Spirit of Giving – Roundtable focuses on leading with action, service and love

For 50 years, Davidson Hospitality Group has been guided by a core value as the motivational force behind its actions: “Be passionate about what you do, serve others with love.”

This guiding principle was the conversation starter at the Hotel Business roundtable held at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm in Bethesda, MD.

Sponsored and hosted by Davidson Hospitality Group, the event brought together industry leaders for a high-level discussion about the spirit of giving and the hospitality industry’s proactive approaches to creating a positive impact on society—as well as creating best practices to engage employees in this important mission.

What is the industry doing to give back? The 90-minute conversation centered around all the good that is being done by the industry to care for team members and the communities in which they have hotels.

Christina Trauthwein, VP, content & partnerships, Hotel Business, moderated the leadership discussion amongst Thom Geshay, CEO/president, Davidson Hospitality Group; Mark Hoplamazian, CEO, Hyatt Hotels Corp.; Liam Brown, group president, U.S. & Canada, Marriott International; John Cohlan, CEO, Margaritaville; Leslie D. Hale, CEO, RLJ Lodging Trust; Jim Merkel, CEO, Rockbridge; Kevin Carey, interim president/CEO, AHLA; and Pam Landwirth, CEO, Give Kids the World.

Davidson’s principles of love, character, integrity, how you do business and how you treat others have remained consistent throughout its five decades, according to the company.

“We have a lot of long-term employees in our company,” said Geshay, who himself has been with Davidson for 36 of its 50 years. “I think that matters because they work hard so they don’t let each other down. I work hard. I don’t want to let those people down because I love them. They put so much effort into producing what we do for our owners, brands, clients and our team members. That is a lot more powerful than someone with a bigger title saying, ‘Just do this.’”

Culture is a core value of Davidson, and Geshay noted, “We can’t do what we do without all of our team at every level—and the last 50 years through up cycles and down cycles, through pandemics, the dot-com bust and great recessions, we’re proud of that longevity. But the culture piece matters so much because people will work harder if they don’t want to let their coworkers down.”

That type of culture is important to have a successful company. “If you ask Mr. Marriott, our chairman emeritus, he would say it is all about culture—providing a culture of opportunity, growth and development,” said Brown. “You have to have people who want to work every day for you. Those are the most successful companies over time. It has to be culture—there is some kind of magic to it.”

Having Jimmy Buffett as a founder and incorporating his life philosophy as inspiration helps put employees in the right state of mind for Margaritaville, said Cohlan.

“The people who work for our company feel a little bit like there’s a higher purpose—underscoring that ‘vacation state of mind,’ which aligns with the brand,” he added. “The employees feel like they are providing that, and that’s true of this industry. We always emphasize that this is a career. There aren’t a lot of industries where you can start at the grab-and-go and work your way all the way up.”

Landwirth brought up one of her favorite quotes, “The meaning of life is to find your gifts. The purpose of life is to give them away.”

She added, “Part of us as leaders—recognizing that you have to take care of business to take care of hearts—it is all about engagement. You want your employees to feel engaged. If we can help them find their talents and purpose and give them an opportunity to use those both internally within the organization and externally when you do work in your community, they are going to be engaged. It’s helping people find their purpose.”

Hyatt’s Hoplamazian stressed that culture is extremely important, but purpose also plays a part. He shared a question he has posed during several meetings he’s had with employees at all levels of the company: Why does Hyatt exist, and why does it matter?

“It is really about us,” he said. “Would the world be a better or worse place if we didn’t exist in it? Culture is the way it comes to life daily. For us, purpose has been something that people have related to. Our purpose as a company is to care for people so they can be their best.”

He emphasized that the company uses the word “care” instead of “serve,” adding, “There is a huge difference between the two because you have to practice empathy in order to care for someone. People means all people, not just guests.”

With guests staying at a hotel for a variety of reasons, from celebrating a wedding, being on a business trip, seeking medical treatment at a nearby hospital or attending a funeral, the staff needs to “meet people where they are,” said Hoplamazian. “The guests’ lives don’t start or stop when they come through the doors of the hotel. We’re sort of a guest in their lives, as opposed to them being guests in ours.”

He added, “Culture is tantamount. I think purpose actually ends up giving you an extra boost of rocket fuel.”

The culture of care and love that so many companies in the industry live by has spread beyond guests and staff to the communities they serve, and the participants shared how important that is.

Rockbridge has done business with Davidson for 30 years, and Merkel jumped at the chance to be a part of the roundtable. “We share values,” he said. “One of those values is giving back. It is not enough just to do well. We want to make a difference.”

Rockbridge has given back in a major way, as the company founded RTRX in 2012, an event that has raised more than $7 million for cancer research.

“The way we can really make a difference in peoples’ lives is by engaging them and giving back,” said Merkel. “We have made it a cornerstone of what we do. What we found early on is that the business benefit to that is it aligned everyone in the organization. They shared the values, people were engaged and people got to know each other in different settings to be close across the company.”

Margaritaville’s Cohlan said that giving back makes people feel good, especially those working at its properties. “It’s certainly an encouraging, wonderful thing,” he said. “If you give people an opportunity to do that, it creates pride in what they do.”

Working in the industry long enough, everyone can find amazing stories of giving back. “I think it is a combination of top-down and bottom-up,” said Brown.

He spoke of Marriott employees’ responses following the wildfires in Maui. “What they do at the hotels is remarkable,” he said. “They step up if something happens, and they do the right thing. It is all about creativity on the ground as people make that happen.”

While so much of the giving back and caring for guests happens at the property level, the corporate team encourages it. “You set the tone of ‘We have to be good stewards, and we have to help our communities where we do business,’” Brown said.

He pointed to an example of leading from the top when Bill Marriott, who was in his 70s at the time, spent the day painting homes for Habitat for Humanity. “He led by example, and that really translates to others,” Brown said.

Hale noted that her company often focuses on initiatives that are employee-led or suggested. “I found that when an employee identifies an opportunity and drives in the adoption, the buy-in is extraordinarily high,” she said, citing an employee-suggested composting program as an example. “When we see employees driving it, that’s where we see the greatest success.”

The RLJ CEO also added that educating employees on the whys and hows of initiatives, they are more likely to get behind them “as opposed to it being a requirement.”

Hale said that her company has a unique responsibility because of the diversity it represents within the industry.

“A lot of what we do is focused on giving access,” she said. “When you look at the population of people who are at the properties, a significant portion of them are women and minorities. What we try to do is make sure that we teach them a path forward. People talk about the opportunities, but when you look at the top, there are still not many women or minorities.”

The company is very focused on the pipeline of future leaders and creating opportunities for those who may not have had the chance before—and teaching them certain skills that can help them in their future careers, including teaching kids to play golf. “We know that a lot of deals and opportunities are done on the golf course,” she said.

One of the things that is great about the industry, Hale said, is that when she has asked others to help, they have done so, including those who have been helped themselves.

“You have to see it in order to believe that you can do that,” she added. “We need to be a living example and live the values.”

Merkel agreed with Hale, adding, “I love the idea of the intentionality of access because I am a big believer that people just getting in a room will see that what we do is not taking rockets to the moon. They realize they can do it. Getting people who might not have been on that path together is huge in creating that pipeline of people who can see it as a career.”

Cohlan shared a story about his own son’s experience when he worked at one of Margaritavllle’s properties during the COVID-19 pandemic as an example of how this industry can change lives.

“He told me, ‘The thing I loved about it was that the people I was managing were less fortunate than I was growing up,’” the CEO recalled. “‘I could impact their lives. If I was working at Goldman Sachs or something, I would not be managing anyone whose life I can really impact in the same way.’”

Authentic leadership
While the conversation focused on the good the industry does for its communities and employees, the executives also discussed the qualities needed to be a good leader.

Brown said that relationships between leaders and employees are extremely important to success and retention. “You have got to invest in your leaders,” he stressed. “Most of the time, when you have a turnover problem, it is because they are leaving their manager, not the company.”

Employees need to be given a very clear idea and knowledge of what the mission is and what it takes to be successful in their job. “Do they have the tools, training and support to do their jobs and feel that someone cares about them?” he said.

Brown recalled a time when a former supervisor asked him if he knew the names of his housekeepers’ children. “I asked him if that was important, and he said, ‘I guarantee they know your name,’” he said. “In our business, it is simple: You want to manage by walking around and talking to your people, and you make sure they have all they need to do their job.”

Rockbridge’s Merkel said that it is extremely important to build trust with your team. “I love the quote that says, ‘Trust comes in drips and leaves in buckets,’” he said. “It is just those day-in, day-out little things that build connection with your team. When you do that, then when you have a mission or something that needs to get accomplished, everyone is coalescing. They trust you and trust following you. You are authentic.”

That authenticity is especially important when you make mistakes. “You need to own those mistakes and be vulnerable with your team,” he said. “You say you are sorry. It brings us together and makes us a better company.”

As a leader, Hale noted, you must be your authentic self. “When you are being your true self, it is easy to pivot between business, social and personal,” she said. “When you are not being authentic, you have to wear different hats. That’s when it becomes very difficult.”

Part of authentic leadership, she added, is “helping people understand the role they play in being able to permeate the strategy from the highest level to the lowest level in the organization.”

Making sure that every associate understands what role they play on any project is something that RLJ spends a lot of time on, said the CEO, adding, “That helps build a community component. When everyone can know what their contribution is a part of, in a really authentic way, everyone contributes to the success of the organization.”

Hoplamazian said that a good leader is honest with their employees, adding, “If the company is going through a rough patch or you are heading into a storm, be open, be vulnerable, share your mistakes. It humanizes you as a leader, but it also builds trust because you are being completely authentic all the time.’”

Partners helping partners
Give Kids the World, an 89-acre nonprofit resort in Kissimmee, FL, which provides critically ill children and their families with week-long wish vacations at no cost, is one of the recipients of the industry giving back. It was founded by Henri Landwirth, a longtime Florida hotelier and Holocaust survivor. Davidson has been a partner with the organization for 30 years.

“We are slightly different, but we do run a resort,” said Pamela Landwirth. “How I like to share it is: You will try to create the perfect guest experience so your guests will continue coming back. We have to create the perfect guest experience because our guests can’t come back because they only get one wish. Everything we do has to be perfect while they are there.”

One thing that she said was important is that, as a nonprofit, her responsibility is to “help our corporate partners do well so they can continue doing good. You have to do well to do good.”

Landwirth said that her partners, including Hyatt and Davidson, have helped her organization help more than 200,000 families. “You’ve touched every single one of their lives,” she said.

Telling the story
While the industry does all these great things, not everyone outside of it knows. That is one of the reasons Davidson decided to partner with Hotel Business to convene the roundtable.

“What we all do for our guests, team members and for the communities where we are seems to get lost a lot,” said Geshay. “It came to light for us after the pandemic, when we lost so many team members, and we tried to get them back. It got all of us thinking about trying to raise awareness of our industry and what we do, and how we can make careers—not just a job, but a career. It made us consider how we give back—not just the tax dollars we pay to the communities we are in, but how our teams can lean into the cities and towns they are in, making lives better for everybody.”

Carey said that the AHLA is working to get that story out as much as possible, adding, “AHLA has been able to marshal the programs, investments and examples of what you do at a corporate level and what your employees do at a property level.”

Capturing and amplifying what the industry does is an ongoing mission for AHLA. “The supply of these types of stories is limitless,” he added. “Just to hear these conversations and focus on the role we can play to consolidate and share these stories is inspiring.”

Geshay did offer an explanation on why stories of giving back aren’t always told as well as they perhaps should be. “Maybe the reason we don’t tell the stories is because people who are hospitality people are not egotistical,” he said. “They are more committed and don’t brag about what they do. There is a lot of humility in hospitality because that’s the way people with a servant heart think. They just focus on how to make it better.”

Carey pointed out that one of the things that is easy to love about the hotel industry is an event like this roundtable.

“You have longstanding business partners, industry peers and competitors around the table who come together and focus on what’s good for the industry and for guests,” Carey said.