Allison Reid, Global Head of Hospitality and Leisure, Ferguson Partners, interviewed by Lan Elliott

Allison shares the 4 questions that help her build teams, which has lead to happier, more productive team members.  She explains why she avoids the jealousy, drama and comparisons that often swirl in corporate cultures, and how she handles negative thoughts.  She also describes her technique for resolving a problematic issue (tip:  ask the quiet person in the room), and the importance of developing your own, authentic style.  Allison also explains how classic negotiation skills are key to advocating for yourself.

Transcript

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Lan Elliott 0:00

Hello and welcome to DEI Advisors. My name Islan Elliot on behalf of DEI Advisors, and today's guest advisor is Allison Reed, and I'm really lucky to have had the opportunity to work with her a couple times over the course of my career, and I'm looking forward to her sharing her incredible journey with you. Allison is the Chief Global Growth Officer at Abridge Hospitality. So welcome Allison.

Allison Reid 0:26

Thanks land. I think I'm the lucky one that's got to work with you several times in our career.

Lan Elliott 0:33

So you've started your career actually on the finance side of the industry. And you now lead a global team focusing on growing AM bridge's footprint. Can you share with us some of the inflection points in your career and maybe some of the factors or maybe your key attributes that have contributed to your.

Allison Reid 0:54

Sure. As anyone knows, when you have a long career, there's a lot of inflection points. So I'll point to three that I think were the biggest. One my first job out of undergrad was in banking. And I knew I was real. I had a finance background, I had a hospitality background and an accounting. I had three majors. So I went into banking and I quickly knew it probably wasn't for me. It was a time, the late eighties where it was a really interesting place to be, especially if you're a woman. So I made a quick, I was there maybe a year, and I moved to hospitality to the St. Regis in New York. So that's the first inflection point I knew it wasn't for me. It just didn't feel right. It didn't feel like the right environment for me. And so I made a change, even though at the time to go from banking to hotels, especially so young, maybe wasn't. People didn't think it was the best idea, but I thought it was the best idea for me. The second was then I was at ITT Sheraton for a while and I made a decision to go to interstate at third party management. Again, not really. I had been at Sheraton, I think five, six years. Unusual move, right? Most people were wanting to be at the brands at that point. But for me, I went, and this is a theme throughout my career because of the people that were at interstate at the time. And then the third part, probably big inflection, was at the end of Star. When Marriott Starwood acquisition, that was an inflection point was like, what do I really wanna do with my life? Not, what's the next thing I wanna do in my career? Like, where do I wanna spend my time? So those are the three biggest. And I think the takeaway is and at the time I don't think I knew myself. I just had a feeling this would be better to go from here to there. The last inflection point was you kind. After so many years you know or at least I took the time after Starwood to figure out what I wanted

Lan Elliott 2:45

to do. That's great. And one of the things that you are particularly good at is, Building teams. I know it's one of the things you really enjoy doing. Can you share how you approach doing this when you join a new organization? What are the things that you do first? How do you decide to build a team?

Allison Reid 3:10

Yeah, so I got to, building teams. I like process. I don't like bureaucracy, but I do like process. I like to understand how things work, how you can get things to go from good to great or from bad to good. And building a team is the same thing as any process, right? So when. And I stumbled into this team building, enjoying it, being good at it. I stumbled into it. Cause like most things in my career, someone said, Hey, do you wanna do this? And I said, Sure, let's try it. You know what I mean? Like I just said, Okay, let's try it. So one is the first thing I do, and I just did this. I'm literally at abridge four months, so I'm right in the thick of this part of it. The first thing is the first day when you meet people or you have meetings with your. Reports is and I've always had teams that I've gone in, had a team existing and then had to, work with that team, rearrange that team, add to that team. So this isn't building from scratch. This is existing. Okay. Is, I just talked to each of them. This time I came up with, what are the four questions? What are you good at? What are, were you, what are you not that great at? What do you like to do and what don't you like to do? Or what's the worst thing you would have to, if you had to do something and you didn't wanna do it, what would that be? So I figured if you're good at something and you like doing it, great, you're gonna do a great job. If you. Good at something and it's not, it doesn't thrill you, but you're good at it. You do a good job cuz you just wanna get in, get it done. Organizational planning is that for me, I don't love it, but I think I'm good at it so I can get in and get it done. There are certain things that I. Don't like doing. And I don't love conference panels. I don't love doing interviews like this, but I obviously would do for you. So I tend to not do them as much because there's other people that can do 'em better than me. So that's when I'm building a team. If I ask you those four questions, I know who you are and what you would be. then I, or simultaneously or within the couple of weeks, what was I hired to do? What am I supposed to do? What's what has the company hired me to do? And how do I get from where we are today to where we need to go? So once I know that, then I lay out the strategic plan, right? At Abridge Global Growth Officer. Obviously I'm focused on growth, right? So then I try to figure out, what's the map? What's the process of how we are? I look at our industry, I look at a bunch of different things, and I come up with the process map or the strategy. Then it's like fielding a baseball team. Lan is good at this, Tom is good at this, but Lan doesn't like to do this, so let's just let her do this for a short period of time. But not be her entire career. So then you're just like, you know who, who wants to play first base, but who's good at first base? Things like that. Then it just gets easier to build the team, and I'm really obsessed for the last 10 years with strength finders or predictive indexes. Those are just little tasks that you can give your team. When you ask somebody what you want to do, they'll tell you what they want to do. They don't usually tell you what they're good at or what they don't like to do or what they're bad at. And they usually say I wanna build my career. I wanna advance, I wanna get to the next position. That doesn't really help me build a team. You know what I mean? I've played third base, I'm really good at it, I got hit in the face and now I'm scared to do it. Okay, don't put 'em on third base. Things like that is I think what helps you build the. Or at least that's how I've done it in the past. And I think people are happier. And so if people are happier and more productive on the team you make tweaks along the way. People change, people move, people get promoted. People's interest changes but that team structure still stays in place. So it's pretty easy to keep it going for a while and not have. The dreaded reorg. I don't really like that word or having to do that often. So I try to, again, the analogy of a sports team, players come and go, but if the, if you look at it and you built it the right way, you can usually add and subtract pretty

Lan Elliott 7:07

easily. I think it's so interesting you talked about reorgs and we've been through a few of them together in our formal lives.

Allison Reid 7:13

You work long enough, you'll be very,

Lan Elliott 7:15

That's true. That's true. It's one of the things you need to learn to deal with, but a lot of leaders will start with this ology. This is the job, these are the job descriptions, and the this is, Who do I put in these seats? What I think is really interesting about your approach is you start with the people and you find out what they like to do, what they don't like to do, what they're good at, and then you craft the team that way. It's actually coming at it from the opposite direction, which I find really.

Allison Reid 7:43

Yeah, and you've known me long enough. I don't like job description. I don't like putting things in a box or just looking at things like we've always done it this way. I've been working for 30 years. I think I've read or created two job descriptions my entire career, what is the job we're trying to get done? Okay. Two people can do it very different ways. So there are some baseline skill sets. Do you have the skill do you have the technical skill? Are you the right personality? Very different if you are a deal person or a feasibility person. Same person can do both jobs, but the jobs are different, right? And again, I've been in the same industry for 30 years, 30 plus years. There's not a lot of difference in the jobs. It's just a different approach and people do it differently. Development, there are very different approaches. Sales versus banker types. Introvert, extrovert, they all work. If you do what's natural to you, you'll be successful if you try to do it, because that's the way land does it. So I'll do it that way. But you are not like you, personality-wise. You won't, it won't work. You won't be successful. A

Lan Elliott 8:54

absolutely. And I've definitely tried to mirror my boss's approach to things and it wasn't authentic to me and it didn't work. Exactly. And

Allison Reid 9:00

but that's a big problem for women in male dominated fields. I feel, again, I shouldn't say this is a gross generalization, but my experience has been and it's hard when you're the minority not to try to emulate the person in charge but it just doesn't work. It doesn't come off right. Something seems off. It's like when the TV is off kilter a little bit, the movie's not as enjoyable. Anyway that's what I've seen and I've experienced myself and we've all tried it. We've all tried on other people's personalities and it usually ends badly.

Lan Elliott 9:33

Let's move over to a topic around overcoming self doubt. So a lot of times our biggest critics are ourselves, and that noise in your head can make you doubt yourself or your skills. What strategies do you use to stay positive to overcome that internal.

Allison Reid 9:53

We all have it. Everyone has it. If someone tells you they don't, please give them my phone number. I'd like to, I'd like to talk to 'em about how they've done it, but the older I've gotten, just the less time I focus on it. I had it today to get on this call with you, right? It's like, why is she interviewing me? There's probably somebody better. Should I be doing this? And it's listen, land knows what she's doing, Get on the call explain to people DEI advisors are doing great things, so get over yourself and move on and you'll be fine. And if not, what's the worst thing that could happen?

Lan Elliott 10:27

It's great advice. Sometimes we just need to push through. Exactly. And know that you're, that because you were asked that you're here for a

Allison Reid 10:33

reason, yeah, that's a good point. The strategy to me is like lately has been what's the worst that's gonna happen. Advice for other people is that someone can always learn something from you. No matter who you are. Someone can always learn something from you. So if you're asked to do something, show up. And even if you're not perfect or you say something wrong, it's fine. Someone's gonna learn something. I love that

Lan Elliott 10:58

advice. So similar, along the same lines is a generalization that is out there is that women are not really great at advo advocating for themselves. And that's part of the challenge in seeing women elevated to the C-suite, getting promotions, raises, they, they would like to have. What would you tell people who are struggling to find their.

Allison Reid 11:23

Yeah, this is a tough one because this goes back to being authentic because I feel sometimes when you give people advice, what works for me doesn't necessarily work for someone else. And I've seen younger women that work for me try to use my style and I cringe a little bit cause I was like, That's not gonna work for you. It's just not their personalities or it's not the right moment. I think advocating. So for me in my career, the best way to advocate for myself has always been to be prepared, work really hard and surround yourself with the right people. Because then I'm not, I might have some bosses that will beg to differ here, especially in the last couple of years. But typically I wasn't great at advocating for myself. As some others I had seen really advocate for themselves, but I've also been very lucky to have bosses and peers that advocated on my behalf. And a lot of that I think had to do because I showed up on time. I worked hard. Always tried to have the answer, even may I, I obviously didn't always have the answer, but if you're prepared, you work hard, you stay at us. Some of the. Stuff that happens in corporations and drama and gossip and things, stay away from that. Then you tend to not make any enemies. And if you are working hard, you're team player, you're not making any enemies. Others will advocate for you. So you don't have to, right? They'll advocate for you. But if you're in a situation where you feel, and I've had this happen to me, where you feel that's just not fair. Just not fair. It's never really happened to me promotion wise. I never felt like someone got something that I deserved. But it certainly has happened in raises and bonuses. And sometimes I let it go and other times I pick the right time to go talk to my boss and say, Look these are the facts. I try to use facts, not opinion, and said, so and so told me they got this. That's bad. But sometimes, you know what people get. I was in. I was, ran I was a chief of staff. I knew what people got paid, I knew what bonuses were paid in those situations. I just went, I didn't go after the other person. I didn't compare myself to the other person. I would just say, This is the facts of what I've gotten done, and this is what I think is fair. Once you start comparing yourself, you don't know. You don't know everything that the other person did, or you weren't there all the time. So I try. Not compare myself, I'll say, This is what I did, and this is what I think is a fair, compensation or bonus or opportunity. Because I think if you start comparing to others, A, you don't know, and B, now you're putting the person that made those decisions on the defensive, and you don't want the person deciding your bonus on the defensive, right? You want them to be an advocate for you saying, Hey, I didn. Consider that fact. We land, as you and I come up through the negotiation side a lot. This is like a classic negotiation concept, right? Be prepared, pick your moves. Don't put the other side on the defensive. These are like classic negotiation skills. So I guess I would say one key thing, advocating for yourself. Read a lot of negotiation books cuz it is a negotiation. Advocation isn't negotiation.

Lan Elliott 14:49

Yes. I think that's really very pointed advice to pick your moment, be prepared, stick to the facts. And I love the advice to stay away from comparison cuz it's such an easy thing to slip into. And you're right, you don't know all the circumstances and that's the first thing they could probably say to you. And you're gonna put them on the defensive. So I think staying away from that is, is really wonderful.

Allison Reid 15:09

Yeah and for me, in my career I think one time in my entire career I had to have that conversation because I had a lot of advocates, a lot of them, which is why I was able to move and I think they were advocates because I worked for them, I worked hard, I got things done. But And I like the word advocates better than mentors. mentor tells you how to do things. An advocate recognizes what you're doing and, speaks on your behalf to point out things. So

Lan Elliott 15:40

definitely yes, that, that difference between mentors who give you guidance and give you advice, and then a d. Relationship. When you have a champion or an advocate, they're really someone who speaks up for you. When you're not in the room, who's going to say, How about Allison for this? Or, She's been doing great at this, we should consider her. That's really, when you can earn yourself a champion or an advocate that really can make a big difference. Let's talk about that. Who

Allison Reid 16:08

can I tell you? I've had so many of them. I've had so many of them. It's like embarrassing. Fred Kleisner early in my career, Ted Darnell, Denise Cole, Simon Turner, Mike Deta. Mike Dino. Now Mike Demeer. God just multiple. You're on the development side, you have advocates, the owners or the guys you're negotiating against become your advocate, right? They say Look, they did a really good job in a negotiation. I did. You got a fair deal. My team, people that have worked. For me and with me have become advocates, peers, right? That's when you don't get into the and I've, we've worked in big companies where there's typically a lot of comparison. Jealousy, drama, whatever you wanna call it. If you just stay out of that, there's no sense to be in it. It doesn't help you, it makes you feel bad. So if you stay out of it promotion committees come. It's not just your boss, it's your boss's peers. And this is very different than managing up. I'm not a fan of managing up, and everyone knows what that means. But if you work hard and do a good job, you're, your boss's peers tend to see the impact it has on your boss, their peers, and so then, They become champions for you, but then they also try to get you to come work on their team. So now you got a little bidding war going a little bit, it really, I think it really helps and those that have worked with me, I would say, I don't think people would say, Oh, she's really nice. I don't think that's the first word that comes outta their mouth, but I hope it's that. No, she's fair. She's fair. she's opinionated. She has her point of view, but she's fair. I prefer, I like the word fair better than nice.

Lan Elliott 17:52

So let's talk about nice because yeah. One of the things, one of the tight ropes that I think women walk this assertiveness double bind, is this idea that you need to be either nice or compet. You can't really do both. If you're too nice, you're soft, you're not gonna be a good leader, you're not going to be able to do the job. And vice versa. And if you're a little bit too direct or Ambitious. These are kinds of words, assertive. These are words that often are not well received coming, behaviors not well received coming from a woman. And we've both been on the real estate and deal side of the industry, not a lot of women. How do you think about having challenging conversations because you've had to have a number of them. How do you find the right. To do

Allison Reid 18:42

this. So I would just wanted one minute. Give a shout out to the women that are nice and competent. Carla Murray, Denise Cole, Tiffany Cooper. There's probably Charlotte Deha. There's probably a lot Land Elliot. There's a lot of them out there. In the deal side or the finance side or the side we've been on. Very male dominated, very at times. Negotiation is a strength game. So I think, again, I sound like a broken record, but you're in a heated negotiation. Sometimes there's private equity guys, sometimes there's bankers. These are very strong individuals that know lawyers. They know their game. They know how to play it very well. So one. Be respectful. You as a woman, you always have to be respectful. I really believe that's true. Even more I shouldn't say woman if you're a minority, because you are a minority in the room. But if you know your stuff, if you pick the time to to say something early in my career, I had to listen a lot. You were, I was the only woman in the room and a lot of times I was the youngest person in the room. So you have to listen, You get really good at reading people's moods or expressions or modes. So there, there are real benefits of being the minority in the room because you know when someone's ready to hear what you have to say. The other strategy I've learned several years ago, and I use it all the time in Negoti. Don't explain yourself. Sometimes, if someone says, Why can't you do this? You just say, I'm not gonna do that. Or No, and no is a complete sentence in a negotiation, right? Like, when you start explaining then people want to debate your explanation. And that again for women. People either get louder when you've said the same thing over and over again. You tend to get louder in your voice. Louder for women is different than for men or minorities. So there's just tricks along the way that I've learned to know how to, for me, authentic for me. And other times I'm like a bull in a China shop, but I tend to do that with people I've known a really long time. I can be very assertive. Again, a lot of the people I mentioned will tell you she's very assertive but I don't think I, it doesn't come from a fear or I don't think people feel fearful when I'm assertive. There'll probably be a lot of people objecting to that, but, I, and I also, the other thing is I really try hard not to make it personal or take it personal because. I get fearful when someone's assertive and I feel like it's personal, like they're coming after me or they're enraged about something. Then I then it's this is gonna go off the track fast because somebody's afraid or somebody's mad, and so that I think is tough. So again, a lot of times you gotta try these things out, right? You gotta do what's right for you. The other thing is reading people's bodies. or having somebody afterwards say, Wow, that seemed a little weird. How'd that go? I think you can learn a lot from people's body language and sometimes just from what they say to you and ask people, Was that too much? Was that not enough? I think that's, I think that's perfectly fine.

Lan Elliott 21:58

Yeah. And I think you know what you said about early in your career as a woman, you spend a lot of time listening and reading the room. And I think that's something that women actually do really well. Because sometimes, especially early in your career, you're more observing. You don't really get to do the talking. But then it serves you better. because then you have a sense of, okay, reading the body language, reading what they're saying and the unspoken pieces of it become a bit more intuitive, which really helps direct your negotiate

Allison Reid 22:29

a hundred percent. I have a great one second story on that. Early in my career, myself and another woman, were the only woman in a room of, I don't know, 30 men, and the subject was hair dryers and. That discussion, hair dryers in the room and whatever. That discussion went on for 20 minutes. At no point did anyone ask the opinion of the two women in the room that had long hair and actually had facts on hair dryers, not one. And several men, several of the men in the room were bald, so at some point, the other woman, not me, spoke up and everyone was. Oh my God, that totally makes sense. What, So no one was being condescending or anything else? It just sometimes doesn't occur to think, does somebody else have information that I don't have? So that, that happened oh, so long ago. But I think of that almost every time I'm in a meeting. That story comes to mind to say, Stop, if we're talking about something for 20 minutes, we don't have the. Clearly. So look around who's not talking, who, Maybe you pull something out of someone, especially someone that's not talking. I play this little game with myself. I'm like, I know they have the answer. Let me just ask them. They probably have the answer. And a lot of times they do. A lot of times the quiet ones have the answer.

Lan Elliott 23:51

That's really a great thing to think about that Maybe the quiet ones do have the answer. I think I'm going to steal that one.

Allison Reid 23:59

Yeah. All the introverts will love that. That's

Lan Elliott 24:03

right. That's right. So one of the things I wanted to touch on you had mentioned often being one of the only, or one of the few women in the room, especially in negotiations. But we actually had a deal that we worked on together a number of years ago. we're almost every single person in the transaction. Actually, almost every single leader in the transaction was a woman including the attorneys. And I've only had one such experience in my 30 plus years of doing this, and it was really refreshing. Can you share a few thoughts on the dynamics around that deal as a result? Cause we've never really talked about, Yeah. The dynamics of that, cuz we were on different parts of the transac.

Allison Reid 24:43

Correct. So this was a transaction, I was at Kimpton Land was at ihg, and we were doing a transaction with Heather Turner, who was the female developer at uht Tamarack. And the lawyers were female. Charlotte, on Kimpton, there's all female, I think maybe two people were men on their transaction. I think the best thing I could say about it is it didn't dawn on any of us until way after the transaction was done that it was mostly women on the transaction. That is what stunned me the most about that transaction. So at no point did we say, Wow, it's almost all women on this transaction until I think, Months later after the transaction was done and we were reflecting on it, that we were like, Wow, that transaction was all women. That's so that, I think that's where we wanna get to be, right? We wanna make sure that rooms are diverse and there's the diverse thought. The one in reflecting the one difference is there wasn't as much assertiveness on the call. But there was definitely a negotiation. This was not like we all got in a room and agreed on everything, right? There was very strong points of negotiations and differences and back and forth and a lot of the same feelings that happened during a negotiation, good and bad came up. Which I think is great, that there really wasn't that much difference between a transaction where there's mostly men. I think we all behave the exact same. At least I did. Oh. What do you think? Do you think?

Lan Elliott 26:14

Yeah I think it was something that we looked back and we said, Wow, that was all women. I think there was, honestly, I think there was maybe a little bit less posturing. Definitely I think there was much more open discussion of what's fair, what do we need? Maybe there is a little bit less posturing than what we might have seen.

Allison Reid 26:31

I agree. And if I think now there probably was a Efficiency and just cuz we were all busy have different things going on. There was a lot more let's get on, let's get through this. Yeah. Because we were all trying to find our a solution that worked for everyone. But I think we moved more efficiently maybe. But I love all the guys I negotiate with too.

Lan Elliott 26:56

there's a lot of great guys on the deal side, so Yes, definitely. So one of our favorite questions on DEI advisors is what advice would you give to your younger

Allison Reid 27:06

self? Gosh. One is go for it even more. I did a lot of different things in my career. I took any assignment anyone gave me, so I definitely wasn't cautious but I would say, You'll figure it out. I did that a lot in my career. It's like, why does he want me to take this job? Okay, I'll figure it out. But I would do that even more. I think two, I would not, I would very quickly get to the question about, when you have negative thought in your head. I think I dwelled on it more when I was younger. I would definitely give myself that advice listen, people say you don't have negative thought. That's not possible. You're gonna have it. So my advice for myself now and for my younger self is just move through it quickly. Just acknowledge it and move past it quickly. And then maybe slow down a little bit and enjoy things a little bit. Sometimes in our younger south, I remember I flew to Japan for a meeting, came back in 24. I wasn't smart. I should have stayed and enjoyed it a little bit, But I thought I had to get back to the office or, there were several trips to Asia that was very quick. So maybe smell the roses a little bit more.

Lan Elliott 28:15

That's great advice. Hard to do when you're working hard and working your way up. But it is really good

28:19

advice.

Allison Reid 28:20

Yeah. Maybe not too much, maybe not too much, but maybe a little bit. Yeah.

Lan Elliott 28:25

Allison, you and I have had a lot of long conversations and I could talk to you for a really long time because we've done that many times. But we are getting close to the end of our time. And so I wanted to ask you knowing that the mission of DE Advisors is around empowering personal success, what final bit of advice would you offer to women and un underrepresented groups who are looking to advance their career?

Allison Reid 28:48

One is know, Just know you belong. Know that you belong. Know that you have a right to have a seat at the table. Try to stay away from this industry that tells us nobody wants you there. Nobody sees you there. You know what I mean? Again, obviously we've all felt that at times and sometimes there are people, but I don't think it's the majority of the people. At least I don't see that. So in your self confide, we talked a lot about self-confidence. If you're prepared, if you've done the work, if you show up on time, if you work hard, it. You belong there. Period, end stop. You belong there. If you've done all those things, and others will see that. I'm really confident that others will see that. Maybe not as quickly as, if they're all this, if there's all of this way, if there's all women in the room and a man walks in, they're gonna feel the same thing. So it's not. Women and minorities. It's if you are in the minority in that room and you've done all those things, you belong there. So the advice was, be confident and be yourself and I 99.9% of the times. Others will see that. And if they don't, maybe you're in the wrong room. Maybe you're in the wrong industry. Maybe you're working for the wrong company or the wrong boss. That could be the. But then go find your people, find your place where people respect who you are and you'll be fine.

Lan Elliott 30:24

Fabulous advice. Thank you so much, Allison. It's been wonderful speaking with you. Yes, and thank you. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. So thrilled to have you on, and for our viewers, if you've enjoyed this interview, we hope you'll join us on our website, dei advisors.org, where you can find interviews with other senior leaders in the hospitality industry. So thank you Allison, so much. Thank you. Bye.