The Bezmenov Blueprint
There is a dead man whose playbook your organisation is probably running right now. It works best when the people running it have no idea they are.
On leadership, capital, and the calls a business stands or falls on.
There is a dead man whose playbook your organisation is probably running right now. It works best when the people running it have no idea they are.
A country that exports iron ore, coal, gas and food to the world is rationing petrol. That is not misfortune. It is fifty years of deliberate choices.
Most operators think they need more traffic. Usually they need to get much better at earning the second visit. That is where the commercial game actually starts.
They are not apathetic. They are watching. And what they see is damning.
A judge releases a violent offender. A politician mandates what harms. When the bill finally comes, it goes to the public purse, and never to the person who caused it.
Seven words, four minutes into the main course, and a frame so narrow the only way out was a polite dismissal. Language does not support the experience. It is part of it.
How Self-Evident Rights Become Self-Imposed Chains
Most people saw corporate point-scoring. What it showed is that authenticity is not the opposite of strategy. In hospitality it is the strategy, executed through operational detail.
"The segment is maturing." "We may need to review the positioning." "Customer behaviour is shifting faster than expected."
This week's Conviction was meant to be a non-political piece, and that article is still coming. I'll publish it on Monday. But when the European Parliament passes a landmark migration bill by nearly two to one and half the hemicycle stands up and cheers, that's not something you sit on until next week. Some things need to be said while they're still warm. This is one of them.
The industry obsesses over guest experience scores while the operation behind the swing door runs on duct tape and exhausted middle managers. You cannot build the first on top of the second.
The Middle East is on fire. The Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed. Global energy markets are in freefall. And Australia, the world's second-largest LNG exporter, is rationing petrol at regional service stations and sitting on 26 days of diesel reserves.