The short video below shows a couple of my historical Wisdom Books including my first one that I hadn’t reviewed in the past five years. Here’s a micro-dose of wisdom from when I was a newly-minted hotel company CEO more than thirty years ago.
- We lost a band looking for rooms that would have been a week long stay as they were coming to town to record in a studio. Their travel agent left the wrong number for me to call back so I waited a couple days to research her right number and by the time I got back to her, she’d booked the band elsewhere and we lost out on $3,500 of revenue. LESSON: Respond immediately to all correspondence even if it takes extra time.
- Our new manager in the restaurant seems really smart, but he had no clue (after a month on the job) what defines success for the business and how he could impact it so he naturally gravitates to what he knows best which is training servers and bartenders when what we really need is for him to look for how to drive some new group and catering business. This had been explained in his interview process but we hadn’t adequately covered it in his on-boarding process. LESSON: All new managers should be onboarded with the business short- and long-term goals, how they can impact these, and what defines success for them in their first 90 days.
- Had lunch with a few employees today, some of them new. The new ones have “fresh eyes” and see things that need changing that the rest of us have gotten too used to. LESSON: Let’s continue to do a performance review of new employees after three months, but let’s ask them to do a “fresh eyes” review of us after one month as we probably can learn a lot from them.
Such a blast from the past to read these relatively obvious lessons (much less obvious to a leader in their late 20s). You ought to see what I’m entering in My Wisdom Book in the pandemic! Hope this new leadership practice helps you metabolize wisdom much faster especially in these challenging economic times.