Talking Career by Bert van Walbeek: Tolerance

In a regular column for TravelMole, Bert van Walbeek offers insights and invaluable advice for getting ahead in the hospitality industry.

A few weeks ago I was asked during an MBA lecture about my ‘basic key to success’ and before I realised it, my spontaneous answer was out: ‘tolerance’.

Of course I was challenged to explain that and after a few moments I started by looking back to my education. I was the "worst" in my class (1961 – 1964) of Den Haag’s Hotel School to pass the examination, yet I never needed to apply for a job in my life as I was blessed with the attitude that my parents and my education shaped, sometimes more reluctant than voluntary, but that always made me positively stand out from the crowd!

It is said 50 % of things man knows now will no longer be true in 20 years, and 50 % of what man will know in 20 years has not been discovered today, so whereas the theory I  learned during my days in hotel school is no longer very relevant, yet the emotional values of those days are more pertinent than ever before. This is because it is not skills that hospitality and tourism organizations are looking for, but attitude!

And I did, and still do, enjoy a remarkably satisfactory business life. It started in Europe with Hilton, InterContinental and Sheraton and when Sheraton moved me from Lisbon to Bangkok, little did my family and I realize that that destination would become our home, probably for the rest of our life.

Attitude helped me to get my first job after my exam in the Tour d’Argent in Paris. It supported me to become Night Manager in Amsterdam Hilton in the days of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and it aided me to get the Director of Marketing position in the one of Germany’s biggest convention hotels, the Munich Sheraton, and culminated in a VP marketing tenure in Cairo.

Yes, I have a cupboard full of medal and awards too, but they only partly compensate for the sopping perspiration and pigheaded tenacity, for the corporate betrayals and, last but not least, for the backstabbing wounds received during volunteer association activities, all because of a lack of tolerance from, admittedly, both sides.

What I really learned during the various ups and downs in those 45-something years is that the human survival instinct means that our mind places extreme importance on being right, clouding our capabilities of open-mindedness. ‘Being right’ isn’t measurement right, it is emotional right or intellectual right. For most people, ‘being wrong’ is experienced as a form of losing – and losing feels like being unsuccessful.

When there is an argument most people feel the need to have the last word – to rebut whatever the other side is saying. That is why there is no peace in this (travel & tourism) world, despite the fact that peace is the most important prerequisite for thriving, sustainable and profitable hospitality and tourism industries.

So now, at the ripe, but not old age of 72, I finally realise what my education in Den Haag was all about: ‘tolerance’.

I learned the hard way that, in order to be successful, each person should develop her/his own approach towards being tolerant. Therefore today’s advice on how to advance your career path is simple: Never forget that IQ can get you through school, but that success, and thus medals and awards, comes from EQ.

Medal and awards, which are now gathering dust anyway, are really immaterial.
 Who still cares that I earned the EIBTM/ITME Travel Incentive Award in 1992 or even the 2004 and the 2014 Stickiest Guru IC&CMA-CTW Asia Pacific Award, but the cleaning lady that has to dust them all, every week?

Always remember: medals and awards are made of sweat, blood and tears and are earned through daily, diligent and often unnoticed efforts to advance your career!

More from Bert at the Winning Edge