Industry icon Mike Leven shares some of the challenges he faced in his illustrious career and how he overcame them. We talk about the important lessons he learned from his father and his bosses. He reveals his secret to building a successful franchise business. We discuss his mantra and his advice to students. He offers his advice on building a great team and earning followership.
Industry icon Mike Leven shares some of the challenges he faced in his illustrious career and how he overcame them. We talk about the important lessons he learned from his father and his bosses. He reveals his secret to building a successful franchise business. We discuss his mantra and his advice to students. He offers his advice on building a great team and earning followership.
Greetings. I'm David Kong, the founder and principal of DEI Advisors. We're a nonprofit organization dedicated to personal empowerment. Today, I'm joined by Rachel Humphrey, a fellow principal, and we're interviewing someone who is an industry icon, and someone whom I have admired for a very long time. That's Mike Levin. He's someone that needs no introduction. Just about everyone knows him in the industry. He was the president and CEO of Days Inn. He was the president, COO of Holiday Inn Worldwide. He was a founder chairman and CEO of US Franchising System, And he became the president and COO of Sands Las Vegas. Now he's involved in a variety of philanthropic organizations and keeps himself very busy. Mike, thanks for making time for us, and welcome to the show.
Mike Leven:Happy to be here, David. Happy to see you and Rachel again. It's nice. Very nice.
David Kong:Thank you so much for being on our show. You have a long and illustrious career. You've faced a lot of ups and downs, and you have a lot of triumphs and successes to boast about. You have also faced a lot of setbacks and disappointments. Can you share a couple of the most important lessons that you've learned in your career?
Mike Leven:I could probably take two hours and talk about lessons in my career. It's kind of biblical to say that life is gonna be ups and downs. You're not gonna have one straight up I think that when you're challenged and you challenge the status quo, which is a part of what I believe in, you have to do when you're in any leadership position or any management position. Sometimes they work to your advantage, and sometimes they don't. There were jobs I should have had and didn't get. There were things that I made mistakes on. There were things that I I left that I shouldn't have left. Even in some of the last jobs that I performed very well, some of the endings didn't work the way I thought they should've. But at the end of the day, it never deterred me from going forward. It never deterred me from I'm doing what I felt was the right thing to do.
David Kong:Thank you for sharing that. Life is full of ups and downs. You've mentioned, challenges and setbacks and especially your last post. What are some of the lessons that you've learned?
Mike Leven:I think the most important lessons I got early was That my job was to do the job and to get it done and to work hard to do it and to learn along the way. So if I go back to my beginnings of work, I was a soda jerk at a drugstore for forty two and a half cents an hour. And, I had the benefit of having a father who was a salesman. And I always used to ask him, What's your work? And he said, my work is taking care of customers. it wasn't the product. It was how you take care of customers that was important. I've always been that kind of person. And, if I go back to my first sales experience, when I had a piece of business for the Hotel Roosevelt in New York, the banquet manager said I couldn't do it because they wouldn't fit I figured out a different way to do it because the customer said to me, you're never gonna Be successful. You gotta find a way to make things work. So everywhere I went, I was challenged to change the way people do things or to be successful in spite of the way people do things because that's part of my nature. aNd in some cases, I aggravated bosses, and in some cases, bosses loved me. In the end, the positions got higher and the responsibilities got greater. I never changed My effort was always there. I was always the first one in the office. I was always the last one to leave the office. As I got into leadership positions, I always felt that you have to set an example, that part of leadership. And As a consequence, I was able to get the results and also bring along people who I worked with in previous work That showed me that they were the same kind of people in terms of getting results, and I used to take them along with me. Best example was my last big job in Las Vegas when, I went in and I called people. They were in different countries in the world, which we where I'd work with them, and they all came about right away. Four or five people joined me, And, we were able to make a great turn in the company's future. So I never thought I could do it myself. I always felt I needed help. And, by being good with people and taking care of them And treating them better than they had been, I think that lesson was probably one of the greatest lessons. As my book said, you can't do it alone. A lot of people think they can, and eventually, when they need to hire people or find people, there's nobody left to hire because they've left them. But for me, in one company, when I did not get a general manager job When I wanted it, and a supervisor who was a mentor to me called me in and he said, you're a great managing down, but you're terrible managing up. Maybe you ought to improve. So I said, gee, I never thought you had to manage up. I thought the only thing you had to do was manage down. So, I just laughed No one had ever taught me that. So I tried very hard to make sure that I managed up and managed down, and I have to admit this, That managing up was harder than managing down for me. For some people, it's easier, but I'm not the kind of guy that depends on managing up. But, I've been very fortunate, very lucky, David. I think that when I look back over my career, there's nothing that I regret. You make mistakes, but that's the best learning you can do. That's why they put erasers on pencils because they know you're gonna make a stake. And if you fear making a mistake, you'll never progress. You have to be able to take some risks along the way. As long as you don't destroy the company, make a mistake. I think A lot of executives are in a survival model. I never felt I was in a survival model. I always felt I was there to do a job to improve the business, improve the relationships with a profit or nonprofit. I've been married sixty two years, in my book, I honored my wife when I dedicated my book to her because, to be honest, I'm not sure how well I would have made it through all those jobs and all those opportunities and all those ups and downs without her.
David Kong:So many important lessons in there. I really love what your father said to you, take care of the customer. And, you expanded that into take care of people in general.
Mike Leven:Yeah. My father had no employees working for him. My father was not a philosopher. He was not an intellectual. He was not a historian. He was a salesman. I used to go on sales trips with him. I get to ride him in the car, and, watching him with his customers. And when I wasn't with him, he would stay in a customer's house if they became friends. And I think in the franchise business, where I believe I was very different from most franchise owners. I Really believe the franchisee was my Partner, my customer, and that satisfying that franchisee was the most important thing I could do. I just ran into a franchisee of Holiday Inn. There's a guy named Billy Meyer. I was at a function the other night, and I walk in and there he is. I haven't seen him since I left Holiday in nineteen ninety, so it's thirty four years. And we looked at each other. We shook hands. It was like we saw yesterday. And how are you, Billy? Nice to see you, etcetera and so forth. We had a lot of franchisees. I think that was always my strength. I think I inherited that From my father. From my mother, I inherited my intellectual curiosity. She was very bright and, a reader, And she loved people. She was a problem solver for the problems of the family, and I watched her and admired her until she died very young. And, so I was very fortunate. I had, an environment that was the foundation of my life. And most of what I've done, if not all, I'd credit the two of them for that and my wife, of course. Yeah.
David Kong:Sounds so wonderful and heartwarming. Your parents were a great influence on you.
Mike Leven:The best people Have gratitude. I think Dennis Prager said that in the book he wrote. If they said that about me when it's over, that's great. I never worked for money. I worked to accomplish. I work to get a result, success was measured by what I accomplished, not by how much money I made or didn't make. The reality is when I was a salesman, a pure salesman, I made more calls than anybody else. I won a sales prize that they had for Sonesta when I was a regional sales manager. There were four of us, and they had a hundred dollar a month prize if you had the best Month. I was in the job eighteen months. I won it to seventeen months in a row. And on the eighteenth, they gave it to everybody because they were embarrassed. I was no better as a salesperson. I was no better, But I worked, I worked, and the customers, they respected me. The one thing you can never afford to lose is your reputation. Absolutely. Your reputation for ethics, your reputations for decency, your reputation for hard work and accomplishment. And if people Start looking at you as an ambitious person, a jealous person, an angry person. You'll never get to where you can get to. Ups and downs are normal. No one goes straight up. When you invest in a stock, it doesn't go straight up. When you invest to a person, it doesn't go straight up either. Look. Fifty percent of people get divorced. So we talk about lowering expectations. I got used to it early. I got used to it that you can't expect everybody else to behave the way you would, but do not lower your behavior to the ones you don't respect.
Rachel Humphrey:That's such great advice.
David Kong:You've mentioned your book a few times, Can't Do It Yourself. We really like this book. And in this book, you talk about how important it is to build a great team and to take care of people. I Was just wondering if you can share some advice on how you go about building a great team, and how do you lead that team?
Mike Leven:I think anybody in a leadership position, whether it be in business or nonprofits or anything, should be concerned about the people around he or she. The question of how to do it, some of it is intuition. Some of it is the interview process. Some of it is the reputation, and some of it is the way you fit the round peg in a square hole. When I was talking about direct reports to me at the senior level, I'm talking about people whose vision of their job matches my vision of the job. I don't get into the techniques that they may use as opposed to are they on track for the mission that has to be accomplished. So my judgment is twofold. One, in terms of the quality I see in the person Based upon the conversations about their past history, about their values, or whatever. I give them the opportunity to both be Successful and to fail. I accept the fact that I don't know everybody's job very well. I know some jobs better than other. If you talk about a sales job, I know the sales job. Okay. If you talk about the CFO job, I could tell you, David, I don't know the CFO's job. So I want a CFO. I assume by what they did in the past that they would qualify to be a CFO. Then I asked them questions that may not be typical. Like I'd ask somebody, tell me what you did in college. Tell me what you did in high school. Where'd you spend your time? I'm trying to find out what kind of a person it is. I accept the competency based on the fact that they've been in that job before. I'm not taking somebody who hasn't been a CFO is a CFO. What I can't assume is what kind of a human they are, what kind of a leader they are, and what kind of values they are. And so I tried to determine that either if I know them from a past job or people I know who know them that can tell me more about them. And I set those specs up very highly with a search firm if I don't know people. I also recognize that When you have people, you have to be very clear as to what your expectation is that they're supposed to accomplish. I don't tell the CFO how to pass the audit. He gotta understand. He's gotta pass the order. But the point is that it's the way you pass the way you handle the people that do the work for you, that's gonna be important. And I try to uncover those particular tendencies. oBviously no one, including myself, is gonna operate at a hundred percent level. So I wanna be tolerant of somebody who acts differently than I do, but not for the destruction of the work. I don't expect if Rachel were working me in the legal department, I don't expect her to be the lawyer that Mike Levin might wanna be. I expect a competency in the legal part of the business. The key to hiring direct reports at the senior level It's not the resume. The key is the person. Are they gonna fit Mike Levin's style? For example, I say to somebody, tell me how you work. Tell me what your work day is like. And the guy says, I don't get in till about nine thirty. And I said, what do you do at the end of the day? I leave the office about six or so. I said, why don't you get in till nine thirty? The guy might say to me I sorta hang around the house, I do my stuff and pay my bills and blah blah blah blah whatever. It's okay. So, you know, I like to get into the style of the person. Now the fact is I don't care if he comes in at nine thirty. But I'd like to not be surprised, I get there at seven thirty, a quarter of eight. I don't respect everybody to be sitting at their chair at the same time I do. But I'd like to know if they could do the job, more power to them. I could tolerate it. Because on a technical basis, there are many people that can get the job done. But that's not what I like. I like people that are above getting the job done. No. They have to get the job done, But I wanna have the right people to get the job done. The value is in the right place.
David Kong:You made some really Important points, and I hope our audience have taken notes. But the two things that really stuck with me was, number one, You're building your reputation so there's a followership and that people want to come and work for you. That's a really important leadership trait that I think we can try to emulate.
Mike Leven:Followship that's a great word, I have a little document that I cut out a paper. It says the word leader implies followers, By definition, are of secondary importance to the leader, and yet a key teaching is The equal and inherent value of every human being. Okay? Every person is created on god's image. That is with a god given soul. Doesn't make any sense who the god is or what the god is or whatever. This is really important. And that's how I like to think that I led that way.
David Kong:That's really important. Let's continue to talk about leadership traits. We live in a fast changing world. Competitors are getting tougher by the day. Technology is driving fast changes in customer behavior and expectations. And you have a new generation of leadership who thinks very definitely than when you or I were on the CEO panel years ago. What are some of the most important leadership traits in this kind of a fast changing environment?
Mike Leven:I don't think that the fast changing environment really changes the very basics of humanity. I love history. And if you look at history and you look at historical leaders, Like the founding fathers of the United States, those leaders. Or you look at presidents now, you look at the difference between a Joe Biden and a Donald Trump and a Nikki Haley and or whatever. You look at these people, yes. Debates are different. Things are different when John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were fighting for the presidency back in eighteen o one or whatever it was. I think the human condition doesn't change. The changes in society, whether you're using internet or you're using a phone or whatever, I think these are just technical. I think the human condition remains the same. The mistakes that the human beings make are the same. I don't think that the speed of communication,, The change in the structure of hospitality or any other business for that matter changes the basic human being. I think if you have a standard that you set, a value structure that's set, You're able to make those adjustments without changing your particular nature. You may have to work faster. You may have to make a mistake. just take AI. Somebody was doing something for one of my grandkids, And they have it doing a paper. I wanna test this thing out. So I get on the Internet, and I say, give me a two page discussion on the, Gaza War from the Israeli point of view. Fifteen seconds, I get a two page editorial comment about the Gaza War from the Israeli point of view. There is no way I could have written it. Somebody asked me the other day a question. How is AI gonna change your life? I said AI, by definition, is artificial intelligence. Wisdom is not intelligence. Wisdom is experience. So, basically, I could use AI to give me experience of stuff that I may not know, But I have to be wise enough to know what it's doing. You still have to have wisdom, and that you get from experience. So it doesn't scare me. If it changes business or life in a way, like in colleges, if people are getting AI to write their papers And they're not gonna learn from that? Then there's gonna be a difference in the way they're gonna use exams in the future. They're still gonna get exams That's something the people are gonna know whether AI wrote that paper or not. They're gonna know because they're gonna be able to test it and find out. I remember once giving a speech That Millet Filmore, who was the governor of New York State in eight in the eighteen forties, lectured the legislation in New York that he was against railroads In New York State. Because they are gonna put the canal workers of the Erie Canal out of business. And he wouldn't let the railroads into New York. At my first sales meeting at the Roosevelt Hotel in nineteen sixty one. It was a panic meeting by the Roosevelt. The panic was that the jet plane could now fly you from Chicago to New York In one day and back. And consequently, it was gonna ruin their business. Nineteen sixty one. Now, I'm sitting in the sales meeting as a young punk out of school saying, I don't understand how it's gonna hurt our business. I think it's gonna bring more people to our business. So I'm not frightened by it.
David Kong:I like that analogy.
Rachel Humphrey:In our time together, we spent time talking about your leadership journey and challenges and Obstacles and setbacks, how we overcome them, and some important leadership traits. But it's important that we are also developing future generations of hospitality industry leaders, and you are incredibly committed in this area through scholarships and the endowment at Kennesaw State University. What's the number one thing you tell students when you're speaking to them about what they need to do to be career ready in this generation?
Mike Leven:I often get Questions from students as to what they should read, I tell them to read the Bible and Shakespeare. And the reason I tell them to read the Bible and Shakespeare it's because both these pieces of literature Represent the human condition in almost every experience you will ever have And as a consequence to that, reading it and understand the interpretations that are in there We'll help you in dealing with the human condition as you rise or fall in any business or any working condition. If You wanna be a technician, You won't rise. You need to be a technician that has a human condition capability in order to get ahead in life. The more you know about people even though you're not a supervisor, will help you to be successful in what you do. You need to have a an understanding of the human condition. It's hard to teach it. If I said to you in class, I want you to be a nice person, what does that mean? What does it mean when you have a problem with another human being that you're managing or leading? What do you use to guide you along the way to do that? The more you read about that kind of situation, the more you study biographies or understand humans that are written in these plays and in these other characteristics in literature, The more you will be able to cope with the human condition that you're gonna face. So I'm looking at David, and I'm saying, David, if you take over Best Western Hotels, With all of the skills you have technically, how can you be successful doing that if you don't have the skills on the human condition? You either learn it by experience or it could be too late, or you learn it by reading and asking questions about it and understanding it. So that's a short answer to a long question.
Rachel Humphrey:I love that because that also ties with what you're saying about leadership. You can hire someone who has the skill set or the experience in a role, but what you're really looking for is leaders and their character and their personality traits. And that's actually a perfect tie in to another consistent And theme you said, which is that you believe that your guiding star, your guiding light in your life and your leadership has always been doing the right thing. And that, again, is a very human aspect of leadership. It isn't being the most prepared or the smartest person in the room, and that you admire so much Other leaders who do the same. What is doing the right thing mean to you from a leadership standpoint, and how has that really impacted your career Decisions.
Mike Leven:I think it's a couple of questions. One, it's easy to say doing the right thing because you're interpreting what's right. In your mind, if you interpret it if you believe you're right, then you have to have a basic value system or a basic learning experiment So it understands what the right thing is. Now there's a difference between the way you react to the human condition of another person or some business decision that you're making whether it's Right or wrong? I think that you'd have to go back, and I hate to say this, you'd have to go back to some Greek philosophy Or even some Roman philosophy to understand by reading what people have done as to whether it's the right thing or not. The right thing tends to say to me, is it the right ethical behavior? Is it the right ethical decision?
Rachel Humphrey:Well and follow it leading with your values of The people first, the customer first, and making that your guiding principle, not just on that in your business decisions, but certainly in those.
David Kong:I just wanna recap what you said. I think it's a personal mantra that's guided by your values, which is honesty, integrity, compassion, and taking care of people. THanks for sharing the stories. Yeah.
Mike Leven:David, I think that makes the job easier. Correct. I hate to put it in those terms, but why not enjoy? I'm not doing it to be loved. I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do. And some people aren't gonna love you even when you do that, but so what?. I tell my kids, When somebody treats you terribly, don't lower yourself to that kind of treatment.
Rachel Humphrey:I'd say it worked out pretty well for you.
David Kong:Let's talk about communications. As you know, being able to connect with the audience, whether we are trying to advocate for ourselves, or making a presentation. The ability to connect with the audience and to compel action is really important. Can you share some advice on this very important aspect of communications?
Mike Leven:My answer to that is the mistakes that I've made is when I communicate too quickly without looking at what the receiver is gonna get, you know, move it off the chart, boom, boom, boom, you type it up and away it goes. I think what you have to do is be aware that with the Internet, in particular as a communicating vehicle, You lose eye to eye contact with the person. It's much harder to be confrontive eye to eye than it is in the Internet. So people use the Internet as a communicator, but it's very dangerous. I could be motivated by watching you and Rachel react to what I'm saying. I'm thinking about this particular interview and saying, who's gonna listen to it? If I've been successful, it has to be the way that I think. And so I wanna communicate that, but there will be People who will listen to it, and they'll say, it really isn't that way. He's been successful. He's lucky. It's fine. But I think the great majority of people, if I could influence anybody, it would be that we'd have a much better environment if people acted in similar ways. And so I'm working hard to make sure that I Convey that I think my success has been singularly based upon the reputation that I've had, not because I'm smarter than the average person,
David Kong:well said. I have one more question for you. You've been a great mentor to so many people, many of whom I know. And they all speak highly of you. You've given them a lot of great advice. And I just wanna turn the table around and ask you, What's the best advice that you have received?
Mike Leven:That's a tough question. I Think that if you go back in my history, when I left a couple of jobs And I came home and I said to my wife I cannot stay, and the best advice my wife gave me was then dump. She'd been my adviser because she knows me better than anybody else. So I think you have to have somebody in your life, Wife or whatever that is able to advise you.
Rachel Humphrey:Mike, that's such Great advice on having a strong support system as you've mentioned a couple times. So critically important, and I love that, Andrea, who's watching over you on the pictures behind you for anybody who's watching and doesn't know who has been that for you? We are running short on time. I wanna wrap up just with one final question. And you told me recently that you could sum up your life in one word, and that word was gratitude. Walk us out on your thoughts on gratitude.
Mike Leven:Somebody the other day said, how are you doing? I said, I'm eighty six years old. Frankly, I never thought I'd get to be eighty six, I the pace that I put in over the years. This interview would say a lot about gratitude. I'm grateful that somebody like you and David would call me and say, I wanna talk to you for two hours. This is not a burden for me because it gives me a chance to relook at all the years that I put in. There's a Yiddish word nashes is a great word. You can look it up. Somebody will translate it. I can barely translate it, but Nashes means good luck in a way. You're still around that people are gonna ask you questions about how you did things and didn't do things. How can you not be thankful for that? The only regrets I have in life were that I lost my mother when she was fifty six, And my father had a stroke at sixty four, and my mother was my most important adviser. I Would like to have had her around to see her grandchildren. But at the end of the day, How can anybody who's looking out of his window on the ninth hole of a golf course from a beautiful home in Bogota, Florida, Not worrying about money. Not worrying. My kids are healthy. My kids are good. My grandkids are good. What can you say? If you can't say thank you. So if I'm a good person and I have gratitude, that's all it is. Everything else is fungible.
Rachel Humphrey:Wow. That's an incredible way to wrap up for David and for me. Mike, I will say with gratitude that there is only one person in the hospitality industry that has known me since the day that I was born. This is a tremendous career highlight for me to spend time with you, to spend time with David, who I admire so much and now get to Serve the industry in this chapter of our lives together, but I'm so grateful that you said yes when I called. I'm so grateful that you've spent so much Time, shared so much wisdom for all you've done for so many people in the hospitality industry.
Mike Leven:That's the best line at the end. What I have done for others. It's not what I've done for myself, that's part of my culture. How can I not have thanks? How can I not have gratitude? At this stage of life, you tend to be a little bit more philosophical than you are in the beginning. I don't mean this in a religious way, but I feel blessed. I have a talent that comes from some place, And I use it. The worst thing that can happen is somebody who has a talent and doesn't use it. So I'm grateful that I've had the opportunity to use whatever talent I have and have people around me benefit from it. I'm a mini, Philanthropists at this point, I give away a lot of money. And, when I've set up my whole estate planning Based upon one third of the assets go to charity, and I help a lot of people. And I'm grateful for that. I don't need their thanks. It's my thing. I'd say I'm the one saying thanks for giving me the opportunity. If this interview works for you and helps you get other people to do things better and helps your organization, that's fine. I hope it works.
David Kong:I'm sure it will, Mike. And on behalf of all the people that you have mentored, given advice to, advocated for, we are eternally grateful to you. You have helped so many people, especially in the underrepresented groups. We're grateful for everything that you've done for us. And it's a pleasure to be able to spend a couple hours with you, Mike.
Mike Leven:Well, you've honored me with your time, and I appreciate it, David. And, as I said before, I talk about you a lot, and, Rachel knows that when she called. You're a good guy, I wish you well. Stay well and do good work. Thanks again, Mike. Okay. Alright. Take care. Thank you. Bye. Thank you.