Chip Rogers, Former President & CEO AHLA, Interviewed by Rachel Humphrey, DEI Advisors

Chip Rogers shares his path from entrepreneur to senator to hospitality industry executive. He shares his strategies for managing his love of and commitments to his career and his family, how he identifies talent and builds great teams, and how he has formed deep relationships across the industry. Chip also discusses, among other great advice, which skills he relied on in leading through the pandemic, how he tackles challenges generally, and what lessons he learned from his parents which helped shape who he is as a leader today.

Transcript

Rachel Humphrey 0:04

I am Rachel Humphrey on behalf of d e I advisors, and as part of our series on empowering personal success, we encourage everyone to go out and find champions, and I am really excited today to have the opportunity to interview one of my champions, chip Rogers, president, and c e o of hla. Chip for those who are familiar or unfamiliar with my path, That you gave me my first opportunity, took a chance on a retired trial lawyer in the corporate world, and then also an opportunity to promote me both to the C-suite and then later to recommend me as the interim president and c e o of a HOA when you moved on. So this is both an opportunity to say thank you to you publicly, but also to share. Really your leadership style and skills for others looking to advance their careers in the way that you have

Chip Rogers 0:59

championed mine? Let's be clear with the audience to start with. Everything that you got, you earned a thousand times over. And in some of those cases that you decided I had to beg you to take those opportunities it wasn't the other way around. And I could never explain to those who are watching. The impact that Rachel has had in the times that I've, that we've worked together and Rachel your dedication and work effort is almost unmatched anywhere, so everything that, that you've accomplished I was just happy to be there at the time you accomplished it. And it certainly wasn't me giving who those opportunities. You earned them, you took'em and you owned them and I was just the benefactor.

Rachel Humphrey 1:36

I appreciate that very much. Let's get started with your journey to leadership a bit different than perhaps some of the others that we've interviewed. From entrepreneur to senator, to association executive. Tell us a little bit about how you got to where you are today.

Chip Rogers 1:53

Wow. First I think I came from good family and it was, I had a lot of brothers and sisters. I had parents. Who taught me early on that things weren't just gonna be handed to you. That if you wanted to win at anything, you were gonna have to try really hard. And so as a kid growing up, I was extremely involved in sports. To this day, loves anybody knows me, knows what an average sports fan I am. And it I think it just started with a kind of a, an understanding of I like to compete I wanna work hard. I really dive into things, but that also has led me to, as you pointed out, a number of different careers because I have felt at times that once I've mastered something, that I'm ready to move on to something else. And that has taken me from, all sorts of different entrepreneurial businesses that I ran and things I started to the world of politics to now what I'm doing. And it's been an interesting journey. I have been helped by a lot of people along the. I guess like most people, you enjoy most of what you do or you wouldn't be doing it. But most especially, I love what I'm doing now. I think back to my time in elected office and there were parts of that were gratifying in a way that could never be fulfilled in any other endeavor that you get into. But politics is also very dirty business and after a while just wears on you. Meanwhile, since I've been in hospitality, just the opportunity to work with entrepreneurs and people that generally enjoy what they do each and every day. It lifts you up and so this is one where I think I'm gonna stick for a while. I, I really do enjoy.

Rachel Humphrey 3:16

That's great. I know that's actually a perfect segue. Normally when we talk about work-life balance or work-life management, we're talking about women. But as you said, you were raised in a family to have a strong work ethic. Those of us who know you well, know that you are a rule warrior by choice and by love, that you work extremely hard, that you are very dedicated to your teams, your stakeholders, but you are also. A dedicated father of four, a spouse, a son, a sibling. How have you learned over the years to really manage those two interwoven

Chip Rogers 3:49

relationships? I don't, Rachel, I don't know that I do it that well. I try the best I can. But it is not easy. And especially when you look at a career through the lens that I do. I'm all in, but I'm all in on all those things you mentioned and. It's incredibly difficult to compartmentalize and say, this is work, this is family, this is something, this, these are hobbies and interests. They begin to become interwoven which can sometimes be good and sometimes be bad. Cause you do have some challenges there with boundaries. And I've been bad about that in my life, about letting some of those things leak into each other and but I think the key thread amongst all of them is that you have to. Each and every one of them. You obviously love your family. There's no question about it. You love your hobbies or they wouldn't be your hobbies, but you also gotta love your career and what it is you're doing and how do you balance those three interests has always been a challenge. I've been fortunate enough to be in positions where for most of my career I've been able to set my own schedule. And that has allowed me to find the quality time at unusual times that allows me to balance all those three things. And so I think. Back in my days, in my political days, I would oftentimes be able to take my kids to go watch sporting events, which for me doubled up as a political event, but I was able to weave it all together. And so you just find those opportunities to really create that quality time. I think one of the things that I had to get past early on is partitioning my life in a way that was based only on. Because I don't think you're ever gonna be successful if you say, I'm gonna spend this many hours doing this many hours doing this and this many hours doing this. I think you have to say to yourself, I'm going to do this and accomplish this, whether that's work related or family related or hobby related. And then when you accomplish it, you balance with the other things that you need to accomplish. And so that doesn't always fit neatly into a, a 30 minute or two hour timeframe. But I think you can eventually find that.

Rachel Humphrey 5:41

I like the idea too, of crafting it in a way that works for you. The strategy that you have may be very different from mine, and if we can really focus on what works best for us, for our family, for our jobs, for our hobbies, then we're gonna master it eventually or do the best we can every day. As I like to say, maybe not doing it perfectly any day. One of the ways that you manage the work side of it, of course, is building a great team around you. And I can speak from personal experience that you do a great job both in identifying talent and then creating a sense of team. When you, I, when you have that, what do you look for when you're hiring? What are some of the attributes of new hires, regardless of role that you're always looking for?

Chip Rogers 6:26

Boy, there's a lot there. Before I answer that question, you said something else that struck me. On the last one. I wanted to. That, and you know this, Rachel, cause we've worked together for so long. You also have to be self-aware when you're in these positions of what you're good at, what you're not good at, when you're good at it. When you're not good at it. And you will know, again from the days we work together, I don't want people scheduling me interviews at 8:00 AM That's not gonna work for me. That's just not, that doesn't fit with me. But if you wanna schedule it at 10:00 PM I'm perfectly fine with that. And I think over time you have to be aware of where you do well and build your life around, around those times. Now back, yeah. Getting back to building a team, I think one of the great benefits I had is coming out of a life where at a very early age and all the way through my life being actively engaged in sports, even up until a couple years ago when I was still coaching really high level travel basketball, you begin to recognize. That teams are successful. When you put talented people together who understand the purpose, and they don't quibble about whose job it is to accomplish the goal that they all see, and I think where people get into challenges, where teams falter is where silos are created, which then breaks down communication, and people begin to own only their part of the effort as opposed to saying, wait a. We're all in this together. We all understand this is the goal. How do we all get there? And if you have talented people that are bought in as a leader, you then say, all right, let's step back and get outta the way. I'm gonna put this in basketball terms cause I love sports analogies, but if you have five guys on the court and typically the center or your power forward or somebody tall would be more apt to get a rebound. And your point guard would not. But if the ball falls near the point guard and he looks at it and says that's not my job to rebound. My job is to get assists. That kid's not gonna be on the floor. You're gonna pull off the floor and say no, we're, we all do what's necessary for the team to be successful. And so I think as a, going back again to a sports analogy in my coaching days, I'll never forget, after coaching this group of kids for many, We played a game and it was a brilliant game, and my team won by a lot. And the referee came up to me and said, man, your team is so well coached. And I looked at them and I said, you'd be surprised I didn't call a single playlist game. Now at one time, did I even call play because the players knew what it was they need to do. They were all bought in and they understand how the system worked. And I just basically had to roll the ball up and say, let's go guys. And I think that's the kind of the concept that I look for in building a team is look, if you're willing to work hard and you're talented and you get what we're trying to do, I don't really need to coach you that much. I just need to put you in the opportunity for you to take advantage of your skillset. And when you do that some pretty magical things can happen. Now, you, as Rachel, sometimes people like yourself like. You tend to go overboard. You work too hard, you put too much in because you're so bought in and you have to worry a little bit about burnout. You have to worry about what we talked about earlier that life work balance. But just the idea of having talented people who you trust can reach the goal is the key to having a successful team. And in that interview process, you really gotta drill down on that. You gotta find out how do you work in a team? What do you think is off limits? How do you build and support the people around you? How do you communicate with the people around you about things that don't necessarily fit into your job description? And when you can find those people that are able to do those things, as I mentioned a moment ago, it becomes pretty magical. That's

Rachel Humphrey 10:06

amazing too, because those are hard traits to ide. Anybody can say, I'm a team player, or I work hard, or I'm committed to the cause. But actually being able to recognize whether it be in that interview process or through recommendations, referrals to really identify. Those people. Moving on to you talked about overcoming obstacles and overcoming challenges a minute ago, but in a different context, every leader who has reached any level of success has had to learn how to overcome obstacles in their time. What is your approach to tackling challenges? What strategies do you implement and has that changed over the course of your career or your

Chip Rogers 10:42

careers? Oh yeah, it is definitely, I think early on. Competitive people are oftentimes self-motivated. They're somewhat individual in individualistic at times, and they believe that no matter what the challenge in front of them, they can handle it themselves. That's not a bad trait, but it can't lead to the ultimate success you're gonna need if you're leading other people. And so over time you begin to recognize, Hey, I don't necessarily know that topic. Understand that. But I know there are people out there and how do I bring them in? And especially if they're joining you in the effort, communicate to them what the goal is and then let their expertise take over from that. And so I think that has been probably, as I've matured as both a leader and just as a person, you start to recognize, okay, what are my limitations? How am I balancing this because I can't do it all? And how do I bring in the people that are the best to do this and have them buy into the vision, the common vision that we have? That takes a lot of self-awareness. It takes time, and it took me a lot of time to finally get to that point. I think the probably the best experience I had that taught me that in the most efficient manner was being an elected office where you frankly have people from every walk of. Asking and wanting things from you that are a cross section of everything from social issues, to fiscal issues, to budgetary everything, right? And at some point you have to find those people around you that are truly experts in those areas and begin to rely on them. And that helped me immensely. And I think I, I learned a lot from that, took that into my next roles of getting people who are really good and saying, This is what you do best. I don't really know that much about it, but I know you do. I'm giving you this. Now. Let's run. I think that's

Rachel Humphrey 12:29

one of the hardest things for leaders to do is to say out loud, that is not my area of expertise, either I can figure it out or I can find someone who knows it, because in our eyes we wanna. Be able to accomplish anything that anyone asks. In talking about overcoming obstacles, there is certainly one that anyone in the hospitality industry, anyone living over the last three years would certainly say is maybe one of the biggest obstacles they've ever faced in their lives. And that was the pandemic. Let's apply leadership skills to the pandemic. No playbook. No mentors to go to, to ask them how they did it before. Which of your leadership skills or the different personality traits do you have that you think really you were able to lean in on during the pandemic? You were fairly new to h l A at the time. To really allow h l a, not just to survive, but to thrive for at the time that its members really needed it most.

Chip Rogers 13:20

The obvious answer would be communication. I've obviously done this type of stuff for a long time and during the pandemic I was called on to really be that face and voice in the industry. But I'll set that aside because I think more importantly during the pandemic, what I learned early on as a young person, again involved in sports, is that victory usually happens when you are steady and relentless. And I would hope that those would be my character traits that people would look back on during this time and say, that was really helpful. And when I say relentless, one of the things I did in an earlier life, I was a competitive runner. And that was I found out late in high school that I was actually really talented at running cross country. But when you're out there running, it is such a mental game because you get to mile two of a 3.12 mile 5k. And you start to feel tired and then you start telling yourself, alright, just one more step. Or you look ahead and you say, okay, if I can make it to that point right there I'm good to go. And you keep setting those repetitive goals in front of you and you just become relentless at attacking those goals again and again and again. And it doesn't really enter your mind to stop. It doesn't enter your mind that, wait what if this doesn't work out? It's always, okay, I see the next goal in front of me. I'm gonna hit that one. And when you hit that one, you're like, okay, I see the next one in front. And you build that mindset because as running and competitive running is such a mental game as it is a fiscal game. And so during the pandemic when everything seemed so bleak, I'm like, okay, let's make it to next week and then let's make it to the week after that. And as we kept doing that, and then finally we started seeing signs of relief and we started seeing people starting to travel. Then it made it easy after that. But in that first 12 months, it was just that relentless, steady day after day pounding away that I think helped set our industry apart from many others.

Rachel Humphrey 15:09

You might not get tired until mile two at Mailbox One. I'm wondering how many more mailboxes I have to run before I can be done. Maybe that's, that is a difference between us. Because I have been on a lot of panels that you have moderated that one of my favorite questions is, what advice would you give to your younger self? And I like it so much because I do think that. Our growth as leaders, as humans involves a lot of reflection. And I'm curious you've touched on some of them today, some things maybe that you do better today than earlier in your career. But looking back on your Georgia Tech, graduating self, what would you tell yourself today?

Chip Rogers 15:47

I know it's simple. It's often repeated, but boy, as you get older and arguably wiser, you do look back and say, why did I care about this little detail or that little detail. Just always keeping in mind a much larger picture and how you're going to get there and not get bogged down by the things that ultimately become meaningless. I, I, it is and know it's an often overused phrase, but loving what you do that, that is important. If you're going to be all in and be successful and always keep in mind this is the goal that we're all shooting for, then you better really believe in that goal. It can't be something that was given to you and someone just says go do this because you're gonna burn out if you're not, if you're not all. And so I hear about burnout a lot of times and people ask me how you not get burned out? And I just never think of it. It doesn't occur to me. Cause I'm thinking, okay, this is what we're trying to accomplish. And I just, I'm just after that. And so I think looking back in life, if I were to go back to that, 22 year old kid that was graduating from Georgia Tech, I would just say, look, don't get all caught up in the small details. Don't get all worried. What's exactly happening today? Keep your eye on a much larger picture moving forward. And if I'd have done that I don't know what else would've in my life. I'm very happy and satisfied but I would've certainly have felt that I was being more effective by not getting bogged down and things that didn't matter.

Rachel Humphrey 17:08

I think you touched on an interesting point too, though, of loving what you do, because like I have, you have had several different careers and for some period of time, loved what you were doing, but also the self-awareness to say, maybe I don't have that peace anymore, and now it's. To transition and find something new that I love to do. And so I think that advice to be able to go back and say, you don't have to love what you're doing forever, that you have the ability to switch gears when that no longer applies.

Chip Rogers 17:36

I got a great story for that. So when I, the first time I ever ran for public office, I walked out my door and I lived in a very large neighborhood. We had 1300. And I said to myself, I'm gonna knock on every single one of these doors, which at the time was probably a foolish thing to do, but I'm just gonna challenge myself. But I also walked out before I knocked on that first door and said, I am gonna fight to accomplish this get elect, get into elected office and I'm gonna do this until the point where I don't want to do it anymore, or I don't have the fire in me anymore. And I can pinpoint the exact place and time where after a decade of. Highly involved in elected office where it dawned on me and I said to myself, I don't love it anymore. I don't have the fire inside of me. I represent other people and they deserve to have somebody else represent them that has the fire in them. And I had actually just won reelection to my sixth term in office, had just won when I decided to retire. And people said, all right, there's gotta be something else there. No one just walks away like that. And I kept telling everybody, look, it's just I did it as hard as I could and as well as I could for as long as I could. And I woke up and recognized I don't love this anymore. And I had told myself and promised myself that I would walk away when that happened. And I'll also never forget that I I had the strangest thing when your elected office, you have lobbyists who would buy you dinners and lunches all the time. And I Arranged for this really large lunch, like 200 people, and invited all the lobbyists there. And they, no one knew why. They were like, why is he doing this? And they're like, he's making some big announcement. He's going to, he's going to run for another office or whatever. And I said, I wanted you all to know that I'm leaving office because I've lost the fire in me and I pledged myself. I wouldn't do that any longer. But I also wanted to say thank you to all of you who, Been so kind to me for all the years, and so I'm buying all of you lunch today. It was a very expensive proposition, and so many of'em came up and said, no, no elected officials ever bought me a lunch And they just couldn't believe that I'd turned the tables there. But I walked away by with total peace that I've made the right decision and not a single time since then have I looked back and said, I wish I'd had done it another way. I committed to myself that once I reached to that point that I was gonna walk away and I did and it felt good and I was completely satisfied with it.

Rachel Humphrey 20:01

I think that's an incredible lesson to learn as well, but also to share. It takes a lot of courage, a lot of bravery. I don't know if you knew at the time what was gonna be coming next, but having the confidence that there was something out. That would fill that space. Other than just the family and the hobbies that you talked about earlier, knowing how much you love to work, knowing how. Much value you derive from that, so that's incredible. The hospitality industry is incredibly special from a relationship building standpoint. I've never been a part of anything that feels like such a community as this industry. What are the, everybody's gonna network differently. Everyone's gonna build relationships differently. You and I have very similar networks, but we've built them in very different strategies. Which of your personality traits or how have you. Networked or built relationships, especially in hospitality, that are really situated or suited toward your personality.

Chip Rogers 20:54

I've always felt that if you're gonna build a real relationship with somebody, then you need to start that by connecting with them and what they're interested in. We can all have these business relationships where we go to the conferences, and the only topic of discussion is the business that we share. but people are much deeper than that. And so I've always tried to find out what interests you beyond just the hotel industry or just what your job is? And I think when you dig a little deeper and find those things and connect on a very real personal level you build long-lasting relationships that. That are so much different than just what at times can be kind of surface level only business relationships. And you and I know that Rachel, cause we know each other so well, but it's interesting because when we have conversations rarely are they about business, right? They're about. You or me, or our families or what's going on. And when you have those type of relationships, they become long-lasting, they become more meaningful. And those are also the type the people that you wanna be around. And so I think that is, that's critical as well. And so my approach has always been, yes, we share a common interest in the hotel industry or the hospitality industry, or the political industry, but what really are you interested in? What? What matters to. And I think if we search that out, you find that the relationship can be built frankly much quicker, but much deeper.

Rachel Humphrey 22:16

How do you remember, is it through the genuine nature of the curiosity of the learning from that person? Like you and I may root for different N F L teams and do root for different N F NFL teams much, but we both know that on Sunday, Monday, Thursday, we're gonna be talking about what's happening in the football game. How do you remember retain. Develop that for the next time you see someone, cuz you obviously are coming in contact with thousands of people in any given year.

Chip Rogers 22:46

Yeah, I think it I think the challenge, what would hinder you from doing that is if you only honed in on a single thing that you think everybody has in common. It sounds a little strange, but if you're focusing on something unique for that particular person, that uniqueness gets attached to that particular person. And then frankly, it's easy to remember that way. If I ask everybody who's your favorite NFL team at some point, I would just lose track of who is who. Because there are only so many teams and there's so many people, so I try to hone in on, on the uniqueness of something that is individual to that particular person. That just makes it much, much easier for me to remember. But it can be challenging at times. So I do know that your favorite N F NFL team is one of the most Super Bowls. My favorite n NFL team is the only team that has ever had a perfect season, and we'll leave that.

Rachel Humphrey 23:32

I'll let people figure out who those two teams are. They say it's important nowadays that each individual has a personal brand. You've talked a little bit about some of the things that you think that you're known for now, but if you were to have a personal brand statement or to walk away saying, this is what I hope people think of when they think of Chip Rogers, what would it.

Chip Rogers 23:50

That guy really cares about what he's doing and the people that are around him. That, that's what I hope to leave with. It's interesting when I think we all, as we grow older, begin to see our parents in a different light, and we know our parents for what they are at the time we grow up, but then sometimes later in life we see them in a professional setting. Can change your mind or enhance what you think they're, and the reason I'm telling you this story is I remember seeing my dad, who also worked very hard. And I remember going to once I got involved in the political world I started meeting a lot of people who also knew him. And I'd seen what he'd accomplished in his professional. Through him being recognized for those accomplishments. But what was interesting is as I began in my professional life, meeting people who knew him, their comments were not about your dad is really good at this, or, wow, it's amazing you accomplished this. It was constantly over and over again. He's just like the nicest guy. Your dad is so super nice and began to realize he built a brand and a personal reputation that went way beyond just professional excellence. It. He's a really good person and I don't know, and I'm pretty sure I haven't even come close to measuring up to what he's been able to do, but I think if I was able to have that as the brand of people saying, that guy really cares about what he is doing and the people around him, I would be very satisfied with that. So it's a continuing journey to accomplish this. But it's something to remind myself of each and.

Rachel Humphrey 25:20

That's great. I know we are getting close on time. I actually have two more for you. There's obviously a lot of discussion right now about efforts in the hospitality industry to build a more diverse industry at the leadership level. What do you see the situation right now and how can we make improvements in that area? Not just within our own organizations, but across the industry as well.

Chip Rogers 25:42

Rachel, because you've been with me and you know how I've built the teams that I've built around. I've never understood, I just can't comprehend why you wouldn't embrace as broader diversity as you possibly can. And I, again, I go back to the sports analogy world. If I'm building a team, then I want the opportunity that I want the landscape of who I get to choose to be on my team, to be as broad, as wide, and as diverse as possible. Cuz that allows me to build a better team. That team's always gonna be more. If you tell me I can build a team that are only comprised of these type of people you've just limited the options I have to choose from. But if you tell me I can build a team from anybody, then what I'm gonna do is go out and search the very best people that can be part of my team and not worry about pigeonholing them into any certain type of characteristics. If you're good, I don't care what your background is, I want you on the team. And so that's where I look at diversity and it's always. I never understood people that wouldn't want to embrace diversity because it by definition, it's going to lead to better performance in the long run. And so if you're good at what you do, I want you on the team. It's just the bottom line. And those things that I might look at you and make a predetermination on are foolish. Like I should never take a person and say, I believe you fit into. Role or this whole or this job, until I know who you are as an individual and every individual is 100% unique, there's not a single two single people on earth that are the same. And if I'm willing to take the time to find out who you are as an individual and you fit what we need as a team, I want you on the team. And so limiting the people, the number of people that I can pull from is just.

Rachel Humphrey 27:34

It's interesting cause that ties back to the very beginning when we started talking earlier, when you said truthfully that you had to often. Spend more than one conversation or more than one month or two in trying to talk me into considering new opportunities when we work together. You were looking at me as a person and what I was capable of doing in a way that I wasn't even looking at myself as a person and capable of doing so. Maybe that's what we need is. Leadership, looking at the individual person and what they're capable of. I had not actually thought of that until you just described it in that way. We are in fact running out of time. So I wanna focus on the mission statement of d e I advisors, which is to empower personal success and just ask you to share what would be your one tidbit of final advice to our listeners.

Chip Rogers 28:24

It's something I mentioned earlier. You're only going to be successful in the long. At those things that you really love. Now, you could be talented, but if you think about, and I feel like a broken record here. Think about the great sports figures that we have. So I'm gonna use Michael Jordan, Tom Brady and Nick Saban. Those are three people that are not only incredibly talented, but they love what they do. They thrive on the competition and they're willing to do the. That other people aren't willing to do. And so when you see the best of the best in society, and it can be any walk of life, I just use sports because most people can more easily relate to that. And you like Michael Jordan's preparation, drive, and intensity was legendary. But you can have all three of those things. And if you don't have talent, you can't make it to the very top. Nick Saban, same thing. He's the greatest recruiter in the history of college. He has built the greatest system in the history of college football. And while he may not be the best on the field coach ever, he's one of the best. And you mix all three of those things together and he's had unparalleled success. And then you look at a guy like Tom Brady, and you look at his personal discipline that he's layered on top of that talent and that drive, and he's done things that no one has ever done. And so when you think about personal success it, you obviously have to be good at something and disciplined at something, but you also gotta love it. Just the discipline and the hard work can only take you so far.

Rachel Humphrey 29:53

That's great advice, chip, thank you for your leadership in the industry for championing my career and so many others. And thank you very much for supporting d e I advisors and look forward to catching up.

Chip Rogers 30:05

Thanks Rachel.