My Blog Week: February 21 to February 27

A Word on the Week

Work Ethic

Suppose you had a business, one in the hospitality industry, and that your business was under stress. No surprise in COVID times; travel restrictions alone put a limit on the number of hotel rooms you can rent to vacationers.

Suppose you had, more or less, retired from heading your company, to devote your time to another job, letting family members take over your old one…keeping on top of all the many tasks such a company demands. Paying off loans, acquiring new lenders, finding markets to invest in, strategizing ad campaigns, reviewing the performance of existing units, discussing with onsite management any unit’s underperformance—why this might be, how to turn it around—and discussing with your board of directors whether some units would be better sold, the possibility of taking the company public to raise cash…many things. 

But your stint at the other job has ended. The crisis brought on by the pandemic has done serious damage. In a lot of ways, the company is you, or you are it…and you at the helm again, making a strong show of leadership, a promise to reinvigorate the company, would be applauded by stakeholders. Then again, a business like yours depends on its relationship with customers. There are hotels and resorts everywhere. You want your name in front of the person making a choice; you don’t want old customers to forget you, or new ones to think there’s something wrong with you these days. If the company was in good shape, and rebuilding strongly, wouldn’t its leader step out in a new series of glossy ads? Wouldn’t he want to reassure the world that he knows these are challenging times, and his hotels have not been spared, but his company—he personally—is in the game, guaranteeing the best customer experience, etc…?

The Trump empire seems moribund, and more odd, rudderless. His followers would like to cast him as a genius of business; then again, they’d like to have him elected president again. I would submit that someone who doesn’t immediately take charge of his own thing, is showing zero ability to manage a business or America. Why didn’t Trump at once call all his executives for a meeting, issue a plan for recovery—a plan unveiled in a very public venue, since it’s the hotel-going public who need the message?