Eric Lent, Former SVP, Upscale Hotels, IHG Hotels & Resorts, interviewed by Lan Elliott

Eric's guiding career advice dates back to age 17, when a cousin told him to strive to understand your client's business better than your client does, a principle he has carried into every role since. That same instinct shaped how he approached turnarounds later at IHG, where he made a point of listening widely, from frontline teams to owners to industry journalists, before ever proposing a plan. 

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Lan Elliott 0:02

Hello and welcome to It's Personal Stories. My name is Lynn Elliott, on behalf of It's Personal Stories, the podcast dedicated to empowering personal success in the hospitality industry. Today I am delighted to have my friend Eric Lent here with us. I had the pleasure of working with Eric when I was at IHG, and he was just one of the most inspiring, talented people that I met there, and I am thrilled to have him on today. Welcome, Eric.

Eric Lent 0:33

Hi, Lynn. I'm very happy to be here. Lynn, I have to tell you a quick story. I don't know if I've ever mentioned this to you, but when we worked together at IHG, I had to study harder to get ready for meetings with you than I normally would because I knew you would always cut to the most critical questions. And so I wanna start by thanking you for making me better.

Lan Elliott 0:57

Oh, thank you. That is a hilarious story to share. But let's talk about you. That's why we're here. And- I have been so impressed with how you carried yourself when you were at IHG. You had a very challenging role, roles I should say. But I am curious about your journey to leadership and how you got to where you are today. What were some of the inflection points in your successful career? And do you think there was a factor or factors that contributed to your success?

Eric Lent 1:33

Thank you. I love the title journey to leadership, because that is very much how I think about the arc of my career so far. I, I had the luxury of working across a number of different industries, and really there are three inflection points that are perhaps most meaningful. The first one started before I even began my career. When I was a junior in high school, I cut class for the day, skipped school. I was living in Long Island and I had a cousin that worked at an ad agency in New York City. And I went to Manhattan, and I met him at the agency. He set up a day of informational interviews, and I met like the, the, the creative team, the media team, the strategy team, the planning team, and he talked about how his job in account management was to get the best work out of that team for the client. Now 17, like I had, had stars in my eyes, like, "Yeah, this is what I wanna do." And Steve, my, my cousin said, "Eric, if you wanna do this don't major in advertising, don't major in communications. Become a student of business and learn business, and get a degree in business. And the way you're going to be successful," and this is really important, he said, "Strive to understand your client's business better than your client." And Lan, tho- that sentence car- has carried me my entire career. Every company, every role, every assignment I throw myself in, I don't just try to understand my job, my function, I try to understand how the business is being run, what's working, what's not working and that has been an important factor that, that I've carried forward with me. A- after undergrad I did go into advertising. I was with brands like British Airways, J&B Scotch Procter Gamble. I then made a move into brand management, and I got to work for great companies like Eastman Kodak The Hershey Company, SC Johnson. When I was at Hershey, I made the transition from brand management into general management and was... I ran countries and I r- I ran markets of the world. And then my, my second inflection point my, I made the move out of consumer packaged goods into what I'll call hospitality adjacent. My mentor wa- was a gentleman named Joel Manby. Joel was the CEO of Herschend Family Entertainment. Very topical right now, Herschend one of the brands in their portfolio was Dollywood So theme parks, attractions. I had the chance to help steward the Dolly- Dollywood brand, and very meaningful to me. She truly is an incredible person, an incredible leader. Learned a ton from her.

Lan Elliott 4:09

Amazing.

Eric Lent 4:10

It was amazing. And wh- and while I was there, as a company, we made the decision to extend the Dollywood brand into hospitality. And so when I w- when I was in consumer packaged goods, you learn strategy, you learn analytics, you learn a proper situation assessment, and you get best-in-class training on research methodologies. And I was able to bring a research methodology from that part of my life into Herschend, and ran a piece of research that helped us understand the attributes, the features, the benefits that would resonate best with the Dollywood guest. And that led to the creation of the Dollywood DreamMore Resort. And Lan, I got the bug. I loved how dynamic hospitality was, how complex it was, and the human element, which is very unique versus other industries. Went from Herschend to IHG on the Holiday Inn brand, and it w- it was a challenging assignment, a turnaround that I was able to drive success in, and that success got me another assignment on a, a second turnaround on Crowne Plaza. And that to me was my the third inflection point. It was the, the biggest leadership test of my life. And when I was given that assignment Heck, it was like six weeks before the annual owners conference. And my fourth day on the job, the IHG Owners Association sent me a letter that was essentially almost like a, an essay on all the things that the, that we needed to do a- as a brand company to help our owners' assets improve. And it was very intimidating. It was daunting. I locked myself in my office with a few people from the strategy team and the finance team, cranked out a, a plan, and got that plan refined and endorsed by Heather Bosley, who's now the chief commercial marketing officer at IHG. Incredible leader. And she and I got Elie Maalouf's support, and then the board approved it. And five weeks after that, four weeks after that I presented to the owners, Crowne Plaza owners. And Lan, I remember that s- I'll never forget that speech. When you you know this. When you give a speech, the legal team's like, "Stick to the script. It's very important." And I was giving the presentation and I looked out at the stage and the audience, and they were like angry faces and stoic faces, like just, blank. And I walked up to the edge of the stage and anchored my feet, and I looked at the audience and I let them know that I was gonna do everything in my power to help the assets perform. After the speech, I got some hugs from some owners. Mostly I got people pointing their finger in my face saying, "You better deliver." And it's a longer story for another time, but at, three years later, was able to stand on stage again and point to the highest increases in RevPAR, guest satisfaction, and owner satisfaction in years for the brand. And my, my team my, my incredible team got enormous accolades for that, and it was really a for me, a, a shining moment when I reflect back on my career. Very fortunate, and si- since then, I've done a nun- number of pr- like private equity and founder-led assignments, most notably as chief operating officer of Gravity House Hotels, which are really hotels, resorts, restaurants in Mountain West destinations like Aspen, Jackson Hole, Vail, Breckenridge. So from cameras to candy to I worked on homes to ultimately hotels. Very broad arc, very diverse, and the string through it all is really this journey to leadership from marketer to, to operator

Lan Elliott 8:04

I love that. And there were so many things that you packed into that, but I wanted to call out a few of them. The first one that you mentioned about knowing your customer's business better than they do. Just being curious about the business that you're going to be helping someone with is so important as a starting point. And that speech that you gave was a turning point speech, I think, for the Crown Plaza brand, and we are going to get into that speech specifically because it was quite the moment. But I am curious, in your journey through all of these different industries and roles, is there a leadership skill that you wish you had learned earlier in your career? And if so, how did you gain that skill?

Eric Lent 9:00

Sure. I'm gonna date myself a little bit, but do you remember the movie Animal House?

Lan Elliott 9:04

Yes.

Eric Lent 9:05

Okay. So wh- here's the s- This is an

Lan Elliott 9:08

auspicious start to this conversation.

Eric Lent 9:12

When I made the move out of consumer packaged goods into Herschend Family Entertainment, I had gone from working large global multinationals, think world-class operating frameworks, world-class processes, to a very well-run third-generation family-owned operation. And I had a John Belushi moment, and what I mean by that is it, my, my first couple months on the job I had done all this work to lay out how we're gonna develop the marketing organization. And there was about 80 marketers on the team across the country. I got them all together and I gave this rousing speech. Now there's a scene in Animal House where Belushi is giving this speech to his fraternity brothers and he t- he talks about, quote-unquote, "The Germans bombing Pearl Harbor," and then he runs out of the room, runs out of the fraternity house, and nobody follows him I gave my speech, and I had the same reaction from my audience. And after I was done with it one, one of the senior female executives on my team, she took me aside and she said, "Eric, they have no idea what you're talking about. You're using frameworks from a world they don't understand." And to me, that was the, it was a failure moment in some ways, right? I d- I didn't get across what I needed to, but it also taught me about the need to evolve and adapt. And that harsh lesson carried forward for the rest of my career, the importance of adapting to your environment, adapting to the situation as it changes, adapting the plans as they evolve because they're always wrong the second they're done. Th- that adaptability was an important life lesson that I learned. I wish I learned it sooner, but I, I carry it forward today.

Lan Elliott 11:01

That is a great story and a great example of someone giving you some mentorship, but then really taking it on in that moment, because I'm sure you were a bit crestfallen after preparing- that big speech and running out of the fraternity house and realizing no one was following you. But to use that to fuel your personal growth is such an important part of it, so thank you for sharing that.

Eric Lent 11:26

Of course. I owe it. These, these lessons they t- they're important, right? And we all learn from them.

Lan Elliott 11:31

Yep, absolutely I noticed that you do quite a bit of volunteer work, from firefighting to serving on a number of boards. Can you share some of the advantages and lessons you've learned through that work?

Eric Lent 11:48

Yes. I think it's critic- critically important to get exposure outside of the role you have within the company or it's outside the company you're in. The fire... I'll talk about firefighting first. I come from a family of New York City firefighters and a number of them were involved in 9/11 and post 9/11, and I felt compelled to give back by, by also joining a, a fire department. And what I would do is I would work and then I would go to a firehouse and work from 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM and then go back to work. And for me, gosh, the big learning there was the importance of trust. I think fire departments across the world are some of the highest trust organizations on the planet because when you get into these crisis situations, if you aren't, if you're not well-trained, if you're not able to depend on the person that's either following you or leading you, you will fail. And when you're failing in this instance, lives are at stake. And so for me, seeing how important trust can be and how amazing it is when it's working well I took that insight and every organization that I've been a part of since then, I look at the trust of the, the teams, the leadership teams, the functional teams, and to a T, when there is high trust, there is better performance. It's bar none. The other part from firefighting is learning the importance of incident command. When you come into these, these critical situations, clarity of direction, clarity of accountability, clarity of follow through, those are, some of the most extreme life circumstances and it's do- it works well in that environment. That clarity can be applied to any operating environment in any industry. So those are, great, just great core learnings I gained from that experience. The board work I do because I am just a, a business nerd. I love studying businesses, I love studying financial models, P- different P&Ls and really learning how different businesses operates because they're... So often conversations I have in a boardroom of one company can be applied to business situations in either businesses or projects that, that I'm involved in.

Lan Elliott 14:03

I love that. And would you believe you're the second executive I've spoken with that also does firefighting? And he continues to do it, Sean Mahoney, who was the CFO of RLJ. I'm curious if you still volunteer at the firehouse

Eric Lent 14:18

today. I, I, no that, like Kudos to Sean. I appreciate and thank, I thank him for what he does. That chapter is, has closed for me a while ago.

Lan Elliott 14:28

No more running into burning buildings.

Eric Lent 14:29

No.

Lan Elliott 14:31

Just metaphorically in your career.

Eric Lent 14:32

That's how I continued it.

Lan Elliott 14:36

That's a great segue into talking about approach to challenges, because you touched on the Holiday Inn transformation that you joined IHG to work on, and you were so good at that, they then gave you an ever, even bigger knot to untie, which was to turn around the Crowne Plaza brand. And it was such a difficult brand that people had tried to turn it around for many years, and I knew they had given you one of the biggest challenges, not just in IHG, but I think within hospitality, how to turn around a large brand that was not successful. And I'm curious how you approach problems like that. How do you process being given this giant Gordian knot, and how do you approach it? How do you motivate your team? They all know it's a large challenge. How do you handle that?

Eric Lent 15:39

I think the first thing is being comfort- being comfortable in your humility. And what I mean by that is, I've seen leaders fail when they walk into teams or organizations and believe they have all the answers And for me the hard work coming into any challenge, and particularly with Crowne Plaza, wa- was going in and really trying to understand the history that led to the current situation. In that environment, it meant talking to all the stakeholders on the IHG operating team. It meant speaking with journalists in the industry that had covered the brand for a while. It also, and this is the most important, it meant getting very deep with owners and listening to them, taking, taking the blows of letting them, air their grievances. But all of that was critical input. And so I'd, I'd do that big stakeholder mapping, and then I support that with a couple of frameworks that I learned in CPG on how to assess internal/external factors to distill what the key learnings are, the implications of those learnings, and actions that, that should be taken. And that I worked methodically through that process. Now I will say that in, in doing the work, it's also having the humility to let the work be wet clay. And as you're presenting it to people like yourself, Lynn, right? When we presented it, you gave input, and we continued to shape and mold and hone it until it became something that reflected the best of the best thinking across the company. That process that I did at Crowne Plaza I've done tons of times at other companies, and it's just it's just a way to walk into a business to really understand. But it's you have to be receptive and open to the positive, and more importantly, the negative.

Lan Elliott 17:25

That's a really great way to approach challenges because looking at it from different points of view, when something has gone really wrong, there's not usually one story. There's usually multiple stories and multiple perspectives. And if you can get all of those and see the issue from different angles, it becomes much clearer, and it's usually not just one thing that's wrong. And understanding the complexity of t- trying to change something that has been an issue for many years.

Eric Lent 17:59

Yes. And the reali- But that- S- sorry. Go ahead. I was gonna say, the reality is the, the truth is always somewhere at the intersection of those stories,

Lan Elliott 18:08

right? I agree But that work doesn't change overnight. You can't give one great speech and have everything be better. It can be very daunting to show up every day and continue to push that giant rock up the hill with the goal of getting to the other side. How do you find meaning and inspiration when you need it? How do you keep going?

Eric Lent 18:38

I'm gonna t- I'm gonna s- just tell a quick story that came out of Crown Plaza. I actually told it when I was on Crown Plaza. There, there was a time in my life when, where I had the good fortune to meet a man named John Dau. John was the leader of the Lost Boys of Sudan, and when he was a young teenager, when he was 13 years old, a group of warring tribesmen came to his village, attacked the village. He was the only one left of his family, and he ended up leading a small band of boys on a trek down to Kenya. Now, John was made the leader of the tribe b- only because he was the tallest boy in the group. And there was a time when he was making the trek where there was a river they needed to cross that was filled with hippopotamus and gators and the, he knew the warring tribe was behind them. The only decision he could make was to go forward and go through that river, and they, the boys did that. Not all of them made it. They ultimately got to Kenya. And I was at dinner with John one night and I said, "John, how did you lead through this?" And he said, "Eric, every day I told my group to take one step, take another step, and just keep moving forward." And my toughest day will never come close to what John experienced. And for me, that keeps everything in perspective.

Lan Elliott 20:17

That is an amazing story.

Eric Lent 20:19

Yeah.

Lan Elliott 20:20

That is incredible. Thank you for sharing that. And what an incredible opportunity to spend time with him it must have been.

Eric Lent 20:27

Yeah, he's a g- a great man

Lan Elliott 20:30

I wanna go back to that speech you mentioned earlier, because when I got to IHG, Crowne Plaza had been floating around without any real direction for, I would say, 30 years. And a number of people had tried, and there was this feeling like, "Don't get close to the Crowne Plazas 'cause, that's the path of destruction. No one's ever succeeded." Of course, my job at IHG was to try and save and help Crowne Plazas with the owners, so we got to work together quite a bit. But I was really amazed when you stepped o- onto that stage to give that one speech, because the room was electric. You did not have a John Belushi moment. We all went, "Oh my God." It was like the skies opened up, and I felt you move the momentum in the room by that speech. Now, not every public speaking speech is that. Public speaking could be anything. It could be speaking up at a team meeting. It could be a number of different things. Obviously, that speech that you gave was transformational in changing the hearts and minds of the owners in that room, finally giving them some hope that things could be different going forward. But I'm curious about how you developed that skill. I know it's been really important in your career how you've managed your public speaking in order to change hearts and minds, but I'm curious how you developed it, and what do you do to prepare or to feel confident when you're getting ready to do something like that?

Eric Lent 22:34

Sure. I, the- there's- there's a couple different ways I- I can answer this, but what I'll say first is when I started my career, I worked for, the agency I joined was Saatchi Saatchi Advertising. At the time, it was the largest agency on the planet. They had an incredibly rigorous training program where you learned how to pitch, right? Because think about the nature of advertising. A- a client calls up, says, "I need to fix my company, fix my brand," and you've got three or four weeks to learn their business and to present to them in a way that is compelling enough that they'll actually say yes.

Lan Elliott 23:06

So five to six weeks was nothing for you-

Eric Lent 23:08

Yeah

Lan Elliott 23:09

to try and figure out how to turn around Crown Plaza. Ri-

Eric Lent 23:11

right. So that, that was one, but- but the bigger, I think the bigger lesson for me is I- I have a, I have a- a cousin, wh- a Canadian film actor. He's been very successful over his career, and he and I were at dinner in Los Angeles once, and I sa- he, he- he brought to dinner this binder of a script that he had to memorize. And I was like, how do you prepare?" 'Cause a speech is easy compared to a script. And he told me, he said, "Eric, what I do when I get ready for my- my roles, I'll- I'll read the script cover to cover, and then I'll read it page to page, then paragraph to paragraph, and then word to word. And when I get, start reading it word to word, I try to u- understand what emotion each word needs to convey." I actually took that methodology and applied it to my public speaking, and it transformed how I came across on stage because it's not about sticking to a script. It's not about memorizing the words. It's about what you want your audience to think, to feel, and to do, and that can be communicated in intonation of your voice, whe- how you hold yourself, how you gesture, how you move. It's a, you're really, in many ways, a great public speech is a, is incredible acting, and that to me is- is, was the core. And then on top of that, Glenn, you know this, it's like any sport. You've gotta get reps in. You need to do it over and over, and I have gone from writing out my speeches to now today you can give me two minutes of what you want me to talk about, I'll write three words on a piece of paper, and I can go off that. It's only because I've done it so many times. You gotta get the reps in.

Lan Elliott 24:55

Do you still memorize?

Eric Lent 24:57

No, I don't. I don't. I get I have clouds of ideas I wanna convey

Lan Elliott 25:04

Amazing. Do you need slides for that?

Eric Lent 25:07

Not always. Not always. If it's really complex, I like slides just to keep my audience 'cause c- wh- what slides, a good slide has no more than five to seven words and a compelling visual, and really it should serve to anchor your thoughts versus have somebody thinking about what's on the slide and trying to think about what you're saying, 'cause that creates cognitive dissonance, right? And you lose your audience.

Lan Elliott 25:32

Absolutely. I have always thought that when I've seen people put the Harvard Business School slides up in a meeting, and it's got 18 ideas on it, and I'm busy trying to absorb 18 ideas while the person's speaking, and I never understood that.

Eric Lent 25:44

Exactly. Tho- those are great for a pre-read, right? But give people time to read them in the meeting because y- you know that when you get a pre-read, it's usually the night before, right? And you don't get a chance to digest it. So I, Jeff, Bezos, Amazon, their culture's great. They carve out time before, before every presentation for the audience to digest the topic.

Lan Elliott 26:05

That's a great thought.

Eric Lent 26:07

Yeah.

Lan Elliott 26:07

I like that. You've touched on mentors and champions a little bit already, but I'm curious if you could go a little deeper into mentors and/or champions because they serve different roles. How important is it to find them? How does one go about getting mentors and champions? And h- how have they helped your career?

Eric Lent 26:36

I'll start with the, with back into that question. First I would not be the man I am today in the position I am today without having incredible mentors throughout my career. I firmly believe everybody you meet in the world is somebody you have something to learn from. When you have an individual who's walked the road ahead of you and they're willing to impart their knowledge on you, that is, that's the biggest gift you can get. W- there's an important distinction though. You can ask someone to be a mentor. You have to earn having someone be your champion because they're putting their personal equity on the line. Champions advocate for you. Mentors advise, right? And so there's the very... And you need b- in fact you need both. Champions come from doing great work and getting great results and being dependable. Mentors come from facilitating strong relationships and, that to me is like every interaction that you have within a company, even if it's a heated debate, are you leaving that interaction w- with the, the individual that you're interacting with feeling better than when you started? And that's, that to me is I always think about that as even with the harshest topics how do I go in, have a really strong healthy debate when necessary and then align and then in- endorse the other person's thinking, 'cause that's so important. Validate who they are, validate their thinking, validate their contributions and then exit, with the relationship intact. Over time mentors emerge

Lan Elliott 28:09

Okay. Eric, as I suspected, we would run short on time because I could talk with you forever, and I always learn whenever we, we have a discussion, so I enjoy that. But I've got two final questions I wanted to ask you. The first is, what advice would you give your younger self, younger Eric?

Eric Lent 28:33

Lynn, I'm gonna, I'm gonna finish where I started. The, the best advice I got in my career was when I was 17 years old, and it's advice I would give, I still give today, right? Which is strive to understand the business better than anybody else on the team. Now, do you always get there? No. But if you go in to your assignment, your task, your role with that already wired in your head, and then when you position the things you're trying to either advocate for or defend, you're doing it with a greater context, a more holistic understanding so that you can present how what you're trying to advocate for benefits the other parties in your organization. So that to me is, I got very fortunate getting it that, that young in, in my life, and I would give it to myself again if I had to start over.

Lan Elliott 29:17

I do think it is also indicative that you understood what that meant. Not every 17-year-old would understand the importance of that advice that they got at that age and take it in and internalize it, and then be able to use it, and that's wonderful advice. And Eric, you've shared so much great advice over this discussion. Do you have one final piece of advice for our audience, keeping in mind that the mission of It's Personal Stories is empowering personal success? What advice would you offer, one last nugget?

Eric Lent 29:51

Yeah I will... So anybody that works for me gets this advice, and that is be the one to step forward when everybody else steps back. I call it step into the mess. When I look at the, the turnarounds that I've had to lead the tough business situations I had to drive change in, those situations while they were hard, made me stronger, battle-hardened, seasoned, wise, all, all the things that come from managing adversity. And, a- regardless of where you are in your career, be the one that steps forward. You will only get better as a result.

Lan Elliott 30:32

Amazing, incredible, and daunting advice. I would expect nothing less from you, Eric. So thank you so much for being on, for sharing your wisdom with our audience. You are such an incredible, inspiring, unique leader, and I am so grateful that you agreed to come on and share your career advice with our audience. Thank you. Linh- And for all you do in the industry because I know people adore working with you, and we're really pleased to have you in the hospitality industry.

Eric Lent 31:08

Linh, thank you. I love this industry. I loved our time together and I'm grateful for our friendship, so thank you for the time.

Lan Elliott 31:15

Thanks, Eric. And to our audience, if you've enjoyed this conversation with Eric, hope you'll go to our website. It's personalstories.com, where you can find many more interviews with hospitality industry leaders