The Next Act: A New Way of Doing Business

How we do business has changed. Compared to 2019, it’s a whole new landscape, and there is uncertainty as to whether the current circumstances will be ongoing or are a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. What I do know is that in the last few years, there have been several adjustments to how we do business, and they have been further affected by the pandemic; some leaders kicked into gear and were malleable in the situation, and others continued doing things the way they always did and failed to respond.

Here are my observations of some of the changes:

• Less commoditization, more differentiation.
• Less feature dumping, more story telling.
• Fewer people joining the hospitality industry; more focus on reducing current employee workload.
• Less organizational flattening and more focus on improving leadership skills.
• More wit and empathy, less formality.
• More straightforward, concise, and personalized emails; fewer spelling and grammar errors and unclear communications.
• More meaningful connections, fewer arm’s-length business relationships.
• Greater urgency for faster response yet more complications (as in more steps) to put a quote together.
• More strategy, less shooting from the hip.
• More trend watching and discussion on how to leverage and less ‘head in the sand’ actions.
• More care, concern, and compassion for employees; less autocratic leadership.
• More involvement from asset managers and a more collaborative approach between owner representatives and hotel managers as they work to solve problems.

Are we returning to ‘normal,’ or will we ever be back to normal? I believe the pandemic has changed how we do business in the short term and even, I will go so far as to say, for the long term. How we do business in the hotel industry has changed. We need to make sure we are adapting to this new world of more urgency, differentiation, clear and constant communications and less formality, commoditization, and ineffective leadership.

Take some time and write your ‘more’ and ‘less’ checklist for your hotel, team, and business interactions and commit to doing business differently as the world starts to reopen.

"The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new." – Socrates

"The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence—it is to act with yesterday’s logic." – Peter Drucker

Hire Jo-Anne to:

• Remove silos and other barriers to employee productivity.
• Engage a trusted advisor for consultation and recommendations.
• Conduct a deep-dive review of your sales and marketing organization.
• Support your leaders with leadership executive coaching.
• Create a healthy organizational culture.
• Develop a strategic plan to manage today’s constant changing environment.

If you would like to hear more, simply reach out to Jo-Anne at
[email protected].

About Jo-Anne Hill

Jo-Anne is an industry expert who founded JH Hospitality Consulting to help hotels around the world dramatically improve revenue and profitability in creative ways. Her strategic thinking, skill, and practical approach to problem-solving come from hands-on experience at companies such as The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, the Mandarin-Oriental Hotel Group, the Dorchester Collection, and Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts.

Jo-Anne’s recently published book ‘Cultivating Leadership: How great leaders make a difference, one hotel at a time” dives deeper into the equation: happy staff = happy guests = more revenue.