{"id":3465,"date":"2017-10-05T12:35:41","date_gmt":"2017-10-05T16:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/bhr\/?p=3465"},"modified":"2020-03-02T16:07:23","modified_gmt":"2020-03-02T21:07:23","slug":"the-six-touchstones-a-model-for-hospitality-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/bhr\/2017\/10\/05\/the-six-touchstones-a-model-for-hospitality-students\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Six Touchstones\u201d A Model for Hospitality Students"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SHA1\"<\/p>\n

By Christopher Muller and Michael Oshins<\/p>\n

Hospitality management education requires many different perspectives to be considered, given the broad array of pedagogies used throughout a four-year curriculum. With some planning\u2014and, sometimes, with a bit of serendipity\u2014simple ideas may resonate with students well beyond the time they spend in a classroom.<\/p>\n

In previous Boston Hospitality Review issues, we have identified several methods that may be applied so students are able to cope with, embrace, and even leverage change in the hospitality industry<\/a><\/span><\/strong>. Included in this has been a number of strategies and tactics, which may include such tested practices as engaging creativity, adopting new habits, reframing theories, and challenging accepted paradigms. Along with these, the practice of self-reflection becomes a powerful tool for adapting to the realities of our constantly changing industry.<\/p>\n

As part of our continuing faculty discussions on an ever-changing curriculum, a few years ago we adopted a model for our students to consider in their transformational journey. We call it simply \u201cThe Six Touchstones.\u201d An application of this model is one way for a student to relate to the hospitality industry on a personal level, accepting that they may hold multiple complex perspectives concurrently yet still be focused and effective.<\/p>\n

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Early in their first semester, we present \u201cThe Six Touchstones\u201d to all incoming freshmen at the Boston University School of Hospitality. Other faculty reinforce it in their courses throughout the four-year curriculum. It appears again as a part of the capstone leadership course in their senior year. We believe that when our students graduate, understanding, applying, and ultimately internalizing \u201cThe Six Touchstones\u201d will provide them with the balance required to enter the industry as a well-prepared hospitality manager.<\/p>\n

Just as many hospitality organizations have guiding principles that become important enough to write down in the form of a mission statement or a credo, we hope that, over time, \u201cThe Six Touchstones\u201d will take a foundational place in our shared conversation.<\/p>\n

To introduce the discussion, we ask that each student to consider the six individuals named on the model and then to \u201cthink like\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

An Owner<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Hospitality is, at its core, an entrepreneurial business, one with a strong center built upon operational success and the hard work it entails. Universally, we hold in high esteem the people who have put \u201ctheir names and reputations in their businesses.\u201d Students are reminded that there was a person, a founder, an owner, named Marriott, Hilton, Kimpton, Brinker, Puck, or Meyer. So first, we ask the students to \u201cthink like an owner.\u201d This, we suggest, means that every day when they go to work they need to consider the questions, \u201cIf I owned this business, how would I add more value to the enterprise? If it were my place, what would I do differently?\u201d The goal is to first instill a sense of ownership at work and the willingness to act on that sense, and secondly, to implant a future desire to be entrepreneurial.<\/p>\n

A Customer<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In balance to this, we then ask students to \u201cthink like a customer.\u201d There are no hospitality enterprises without paying guests. Thinking like a customer presents the student with the mindset to ask themselves, \u201cWould I buy what I sell?\u201d Walking through the metaphorical front door of any business with the eyes of a first-time patron requires them to consider, \u201cWould I sell this product, this service, this room, or this meal to my friends\u2026my mother\u2026my grandmother?\u201d It also requires them to consider who in fact their customer is: is it the paying guest or the service employee who interacts with that guest on the front line? In the simplest of ways, students are given the opportunity to consider whether they are proud of what they do, not only in business but also in their personal lives.<\/p>\n

An Innovator<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Hospitality is a business built on the challenges of the now while constantly offering a renewed version of the \u201cnew and improved.\u201d Asking students to \u201cthink like an innovator\u201d is easy. Life is unfolding in front of them, but the innovator looks at the environment and sees opportunities in the future. Watts Wacker, the futurist business strategist, said it is not about what comes next – but \u201cwhat comes after<\/em> what comes next.\u201d Hospitality, in a sense, is in the fashion business. Trying to stay ahead of our customers, we are in the relentless search for the next new dining trend from the next new chef, the next new lifestyle hotel, the hottest new destination resort, and the latest technological advances.<\/p>\n

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