My Journey Learning and Leading Global Hospitality Businesses - Dorothy Dowling

Josiah: Dorothy, thank you so much for taking some time to join us today. Maybe for those who have not met you yet, can you walk us through a high level of what your career journey has been to date? And then I think there are so many threads that we'll be able to uncover in our conversation from there.

Dorothy: Well, first of all, Josiah, thank you. It's a real honor to be with you today. And yes, I'm happy to give you a sense of my background. I'm a Canadian by birth. I've lived now in the U.S. for just over 25 years. I did both my undergraduate and graduate degrees in Canada at the University of Waterloo. So the new BlackBerry movie, I was there when Mike Lazarus was, so brought back a lot of memories when I watched that movie. He was part of the incubation group at the University of Waterloo, but I spent about half of my professional career in Canada. I started out as a research analyst, moved into consulting and then began my journey working with brands and that is how I ended up moving to the US. I was with HFS many years ago, which of course is now Wyndham and had many opportunities to work. I was with Aramark in the sports and entertainment group and then of course, had a very long tenure at Best Western working with David Kong, which was one of the most joyous experiences of my career, mostly because of the ownership and having the honor of just working with a strategic leader like David. So that sort of would give you my career evolution from going from research into consulting and then obviously on the branding and building really revenue contribution to organizations throughout my career.

Josiah: I love it. Well, there are so many elements of what we can talk about, but I'm always curious to hear what people are thinking about now. Before we started recording, you and I were talking a little bit about some of the speaking that you're doing and some of the keynotes, speeches you're giving specifically around leadership lessons that you've learned Walk us through a little bit of kind of how you're thinking about this today. And then if we could, I'd love to dive into some of those lessons or those leadership insights that you've gathered over your career so far.

Dorothy: Sure, I'd love to speak about this, Josiah. So when I left Best Western, I took a little bit of time to sort of really think about what was next for me. And I will tell you, I've been a big fan of Chip Conley my entire career. And his book Wisdom at Work really set me on a different path because it really is that journey of how you give it back or pay it forward. And it's really being that Modern Elder and the wisdom that you've acquired over your career journey and how to share it with others and help others advance their careers and hopefully learn from some of the maybe harder lessons that you've had over your life. So the consulting business that I joined Horwath HTL, which of course is the largest leisure hospitality practice globally. And really that was to provide a platform for me to be a growth advisor for organizations and really help them in terms of whether it's a business development, in terms of how to really add more units to the brand, or really optimize some of their commercial performance in the B2B or B2C space. So it's really those cumulative learnings that I've had over the years and certainly the value creation that so many of my peers have provided to me. And I do a fair amount of speaking engagements. And I would tell you, there's a couple of threads that I offer to everyone, Josiah. One is a continuous investment in learning. And Harvard Business Review had an article, I would say it was almost 10 years ago. But to me, I always framed it as that you have to choose to be a student of the game. And they talked about leadership qualities. They said in the early days, and this was my experience, we were valued based on our IQ. And then of course, EQ, your emotional intelligence became the strength of most leaders. But this article was really talking about your CQ, your curiosity quotient, and it really being a defining characteristic of good leaders is that continuous investment in your growth mindset and being open to continuing to evolve and learn. So that was a big thing. And then my personal mantra is always this investment in relationships. And I've been a big believer that relationships truly are the currency of life. And I always provide that guidance to everyone because What I would say is that the peer mentorship that you get on your journey, your career journey, empowers your life in so many ways. And I had a boss early in my career that told me that you should spend 20% of your time in networking. And I sat back and said, how do you do that? But it really is with your volunteer work that when you support the industry and get engaged with boards and committee work, That's how you build your network. And I would tell you it has been the greatest joy of my life. And it has also powered my career in ways that I never thought possible.

Josiah: There's a few things I'd love to follow up on if I could. I love the notion of curiosity quotient. And if you're a curious person, you're going to want to learn from everywhere. But I'm curious for you personally, where have you found it most effective to learn? Is it a type of medium like a book or listening to something or where do you learn the most?

Dorothy: Well, I've always been a big reader. I believe in that Warren Buffett statement about reading and learning in general being compound interest that builds over time. I do have a son who is dyslexic, and that was a really awakening experience for me because he doesn't learn through reading. He learns mostly through visual assets and video being most of those. So I just think it's really that investment. I mean, certainly with TED Talks and others, you can get the same readership experience, but I am a big reader and I invest a lot of time in newsletters and other kinds of information that comes through to me, but I also try to read. at least two books a month. So I'm always looking for ways to either add sort of that emotional intelligence journey that I'm constantly working on or what's new in terms of the broader commercial world. So that's what I would offer. I also tend to do one or two formal courses a year. When I took some time to sort of reposition my career, I went back to Cornell and I did the asset management program and several others. Of course, all things that I had done early in my career, but it was just a reinvestment and really seeing what had changed in terms of how people do some of that work. So I do believe in continuing to upgrade yourself with educational certification. I try to do a couple of those things every year as well.

Josiah: I love it and it gets me excited about, for me, learning is exciting, right? That's fun about life, right? As you kind of are discovering new things, you're figuring out new ways to do things. I'm curious: you're also involved in the world of podcasting in your work with DEI advisors and through this conversation here, where do you see podcasts or interviews fitting in that mix? It's not the only thing, but I'm curious how you're thinking about it these days.

Dorothy: Yeah, no, so I neglected to offer that. I have several podcasts that I listen to, some personally. I love Julia Louis Dreyfus in terms of the work that she's doing, only interviewing women in their seventies plus in terms of the wisdom that they have to offer. I've always been a big fan of Guy Raz because I love listening to the entrepreneurial journey. Of course, I listened to several of your podcasts today and the DEI Advisors for me has been just an incredible journey because it's talking to so many leaders around the world and seeing the threads of their leadership journey, which there are lots of elements that are comparable, but it's also learning about how some of the adversity and challenges that they faced in their life really set them on a path and offered them different perspectives in terms of how they approach their teams and how they approach their customers. So, of course, I listen to a lot of the DEI advisors that I do and some of my peers as well.

Josiah: I'm curious if you could speak a little bit to how you thought about relationships in career decision-making, whether it's the roles you decided to take or consulting others. How has that played out as you've built your career?

Dorothy: Well, the advice that I give to everyone is you've got to hire your boss. And David used to always chuckle because he thought he hired me. And I said, no, David, I hired you. And I do think that understanding a personal fit and culture and if you're going to have someone who is going to be a strong mentor and ally to your career. And David was really important to me because I'm an older woman who most of my career, I was the only woman in the room. David obviously represented an underrepresented group and I knew that he had many shared experiences similar to mine. But he also was a brilliant strategist. He's a very humble individual. And we had a very common approach in terms of really driving the business through strategy and owner value creation. So I knew he'd be a good fit, but that whole element of understanding, hiring your boss, making sure the organization that you're joining, that you're going to be a strong cultural fit, and that there's going to be joy in the work that you do, because we spend far more of our time than we ever anticipate, Josiah, in our day-to-day. It's not just the time. It's the intellectual investment that you have to make. I know as a consultant today, there are days that I am really exhausted by the end of the day because you're given really hard problems to solve when you're a consultant. That's why people bring you in. to ask for advice. But the reality is, is that that's your role and what you're being asked to do. So you have to understand that and ensure that you bring it because that's why people have hired you.

Josiah: What do you do to recharge? Because in that advisory work, it is intellectually, I imagine emotionally at times, very draining. This is true in any leadership role. So it's not unique to advisory work. But I'm curious, like what you found useful for yourself in recharging that battery, so to speak.

Dorothy: Well, for me at this stage of my life, I think I reference Chip Conley's Wisdom at Work, but I'm really in a very different phase of my life. Josiah, so working with others and helping them achieve their career dreams is something that inspires me and it gives me a lot of joy. So the day-to-day engagement of working with leaders in different stages of their development truly recharges me. There are days when you're tired, but when you get someone that you've made a difference in their life, I will tell you, your whole mindset shifts. And so I think that element of being purposeful and giving back and seeing others in terms of advancing their career or advancing something that's important to them, that's truly how I get a lot of joy and engagement back for what I need. On the personal level, I mean, for me, I said I love reading and I love reading business books. That's part of my curiosity quotient, I guess. But I also I'm a pet owner and I love all those times with my pets and walking and the time that I have with my remarkable husband and my son. And that's the other advice I tell people is choose your partner wisely because while you hire your boss and that's going to define your career, the partner you choose for your life, they're going to define your life. And I just celebrated 40 years with my husband. For me, my husband has given me more than anyone in terms of allowing me to achieve the kinds of career dreams that I aspired to very early in my life.

Josiah: That's really cool. Congratulations. Thank you. Where would you invite the people watching this and listening to it to learn more about you and your work or any other places you would point them to?

Dorothy: Well, I try to be fairly active on LinkedIn, so I would welcome anyone that would like to link in with me. It would be an honor for me to engage. And then DEI Advisors is, again, it has an incredible repository of brilliant leaders. And what I would encourage people, if you're trying to do a sales pitch against some companies, investing some time in the relationship equity and learning a little bit about the person that you may be pitching to or understanding their company needs and wants, because a lot of them will articulate that, but also just some of the wisdom and how they have powered their careers. I think there's a lot of really rich content there for individuals to learn from.

Josiah: Well, thank you for joining us today. I've learned so much from you over the years, so thank you for taking the time. 

Dorothy: Thank you, Josiah.