, cars, motorbikes, jet skis, buses, bicycles and even horse carriage, visited 9 countries, stayed at 15 different hotels, ate at countless restaurants, enjoyed delicious cocktails at a few too many bars, met amazing people and re-discovered the shocking truth about the worlds hospitality industry.
It is a slow moving dinosaur with too many ego driven Narcissistic Managers, who spend too much time fighting ground breaking disruptors such as AirBnB, waste energy protecting their own power, complaining about the demands of new generations and limiting their teams abilities to please guests and deliver amazing experiences. It is full of boring and dated concepts that fail to understand today’s traveler and their need for unique and effortless experiences.
Rather than identifying why so many people love new concepts such as AirBnB, they waste their Creativity looking for new ways how to control, and restrict.
The best service I experienced was from young, often inexperienced Millennials new to the industry, who still had ambition, dreams and an admirable energy full of an unspoiled mindset. In conversations I often found incredible understanding of what was needed, but how organizations failed to listen to them and even hindered them to perform better.
Truly successful and sustainable organizations understand that their main opportunity lies in their people and in their peoples ability to deliver outstanding service. Motivated teams will have low turnover and not disappoint as they want to be part of a unique and winning team. Winning companies will consistently challenge the norm, question constantly how to improve and drive change even when things seem to go well. They realize the distance that every amazing guest experience will go, how it will drive positive testimonials, recommendations and referrals, whilst disappointing ones will trigger a storm of complaints and result in business loss.
The shocking complacency and lack of drive to change these circumstances is surprising, as the new generations display an enormous sense for values, real mission and a desire to make a difference. They are a significant indication for the future highlighting what both employees and guests will expect. And yet too many people refuse to make changes. They prefer silent executors as opposed to proactive initiative taking team members.
It is imperative to trust employees, which will motivate them and empower them to go beyond their regular duties and excel in their responsibilities. I am not talking about blind trust, but the provision of guidelines, parameters and a room to maneuver within.
- Trust
- Listen
- Let go
- Monitor and assist but don’t control
- Help when asked
- Ask for results and don’t impose your way of doing things
- Praise and reward
- Turn mistakes into learning lessons
- Be daring and take risks
- Make your team the hero
To create a sustainability successful company that understand the future traveler and the new demands of the workforce, it will require some true Visionaries that are able to let go of their egos, walk the talk and make a real difference. I truly think its not that hard and wholeheartedly belief that it will create amazingly positive results. I am confident that organizations who listen and trust their teams, will find that the new generation has both the drive and ambition to create new hospitality experiences that will deliver great returns.
Behind the scenes: Dirk Dalichau is an enigmatic leader who inspires and challenges his team… . Influencer, disruptor with a never ending drive to evolve, improve and flourish.Proactively supportive of the HR agenda at every level and invested in the success and growth of our people. He is the COO of DNA Square Ltd. and helps to differentiate companies from their competition, analyses the business, identify areas for improvement and offers tangible solutions by – Defining a unique DNA to break away from the norm – Draft creative concepts for Hotels and Restaurants – Unleash people power driving both guest and employee satisfaction – Creating Design concepts that consist of an experience and yet work operationally – Identify, source and suggest a selection of Art Works in line with the company’s DNA and Budget – Visit your venues as a Mystery Guest – Hands On Management Suppport when Manpower is needed