Experimentieren, Scheitern, Gewinnen: Wie großartige Führungskräfte sich im Gastgewerbe anpassen

Florian IlgenChange never looks sexy in the beginning, but is always worth it.

the Future of HospitalityWell, hello, everyone, and welcome to HSMAI Studio, the podcast where we explore the ideas, insights, and and leadership ideas shaping the future of sales, marketing, and revenue management in the hospitality industry. I'm Brian Hicks, President and CEO of HSMAI. And today, I am absolutely pleased to be joined by Doctor. Florian Iljen. Doctor. Iljen brings a very unique perspective that bridges research, strategy, real world application. He challenges the status quo, challenges leaders to think a little bit differently as to how organizations learn, adapt, especially in ever changing environments. I know we'll talk a little bit about AI because that certainly have that's a big change in the industry.

the Future of HospitalityI had the privilege of meeting and listening to doctor Ilgen a few months ago in London at our HSMAI Commercial Strategy Conference, and I could not be more pleased to announce that he will be joining us in The Americas for the HSMAI Americas Commercial Strategy Conference, June sixteenth and seventeenth in San Antonio. So doctor Iljen, welcome to HSMAI Studio. It's great to have you with us today.

Florian IlgenThank you. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you for having me. I'm I'm super excited.

the Future of HospitalityAwesome. Well, let's start with, letting our our listeners know a little bit about, what you do, and, I'll let you describe what you do. And and what drew you in what kinda drove you into this this field?

Florian IlgenThat's a long story, actually. I'm a I'm a I'm a keynote speaker. I'm a motivational speaker. I love to dive into the mindset of people when it comes to change, when it comes to transformation, when it comes to the struggles, the the challenges we all face both in private life and in business as well because the it's two worlds that are connected, and we cannot actually, we cannot separate them. You can't be professional in business and not be professional in private. I don't I don't think this is working, so they're quite connected. I must have done a chemist. My my education is chemistry, and I love chemistry. I still love chemistry as a science.

Florian IlgenSo in my talk, you witnessed we spoke about dopamine, adrenaline, when it comes to leaving the comfort zone, when it comes to loss aversion. However, I decided chemistry is nice as a science, but I do not want to work within this area, within this industry. I prefer stages, and I love to thrill, entertain, engage, and inspire people to try new things, to be like kids again, to use fearless curiosity, and to try and learn from mistakes.

the Future of HospitalityLove that. Love that. And and I love how you kind of pivoted from chemistry. You know, it's such a logical next step, right, moving from chemistry into speaking and being on stage. But what were some of those moments in your life, in your career when you kind of made that decision to kinda move in that direction? What were what were some of the the thoughts that kinda went through your head? I mean, that's you know, everybody has, you know, career path, you know, move, go left, go right, go straight. How did you kinda deal with that and kinda how how how did you come to that conclusion?

Florian IlgenIt's a moving story. It's a something I experienced twin actually, it was twenty three years ago. As a chemist, I went to Australia to Canberra, did a internship in, in, Canberra, in capital. And, after that, I've been backpacking. And in the first hostel in Melbourne, I met a interesting chemical engineer from Canada, and we're both, like, the usual chemist you would expect. So we went out. We party. We did a lot of crazy stuff, and he he would entertain people. He was like a magician, a mentalist, and he could hypnotize people. And I've seen many, many mentalists and magicians in my life, and I never connected. However, this guy was so entertaining.

Florian IlgenAnd, also, he, like, he didn't use a lot of tools or slight of hand or methodologies, but he knew how to entertain people. And I was I was caught. I was, it it was contagious. And when I returned from Australia to to Munich, to Germany, I started learning what he did because he never told me, obviously. So this was actually it was interesting because this was twenty three years ago, and, I was 23 then. And, last year, I've been to Sydney, gave a talk in in, in Sydney for the Australian Institute of Occupational Hygiene. And this was exactly twenty three years ago, and I was 23. And it was like it was it was magic to me. It actually completely Australia completely changed my life.

Florian IlgenWhen I I'm I've got a PhD in chemistry. When I started my PhD in chemistry, my plan was to be in the lab. I wanted to do chemical research for the chemical or pharmaceutical industry. This was my plan. And somehow, life had better plans for me than I and my parents and all the people around me expected

the Future of Hospitalityit for me to happen. Yeah. I love that. I mean, it's, well, it's a benefit for us. So we're we're we're glad you we're glad you made that made that turn. Let's talk a little bit about thought leadership. So the the work that you do, I find really interesting because you've got you're bringing in research. You're bringing in strategy. And at the same time, this is, like, real world. Like, these are businesses that need to make money. Right? What what's one of the kind of misconception that leaders might have when you approach them about applying some of the kind of the research, the the academia to their business?

Florian IlgenI think the the most striking part, the most potential part we have is our experience. So if I'm I'm a chemist and I studied chemistry and did something, And then I'm working in in the laboratory. I might be smart, but I have maybe I don't have the experience. And I think this translates into almost any industry. We can study. We can have our MBA. We can be very good in marketing in in not in sales because I think sales is if you're a good salesperson, you have to have very strong experience. So, leadership and especially thought leadership result or is based on experience, is based on failure, which we learn from.

Florian IlgenTheory I mean, just imagine I want to learn how to ski. I can read a book about how to ski, but then I can't ski. So I have to go down the slope, and I have to fall. I have to experience it, learn from mistake, and get better. It's almost like and I gave you this example in my talk. It's almost like the the muscle we have. We have to destroy the fiber to to grow our muscles. And everyday business, leadership, and, as well as thought leadership is based on experiences and the lessons we learn from that.

the Future of HospitalityI think that's great advice, especially if you think about the next generation of, you know, coming into the the working world, trying to capitalize on understanding the the the need for experience and and and and how that brings such value to to that individual. I think that's a that's a great great advice. When when you're working with organizations or speaking to organizations, what are some of the kinda traits or habits of a good organization that takes your learnings, that takes your advice, and actually puts it into practice as opposed to just hearing it in a boardroom or hearing it at an event and going, oh, that sounds great, but, you know, we're not gonna do any of that.

Florian IlgenI think we have to be chemists as well. We have to be able as coworkers, as leaders, to run experiments, and business is like an experiment. Because when I did chemistry, I run many, many, many experiments every day, and you fail, and you fail over and over again. And business, to some extent, is pretty much the same. We have to allow our coworkers to run experiments and learn from that. We have to create an environment where failure culture is not just talked about, but actually embraced and lived. And it's difficult if if a boss tells you, yeah. We have to have a failure culture, but please don't miss don't make mistakes.

Florian IlgenIt's dysfunctional. It's not working. It has like, leadership is really meaning and especially living and, in the end, doing what you say. So people believe in you, and they say, that's a true leader. He's he's do actually, his his work, his results match what he said or she said. So, there it has to be congruent, what you say, what you want for yourself and your coworkers, and what you do. If this is congruent, this is strong leadership because if coworkers understand and feel that you're just saying something which you basically don't believe in, it they will follow, but not as much as they could or would if you would be authentic, genuine, and congruent.

the Future of HospitalityThat's so true. I've been in situations where, you know, the let's fail fast. Right? I'm sure you've heard that before. Let's let's fail often and fail fast, so we can take those learnings. And then when it actually happens and somebody sees that there's some sort of retribution, then everybody stops. Right? It just nobody's gonna continue to try to to push that needle knowing that there may be consequences in the end. So creating that that safe environment to be able to do that is a a true leadership skill and I think something that that I think needs to be kind of a a bit more widely adopted if companies are truly going to to succeed. So love that. Yeah.

the Future of HospitalitySo let's talk about the future. Let's talk about kind of the next few years. I had an opportunity last week to speak to a 100 students at my alma mater. Some of them are going in are are in the in the hotel school, similar to what I did. And, yeah, it was really interesting. I mean, their their fears, their their hopes, AI is top of mind. And I did tell them there were many other careers that they could go in that are going to be way more impacted than hospitality from an AI perspective and also that our industry is very slow to adopt new technology, and there's just not so I I think we're safe for a little while, so I gave them a little bit of comfort. But when you think about the future, obviously, AI is gonna hit our industry in different ways.

the Future of HospitalityBut from a from a leadership standpoint, what what capabilities do you see that are gonna be the most critical for leaders over the next few years as as AI comes into into our world?

Florian IlgenAs we've seen, AI has been developing with such a high velocity, and it's constantly increasing. So, I mean, we cannot look into the future. Although, I presented this mentalism effect in in the talk, we can be mentalist. We can't we we can't just assume that the velocity will increase even more, especially when it comes to agentic AI. So it's getting more and more difficult for us to calculate things and to forecast development of AI, development within our industry, develop development of what, well, what customers want, we can predict more or less, but how the surrounding tools might develop, it's very difficult. So what I think we have to have or develop is a high flexibility and a resilience resilience.

Florian IlgenResilient? Yeah. Resilience. It's called resilience, I guess, when it comes to change. Because change is the, the smallest denominator of of AI, of of, all the digital train change and transformation. So being flexible and thinking outside of the box. Actually, I read a study that, especially people that are that that suffer from dyslexia, that suffer from from the inability to concentrate are more likely to adapt faster and not to be disturbed by fast and quick changes. So if you like structures, if you love the the beaten path, it's more difficult for you. People who are already psychologically in the way that they love to change, that they need constant new input, they're more likely to accept, use, and benefit from the fast change of AI.

Florian IlgenSo we have to train and train and get comfortable with fast changes where we have to give up some sort of control. It is for many people that are probably residing in the blue area where they where there's logic, where there are systems, it's very difficult because you have to improvise. To improvise is, for many people, difficult because we're, moving not within the comfort zone. We we're we're doing things for the very first time quite often, and this causes stress to many people. If we can, however, somehow develop some and this is the chemist chemical part again. If we can create this curiosity about new things and thus releasing dopamine, which makes us addicted to more of that Mhmm. We we find it easier

the Future of Hospitalityto embrace change, to use AI, and even to leave systems we know that work. That's fascinating. That is a really interesting insight into people's behavior and their ability to accept change. And certainly with AI, you're absolutely right. I mean, that's gonna be, you know, change around every corner and every aspect of of our industry for the hospitality industry. That's, that's gonna be big. So I know you're not an expert in hospitality, but you certainly deal with a lot of hospitality leaders. Is there anything you see within hospitality organizations today specifically, that they should be focused on when it comes to to to some of these changes that are coming?

Florian IlgenI think your industry has massive potential. I just I gave a talk, and one topic was hyper personalization, which you can do with AI, which will drastically increase your revenue. The those results were from, hotels in The States, actually. I gave the talk for a cruise ship company, but I use the same thing. So AI within your area, hospitality, is tremendous. It's it's a game changer. I perceive your industry as a process driven industry where you have where you have to fulfill standards, and you those start those standards can be, changed into into speed. Therefore, we need a lot of experiments. And and in the beginning, because I consider your industry rather successful, and usually successful industry have more difficulties to change because they're running. Then you're well off. So, I give many, many talks to, like, small and medium sized companies in Germany and in Europe. And, usually, they're very successful until there's a point, a pivotal point where they either explode or implode.

Florian IlgenYour industry is much bigger. Your industry is is is is is a different area is a diff completely different industry. To transform from those process driven that's not process. Yes. It is process driven, to experimentation. This will be the biggest lever to, that's what I, what what I perceive, what I feel. And here, AI has a massive impact because you can use all those processes and upgrade them with AI and make them faster, make them, at some point, even more reliable. I what I do not know yet is how good AI within those processes are, and I'm very sure we have to learn from mistakes again, which tools are really good, which which AIs really work for those processes. But I use AI within my processes as well, and it's it's it's crazy. It's, astonishing.

Florian IlgenIt's fascinating. What we can do with AI for processes that were very time consuming and, involved errors and mistakes.

the Future of HospitalityRight. That's really interesting. One of the I had a conversation yesterday with contact center leaders, and we were talking about the impact of AI. And to your point, I mean, you're spot on. There are, you know, so many just standardized processes that AI will be able to take over. One of them is making a reservation. So, you know, using AI to find your hotel, make a reservation, you know, send you confirmation number, etcetera. These call centers have have traditionally, over the past few years, the average you know, it's it's usually the the boomers or, you know, that are calling in still that still want that that contact.

the Future of HospitalityNow they're seeing people that are using AI are still skeptical of that it actually happened, that the reservation was actually made, and so they're calling to just double check. So it's you know, I think there's still some distrust even in people that are using AI that, you know, it actually did what it said it was going to do. I found that fascinating. So I think, you know, that's another one of those curves in terms of people trusting, you know, that AI wasn't hallucinating or that it made a reservation at the wrong hotel or that they didn't get all the the fact that I have it's a family of four that's coming and not just, you know, two people or whatever it might be. So I think that's gonna be an interesting kinda, you know, challenge for the industry as it figures out how to use AI, just to your point, for those really just standardized processes that they'll easily take that away.

the Future of HospitalitySo I know people are looking forward to I'm looking forward to seeing you again in June at the Commercial Strategy Conference. What are some of the things that you're going to share during that time that might just give us a couple of teasers, kinda get people interested?

Florian IlgenIt will be. I'm I'm I'm super stoked about, being on your stage and and rocking the people attending your conference. What what I love to do is to, entertain people, to engage people using this form of entertainment to give them an insight on our mindset. Because I believe mindset is 80%, especially when it comes to change because you can have the best tools at your hands. But if you don't like to use them, the best tools won't work. So change is driven by mindset. And in my talk, change mindset, I obviously will address the mindset, how we can use different tools, how we can actually you remember I spoke about the conscious mind, subconscious mind, and what this has to do with how we change, how we can learn to use the language of subconscious mind to actually sometimes even trick the subconscious mind helping us to adopt and adapt faster.

Florian IlgenSo it will be a mixture from entertainment, from science behind the change when we speak about loss aversion, when we speak about adrenaline, noradrenaline. We speak about passion, how we can reconnect with our passion to see change as a chance. And, in the end, I want to motivate people to get out of their comfort zone, to try new things, to actually commit mistakes, and learn from them. Because once we know we can learn from mistakes, it no longer is considered a mistake. It's development. It's growth. It's destroying the fiber of the muscle, and I do not I can't think of any company that got successful without committing mistakes and learning from them.

the Future of HospitalityLook. I think that is fantastic. We've got, we're on course to have close to a thousand attendees, and hearing your message of, you know, opening up your mind, being open to, new ideas and thinking differently, using those muscles, the loss aversion. Like, there this is just such a great platform to set the stage for the two days of of learning and networking and, really getting our our our audience, prepared for a a good couple of days. So we're we're so so thrilled you're gonna be able to join us and and really kinda set the scene and set the stage for the the whole the whole conference, which is fantastic.

Florian IlgenSuper excited to to be there and,

the Future of Hospitalityto see you again Yeah. In person. Absolutely. No. Look forward to it. Alright. Any final thoughts? Any, this has been been very insightful and and engaging. I think your your insights are are spot on to today's culture and and what we're seeing in the world today and some of the challenges that are out there. You know, I know our listeners are gonna get a nice little taste of what to expect, in June, but any any final thoughts?

Florian IlgenChange never looks sexy in the beginning, but is always worth it. And if we try new things I gave you this line in the talk. If you do not ask, the answer will always be no. So we have to try it. And, yes, there will be mistakes, and, yes, sometimes we get a bloody nose. As long as we learn from that, we get better. And sometimes not sometimes. Usually, this is a process. This is a upward spiral that actually involves some nutrients mirrors and dopamine, and we can get we can get addicted to change. And my goal is to entice and increase the curiosity for change during during your conference.

the Future of HospitalityAwesome. Excellent. Well, thank you again for joining us today, and, thank you to our our viewers, and, look forward to seeing you in June.

Florian IlgenThank you so much. See you soon.