Victor1558 via Compfight I started my career in the hotel industry as a college job when I was a psychology student at the University of California at Santa Barbara, CA. I realized fairly early on in my studies, that while I was fascinated by psychology, I didn’t really want to pursue a career in it. […]
I started my career in hospitality over twenty years ago with a part-time job as a lifeguard at the swimming pool at the Four Seasons Biltmore Resort in Santa Barbara. I was a triathlete at the time, and the job was a convenient option because it allowed me to swim at work. But my summer […]
The world of business is changing fast. And it seems to be changing in two distinct directions. The first is going more mass. As businesses get larger, they are able to invest more in ways that drive prices down and make using them easier and easier. Think of Target, Walmart, Verizon, CVS and Amazon. If […]
I had never heard of Chade-Meng Tan until I received an advance copy of his new book, “Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace)” But once I read his book, I felt like I had connected with an old friend. I immediately felt a kinship with Meng (as he […]
Most managers think that motivating employees is the #1 part of their job. Or they make the distinction between managers, who attempt to get things done by delegating and motivating employees through incentives and discipline, and leaders, who create a compelling vision and motivate employees through empowerment and inspiration. But everyone seems to feel that […]
Earlier this year, I taught my first semester of a new online course on Positive Leadership in Spas and Hospitality for the UC Irvine Extension certification program in Spa and Hospitality Management. Because it was an online course, it attracted an incredible diversity of students from all over the world. There was a good mix […]
A great article by Andrea Petersen appeared in the Wall Street Journal Travel section last week outlining the “Hidden Ways Hotels Court Guests Faster.” The article focused on all the ways that different hotel brands are trying to dazzle their guests with an excellent first impression. Hotel industry executives (myself included) were likely to be […]
Before Twitter, before Facebook, before Google, and before Apple, there was Bell Labs: “From its beginnings in the 1920s until its demise in the 1980s, Bell Labs—officially, the research and development wing of AT&T—was the biggest, and arguably the best, laboratory for new ideas in the world. From the transistor to the laser, from digital […]
I met Rachel Permuth-Levine, a Senior Director of Research for Sodexo on a Workplace Wellness discussion group on LinkedIn and was fascinated by some of the research they were developing. This article was written by Stephanie Andel, a toLive Research Scholar at Sodexo and a senior at Bradley University where she is studying Psychology and […]
Questions about the economy have consumed the world media of the past few years. We ask, “what is wrong with the economy?” and “How can it be fixed?” But few people have asked the question we should be asking . .. “What’s the economy for, anyway?” This is the question that authors John De Graaf […]
