EP Perspective March 2017

COMMENT: NEW WORLD
ARE WE BRAVE ENOUGH
TO THINK DIFFERENTLY?
Few experts are so clever anymore. Have you ever considered
creating an Internal Board made up of 25–35 year olds?
Over the last ten years, many experts
have had their judgements and insights
face scrutiny through wrong predictions.
Maybe the lesson of last decade is that it is
very difficult to have complete insight into
how the markets and business are vulnerable.
In January, the Bank of England admitted
that many of the economists got the 2008
crash completely wrong. They also forecast
the fall out of Brexit wrongly. They are not
alone. Many have got some of the key events
of the last decade wrong.
Maybe the real lesson is that we need to
be more open to different thinking and to
encourage executives to be brave enough
to think differently? However this is hard
to achieve as there is a whole level that has
become almost lazy in their thinking. Liam Fox
was roundly criticised in late 2016 for saying
many businesses had become lazy in the
way they competed for business. It was a bold
comment but there was some truth within it.
Many companies are more internally focused
than externally eyed. The customer has not
always been king anymore and maybe the
time is right to return to that basic rule that
everyone used to know within Hospitality.
However, there is also a need to free up
the thinking of the younger generations that
are today breaking through and are looking
at the world differently to how many of the
established leaders of today understood
business up to the 2008 crash.
Many will argue that this is a brave new
world. In some ways it is but in many ways it
is not. It is just the same as it ever has been.
The difference is that:
n Many businesses have moved away
from the fundamentals that originally
created success.
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n We need to free up new leaders to have a
voice. It is an often discussed topic that there
has been an absence of leaders breaking
through which is seen as the younger
generation’s fault. No, it is how that talent has
been nurtured over the last twenty years.
n Thinking has changed. The baby boomers
grew up in an era when an entrepreneur was
expected to be focused on wealth attainment.
Today many are focused on their impact
on society – there is a group of new socially
driven entrepreneurs. How can the wealth
driven entrepreneur really relate to the
socially driven entrepreneur?
n Many cultures have become lazy. There is
an argument that the hotel industry that was
so confident in itself and the dynamics of the
market that it has been caught off guard twice
in the last decade.
n Firstly, the Airbnb model has posed a
serious challenge to the mid-market. It
was a model that caught many unaware but
the consumer responded to the concept
and the business has grown at speed.
n Secondly, it is noted that online innovators
have grabbed a massive 25% of the hotel
industry, and it is predicted that this will rise
to 45% in 5–7 years. Few forecast this growth.
20 | Perspective | March 2017