An enthusiastic, passionate, and instructional take on a career in hospitality.
How to succeed in the hospitality business, as told by an international hotelier.
Essentially a hands-on career guide for anyone seeking to excel in the hotel business, this debut could not have been written by a more experienced professional. Dietschi loved hotels from the moment he stepped foot in one at age 10 in his native Switzerland. That passion eventually led to attending the prestigious Lausanne Hotel School and rising through the ranks until he became general manager at Ritz-Carlton and ultimately general manager and vice president at Marriott International. Leveraging this experience, the author generously shares his counsel and wisdom in a very readable book divided into two parts. In the first section, Dietschi recounts his own path on the way to becoming a luxury hotelier, offers a history lesson about hotels, and puts forth a grounding philosophy that could be summed up in a single sentence: “It is about how guests are made to feel.” The author writes eloquently about how to create “memorable guest experiences,” from reservations through departures and post-stays. He also addresses such important areas as “dressing and acting the part of a hotelier,” managing emotions while interacting with guests and employees, and getting started in a hospitality career. Dietschi’s expert analysis of the characteristics of the hotelier, in which he describes four specific mindsets (“Proactive,” “Guest,” “Quality,” and “Business and Entrepreneurial”), is particularly insightful; it provides a deep dive into the thought process of the consummate hotel professional. Part 2 is a treasure trove of advice for the aspiring hotelier or, for that matter, anyone contemplating a career in a customer-centric business. Here, the author introduces “Eight Principles for Excellence” that represent a playbook for success in the hospitality business, beginning with “Become Your Own Personal Brand” and ending with “Expand Your Knowledge Through Continuous Education.” Each of the principles is meticulously described and enhanced with useful examples. Dietschi covers personal attributes (“Be a Person of Integrity,” “Be Humble”), core competencies (“Time Management,” “Presentation Skills”), and more, offering actionable suggestions and tips.
An enthusiastic, passionate, and instructional take on a career in hospitality.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-9894912-5-9
Page Count: 274
Publisher: Dietschi Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
Perhaps not magic but appealing nonetheless.
Want to get ahead in business? Consult a dictionary.
By Wharton School professor Berger’s account, much of the art of persuasion lies in the art of choosing the right word. Want to jump ahead of others waiting in line to use a photocopy machine, even if they’re grizzled New Yorkers? Throw a because into the equation (“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine, because I’m in a rush?”), and you’re likely to get your way. Want someone to do your copying for you? Then change your verbs to nouns: not “Can you help me?” but “Can you be a helper?” As Berger notes, there’s a subtle psychological shift at play when a person becomes not a mere instrument in helping but instead acquires an identity as a helper. It’s the little things, one supposes, and the author offers some interesting strategies that eager readers will want to try out. Instead of alienating a listener with the omniscient should, as in “You should do this,” try could instead: “Well, you could…” induces all concerned “to recognize that there might be other possibilities.” Berger’s counsel that one should use abstractions contradicts his admonition to use concrete language, and it doesn’t help matters to say that each is appropriate to a particular situation, while grammarians will wince at his suggestion that a nerve-calming exercise to “try talking to yourself in the third person (‘You can do it!’)” in fact invokes the second person. Still, there are plenty of useful insights, particularly for students of advertising and public speaking. It’s intriguing to note that appeals to God are less effective in securing a loan than a simple affirmative such as “I pay all bills…on time”), and it’s helpful to keep in mind that “the right words used at the right time can have immense power.”
Perhaps not magic but appealing nonetheless.Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780063204935
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper Business
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
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