Remington Hotels CEO Sloan Dean said he feels he's became a better leader and a better human as a result of the pandemic.
Speaking with Hotel News Now for its ongoing Pandemic Reflections series, Dean said there were three specific ways in which he improved his mentality.
"These three things existed before COVID, but I really doubled down ... on these characteristics," he said.
First, he no longer delays giving bad news to his team or to the Dallas-based third-party management company at large.
"COVID made you face and stare off into the abyss of, 'Hey, you might not be in business for very long,'" he said. "What I realized very quickly in doing bi-weekly webinars for the whole company, including all our furloughed associates — we had over 6,000 furloughed associates for over a year — is that humans can take bad news; they just don't like surprises."
Next, he doubled down on the his mindset of "progress not perfection." Dean describes himself as action-oriented rather than a perfectionist.
"That probably helped us in COVID because nothing was perfect, and we were first-movers in a lot of ways: first-movers in shutting down restaurants, first-movers in kind of the operating model we had, and that saved some cash and helped us be a little more successful," he said.
Recently, Remington has has tested various changes to processes and standard operating procedures to potentially be implemented in phases.
"Sometimes you can get bogged down with trying to develop perfection," he said. "Really, how you get to great product or great service is through iterative practice."
Turning to his personal life, Dean shared that he's a father of three children and was finalizing a divorce right at the onset of the pandemic. This forced him to "live in the now," and have the perspective that "this too shall pass," he said.
"I was dealing with a lot personally, you know, wrapping up a divorce and custody of kids in the middle of COVID — I was worried about my children and how they were going to handle it," he said, adding that on top of that, he was also worried about the liquidity of the company.
Being more present and enjoying each individual day, whether he's with his children or in a board room for meetings, helped him get through to the next day, he said.
Dean added that being a parent and leader of a company has led him to offer more empathy.
"It definitely has brought a heightened sense of empathy for me," he said. "I try to do what's best for the organization, not necessarily best for me individually."
For our full conversation with Remington's Sloan Dean, listen to the audio below.