Dinshaw Avari- Trying my Hand at Blogging!

( Image source courtesy- https://www.google.com/search?q=profit&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjNmpuOvsfhAhUQlIsKHSlmDEYQ_AUIDigB&biw=1422&bih=652#imgrc=DgUdcZ0TJmCpBM: ) April 11, 2019 Business and family groups are defined by their philosophy and values under which they operate. We have 4 core philosophies under which our family operate, one of which I’ll take up here - We are in the business for profit BUT AT THE SAME TIME, we have a responsibility towards our employees & society.  It is our moral obligation to assist our employees where necessary. Somehow, here, “profit” is a dirty word.  Why? If we don’t make a profit, how can we plough our resources back into employee welfare & engagement and social uplift & charity!? If we don’t make a profit, how can we support our own team members’ genuine issues and society’s charitable endeavors!? We have a “womb to tomb” philosophy – that doesn’t mean w...

February 15, 2019 Why did we select a “yacht” to be our Group’s logo and the logo on all our hotels?                Because my parents were instrumental in setting up sailing as an international sport for Pakistan and having it recognized as such on the world stage!   (I shouldn’t be starting my sentence with a “because”- excuses please! 😊 ) In 1978, my father, Byram, won the Gold Medal for Pakistan at the VIII Asian Games in Thailand   in Yachting in the Enterprise class. Again in 1982, my parents, Byram & Goshpi, together won the Gold Medal at the IX Asian Games in Mumbai, in the Enterprise class.   My mother was not only the only Pakistani female entry in Yachting, but, I believe, also the only woman from Pakistan to have won a Gold Medal then. Due to both these accolades for Pakistan, my father was decorated with the President's Gold Medal in January 1979 and the Pride of...

February 1, 2019 Everyone talks of "them good ol’ days” (yankee accent please 😊) … and I really believe they were!   We were too young to enjoy those days in the ‘70s but I remember talks of cabarets in Karachi, international flights (with layover crew), bars, discos … basically Karachi was just another big, cosmopolitan & accepted city. Our Beach Luxury Hotel used to be one of the hotels which annually hosted the December 31 st New Year Eve dinner & bash.   My parents talked of performers like The Talismen band (Norman is still going strong – good for Norman!), Conchita with Soc Penalosa & his Filipino quartet, Maria Angelica, Rita Elen, The Broadway Sisters and many many more international performers especially flown in just for that one night. Besides New Year’s eve dinners, there were regular shows through the year – and all “black tie”, formal affairs- where the women dressed up in their finest and the men in their tux’s, sporting ci...

January 18, 2019 (Reposting as I accidentally deleted the original post 😄) My brother and I have only worked in our family business for almost 30 years now. In 2014, my sister in law invited me to be a guest speaker on “Family Business” at her College. What surprised me was the negative perception family businesses seemed to have with the students. There is some merit in their perception (but at the corporate level of such businesses) – possible lack of advancement and growth opportunities; leadership development; HR stagnation; staff try to influence owners against operations; succession planning. However, what I’ve come to realize – among other things - is the FLEXIBILITY & SPEED of decision making is a powerful overcoming factor. All organizations have rules and regulations, policies & procedures.  However, in our family business there is a certain level of subjectivity with which we apply the “rules”.  My grandfather taught my father and us (he had ...

January 9, 2019 Our Core Values revolve around our people, our team members - Associates, Supervisors, Officers, Assistant Department heads, Department Heads and the General Manager - who work with us.  (More on our Core Values in another post however). A while back, a team member asked why I was requesting our hotels to post our monthly “Employee of the Month” [competition] on social media (incidentally we need to change this title to “Team Member of the Month”).   That surprised me as I realized our own teams don’t know the purpose of this competition … …and, at it’s very bare level, it’s to publicly  RECOGNIZE the services and contribution of our people in our hotels on a monthly basis. The “prize” is not going to make them millionaires!   It’s however the quest for recognition of an outstanding job done in the previous month – either towards guest satisfaction; or honesty; or towards her/his peer; and so on.   Two people are chosen monthly- o...

So, this is my very very very 1st post. My Instagram profile mentions ... "Pretend, yet wanna-be, blogger".  I've been wanting to blog for a long time and yes, eventually I do want to be a good blogger - for now, I'll just PRETEND that I'm a blogger, let alone "good". 😇 My family started in the hotel industry in the 1940s with my grandfather (who I've been named after) and grandmother (Khorshed) acquiring the Bristol Hotel in Karachi, which was still part of India then.  The Weismann family were leaving Karachi and it seemed like an opportunity to my grandfather then...little knowing what was to lie in store for him.  More on this later. My grandfather had a great saying by William Shakespeare which he lived by - " There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the cur...