mentoring
HSMAI Foundation and Women in Travel THRIVE Release Research on the Power of Mentorship
the HSMAI Foundation | January 31, 2024
McLean, VA (January 31, 2024) – The Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) Foundation, in partnership with Women in Travel THRIVE, is proud to announce the release of a pivotal research paper titled "The Power of Mentorship." Authored by Dr. Emily Ma, Professor of Hospitality at the University of Surrey, and Dr. Laurie Wu, Associate Professor at Temple University, this paper is a cornerstone in HSMAI’s ongoing efforts to address the gender imbalance in leadership roles within the hospitality industry. As part of HSMAI’s commitment to developing talent, this research provides valuable insights into the r...
Who Not to Be in Hotel Leadership
Larry Mogelonsky | March 18, 2020
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.hotelmogel.com) Can you change a hotel’s culture without a change at the top? Think about this long and hard as it is very rare that the answer is a ‘yes’. Instead, my hope is to present four potential pratfalls to avoid so as to offer some perspective on how these senior executive behaviors may trickle down to hinder your hotel’s culture from achieving maximum productivity. In many ways, it’s a process of elimination, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a bit of fun in the process! The General Numbers Manager These individual bases everything that he or she does off of data and...
Talking About Ourselves and Telling Our Story Is Not Always Easy – Here Is a Way to Do It Effectively
Gary Hernbroth | March 3, 2020
By Gary Hernbroth Have you ever been asked to “toot your own horn,” to tell others about or list your talents, abilities and qualities? How did it make you feel to answer that query? It can be a bit off-putting, right? Whether you’re on the sending side or the receiving side, if it’s overdone it can be downright uncomfortable or cringe-worthy. But love it or loathe it, there’s no denying that it’s a necessary thing in our world today, especially in business. While some people see it as a welcome opportunity to talk about their brand or do a bit of self-promotion, others are very uncomfortable with talking or writing about...
Service Excellence: Through the Eyes of a Server
Bryan K. Williams | November 4, 2019
By Dr. Bryan K. Williams Back to my roots. There’s something deeply moving and rejuvenating to go back to where it all started. My professional career began almost 30 years ago in a fine-dining French restaurant called “The Palm Terrace”. I started as a busboy, then worked my way up to various roles. However, the job that transformed me; the one that made me feel like I was flying...the one that fully consumed me, was as a restaurant server. Oh, I loved that job. In fact, I still view myself as a server today! Many of the articles, books, keynotes and workshops that I’ve created were inspired by my time as a server. I studied...
Have You Ever Considered Using Failure as an Attribute?
Gary Hernbroth | October 22, 2019
By Gary Hernbroth Whether you are looking for a job or being considered for a new responsibility, let me twist the familiar here and suggest that failure – yes, failure – could actually be your ally. How’s that? In a conversation with hospitality sales and marketing pro Steve Lowe about interviewing and hiring many people throughout the years, he had a unique take to share with me: “I like to ask people ‘Have you ever failed? What happened and what did you do about it?’ I don’t believe that you can really be successful without having failed at some point or other in your life." I love that! I wholeheartedly concur w...
Introducing the Concept of Micromentorship
Larry Mogelonsky | August 21, 2019
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.hotelmogel.com) Mentorship and training are consummately important aspects of any successful business, but one of the most salient rigors of hospitality is that no manager has the time to properly devote to this task. We are all too busy putting out the proverbial fires and managing the day-to-day that we neglect the long-term because we’re mentally and often physically drained. There are both obvious and lurking dangers, though, in sidelining formal mentorship and training that could result in a lack of succession planning or, worse, operational deficiencies that compromise guest service. One ot...
Mentoring in the Hospitality Industry: Insuring the Vibrancy for the Next Wave
Gary Hernbroth | August 5, 2019
By Gary Hernbroth “You’re never too good to get some help.” So says Shelby Hohenshil, 23, and just a year out of Michigan State University where she graduated last year from The School of Hospitality Business. But in some ways she has the wisdom of a wizened veteran when it comes to knowing what it takes to forge a successful career. Shelby landed a job right out of college at the monster-sized Hyatt Regency Chicago, the Windy City’s largest hotel at 2,032 rooms. But she has no misgivings. She knows she didn’t do it alone. “My mentor during my senior year at MSU played a huge role in getting me out of my comfort zone,...
Making Millennial Mentoring Actually Work
Bud Nolan | July 1, 2016
By Bud Nolan The value to a hotel of effective mentoring and succession planning cannot be overestimated. Any business is, after all, wrought with pitfalls and pratfalls that can be more easily avoided if a novice has one-to-one access with a veteran. The concern over good mentorship is now coming to the forefront as more and more millennials reach a point in their twentysomething lives where they have to choose a career and stick to it. While the millennial generation is hardly a unicorn in its uniqueness, it does have quite a few exceptional challenges to overcome with regard to the topic at hand. But from my experience engaging these...
