Learning to Succeed

This past week, Hotel Equities graduated its tenth class from the Management Development Program [MDP]. This program is one of five current training programs being offered, with a sixth in the pipeline. MDP follows in line with Hotel Equities’ third Value Statement, “Hire an attitude and teach them the business.” Learning and development is defined as “improving group and individual performance by honing skills and increasing knowledge”. During the Management Development Program, individuals must complete twenty-two self-directed modules that provide them an insight into the operational side of working in a hotel. In addition to the modules, they each must complete a self-designed and implemented project which either increases revenue or decreases expenses at their hotel equal to the approximate cost of their training.

I can’t over emphasize how critical it is to seek opportunities to continue education in order to grow both personally and in your career development. I truly believe that training is a key stepping stone to our long term success.

All of the training programs offered at Hotel Equities are taught through experiential learning, defined as the process of learning through experience. Research shows that there are three reasons why experiential learning is most effective; [1] it accelerates learning, [2] it increases levels of engagement with others and [3] it enables self-paced personalized learning.

Aristotle said it best. “The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.”

I say all of this to encourage you to always take the opportunity to learn as much as you can, as often as you can. Try to become a bit better at what you do each and every day. I encourage you to find a mentor who will help you throughout each stage in your life. Read a lot and learn through other people’s experiences, as well as your own. One of my personal mentors once told me, “You ought to learn from the mistakes of others, since you’re unlikely to live long enough to make them all on your own”.

Here’s to your personal learning and development program.

Hospitably,
Coach

Money Well Spent

This February, Hotel Equities held our Annual GM/DOS Conference in Birmingham, Alabama. The conference brings everyone together in one location to participate in team building and training sessions to further develop their skills and talents, to recognize and celebrate successes and to look ahead to the future.

A lot of time and resources are spent planning and executing these events, so we want to ensure all attendees have a positive experience. Therefore, we always ask for their feedback afterwards. As I reflect on the week’s events and continue to receive feedback from the attendees, it’s clear that bringing everyone together is money well spent.

During past downturns in the economy, when nearly all hospitality companies were eliminating their annual conferences, HE viewed this time as an opportunity to show our leaders how committed we were to their growth and well-being by continuing to have our leadership retreats. One of the key aspects of the retreat is for the participants to meet new folks who are peers, to share new ideas and build comradery. When things begin to get off-track at the property level, GM’s are more likely to call a peer to discuss how they might have handled a similar situation. Having someone who is going through something similar is extremely important in this industry. Also, learning alongside your peers can often be energizing to leaders.

We like to celebrate successes and recognize those who have gone above and beyond. HE holds an award’s night at every conference, rewarding different individuals and properties throughout the portfolio for a job well done. Seeing peers cross the stage to pick up well-deserved awards is motivating to many individuals and encourages them to commit to work harder and smarter to get on stage next year.    

The conference allows the home office coaching staff to share their experience and wisdom in dealing with complicated issues. This year, we also had the opportunity to introduce our new strategic alliance partner from Virtua Partners’ team to the associates in attendance.

The conference was a successful event and just like every year, we look forward to the next one and all that we will learn from it. One of Hotel Equities’ 12 value statements asks the question, “If it were my money would I spend it?” The resounding answer regarding this year’s Leadership summit is, Yes!

Hospitably Yours,
Coach