The human connection is at the core of the meeting and event industry. With the emergence of AI, it’s important for leaders to ensure that human engagement stays connected as new business models impact the workplace. This topic is addressed in Connecting the Dots, a series of monthly conversations with Michael Dominguez, President and CEO of Associated Luxury Hotels International. The series examines issues in the global economy that will “connect the dots” to be helpful not only in business but in life as well.
Michael Dominguez: So much of the discussion we've been having over the last few weeks, whether it's been with a steering committee of one of our Executive Exchanges coming up or whether it's just been in conversation with meeting professionals in different events or different travel through the United States, and one question we're talking about is this literally focus on human intelligence, emotional intelligence, and how we're leading our teams today.
There are so many changes that are coming into play. We had a speaker that was a keynote speaker for us at one of our past programs just recently, and she's going to be with us again at our Executive Exchange coming up here in December. It was a fascinating conversation because we're all talking about AI, and what AI is going to do, and what large learning models are going to do to our business and how they're going to make us more efficient.
We are fully supportive of that, and we know it's here and we know it's coming, and we know we're going to get better and smarter with those types of systems. The conversation we had with this planner was the piece that's kind of missing is we're having those discussions from a technology and from an operation standpoint. What's missing in these conversations, specifically from a leadership front, is our head of human resources, our head of human talent, the people that are in charge of our people.
The reason this matters is that we're sometimes doing this in isolation, and what we're finding is AI is supposed to be improving the human condition, not making us feel more alone or more detached. Unfortunately, many of these decisions that are being put in play, we're putting them in play without a thought process of how do we ensure that the human engagement stays connected across the board. It's a challenge for all of us, and I know it's not intentional, but what it requires is intentionality, intentionality as leaders to make sure that we're focused on people all the time.
One of the questions I always ask when I'm doing leadership programs is if I was to ask any leader, what is your greatest resource, what is your greatest asset? I promise you, nine out of 10, if not 10 out of 10, will say it's our people, it's our team. Then I have one question for you as a leader: Does your time reflect that statement? Are you spending more time with your team than you are on emails and on technical aspects of our jobs, versus spending time with the human condition? I think that is going to be a priority for us moving forward.
When I speak to universities and I get asked for advice, the one thing I always tell them is every opportunity you get for an elective, please pick something around psychology and human behavior. Understanding people is our biggest challenge today as leaders and understanding that we have a mix of opportunities with technology.
We have a mix of people now returning to the office. We were just getting used to what a remote workforce looks like. Yet, latest surveys show that 75% of all offices are now expecting to be in the office at least two to three days a week, minimum. So, what does that do to our cadence? What does it do to how we lead? How we communicate? When I hear conversations that were all in the office on a certain day and we're having a meeting, and yet some people still jump on a Zoom, why? That is actually behavior of us being in a remote position versus all being together. How do we start to remember that the human engagement, the human connectivity, the whole reason we're all in the meetings and events industry, is that we know bringing people together changes the world. Bringing people together in your own offices changes your world, and it changes how we do things and how we move forward.
The other thing I will take a look at is that I'm very excited about the younger generations that are coming into our workforce right now, and all the research is telling us the same thing, specifically with younger Gen Z and Gen Alpha. These are generations that want to meet face to face. Freeman had a great report out that showed over 90% of them want to be in attendance in meetings, want face-to-face meetings. They want face-to-face engagement. We're finding a larger propensity of this audience wanting to be in office, wanting to learn firsthand, wanting communication with people that they actually admire or wanted to work with. Those are going to be important aspects of, say, how do we blend all of this together? I am not here making it a necessity that we all have to be in office, we all have to be remote. We know the realities of today's world is that it's a blended workforce. But how do we blend that most effectively for cultural adhesion, to make sure that there are expectations for connecting face to face?
We have a young talent that fits this demographic that reminded me of something. It was interesting in a conversation with her during her first week that she was here. It was interesting that she reminded me that her generation spent three to four years not being able to connect with human beings through her schooling, and that is something that was taken away from that generation, specifically the younger Gen Zers and the older Gen Alphas, and you have to really think about that. That's going to shape how they are and how they crave human connection versus what we've seen in other generations. A lot of that opportunity that we take for granted of connecting with people was taken away.
These are just really complicated thoughts, and I think it's important when we talk about connecting the dots, your leadership, and I've said this often, leadership is a muscle that needs to be exercised like any other muscle. You need to understand that these changes are in play. So, how you led yesterday may not be the most effective way to lead today, and you're going to have to continue to move and to change to be able to make sure you're fitting the environment and the new variables that are being thrown into you in your environment as a leader.
I challenge everyone. Let's make sure that we're being intentional. Let's make sure it's about the people. And let's remember, the whole reason we're in this business to begin with is about the human connection and the human engagement.