![]() ![]() I ended every day feeling frustrated and alone. I was pretty sure this gig was not going to last too long because it was moving in this downward, unproductive direction. It felt awful to work so hard, with such passion and still fail, still produce lousy work. The reports I received in exchange for my heartache were either incomplete, not accurate, late or nothing at all. They had their own worries, wants and needs. What I wanted or needed didn’t matter to them. I wrote tons of memos, preached hundreds of sermons at department head meetings, and cornered countless managers for one-to-one discussions where I stopped short of dropping to my knees to beg. I tried everything I knew to get these managers to play ball with me. And in turn, each one takes ownership of the desired results. But also, each of these experts must take ownership of the information and goals set. To be successful, the financial information must come from the department heads because they are the experts in their departments. The hotel business does not work that way. I knew what was needed in order to do my job properly, but I couldn’t get the 75-plus other non-financial leaders in the hotel to help me.Īs the financial leader, I knew I couldn’t just sit in my office and dream up what was going to happen next month in the kitchen, the laundry, the dining room or any other area of the hotel with any accuracy. Put all that on top of monthly financial commentaries that didn’t make any sense because supporting documents didn’t exist. For instance, incomplete financial statements with the telltale signs of missing invoices and bungled accruals, budgets, and forecasts that totally miss the mark feed financial failure. No communication on the financial numbers translates into poor results without understanding why. Hotels follow the same pattern, especially regarding communication about the money coming in and going out. Good communication in business is, therefore, a matter of survival. It means the death of that business owner’s and/or the investors’ hopes and dreams. ![]() Poor communication can make the business die either a long, lingering death or a swift, unexpected death. Great communication can make the business successful, help it grow, cause it to take on a life of its own. In every business, communication is important, but especially around the financial piece of the business, communication is key. What I really got paid for was serving as the “chief financial information officer.” The reality was the financial information I had to work with stunk! My primary responsibility as the head of the finance and accounting departments in the hotel was to ensure the books were clean and balanced. ![]()
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