Josiah:
Want to know why we focus so much on attracting talented people into your organization over the past few weeks? I’d tell you, but our guest today said it so well, I want you to hear from him instead.
Bashar Wali is one of the most recognized names in hospitality because he’s done it all as a leading operator, investor and hotel branding expert that 180,000 people follow on LinkedIn alone. While he’s done it all, today he shares with us why, for him, it all comes back to the people.
Bashar:
Honestly, my favorite part of the isn’t globetrotting and staying at fancy hotels and all that. I love having lunch with a few housekeepers who probably aren’t native speakers, taking them to a place that is nice enough that they wouldn’t go to it regularly, but not too nice. That’s intimidating and saying the only thing I want to talk about is you, don’t tell me the vacuum is broken. Don’t tell me you don’t like your boss. Save that for someone else. That’s not my job. I want to know who you are. I’m an immigrant. I started from the ground up. I imagined being in that position and going home to my family and saying the boss’s, boss’s boss took me out to lunch and was asking me what I cook and what I like to go on vacation and how many kids I have. I am not very religious but if I had to pick a prophet it’d be Anthony Bourdain. It’s Anthony Bourdain sitting on the floor in a family home in Vietnam who cares? It really is talking about their hopes, dreams and aspirations. That’s my favorite part of the job. I convey that part also when I travel. I often avoid all the bougie stuff, so I’ll do it to try it. But then I really do want to sit on the sidewalk at four o’clock in the morning in Hanoi, Vietnam, having pho shoup, meeting random people and talking to them not just the expats but actually local people and talking to them and chatting with them. For me, that’s what makes this exciting. We are one of the few businesses that’s truly in the people business. We are so dependent on our people. I think if you understand the joy that that brings, it changes your perspective on life. And what inspires you, what inspires me, is a housekeeper who decides to go and get a college degree or learn about finance and buy a home. That’s what’s exciting. I say, oh yeah, I stayed at whatever Armangiri. And who cares? Money can buy that. Money can’t buy the other thing.
Josiah:
I love that example of taking a group of housekeepers out to lunch. Did you have an experience early in your life or early in your career where you were on the other side of that? That gave you the inspiration for that.
Bashar:
I’ve had a few mentors along the way that really set the tone the traditional managers and GMs, not the ones that wore the Breone suits, spoke five languages and did nothing but go to country clubs and sit on boards. Really, those who sort of were out there at 10 o’clock at night, hand in hand doing the plate up for banquets, helping that last push of the last 20 rooms because we’re sold out, standing at the front desk and dealing with whatever the issues of the night were, those were the people that I truly admired and truly inspired me. Sure, that was nice to see the Swiss-educated, multilingual GM who did nothing. I’m like, wow, that must be nice making that much money and doing nothing. By the way, those guys now are reaching out for me looking for work because they were left behind and they didn’t keep up with the world. I think again empathy, empathy, empathy, empathy. Look to go Darwinian on you. We’re a bunch of animals, we are packed animals. We all need each other to survive and we need to belong. When I think you find a home, whether as a guest or as an employee, where you know your fellow tribe members care about your well-being, want what’s best for you and similarly, you treat your guests that way. I think that’s nirvana, because now we’re in our village, in our tribe together and we’re in it together and we’re going to defend each other and protect each other. I think that is truly the magic. Nothing more, nothing less. Anything you can do that distills it down to that showing someone that you care and not being the boss and the employee and whatever this sort of all this political, corporate bullshit. I think that’s when you win.
