Joel Eisemann, Senior Advisor, Noble Investment Group, interviewed by Lan Elliott

 A highly-respected senior leader, Joel has mentored many of the industry’s top leaders.  In this interview, Joel shares what he learned from three pivotal roles in his career as well as how he maximized opportunities to learn from industry icons early on.  Joel shares how he approaches challenges, the importance of maintaining relationships, and the right way to seek a promotion.  He also describes how he builds high-performing team, and why he is always recruiting.

Transcript

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Lan Elliott 0:00

Hello and welcome to DEI Advisors. My name is Lan Elliott on behalf of DEI Advisors. And today I am delighted to have Joel Eisman, who is Senior Advisor at Noble Investment Group on our show. Welcome Joel.

Joel Eisemann 0:15

Thanks a lot, Lan. I really appreciate the opportunity to share some thoughts with you and the rest of your viewership group.

Lan Elliott 0:22

Thank you. I know having worked with you that you are a wealth of knowledge, so I'm really excited to be able to share your wisdom with our audience. Joel, I know you've had a really interesting career journey. Would you share some inflection points of your career and what you think were some of the secrets of your success?

Joel Eisemann 0:43

Sure. I'd be happy to do it. So I, it's interesting getting prepared for this. It does cause you to reflect on your career. And sometimes you go back and think about things that you really haven't thought about for a long time. So it was interesting to to get prepared for this. So I pulled out a couple of things and I think they all point to different ways of thinking about your career. Or thinking about ways to maybe even change your career. So the first was I was at Marriott and I was leading the feasibility and market planning team, and we did all the underwriting for the acquisition of the residence in company. And after Marriott acquired the residence in company, I was offered the opportunity to lead the development effort for residence in. And at the time Marriott was really in the real estate business. Marriott was. Doing some franchising, but was also developing hotels on its balance sheet for syndicating. I took the opportunity and I didn't realize until I started working with the team, how little I knew about what I was supposed to be doing. And while I'd done other things at Marriott, I really didn't have the experience in real estate. And so I felt like I was drowning for probably six months. I made every effort to learn from the team. The team was a lot of experienced real estate guys. And I think the thing that pointed out is it's a great opportunity to do something. Where you're not comfortable when you're not comfortable, you really have to think about how do you take it step by step and how do you not fake it with the people that you're working with? I had to admit to some of the guys who were reporting to me that at times I really didn't have a clue about what I was doing and really seek their advice and their guidance in terms of what I was doing, but at the end of the day, it was a high volume real estate. And I think I learned more about real estate development and that role then and almost any role that I've had since then. So that was the first one. The second one was when I went to Hong Kong to lead the development efforts for Marriott. And I had been offered a couple of times over the previous years. And this was in about 1989, 1990. When Marriott came to me, Marriott had thought about opening up a development office in the Asia Pacific. At the time they didn't have one. There was one hotel in Hong Kong that was open and Marriott asked me if I would move to Hong Kong to open up the the real estate development office for the Asia Pacific region. And when you think back about the time Marriott was not in great financial shape at that point in time. They've overextended on real estate had bought a lot of real estate and a lot of real estate and was not able to syndicate it out because of what happened in the market. And I was moving halfway around the world. And basically what I told people was Marriott gave me a one way ticket to Hong Kong and said, go figure it out. And so there's two things or a couple of things about that, that I would say, first of all, I had a very supportive spouse. We had a three year old child at the time and Maggie was pregnant. But she had grown up in a military family and so she was used to moving. So the fact that I came home one day and said, Hey, what would you think about moving to Hong Kong? Didn't really faze her. And so that was really helpful. And then the other thing was. I had to really think about what I was going to do. There was no team over there. There was no pipeline starting from scratch, but I saw it as a real opportunity to distinguish myself but also learn about a part of the world that I'd had a little bit of exposure to, but not a lot of. So I think a couple of things that I would take away from that and maybe share with people who are listening to the video is. You have to think about how do you distinguish yourself in an organization. There's not many chances in today's world where you have the chance to be the first person to do something and to have the backing of an organization, but at the same time, be the first person out there to do it. And so that was the opportunity that I had. I had the resources of area, but for the most part, I had to figure it out on my own. There was no training program. There was no there was no manual about how to go do it. So there was a strategic part of it that I had to do too. So I think that was the other piece of that. And then the third thing that I thought of was when I came back from Hong Kong for about a year, when I came back from Hong Kong, I was still supervising the Asia Pacific region. But Jim Sullivan, who was working for at the time, said to me, Hey, look around, figure out what you'd like to do and figure out if there's an area at Marriott where there's a gap. Is there something that we're not doing that we should be doing? And so I spent some time looking at the organization and what I realized. From my own experience and doing development and talking to people that were based at Marriott headquarters at the time was that there was a gap between development in terms of doing the deals and operations operating the deals and what happened and who fixed things when there was a problem, which we all know there's generally a problem at some point in time. So at Marriott, there was a small group of individuals. There was about three or four people that were an ad hoc group, and I found them and I convinced the Marriott leadership team that we should actually invest behind and actually have a formal group that focused on workouts, restructurings. How do we help our owners? When their problems and it was actually very fortuitous because this all came together at the beginning of 2001 and we all know what happened in 2001 with the decline of the lodging market and then 9 11 and all of a sudden the group that I had joined and we had started to grow became the center of the housing market. Of a lot of the things that were happening in Marriott because of all the things that were going on and what was interesting about that is I never sought to be a workout guy or a fix it type of person. But what ended up happening was. I learned more on that role than I think I learned in any other role. It's hard to do development, but it's really hard to fix stuff. And I think what I did was I learned a lot of different skills and it actually turned out to be probably the job I liked the most of any of the roles that I've had during my career, because you really did have an impact on not only the Marriott organization, but on helping the owners. It'll pull things together. So those are the three things that that I focused on. But land, there was one other thing that I was thinking about when I was thinking about this. And part of it is not only the roles that you do, but it's the people you get exposed to and the opportunity to learn from those people. And I thought about some of the people that I got to sit next to at committee meetings that I got to watch in terms of how they thought about things. And my list was, obviously Mr. Marriott, but Gary Wilson, Fred Malik, Steve Bolenback. It's interesting when I joined Marriott, my cube was right next to Steve Bolenback's office. And I got to meet him in an informal way because I wasn't really working for him, but I got to see what he did over time and how he made decisions. And when he came back to host later on. And Arnie Sorenson and J I would say is to people your opportunities are ab And work with and learn from. And, one of the things that I've told my team all along the way, and what I've really promoted is to always have the opportunity to be in the room, that's going to be your opportunity to grow, to watch other individuals. Speak the questions that they ask, if you can figure out how they get to the conclusions that they get to. So part of it is the specific opportunities. But part of it is also, I think, the opportunity to watch and learn from other individuals and see how they do things.

Lan Elliott 9:20

Absolutely. And I love the themes that you mentioned, such as getting comfortable being uncomfortable and just figuring things out. Sometimes you're thrown in the deep end and that's the role. There isn't a roadmap. And figuring out how to do that. But I also like the idea of choosing opportunities where you get to work with people and see how other leaders manage their teams or approach issues. I'm curious for you, if there was a. A skill that maybe you decided over the course of your career to really focus on and improve. And we've heard a lot about from other leaders that curiosity is a big part of their path and emulating others and learning new things. And you referenced that with Steve Bollenbach. Did you have a skill that maybe you thought over time, this is something that I really need to focus on in order to continue.

Joel Eisemann 10:18

So I think I thought about it to granularly over periods of time. And as I talked with my managers there were certain times where they said what do you want to do? And I would say something like, oh, I'd like to go work in that group to learn this skill. And they'd go that's too laser focused. Like you can learn that skill. By watching them by volunteering to work on a project or other kinds of things I think the thing that I would if I was going to step back and look at my career and say You can look at skills in terms of knowledge and learning and that type of thing And then there's the other thing which is the managerial skills and that's probably the thing that I would Recommend to a younger me is to probably think more about less about accomplishing things, learning specific tasks, and more about the and more about more about the managerial skills.

Lan Elliott 11:19

Yeah. It's a big transition when you become, you go from being a soul contributor to actually leading people. And actually when I worked for you, that was the first real team that I was given to lead. And so had to figure that out. And I don't know that all young people realize that people who are first time managers, no one's told them how to be a manager or a leader mostly, and they're figuring it out as they go.

Joel Eisemann 11:45

I think everybody has a different skill and approach to doing that. And I think in addition to learning skills about how you accomplish specific things, watching and learning from managers and learning as you go along about what do you like about the person that you're working for or the people that you're working for? What is it? That resonates with you and what resonates with other people. I think that's really important.

Lan Elliott 12:10

Yeah, definitely. I remember when I was first trying to figure out how to lead people and I tried to do it the way you did it, but that didn't work for me and it wasn't authentic to me and I had to figure out my own way of doing it in order to become a good manager. But I agree having great people to emulate around you is really a wonderful benefit. Let's discuss overcoming obstacles because in your roles, you've had to overcome a lot of obstacles and to figure a lot of things out. Could you share a bit about how you approach problems, how you tackle these sorts of things in your career?

Joel Eisemann 12:50

Yeah, I thought about this a little bit too. And I think there's a kind of different things. There's unique things that happen in the lodging industry. And a lot of us had to make changes. After 9 11 or during COVID and there's a specific event that happens and then there's what you do every day and what this industry or the business throws at you. So I think in terms of like major industry events, unfortunately All of us have had the I guess I would say the opportunity or the challenge of working through some of those kind of situations And I thought about what happened after 9 11 When I was running the owner and franchise services group at Marriott and what was important for us to do at that point in time. And I think in looking back, speed is one thing responding quickly and making some decisions about what you're going to do. Second is really understanding your constituency in terms of who you're working with and what's important to them, right? So after 9 11, it was really important that we figure out a way to save costs for our owners. And how did we do that quickly? And how did we communicate with owners? So there was a combination of speed. There was a combination of working across an organization and getting everybody to buy in. Everybody from the brand teams to the operations teams and everybody else. And then there was the communication part. How did we communicate with our franchisees to make sure that they knew what we're thinking about? And so I think that's an important, that's an important part of kind of the overcoming the obstacles. The other is that we all have obstacles each and every day. And so sometimes it's a little bit less. Important in terms of the timing and more important about are you thinking through all of the situations? Are you gathering all of the facts? Are you making? Do you have enough time to make decisions? And I know land you and others who worked with me know my pension for desk for debt, putting together decks of information, and I think part of it was it helped people that were working with me and on the team to gather all the facts and put them into one place. And I think what we found at times was that when you gathered all the facts and you put them together. And you figured out the story when I was found all of a sudden, the solution just jumped out at you. And the reason it jumped out at you was because there was data and information that maybe you really weren't thinking about, but when you gathered it and you put it together in a certain way. All of a sudden the options and the opportunities of how to move to the next step really came about.

Lan Elliott 15:40

Yeah. I think the importance of really doing your homework and understanding all the parts and also the perspectives, cause you might be gathering information on something that happened in the past and you find that different people have different perspectives and getting a few different points of view might actually give you a clearer picture of what actually happened. It was always interesting to go back and do a deep dive into collecting all the facts. But you're right. Once you had all the information that you needed, it became much more obvious of what your path forward was. So yeah,

Joel Eisemann 16:13

I think it helps you set a strategy. And figure out a path that I think the one other thing that I've learned over time is that obviously like on some of the ads, they talk about speed kills, when you're talking about driving and things like that, sometimes speed kills deals too, and I think finding the right. Kind of pace and realizing sometimes that you actually have more time than you think that you do To be able to take the next step and realizing that every step that you take Sometimes it's really hard to pull back and redirect and so figuring out sometimes letting that deal Come to you or letting things play out a little bit before you make that next decision

Lan Elliott 16:56

Yeah I agree. Sometimes there is that, that you want to respond so quickly and be responsive, but sometimes taking a step back and thinking it through. We'll give you a better result.

Joel Eisemann 17:06

Exactly.

Lan Elliott 17:08

I wanted to move on to developing a network because you've been in the industry for quite a bit of time and have an incredible network. Could you share a little bit about how you develop a network in a way that reflects your personality?

Joel Eisemann 17:29

Yeah, this is another question that I think is really relevant. And as I thought about it. Maybe I would have been more intentional, about building a network. Had I really thought about that, in a specific way earlier. So it is something for some of your listeners to really think about. I think my network really got developed by just being out there in the industry and working with people in a wide variety of ways. So obviously I've been a deal person. You work with a variety of people on deals. You learn about people when you're working with deals. You have to trust them. You learn about their personality that helps or not, build a network with those individuals. But there's a lot of other things, right? You're the university that you went to and being involved with alumni affairs. Industry events being on panels and conferences and either interviewing people or being interviewed by people and getting to know them in that way. Industry organizations like the HNLA and volunteering to be on committees and things like that, where you're working with people who maybe you worked with on deals in one way, but when you work with them on a committee for an industry organization is a different way. So I think what I would recommend to people is just, Be as involved as you possibly can be in a wide variety of organizations, not just the company that you're working with and the specific roles that you're involved with. And I think that will help you build an organization network and you'll figure out a way Of which people you like to be engaged with which people can you help or that will help you going forward but then also You know, you really have to maintain those relationships and stay in touch with people So reaching out to them to see how they do how they're doing running into them at an industry conference and making time to Talk with them for a few minutes to find out what they're doing. I think those are all things that Are really important But you never really get to know people as well and have that the great network relationships without kind of finding that space where you're really working closely with somebody, because that's really where you get to know them.

Lan Elliott 19:46

Absolutely. And I know, as we've worked through different issues when we worked together, you always Talked about developing the relationship with the owners, with the other people in the organization. And it was always a priority for you that we actually developed relationships with the people that we worked with, even if it was across the table. And that was a really important piece.

Joel Eisemann 20:08

Yeah. I think it's interesting. I think some of the strongest relationships that I built in the industry were with people that I did workouts with. And. When you're sitting across the table and a problem situation, it's easy to potentially take it personally. Or to project on that individual. But I think what fortunately I was able to do and a lot of the people that I sat across the table from with was that we work to find a solution. And when you're sitting on the opposite side of the table, working to find a solution. With something that isn't always easy. I think you have to trust people a little bit more. You work more closely with them. You leave the workout part in the room. And when you leave the room, you have the relationship. And so I think that's really important is to really be thinking about is the other person just simply representing their company or is there something personal? And I think what I always found. Fortunately was people were representing their company and there wasn't a lot personal and as a result I was able to build some great relationships in that way.

Lan Elliott 21:19

Yeah. It's great to really think about it in that way that they're doing the best thing for their company, but being able to separate that from the individual is super important. Yeah.

Joel Eisemann 21:28

A little anecdote. I was, when I was in, when I was in Asia Pacific we had a really challenging situation in Australia and the other side hired this lawyer to represent them who was a real bulldog and was really tough to tough in terms of the role that he played, but he was fair. I really respected him. I trusted. The role that he was playing and it was interesting after we got the situation resolved, I reached out to him and said, I would like to hire you to be my attorney. Like you came across really well, you represented your client. You were fair. I believe, that you're going to be a fair individual, not only to represent my company going forward, but to deal with others. And so I think you learn a lot about people by working through some of those situations.

Lan Elliott 22:20

Absolutely. Absolutely. I wanted to talk a little bit about champions because I think a lot of people know about mentors who give you advice, but a concept that I didn't really understand until much later in my career was this idea about champions or sponsors or advocates who are the people who speak up for you in the room. And when there are opportunities or promotions that are being discussed, there's someone influential enough to put your name forward. I'm curious about your thoughts on champions and how they might've impacted your career.

Joel Eisemann 22:59

This is another one I think is really interesting in terms of how times have changed. I think for a large part of my career, the idea of mentors and champions. Wasn't really spoken about, and I think in the last decade or so, with the advent of HR becoming much more involved in an organization and the whole D and I focus, I think the idea of mentors and champions has gotten a little bit more formalized. Than I think it ever was. And so when I look back, my career, I'm not a hundred percent sure who might've been a champion and I'm not sure if I actually approached or worked with those individuals in the right way, but I think of today's organizations. There's a more specific way that companies are actually thinking about this. I think companies are asking senior executives to be champions for specific individuals and the organizations to be mentors. And so I think it's really important for individuals to think about who's reaching out to them. What they can do to be helpful and supportive of the champions and the mentors that they're working with. But I think the most important thing for anybody to do is they're working with a champion and a mentor is the first thing you've got to do is you've got to be doing a great job. each and every day in terms of what you're doing and what your role and responsibility is. And then the other thing I would say is that to really help your mentor or your champion is what else are you reaching out to do? How are you helping other people in your organization? How are you volunteering to help the people that you weren't specifically assigned Or that's not specifically part of your project, because that's what I think champions and mentors are looking for. And the people that they're working with is their ability to work within an organization, to reach across the aisle and work with people that you don't specifically have the responsibility for managing and how do you influence those people? And I think that's really what gets. Champions to champion people and why people see that and recognize that, you know, within individuals.

Lan Elliott 25:23

Yeah. I think that's incredible advice.

Joel Eisemann 25:26

Yeah. I think the other thing that I would say is in today's world, I think it's fair for individuals to reach out and up. When in our earlier career, did anybody ever talk about skip level meetings where you know, a manager reached down two or three levels and met with their people? In today's organizations, those kind of things happen or seem to happen on a regular basis. So I think. The challenge of reaching out to somebody that's more senior than you in an organization isn't as foreign as maybe it would have been, years ago in terms of reaching out and asking somebody to spend time. And I think a lot of times people are reaching out to you as an individual who maybe you wouldn't have thought would have asked to spend time with you. There's, I've been in organizations where senior leaders have Small group sessions with 5 or 10 people to ask for feedback. And there's an opportunity to volunteer to participate in those kind of things. I think all those kind of things are the type of things that individuals should be thinking about in today's world.

Lan Elliott 26:34

Absolutely. I wanted to move on to advocating for ourselves. Because it's been said that women don't do a great job of advocating for themselves. And this can apply to people from underrepresented groups as well. What advice do you have for people who want to ask for something? What is the right way to ask for something that you're looking for? Maybe it's a raise or a promotion or to be on a project you want to be on.

Joel Eisemann 27:02

Yeah, I think this goes back a little bit to my comments previously, which is basically, you need to look at yourself and go. Am I doing the types of things that my managers and their managers are looking for me to do? Am I getting feedback that I'm doing kind of the right thing? That's always a great starting point is to be doing well in the role that you're in, but also to have self awareness. The other thing is if you're not doing well in your role, maybe to be reaching out and asking why right and asking for input and feedback with regard to that, because I think that will then help you. Think about I'm in, am I in the right role and can I ask for help to make sure that I am in the right role, but I think that I think a lot of the barriers are not there today that were there previously, and I think it's, setting up the appropriate context, making sure that when you reach out to that individual and ask for that appointment, that there's some context to what is it specifically that you'd like to talk about so that the person can be prepared somewhat. So that maybe they need to step back and think a little bit about that discussion or pull together their thoughts about you as an individual, or maybe ask a manager in between you and them for a little bit more background about that. But I think that and maybe not the, maybe the other thing that I would just add is not over asking, right? I mean there's certain parameters within an organization that you as an individual. Should be aware of and understand in terms of how your organization works and be thoughtful a little bit about maybe how your organization works when you're setting up those meetings.

Lan Elliott 29:00

So if you're looking for a promotion, think about what is the timing? What is the process that's involved for your company for those sorts of things to happen?

Joel Eisemann 29:08

Yeah, it's interesting and maybe watching and understanding from other people, are there other people that have been promoted recently that you could go to before you go to a manager or the manager of your manager and saying, Hey, you got promoted recently. Can you tell me anything that I could learn from that? Was there something that you did or in thinking back about that, that helped you in terms of getting that promotion? Or is there something that somebody told you that really enabled you? To be able to get that role. I think, it's interesting. People have asked me over my career and different roles that I've been in. When am I going to, when am I going to get promoted? And sometimes my response has been when my manager says. that you did an awesome job or you made a presentation and they specifically say, wow, that individual did a great job. Part of it is being noticed. Part of it is being recognized. Part of it is earning that opportunity. And how do you earn that opportunity? And maybe that's a question that people can ask. As they move forward. And so maybe it's, I think the challenge is a lot of times people ask about the timing for a specific promotion versus. What could I do to earn the opportunity to be promoted? And is there something I could do more of, or am I missing on the expectations of the organization in some way?

Lan Elliott 30:46

That's a great way to think about it. One of the things you're really known for in this industry is building high performing teams. And I wanted to touch on that a minute with you, because I've seen the people who have worked with you have gone on to a number of C suite. roles afterwards. And it's one of those things that if you want to level up, if you work with Joel Eisman, it's a real chance to level up because you're going to set the bar really high. And what you learn from having the chance to work with you can really serve you In the future of your career. So I'm curious how you approach building high performing teams and what things are you looking for when you're adding people to your team?

Joel Eisemann 31:36

Yeah. So the first thing and land, you and I talked a little bit about this as we've worked together over time, which is I am always recruiting. I am all, I always have a list of people that I know in the industry who I would like to hire or have on my team. If I have an opportunity. And when when I was at IHG and we were thinking about a person for the role on the workout team, you were on my list. And you were on my list, not because I had done some other things, but because you and I had worked together back when you were the host and I was impressed by what you did, how we worked together and all that type of thing. And so one of the things that I would say to people is if you're a manager, you always need to be recruiting. You always need to think about who it is that you would like to have on your team because there's going to come a point in time where you need to think about that. Of course, we all use headhunters and things like that, but we need to have ideas about who we're going to potentially be interested in hiring. The other thing I would say to people is you should recognize that you're always being interviewed. And that people are always looking at you as an individual. It was interesting. I told you the story as we were preparing for this about an individual who we added to our team at IHG. And when I sat down with her for the interview process, she asked me. What questions did I have of her? And I said to her, I don't have any questions. You interviewed with me two years ago when you were working on this project and we were working really close to closely together, you did an awesome job, you did everything that we hoped you would accomplish in that role. And since that time, I was just waiting for the opportunity to add you to my team. So I think that's something for people to really think about is that you are always being interviewed and everything you do. Each and every day is going to reflect on the opportunity that you're going to have. At some point in time. But the other thing I think is really important land is that I've always looked at hiring people who actually thought were smarter than me. And people who maybe I could work for at some point in time. I've always wanted to add people. Who I thought could add a breadth that I didn't have, who had a skill set that I didn't have that had experiences I didn't have because in order to have a high performing team, you have to have people that aspire to grow, take on more responsibility and want to have those bigger roles. And that's something that I've never shied away from is having really outstanding people on the team. And, I'm really proud to have had the opportunity to have a lot of the people on the team go on to have great roles in the industry. And I think that's really a key piece. Is that part of the recruiting effort?

Lan Elliott 34:39

Absolutely. I love that. Along similar lines. I wanted to talk about how one distinguishes themselves because there has been a renewed focus on self care and people working from home, or even during the pandemic, maybe people moved to another part of the country from where their office is located. And now that people are starting to come back to work, either part time or some offices or five days a week, what do you think is required for people to distinguish themselves and advance their career? Can you do that and have work life balance? You're one of the hardest working people I've ever seen. I don't think anyone ever kept up with your work ethic on the entire large team that you had. But what. What does a person on your team need in order to distinguish themselves? And can you do that with work life balance? Can you do it remotely?

Joel Eisemann 35:35

Yeah. So I think the first thing is there has to be some, work life balance. You have to take care of yourself, your family and other kinds of things. And so figuring out a way to accomplish that. I think is important. And I think, when I was thinking about some of the things that you and I worked on, even before COVID on your team, we went to a four day in the office week, right? Giving people the opportunity to work from home on Friday. And the idea was people were traveling a lot. We trusted them to work remotely one day a week, and we knew they needed some flexibility. So there clearly needs to be some type of balance. With regard to the work life balance and how do you get ahead? But I think, and I have kids who are all between 27 so I've watched them in their careers. And I watched the children of my friends, which is how do you learn in an organization? And how do you Get exposed to more senior people and you can't really do that. I think remotely, if you go back to one of the topics we talked about earlier, and I talked about being exposed to, Mr. Marriott or Gary Wilson or Fred Malik or people like that, like I got exposed to them because I remember sitting next to Fred Malik and committee meetings and seeing the notes on the committee paper and learning how he thought about approaching the deal. Or walking through the cafeteria line at Marriott and walking out and Mr. Marriott being at the first table and him going, sit down, Joel, I've got some questions for you, right? None of that stuff can happen remotely. And so I think there has to be, if you really want to get ahead, that ability to say, I need to be in the office. I need to have, exposure to the teams that I'm working with because just, the combination of the normal meetings and the informal meetings and the informal conversations that happen, I think are really important. And I think, the other thing that, that I would say to people is, And at Noble I'm an advisor to some of the junior people on the team. And one of the things that I've said to them is if you're not invited to a meeting, don't think somebody purposely forgot to invite you. Maybe it was just an oversight and invite yourself to the meeting or go to your manager next time and say, Hey, I wasn't included in that last meeting. That's something I really like to get exposed to. Could I be in that meeting next time? You can't be in that meeting next time. If you're calling in, that's just, isn't the way to make it work. So I do believe that we're all adjusting to a balance, but if I was a more junior person today, I would err on being in more often as opposed to less often having more visibility as opposed to less than volunteering. in a way that gives me the opportunity to be part of those opportunities because I think that's gonna help build the relationships as well as as much as we've all learned to adapt to doing things online and via teams calls and things like that, there are just things you don't pick up when you're not in the room or you're not seeing the whole person there and there. The way that they're talking to where they're reacting and that type of thing.

Lan Elliott 39:09

Wonderful advice. We are coming to the end of our time together. And we are to our last question. Joel, you've given so much amazing advice and I'm wondering if you have one last nugget that you would offer to our audience who are looking to advance their careers.

Joel Eisemann 39:26

Yeah. So I think a lot of people have come to me. To ask for advice about their career. And one of the things that I say to them is, look, I could tell you what I would do if I'm, if it was me, but I'm not you. And so you nearly need to think about what makes you tick, what makes you energized when you wake up in the morning, what it is that you want to accomplish. And you need to really know yourself because when I look back at some of the jobs that I took the positions that I took and what did I learn from them? The residence in job that I took that I identified as learning two people turned that job down before I took it. So I'm going like why did they turn this job down? What is it that I don't recognize? But it was a great opportunity. And there's, when I went to Hong Kong, a number of my friends said to me, Whoa, you're moving halfway around the world when Marriott's having some financial difficulties, like you're going to be gone in a year when Marriott realized how long, how much it costs to have that office open in Asia, you're going to get cut. Don't you realize what's going to happen to you? And so I think the thing is that while other people gave me insight or perspectives. I always had a view of what I wanted to accomplish and what I knew I was going to be comfortable doing. And so while you can ask people for that input, they're never going to know you the way that you know yourself. And while they might tell you that they think it's a great opportunity for you They're never going to really know whether that's something you're really going to like. So I think that's really key is knowing yourself, knowing what you like to do, and recognizing that sometimes the decisions that you're going to make about your career are not going to be consistent with what your friends or your peers are going to say. Might think are the right choices.

Lan Elliott 41:31

That's wonderful advice. Thank you very much, Joel, for sharing your wisdom. And thank you also for all you've done for this industry, for me, from when I worked with you, but also so many people who have worked with you and learned and grown their careers as a result. So thank you very much.

Joel Eisemann 41:50

You're welcome. That's one of the reasons I'm still involved in the industry is I think it's an awesome place. To spend time and to add value. And I think, what's the most, what I take the most value out of today is some of the things we've talked about on this call, which is mentoring, championing, and giving the opportunity to really the next generation of our industry leaders. So thanks land for including me.

Lan Elliott 42:14

Absolutely. Thank you, Joel. And for our audience, if you've enjoyed this conversation with Joel, I hope you will go to our website, DEI advisors. org, where you can find other interviews with wonderful industry leaders. Thank you. Thanks, Lynn.