Heather Desormeaux

I attribute my success to having great teams beside me, not behind me. I've always believed in leading by example and giving people a chance, especially those who were the underdog. I focus on finding out people's strengths, not their weaknesses. I mean, we find their weaknesses so we know what they are, but we use their strengths, not their weaknesses. I've had hearing impaired team members, I've had handicapped aides, all kinds of different walks of people. When you find their strengths, they really can shine. I've also had wonderful mentors throughout my career, but I've also had some bad examples that taught me how not to be. I've seen managers undermine, belittle, and bully people, and that's unacceptable. So I learned by defining and finding what works and what didn't.

The best career advice I've ever received is to always think outside the box. There's always a way. And if it doesn't feel good, don't do it. I learned that personal and professional can be a fine line, but if it doesn't feel good, don't do it. So, think outside the box and trust your instincts.

My advice would be to find work-life balance, because hospitality is 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. Every shift runs three shifts a day, and to be successful, you need that balance. I learned that the hard way because I missed a lot of my children's lives. I was there, but I was either getting there late or rushing to leave to go back to work. I was never really present in the beginning of my career. So learn to say no. There's a way to say no respectfully. You can say 'yes, I can handle that, but not today' or 'this is too much on me right now, I have to start this project next week.' Learn when you need to say no, because if you've already worked 60 hours that week and this is a 20-hour project and you've got soccer games and baseball games, that's not fair to your family either. I felt guilty because I missed kicks and hits because I was rushing back to work, and that guest could have waited, or I could have passed that responsibility on to my team. I also advise young women to retain everything you can, learn everything you can, take the good and leave the bad from different management styles. There's some good from every person, just leave the bad there. Keep the long-term goal in mind and look at the bigger picture, because it all comes together and works together. If something is broken in that system, everything's gonna break.

There are absolutely challenges in every field right now. People are people, and there can be some difficulties with people just in general. You have to learn how to maneuver through the industry changes. Our country's at war, there are a lot of fears, economic fears, and people's pockets are hurting right now. They really don't want to travel. They're trying to see how they can save and not spend that money. Everything's kind of indecisive at the moment for families and businesses. Even though there are corporations, there's people in those corporations who have their own families, so that's kind of how I look at it, as a whole. I think people are just kind of indecisive right now, so that scares all markets. It's affected all markets.

The values most important to me are work-life balance, family, integrity, authenticity, passion, and exceptional communication. I learned the hard way about work-life balance when I missed a lot of my children's lives. I was there, but I was never really present in the beginning of my career because I was either getting there late or rushing to leave to go back to work. That work-life balance is very important because if you're working 60 hours that week and you've got soccer games and baseball games, that's not fair to your family either. I felt guilty at work because I missed kicks and hits, and that guest could have waited or I could have passed that responsibility on to my team. I could have communicated better to where I could have been more present. Being present with your family and also being engaged with your guests and your team members is important. Throughout the years in our reviews, my teams were always number one, and every facility I was part of, we were always in the top 5.