Apply hospitality first to your internal team members, trusting they are on your side, because this approach fosters their best performance and creates a virtuous cycle benefiting all stakeholders, including customers, community, suppliers, and investors.
Prioritize hiring based on a ‘Hospitality Quotient’ (HQ), which is the degree to which individuals are happier when making others feel better, as this emotional skill accounts for 51% of an ideal employee’s value beyond technical competence.
Actively seek candidates who demonstrate optimistic kindness, intellectual curiosity, a strong work ethic (excellence reflex), empathy (doing unto others as they would want), self-awareness (understanding one’s ‘personal weather report’), and integrity, as these are crucial for a high Hospitality Quotient.
Utilize a four-quadrant chart (Can/Can’t vs. Will/Won’t) to objectively manage employee performance, assigning specific action steps and timeframes for each category, particularly addressing ‘Can but Won’t’ employees who undermine culture despite their competence.
Turn honest mistakes into positive opportunities by following the ‘Five A’s’: Be Aware, Acknowledge, Apologize, Act (to fix it), and Apply Additional Generosity, aiming to ‘write a great next chapter’ where the handling of the mistake becomes a positive story.
Recognize that culture is like a shark, constantly moving or dying, meaning it must evolve with growth; while the ‘way we do things’ changes, your core value system must remain a constant compass.
Scale your organizational culture by intentionally promoting individuals who embody desired emotional skills and values, as these promotions signal to the entire organization what behaviors are truly valued and rewarded.
Combine the efficiency of ‘bricklayer’ systems for consistent baseline quality with the ‘mason’ approach of customized, empathetic judgment to tailor experiences for individual guests, ensuring both repeatable excellence and personalized hospitality.
When choosing a business location, deeply understand its inherent ’terroir’ – what the space and its surroundings communicate – and only select a site that inherently makes people feel good, even if it were free, as the location sets the stage for your business.
Build a strong organizational culture by carefully selecting people who can thrive in your ‘soil,’ continuously nurturing it, providing training, and ‘pruning’ (firing) individuals who hinder the collective growth, much like a winemaker tends a vineyard.
Address personal fears related to business growth by recognizing that past failures are not predestined outcomes, and by intentionally surrounding yourself with diverse talent that compensates for your weaknesses and amplifies your strengths.
Implement and advocate for fair living wages for all employees in your industry, even if it necessitates raising prices, to ensure a sustainable business model that values its people and contributes positively to the broader economy.
Understand that scaling a ‘feeling’ or human experience (hospitality) is the most challenging aspect of organizational growth, even more so than consistently replicating product or service quality, and requires dedicated strategic effort.