The Power of Mentorship - Steve Turk, The Hospitality Mentor

Josiah: 0:00

It's been said that hospitality is an apprenticeship business, and today you're going to learn both how to get mentored to grow your career and leadership potential, and how to mentor others well to empower them. To learn about mentorship, today we're learning from none other than the person known across the hospitality industry as The Hospitality Mentor, Steve Turk. In this episode, we cover how to find opportunities to be mentored and advice for mentoring others, but we start out talking about why all of this matters. I'm curious in your experience, is there something unique to hospitality that makes mentorship especially important?

Steve: 0:59

I think hospitality is maybe the only industry that I have seen where you can really start from the bottom If you have a great mentor or someone that really is advocating for you. Or you can shoot to the top fairly quickly if you have the right person coaching you. And the right coaching is not just kind of telling you doing a great job, like giving you the hard truths. It's invaluable because you will move up and that person will always look out for you. I think about a gentleman I had on my show, chef Jorge Ramos, who's now the director of culinary for Hilton Hotels. We started in the hotel at Lozmai Beach together and he had a mentor, Chef Mark Euler. Chef Mark Euler moved up and as he moved up he looked out for his team and he was a mentor to Chef Jorge and he started as a cook at the hotel. Now he's running one of the largest divisions for Hilton. It's amazing to see all because that person believed in him.

Josiah: 1:54

Reflecting on your own career, was there a mentor that stands out to you as being really pivotal in your journey, and can you tell me a little bit about that?

Steve: 2:02

Yeah, I've had different ones throughout my career. I don't want to single out any one. They know who they are and they've usually been a direct boss or a level or two above me. But it's very clear to me that you can't just ask for a mentor. I have a lot of people ask me how do I find a mentor? You can't just go out and ask, hey, will you be my mentor? Sometimes that works, but a lot of the time it's asking to spend some time with someone in your organization that's of a senior level, and remember, everyone's busy, and so I want to give the advice to someone listening today to ask hey, can I have a coffee with you? Can I just sit down at lunch with you? Can I just pick your brain on how you got to this level? And most people don't get that question all the time, and so if somebody had reached out to me which they have, and asked me for my time, i'm happy to share it with them if they truly want to grow I think there's a lot of leaders out there that have expressed that to me, saying man, i want to help out some of the younger people on my team, but I'm not sure which one wants to or who really is hungry for that. So I would tell the younger people to go ask for that time. Now, be smart about when you're asking it It's not during a busy holiday, but on a down day. Ask for those things. But I did that and I was always hungry for more information and it paid off because they saw me as an eager person who wanted to learn and to grow and they invested and I'm grateful to those people forever.

Josiah: 3:27

If you don't ask, the answer is always going to be no, you got to ask. Something I've noticed throughout my career is by raising my hand for projects that maybe others didn't want to get involved in, or stepping up to help out the organization in my team. I got some quality time with some influential people and I don't know if that resonates with you or that's something that you kind of seen as well as ask for sure starting point, but also step up and do some work.

Steve: 3:53

Yeah, 100%. and especially the extracurricular stuff, i would tell you, especially if you're coming up, there's so many committees to join and so many projects to join that most likely won't give you any extra money, but it'll get you some extra face time with senior leaders across the organization and you get to meet people that are in your roles in other departments, which I think is important too, forming those bonds with people that you're coming up with, because I'm still great friends with people I started with, even to this day. But, yes, you have to show up and it's tough, especially with remote work. now I see there's ways to do it. I think that you can still do it, but especially in a hotel, if you're in operations and on the floor, you can nominate yourself, because a lot of the time you may be one of the few.

Josiah: 4:37

What advice would you have for the leaders that are listening to this? There's some certain level of availability or being open to having some mentoring relationships or conversations. Is there any other advice you'd advise leaders think about?

Steve: 4:50

Yeah, i've had this conversation with some general managers and vice presidents of companies. it's you know, we sit down for lunch and you see that the waiter is nervous Right and you can see like their hands shaking. and you have to be self aware that you are in some cases in hospitality. we make these leaders out to be Bigger than life. we all know we're all just people. so I remind the general manager like, hey, you know, reach out to that person, tell me they did a great job. or you know, look at the person that you used to be. i always use that now is like The best person you can help is the person you used to be. so i look at all the roles that i used to have prior, whether it was in room dining manager, pool director or FB Director. Help those people out, because they usually want the advice and the whiz. tell those leaders just Take moment to moment self-aware be , because the people that are usually working with you look up to you And give them some time, especially people that you used to be.

Josiah: 5:47

I that that around around because without that you can totally miss the fact that someone's really nervous. This is this intimidating to hang out and if you're aware maybe you're lightening the mood a little bit. You're just make a little bit easier, being a little more relatable.

Steve: 6:02

Yeah, i think that's the key. I've seen i work with some great hotel owners And others that are not, but some of the best hotel owners, they, you know. They know that we're all preparing for their visit, especially in the big companies and the sea. Again, don't worry, i'm all good, very relaxed. You know. They want to make you feel at home and spend some time with you, because everyone wants their time. Those, those are some of the best memories that i have.