Articles & Insights

Management overruling frontline decisions happens - a follow up in each situation is a must.

Leaders claim to hate "that's how we've always done it," but most end up there anyway. Why? This article looks to diagnose what got them there and how to resolve it.

The moment doesn’t create leaders, it exposes their preparedness. We have to prepare our teams and trust them to execute. Prepared leaders don’t wait for chaos to become a teacher. They create controlled exposure long before it arrives.

The other day we got home from a beautiful Caribbean cruise: 85 degrees, sunshine, swimming, and great family time. All while back home temperatures dipped into the negatives. We had it made. Then we got home. I had turned the thermostat down to 60 before we left, so when my kids started complaining about “freezing” while I was unloading the car, I assumed it was a little post-vacation dramatics. It wasn’t. My thermostat had died at some point during the week. When I got it b

Most managers will tell you they have an open door policy. They mean it. They say it in interviews. They repeat it during onboarding. They reference it when talking about culture. “If you have a question, concern, or idea — my door is always open.” And yet, over time, something predictable happens. Good employees stop walking through it. Not because they don’t care, lack confidence, or don’t have ideas. They stop because they’ve learned — sometimes quickly, sometimes painfull

Examples from the Diamond  Grid Iron I’m going slightly off my normal path with this one. As the college football and NFL seasons are wrapping up, I’ve been thinking a lot about football — not the stats or the highlight reels, but the way great coaches lead people. And my experience with the man I consider the best coach I had in any sport, at any level. Coach Jack Brown, my high school linebacker coach, was one of the toughest coaches I ever had. His standards were high. The

Baseball is in my blood. What I learned on the field translated directly to the workplace. Different uniforms, different stakes - but the same simple truth..."

One of the biggest misconceptions in leadership is that culture is built through big speeches, big initiatives, or big meetings. In reality, culture is built long before any of those things happen. Culture is built in moments —small ones that rarely get attention but quietly define everything the team becomes. I learned this on baseball fields long before I ever stepped into hospitality or resort operations. On the field, I can tell more about a culture from how players behav

Hiring for “experience” feels safe. It feels logical. It feels efficient. Someone who’s worked in the industry before should need less training. They should understand the stakes. They should know what to do. But from my experience in hospitality, recreation, gaming, event venues, and other guest-centered environments, I’ve learned a difficult truth: Experience isn’t the advantage we think it is. In many cases, it’s the biggest obstacle to building the culture and service sta