Leadership Lounge

This article first appeared in the March 2019 issue of BoardRoom Magazine Research shows that 60-90% of strategic plans fail. Developing a strategic plan takes discipline, brutal honesty, and requires foresight with trends, the economy, and society. Consider, for example: Club #1, 2008: built a ‘formal dining room’ significantly larger than its casual dining in a new clubhouse even though club trends and their consultant advised against it. The dining room is now closed excep

Inc Magazine recently featured a story in which a pilot for Southwest Airlines held a departing flight for 12 minutes in order to ensure a passenger was able to make the flight. The passenger, was en route to grieve with his family as they prepared to take his two-year-old grandson off life support - clearly a difficult time. As someone whose job requires a significant amount of time in the air, seeing a story like this full of compassion warmed my heart. But, it also served

September 25th is National Foodservice Workers Day! Hooray for us! It’s the day to tip our hats, and maybe add a little extra tip, to all the servers, cooks, dishwashers, stewards, hosts, bartenders, baristas, chefs, bakers, lunch ladies, hash-slingers, food runners, sommeliers, maître d’s and the managers who herd all these cats in the uniquely special environment of the food world. Food workers serve customers in fine dining restaurants, private clubs, fast food establishm

“Our brains are not wired for routine and repetition at work. Disengagement isn’t a motivation problem; it’s a biological one.” -Daniel M Cable, Author Do you find yourself dreading going to work? Is it because you truly dislike what it is you are doing, or is it because you are simply just bored? Fast Company’s Secrets of the Most Productive People offers a lesson in brain-training when it comes to combatting boredom at work, and shifting your mindset is easier than you may

A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying. - B. F. Skinner Earlier this week, Inc Magazine posted an article lauding Google’s process of learning from failure; calling it brilliant and we can’t help but agree. Here’s how we think you can make learning from failures apply to hospitality in a club setting: Identify the most important problems Failures or mistakes provide valuable learning

Editor's Note: This is part two of a two-part series authored by RCS owner & president Whitney Reid Pennell for 2018, intended to help club managers and hospitality professionals understand the current obstacles in employee retention and training. Part One can be read here. Part One of this series on trends in employee retention and training discussed what obstacles are currently being faced by hospitality professionals and why they have occurred. Let's continue. What is bein

If you're in the hospitality business, you probably already know that the food and beverage industry has the highest turnover rate of an

using online instruction allows learning to more easily become a continuous process and not just a sporadic special event. And because onlin

Have you ever taken a personality test? These tools are becoming more and more popular with employers as we strive to hire workers with specific qualities, rather than skills. After all, skills can be taught--but inherent qualities cannot. This is particularly important in the hospitality industry. We can train you to be a good server or hostess for example, but if you aren't naturally hospitable, friendly, and helpful, then all the skills in the world still won't be able t

As a manager, training is an inescapable part of your responsibilities, and unlike teaching wherein your audience is usually children chances are you will be working with adult learners. Engaging with adult learners has its own unique set of challenges. When you train adults, there is a greater need for mutual respect and for the learners to find the trainer credible with enough character authority to teach them something new. Once the trainer has established their skills an