Next! As Bob Mruz and I have talked about since Black Tuesday (August 18), one of the risks we take for dedicating our careers to leadership development, OD, process excellence, and customer focus is that we are often seen as easy pickin's when a company experiences a downturn. Such is the case at the Venetian and Palazzo.
Las Vegas Sands is a global company with a huge footprint in Macau - where Asian high rollers have gone for a decade to gamble huge amounts of money. This year, the Chinese government decided to crack down on "junkets" where dozens of these high rollers would swoop into Macau and lay down their money.Of course, that's Macau, and I'm in Las Vegas...but Macau constitutes 70% of the overall revenue for Las Vegas Sands. And the crackdown reduced that revenue stream by 30% almost instantly.
That, combined with a major change in leadership at the Venetian and Palazzo, meant that as fantastic as our work was in Operational Excellence, we suddenly found ourselves in meetings describing and re-describing exactly what it is we do. The company suddenly became extremely focused on their core...gaming.
John Caparella, a visionary leader and a hotelier of utmost reputation, did not have his contract renewed in February. Many of the hotelier component of LVS were suddenly in low demand over the spring and summer. The pendulum has swung back to the gaming side of the business, and gaming's focus tends to be odds and daily revenue. The Leadership Promise? Intense guest experience focus? Not so much.
In August the entire training department was laid off (that's telling in its own right), and the next day many of us in Operational Excellence were in the same boat.
Sigh. It has become a recurrent theme in my career. What to do?
Move onward to the next phase, of course! And leverage the news as an opportunity to once again get home, to Denver.
LVS has been generous in the package to allow transition to the next steps in my career, and I'm currently in deep discussions with no less than four companies in Denver. I'm optimistic.
John Caparella is now leading Madison Square Garden's many venues in the northeast and west - a perfect slot for John's vision to shine. Bob Mruz is doing some incredible work at Atlantis in the Bahamas, and I am of course quite jealous.
The year wasn't without its highlights: I was still able to present as one of seven vendor keynotes at the 2015 Blanchard Summit in San Diego. Ken Blanchard is one of the top thought leaders of our era, and I've had the great honor to meet and have breakfast and lunch with him on many occasions. We partnered with Ken Blanchard Companies to create Maestro, our core leadership curriculum supporting the Leadership Promise, and I got to give a sort of wrapup of the three years of John's, Bob's, and my efforts to imbue the Venetian and Palazzo with a strong leadership culture. If you're into 20 minutes of me live (!), go to this link to see how we did it.
And I did sneak in a short trip to beautiful Alaska in July, completing all 50 states for me. Highly recommended, and I will return to spend more than just a few days next time.My great friends Bill and Gary tied the knot in September, and Brian Ogden and I got to sing for them (Make You Feel My Love, a lovely song written by Bob Dylan of all people!).
So, the year has had its ups and downs. Kind of like all years. I'll be putting the house in LV up for sale and I'm once again focused on returning home to Denver. What will 2016 bring? Who knows? I do know that as long as I focus on what's important - family, friends, experiencing life - it'll all come out peachy. My former boss Linda McGill is fond of a saying sometimes attributed to John Lennon:
In the end, everything will be fine. If it's not fine...it's not the end.
