A Change of Mindset: New Paradigms, Frameworks and Perspectives

Tonight, someone I care about deeply (more than she cares about me :) ) suggested that I change my mindset over a personal matter, and I could not help but let my mind wander over what this implied, and the literal meaning of the phrase. The exercise naturally led me to the implications the term holds for today’s hotel industry. Over the past 15 to 20 years, changes in hotel ownership and management, the growth and development of distribution systems, and the proliferation of accommodation alternatives have transformed the hospitality landscape, adding a new level of complexity to the industry. Two decades ago, a chain hotel was owned and managed by the chain itself; now, many are owned by one company, franchised under a chain’s name, and managed by a third-party operator. While guests once could pick up the phone and call a hotel’s central reservations office or use their local travel agent to book a room, today OTAs are powerful intermediaries that have replaced traditional consumer travel channels. Travelers can choose from many alternatives to hotels for accommodation, including apartments and even private homes. Mergers and acquisitions continue to multiply, particularly exemplified by Marriott’s acquisition of Starwood to create the world’s largest hotel company, with 30 brands. Millennial preferences have driven the development of new brands with fresh ideas about hotel design. Hotel companies are expanding their portfolios to include brands focused on this segment. Travel patterns have also changed. China has become the world’s largest source market for tourists, with nearly 100 million outbound travelers, accounting for almost one in every ten tourists worldwide. Chinese travelers are also by far the highest spenders on travel, well ahead of the world’s second-largest market, the United States. In the travel market, these changes and ambiguities present new challenges, both large and small, for the hotel industry, John Kotter states that the primary role of leadership is to deal with change. Depending on how it is viewed, with the right perspective and flexibility, change can present an organization with new opportunities: the possibility of capitalizing on demographic shifts, new technologies, or the emergence of new markets. Change can also pose dilemmas, such as the need to address new competitors, face a crisis, or deal with a shortage of available employees. To identify new realities, current or future, one must be able to see the bigger picture and today’s landscape in new ways. This ability to view the present and the near future from a new standpoint is one of the justifications for modern leadership, and what defines it as such. The ability to think more creatively, form new habits, shift paradigms, reframe one’s perspective, and think differently when learning new ideas are all tools that can help address the first key element of change: identifying that change is necessary.

Creative thinking

Creativity is currently the most important and necessary leadership competency in every aspect of leadership. If one thinks in the same way as everyone else, the opportunity for new ideas (and new solutions) is limited. There are many ways to increase creativity:

• Establish a culture in which failure is part of learning

He fallado una y otra vez en mi vida. Y por eso tengo éxito. Michael Jordan Share on X

• Through collaboration

Creativity thrives on collaboration, as even individual creativity is almost always stimulated by the work, ideas, and achievements of others. Daniel Goleman agrees:

Un equipo unido, que se base en las fortalezas y habilidades particulares de cada miembro del grupo, puede ser más inteligente y más efectivo que cualquier miembro individual de ese grupo. Daniel Goleman Share on X

The value of collaboration is a difficult lesson to learn in some cultures, where the lone pioneer hero has long been idolized, and where the role of the individual often takes precedence over the group. But even those who work alone can learn the benefits of teamwork.

• Positive thinking

It has been proven that simply believing you are more creative increases creativity. As people become more comfortable realizing that they can be more creative, the upward spiral of success is reinforced.

• Challenge the rules.

There was someone who believed in challenging tradition: A questioning attitude—asking “why” several times about the same issue—can lead to discovering that established rules may do more harm than good. For example, typewriters were designed with QWERTY keyboards to prevent keys from sticking together if the operator typed too quickly (that is, it slowed down how fast one could type).

• Humour .

More than four decades of studies conducted by various researchers confirm a piece of common-sense wisdom: skilfully used, humour greases the wheels. When people work together on a problem, groups that laugh more easily and more often are more creative and productive than their serious, dull counterparts. Joking makes sense because joy is itself a creative state. The use of humour can reduce stress and create a learning environment conducive to new ideas.

New habits

Creating a new habit or set of habits is another way to change how we see things. Knowledge is what we do and why we do it (based on our principles), desire is the motivation, the desire to do it, and skill is the way to do it. Covey’s seven habits are: be proactive, begin with the end in mind, put first things first, think win/win, seek first to understand, then to be understood, synergize, and sharpen the saw; they provide a way of thinking and acting in business and life. By adopting these habits, one can maintain better balance and create the opportunity to find new ways of viewing situations. Starbucks develops willpower habits to help its staff deal with stressful times. Through role-playing, discussion, and feedback, it trains employees on how to react to a cue (for example, an angry guest or a busy period) by choosing a certain routine in advance (for example, staying calm, seeking solutions, and so on). When a turning point arrives, employees can handle the situation smoothly, resulting in the reward of a satisfied guest and successful management of chaos. In this scenario, Starbucks helps its staff create habits by helping them change the way they approach dilemmas. An employee now thinks of their green Starbucks apron as a shield: when they put it on, angry guests can no longer affect them!

Reframing

The power of reframing can unlock a wide range of solutions to major and minor problems

There is a scene from The Pink Panther that illustrates this clearly:

Inspector Clouseau: Does your dog bite?

Receptionist: No.

Clouseau [leaning down to pet the dog]: Nice doggie.

[The dog bites Clouseau’s hand.]

Clouseau: I thought you said your dog did not bite!

Hotel employee: That is not my dog.

We may be tempted to blame the employee when the dog bites Clouseau, but the employee’s final statement surprises us and makes us consider the situation differently. One of the key elements of reframing is seeing a circumstance from a fresh perspective. Changing the way we usually frame an organization can help us communicate better with those who interpret the organization differently. Viewing an organization through different frames can also spark a range of new ideas for addressing current or emerging dilemmas, or for creating new opportunities to respond to change in our world.

Paradigm shifts

Innovative paradigm shifts include examples in fields as diverse as physics, health, and astronomy; consider what Galileo had to do to convince royalty that the Earth revolved around the sun (Copernicus’s theory), when most astronomers believed the opposite to be true. A paradigm shift changes the way we see things. In business, examples of paradigm shifts include disruptive innovations (for example, the internet, mobile technology, and big data analytics), shifts in global economies, workers’ and social rights, and changes in consumer preferences. When a paradigm shift occurs, everything is reset to zero, past successes guarantee nothing, and business models change to create new realities. The flexibility to adapt to paradigm shifts is a powerful tool. Changing paradigms and shifting one’s perspective begins with self-reflection: the better we understand ourselves, the better we can address change. Peter Drucker states that, to be productive throughout a 50-year working life, it is important to cultivate a deep understanding of oneself; to this end, he offers several profound questions in his Harvard Business Review article, Managing Oneself, such as: “How do I work?”, “Where do I belong?”, and “What can I contribute?” Identifying one’s personal values is also a strong trend in business today. The ability to think differently as the hotel industry moves into uncharted territory—both domestically and internationally, within organizations and across local, online, and offline markets—is becoming more important as change continues to evolve at a faster pace than ever before. Being agile and open enough to adapt, address challenges, and/or seize opportunities will determine which companies wither and which thrive. At the heart of these circumstances lies the ability to recognize trends, realize the need for change, and act in these situations in ways that meet the needs of an organization, its staff, and its guests.