“We blew up the silos and never looked back.”

Those infamous silos. We always hear about them. And we always hear about breaking them down.

The latest solution that seems to be floating around the hospitality industry is this idea of a “Commercial Director”—a role designed to coordinate and align the efforts of revenue management, sales and marketing teams.

It’s a great idea, at least in theory. But I think it’s going to take more than a new role to achieve the kind of unity we’re talking about here.

What needs to happen, I think, is actually bigger than titles and positions. You need to change the culture.

And that doesn’t need to be scary or painful for the organization. I think you can change or (more accurately) cultivate this culture in very practical, down-to-earth ways that gets everybody on board. I’m very proud of our team, because I think we did just that.

When I started with the Lotte New York Palace 6 years ago, most of us were new to the team and we just decided as a group that we were going to do things differently. What I think that meant for us was creating a truly revenue-first culture.

It started with reporting. We realized we had a problem with agreeing on what metrics really mattered. I’m sure every hotelier can relate here. We were inundated with tons of pretty reports from vendors that lacked substance and clear direction.

At first, we spent a lot of time sifting through all that reporting and deciding on what really mattered to us: the data points that were going to help make decisions.

Then, we figured out how to get better at communicating with each other. I was comfortable looking at data in spreadsheets, but I realized pretty quickly that not everyone was as enamored with my fancy reports as I was.

We made it a priority—again, as a group—to get better at data visualization. We asked ourselves, “how can we tell a better story? How can we get the team to understand, so they can see the gaps and buy in on certain strategies?”

If you can find a way to make data visually attractive and digestible to everybody (that includes salespeople, general managers and ownership), then you really have something.

A few years ago, we restructured our entire revenue meeting to be much more interactive. We now analyze, discuss, and ideate as a group, based on data and trends, instead of just talking about what happened last week on the STR report. The reality is that it was last week. Who cares? We’re always looking ahead, looking forward.

We also use this time to educate each other. Not everyone is an expert in every area, so we took turns explaining a concept from our own disciplines. We’ve learned to be patient with each other, to be teachers and educators all the time. And I love that. I love being a part of that kind of culture.

I’m interested to see how this concept of a “Commercial Director” continues to evolve, because a lot of good came out of us breaking down “silos” together as a team. I’m not entirely convinced that it can be, or better yet, should be, done by one person.