Her Goal Was My Birthday: Hotel Executive Turned Coach Lindsy Wnorowski on the Story That Changed Her Life

Anthony Codispoti (00:00)
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Cotaspodi and today’s guest is Lindsay Wynorski. She is the founder and managing director of Executive Leadership Consulting, a firm specializing in leadership development, strategic planning, change management, and executive coaching. Their mission is to align culture with strategy

using their Red Thread leadership model, helping businesses of all sizes achieve sustainable growth. Lindsay brings extensive hospitality experience across global markets where she has built high performing teams and shaped hotel general managers to excel through cultures of innovation and excellence. Before launching the company, Lindsay honed her skills at major hospitality brands, gaining deep insights into leadership and organizational design. Now, before we get into all that good stuff,

Today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Ad Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. Imagine being able to give your employees free access to doctors, therapists, and prescription medications. It’s even good for temporaries and high turnover environments. And here’s the fun part. The program actually puts more money into your employees’ pockets and the company’s too.

One recent client was able to increase net profits by $900 per employee per year. Now results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible. To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today, founder of Executive Leadership Consultants, Lindsay Wienorski. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Lindsy Wnorowski (01:50)
Anthony, thanks for having me. really looking forward to getting to know you and sharing the story with my fellow Buckeye. So thanks so much in advance. I owe, baby.

Anthony Codispoti (01:56)
All right. Yeah,

big victory. And I see that you’re donning the scarlet and gray. that warms my heart. Much appreciate. So, ⁓ Lindsay, you were with Marriott, I think, since you graduated college, 27 years, which was basically all you had known at the time. What first drew you into the world of hotels and hospitality?

Lindsy Wnorowski (02:07)
Just for you, Anthony.

Thanks for the question. Actually during college. So I graduated at 17, headed out to Colorado for my first year, thought about playing softball at Colorado State, ventured back home to Bowling Green State University, and during school started working for a Marriott Hotel. I had family in the business and needed a job to help pay for college and started a 90 room courtyard Marriott in Mommy Ohio.

We opened the doors to that place. which is, it’s a special opportunity when you open a hotel, you’re putting the mattresses in, you’re putting the garbage cans in, you’re sort of putting everything together within the hotel. And that camaraderie that’s built ⁓ is something that I fell in love with. I didn’t know it. I was going to school for finance, but ended up getting ready to graduate from Bowling Green, was looking to head into a career in financial planning and had been

kind of working at the front desk of this small hotel during college. And the regional director at the time came in and visited the hotel, Mike Marcus, and said, would you ever consider staying with Marriott? And I was 20, I believe. And I thought, maybe. What’s that mean? And he’s like, we have opportunities in different capacities. And I ended up engaging in the conversation with Mike and interviewing for a job in Chicago and interviewing a job.

for a job in San Francisco from small town Ohio. And I took the leap and made my way to Chicago. And 27 years later, it was an assistant general manager. And it was so funny, Anthony, they said, we can pay for your relocation. And I thought, sort of looking around my apartment, ⁓ thinking, I don’t think we need to pay for any of this stuff to be transported to Chicago. But it was an assistant general manager. So was a bit of a leap. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (04:01)
And what was that first role then, kind of coming out of college?

Lindsy Wnorowski (04:22)
from a kind of front desk agent at a small hotel into an assistant general manager in the northern suburbs of Chicago.

Anthony Codispoti (04:31)
So what was it about Marriott that you fell in love with, kept you there for nearly three decades?

Lindsy Wnorowski (04:38)
The travel benefits are not terrible. I’ve got to tell you. No, I mean, that is a true thing. did, again, coming from Miami, Ohio, became very quickly sort of a global citizen ⁓ with the Marriott benefits. But it was a family. It really was a family. The hotel that I first started at, the majority of the housekeepers ⁓ had sort of immigrated up from Mexico. They taught me Spanish.

⁓ which was fantastic. I became, you know, a godparent to some of their children. It was just this amazing. Just connectivity and family atmosphere that allowed me to be myself, ⁓ and, and grow. was always looking to, I just, had a thirst for growth. ⁓ and Marriott, you know, Marriott allowed that, ⁓ and being in the Chicago market, just the diversity of people that I met in the different.

perspectives from around the world. That’s a huge reason on why I stayed with this great company for almost 30 years.

Anthony Codispoti (05:43)
Did you in the early days second guess the decision not to get into financial planning?

Lindsy Wnorowski (05:50)
Never. Never. The schooling that I did was beneficial for me. A lot of what I did, was only in that assistant general manager role for probably 16 months or so. And very quickly, at the age of 23, became a general manager. I had no idea what I was doing. That was quite an interesting experience, by the way. But what I had learned from a financial perspective in college, it

It absolutely was applicable. ⁓ Now running this multimillion dollar business at 23 years old, trying to figure out what I was doing. So I never second guessed it actually.

Anthony Codispoti (06:30)
And you use the phrase, I had no idea what I was doing. Who or where could you kind of go to get support? Who could you lean on?

Lindsy Wnorowski (06:39)
You know, I had a visit from the ⁓ senior leaders within Marriott when I was at that hotel in Highland Park. And my general manager at the time happened to be in Thailand and I had just really gotten there and knew what I needed to do on make the hotel look clean, make sure everybody was smiling, have a good first impression, sort of brush up on the business as quickly as I could. And

That day really changed my life. They visited my hotel, area vice presidents, regional vice presidents, folks who had been in the business forever, left my hotel, went and visited another hotel where that property visit did not go so well. And they made a phone call and said, I want Lindsay to come over and run this hotel. I was 23. And I learned a lot through trial and error.

I walked into the hotel, every person in the hotel was significantly my senior. And I’m supposed to get them to come with me, not behind me to achieve common objectives. And they’re looking at me like, who is this child coming in to run the hotel? And, and really, I mean, you ask, where did I learn who was my mentor? It was a lot of trial and error. And I think I learned in my career, that was a way that I learned well. I mean, it was ingrained. then became.

I have a philosophy that I teach some of my coaching clients and it’s called sort of be, no, do, know, be who are you know, what do you know, and then do what do you know how to do in the significant difference in those three categories. And throughout that first stint as a general manager and a growing up in that hotel, I really learned.

who I was. It wasn’t until much later in my career until I got to this sort of do what do I know how to do. But I don’t think I could pick one particular person that was kind of a mentor at that stage of my career.

Anthony Codispoti (08:41)
And tell us about a couple of the other stops that you made along the way before we get to sort of present day and what you’re doing now. Cause I want to kind of lay the groundwork for some of the foundational experiences that you’ve had.

Lindsy Wnorowski (08:48)
sure.

Sure, mean, really the foundational experiences I had, I think came from playing sports in high school and learning that just innately I was competitive. ⁓ I wanted to win by sort of 40 instead of four always. I had a coach who Jamie Mercurio who went on to play college basketball at University of Miami.

They played in the NCAA tournament. has, you we watched the video of him shooting many three pointers as they played University of North Carolina. ⁓ They got knocked out in the first round, but he made it to the NCAA tournament. That was probably, I should have answered that when you said, who did you learn from? It was in those foundational years that, and I knew the only way to win by 40 instead of four was with the team. And so even at this first hotel in Lincolnshire,

I knew walking in, even though everyone looking at me was like, this is, this is a little bit of a stretch. She’s so young. The way in which we went about winning at that hotel for me, it was just building relationships. was building relationships with team and getting them to trust me. I was there for just a couple of years and moved on to a little bit larger market into O’Hare, ⁓ which I remember interviewing for O’Hare and interviewing against, you know, a bunch of my colleagues who were significantly.

more experienced than me. ⁓ That was a challenge that I overcame when I did get that job. was, everyone was sort of confused how I was able to move into that role. But again, even at O’Hare, was the same process. It was building relationships with the team, earning their trust, challenging them. So I spent some time at O’Hare in a general manager capacity.

And then in the hospitality industry, at least for some of the coveted roles are really in the downtown urban market where it’s most complex. ⁓ They generate the most amount of revenue. The challenges are significantly more ⁓ important. The mistakes are much bigger. So I spent a little bit of time in a. It’s it’s the revenue associated with the hotel. They’re typically generating higher.

Anthony Codispoti (11:02)
Why is that?

Lindsy Wnorowski (11:09)
ADRs, average daily rates based on demand, supply and demand. And so the decisions and the judgment, you I always think that, you know, why do I hire you as a leader? It’s based on your ability to make decisions, right? And if you make a bad decision in those markets, there’s a microscope on it. If I made a bad decision out in Highland Park, nobody really knew. ⁓ It was a couple thousand dollar mistake as opposed to something bigger than that. But then I moved to downtown Chicago and one of the best

seven years of my life was downtown Chicago. My hotel was adjacent to Lurie’s Children’s Hospital. ⁓ Children’s Hospital in Chicago that is world renowned. It was really where I saw the impact of the privilege really of being a leader and the impact that you can have on something so much greater than you and your team. And it was really through a bunch of those relationships with Lurie’s.

I was there for seven years ⁓ and was ready to do more, a, know, really grow more leaders, have a larger scope of business. And that’s when I moved into a regional capacity, sort of pre-COVID and had the opportunity to oversee some Midwestern markets, Minneapolis, ⁓ St. Louis, Chicago.

Anthony Codispoti (12:28)
And so what does that mean?

Like you sort of have several general managers that report to you. Okay.

Lindsy Wnorowski (12:34)
That’s right. And I

worked on the managed side. we all worked for Marriott. Marriott is largely a management company. We don’t own hardly any of our hotels, very, very few hotels. We’re not a real estate company, which is very good in times and can be extremely lucrative because you don’t own the real estate. So in the regional capacity, I had general managers reporting to me. So my role was to inspire and motivate them with the end result of driving

performance, exceeding expectations of the owners. ⁓ Our hotels are largely owned by different owners. Not a lot of people know that about about Marriott, but it’s there’s a franchise component, a large franchise component to the business. But they these these owners come to us to manage their hotels. So we are just a management company. I’m not just a very successful management company. But that was that that rule pre covid for me was

Anthony Codispoti (13:13)
Is that like a franchise system?

Lindsy Wnorowski (13:32)
in a regional capacity, partnering with general managers that I used to be to deliver performance.

Anthony Codispoti (13:39)
And so that particular owner, own the land, they own the actual building, they’ve paid for the development. And they say, Hey, ⁓ Lindsey Marriott, you guys are the experts. We would like for you to come in here and actually run this for us and we’ll pay you a fee for that.

Lindsy Wnorowski (13:57)
That’s right. They pay a fee on the top. You know, we charge a management fee, percentage five, six, seven, eight percent on the top is what myriad takes. And the rest of it, when you work through the P &L, ⁓ you know, so really how the hotel performs is the success for the owner. They’re the ones with the net operating and operating income, which is hopefully a positive at the end of the year, at the end of the day, at the end of the month. So performance, we always talk about performance drives preference.

the better we perform for this owner, the more likely it is that we’re going to be the preferred management company as we grow. If we have general managers that aren’t performing, you can see that through the statement.

Anthony Codispoti (14:38)
And so if there’s a manager who’s not performing, would they still keep the Marriott name and bring a new management company in? Or would that be like, Hey, we’re ripping the Marriott name off of this building and we’re changing to something else.

Lindsy Wnorowski (14:55)
Absolutely incredible question. And that’s on the mind of many general managers daily. I there’s a management agreement in place. And there’s a variety of ways in which an owner could sort of kick us out of managing their company. Sometimes it’s encumbered, meaning you can kick Marriott out, but you’re still going to have to be managed. Other times it’s unencumbered, where they can say, listen, we want a different

management company to run this hotel because we’re not happy with the current management company. So it really depends on the management agreement. But that’s what we were always fighting for was to, in my opinion, Marriott should be the best manager of Marriott hotels. It’s who we are. ⁓ But there’s some really successful franchise management companies out there. There’s a ton of them. The majority of our business is really franchise.

Anthony Codispoti (15:46)
Hmm. So you were on a great career track. You’ve been moving up. Now you’re, you know, regional. You’ve got several GMs that are reporting to you. I’d like to hear about what was behind the decision to leave this kind of safe corporate job and go out on your own. And I think maybe a good place to start, you tell me, but it’d be interesting to hear about the mentor from Whirlpool and how his guidance kind of influenced the decision that you made.

Lindsy Wnorowski (16:12)
Sure.

Yeah, I’m crazy. think that’s one thing for sure. Leaving a really, you know, 27 years in three decades, the foundation of my life is the relationships and opportunities that Marriott afforded me. And we went through a bit of a reorg in sort of December of this year. And I had always sort of had a reputation of

pushing the boundaries a little bit. There was perhaps opinions that maybe I was a little bit too transparent, maybe sharing behind the scenes with my team, what was really going on. And it always bumped up against some boundaries. And I like to look at it of sort of a compare and contrast. Making the decision 27 years in.

through lots of conversations with my mentor and thanks for mentioning him, was about, I felt ready and prepared based on what I had learned in the three decades. It was about having the opportunity to do what I love, which is be up close and personal with leaders, have the freedom to do it authentically my way without.

any precedent, any sort of bureaucracy or layers of approval. And I had a discussion, lots of discussions with a mentor of mine. I met a gentleman ⁓ who was a chief human resources officer for Whirlpool Corporation. I was on my first day as a general manager at O’Hare and the event manager walked into my office that was green, I remember, and said, we’ve got a client in the meeting room today that’s a real pain in the ass. And I thought,

Good morning, I’m Lindsay. Nice to meet you. And in hearing that, I thought, what a great opportunity. I love when there are pain in the ass. This one’s going to be fun for me. looked at it as an opportunity. I love building relationships with people that are perceived difficult that when I have the opportunity to really get to know them in whatever capacity I can based on the timeline, it’s like,

Anthony Codispoti (18:18)
You enjoy that.

Lindsy Wnorowski (18:38)
don’t think they’re a pain in the ass. They just have high expectations. They’re very detail-oriented. They don’t accept mediocrity. ⁓ So this gentleman, Ed Dunn, walked into my office. again, I’m 26 maybe at the time, a little bit wet behind the ears. And I just looked at him. I shook his hand and I said, you must be the pain in the ass that we have in our meeting space today. And he starts laughing. And I felt comfortable saying that. It was…

You know, some people are like, you’re kidding me. That’s how you greeted him. And it just felt, it felt right. Talk about pushing the boundaries a little bit ⁓ and being transparent. He and I, met, you we talked, everything went great with his meeting. He chose to retire from Whirlpool and became a consultant ⁓ doing headhunting for CEOs. ⁓ He was extremely intelligent, ⁓ just and so humble.

Anthony Codispoti (19:08)
Yeah.

Lindsy Wnorowski (19:34)
So not a pain in the ass at all, by the way. I look forward to seeing him later this week up in St. Joe, Michigan. He became a mentor. We actually went out to dinner that night. I remember we went to Nick’s Fish Market at O’Hare and had some Dover sole, by the way. But he became a mentor for me. He was my greatest source of inspiration and ⁓ has changed my life. He’s probably in his 80s now. And like I said, I’m getting ready to go see him in St. Joe, Michigan to do some.

work this coming weekend, but he and I spoke about the transition from leaving Marriott and he did it. And he went through it and he had a significant, well, a significant more amount of stress than me thinking about leaving the comforts of corporate America. had a wife that was ⁓ battling cancer who has unfortunately passed away, but the insurance benefits and that type of stuff that come with that decision. But he instilled the confidence in me that

what you’ve learned within Marriott is important and valuable and you can do it in your own way. And I’m gonna support you ⁓ by doing that. And that’s kind of what I’ve been doing over the last eight to nine months. And it’s been really exciting.

Anthony Codispoti (20:45)
Okay, so let’s dive a little bit more into what it is that you’re doing at Executive Leadership Consulting. Who are your clients? What can you do for them?

Lindsy Wnorowski (20:51)
Sure.

Yeah, I mean, it’s really rooted in talent and performance. So my clients are, it kind of spans from GMs who are looking for coaching. So general managers within Marriott and even outside of Marriott that are just either stuck and looking to go through a process that I kind of call ADM, assessment, development, measurement, working through that sort of up close and personal with them in a coaching perspective, doing some workshops that are really

transformational. mean, there’s a leadership transition workshop that we go through that I learned through through Ed, ⁓ where anytime there’s a change at the top, whether it’s a new general manager, a new CEO, change creates anxiety. ⁓ Everything pauses, especially in a hotel. We have a GM that’s been in position for a long time. They’re moving on. They’re retiring. They’re moving to another role.

The performance takes a dip. And the point of this meeting, this leadership transition meeting, is to really mitigate the depth and the duration of that dip. And the way that we do it with the third party consultant, and I’ve had the opportunity to do five or six of these in the last couple of months, which have been so rewarding, is it’s a structured process that really brings all of the fears, all of the unknowns about the new leader. For instance, know, am I in or am I out?

I was so-and-so’s number one guy. How am I going to be with this individual? Am I in top or am I on bottom from a control perspective, from an open and trust perspective? Am I going to kind of wait and see and kind of hold off on bringing my full self to the business or am I going to go all in and trust this individual? So this process is brilliant. It originated actually in an organizational effectiveness program in the army.

⁓ Ed Dunn and his, his colleague have put me through the be no do. So they put me through a couple of these with them and then have unleashed me to do these on my own. And it’s amazing to see the team that walks in on the day of the meeting is so different than the team that walks out of that meeting and the way that they hit the ground running the next day that they show up to work based on what they’ve talked about the trust that has started to build. ⁓

I had a couple of folks, directors of human resources say to me, I’ve learned more about my team that I’ve worked with in 14 years in the last four hours in this leadership transition meeting. And wow, we get to work together differently now. it’s, that’s, that’s one of the workshops. ⁓ Anthony, another thing that I’m passionate about, sorry to catch off is, is culture. ⁓ It all comes down to culture.

It really does. I mean, we’re in the performance industry and we want to deliver results. Whether I was the point guard or the 23 year old GM, the culture dictated the performance and the results. And so there’s a lot of work that I’ve been doing around associate relations. Make me feel that I am somebody, every single individual.

during COVID, the essential workers, right? We all heard about the essential workers. And if it was not clear in advance of COVID who the essential workers in the hotel, it was 1000 % crystal clear after COVID. The essential workers in the hotel are the housekeepers, period. And instilling that in general managers, ⁓ I do a lot of work with sort of servant leadership. I know it’s a bit of a…

cliche, but it’s really what I believe. If you as a general manager don’t feel like it’s an absolute privilege to lead a team, you’re probably not in the right job. So that’s a little bit of the work that we’re doing. And then there’s an owner ownership component, which is really exciting. On the ownership side, like we talked about, a lot of the owners are owner operators. So they don’t have merit there to manage their hotel. They have their own team.

So some of the work that has been interesting and I’m getting ready to do tomorrow, meeting with an ownership company here in Kansas City is more of a total organizational assessment, taking the opportunity to assess the business, ⁓ kind of analyze the opportunities and whether that’s through selection or deselection.

⁓ that may be part of it or just tweaking the Rubik’s Cube a little bit to help drive performance. But that’s the bulk of it is talent and performance, owners, individual GMs, workshops on leadership. ⁓ I’ve been a leadership junkie and have craved that knowledge probably since I started following Bobby Knight back in the day.

Anthony Codispoti (26:07)
Is Bobby Knight

an inspiration for you?

Lindsy Wnorowski (26:10)
Oddly enough, I don’t endorse.

Anthony Codispoti (26:11)
because you don’t come across

as a Bobby Knight.

Lindsy Wnorowski (26:14)
I don’t endorse the chair throwing across the, but what I do love about Bobby Knight, besides the fact that he was a Buckeye, I think like a sixth man on the Ohio State team in case you don’t know that, the way in which his team performed was rooted in practice. Practice, practice, practice, practice, perform. That’s how I built my teams. We were so good that I had a phrase.

We build a team so strong that you don’t know who the leader is. It was incredible. ⁓ So Bobby Knight, you know, is harsh as he comes off. His team was so loyal to him and his players graduated, which I can, you know, kind of draw a line to the team that worked around me and with me. They weren’t jumping at the next opportunity that paid more.

I mean, imagine now in NIL, right? Who knows what it would be like with Bobby Knight coaching now, what the team would look like. But our team was so close, built on loyalty, and my expectations were really high. And I pushed people to get there. And so he is an inspiration to me, oddly enough. is. Minus the charity. That was not good. I do not condone that. not at all.

Anthony Codispoti (27:28)
minus the chair throwing and the choke outs. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, of course.

But I want to go back to one of the first things you were talking about that you provide this four hour workshop where I think, you know, one of your clients said, yeah, I’ve been working with my team for 14 years. I know more about them now from the last four hours than I do the previous 14 years. What’s taking place in that?

Lindsy Wnorowski (27:43)
K.

If I’m doing a good job and what I think I’ve really spent my career on and where it came a little bit of a rub for Marriott was creating an open environment. So I am very clear on, know, a lot of GM say, I want to bring the entire leadership team. And my first question to them is, is it safe? Is it safe? Is it going to be safe for a direct report in a subordinate once removed to really share what’s going on? And so the design.

I think about 80 % process, 20 % content. The design of the meeting is such that it’s a safe environment. I do some one-on-one interviews with everybody in advance of these meetings and gather the what from the interview, not the who. So there’s a confidentiality that’s ⁓ really important to me and critical to the meeting being successful. And the way it’s the way that

Either the questions are asked, the environment that is set, we don’t do it at the hotel. We’re always offsite. ⁓ I like teams of three as opposed to teams of two. A triad is significantly different than a dyad. ⁓ So there’s a lot of thought put into the process that allows for the open dialogue.

I was doing one last week and at the very end, 4.30, this typically ends at five o’clock, we start at noon or so at 12.30, this team was a little hesitant to really open up. And I talked through with them, I named it. I said, if I’m doing a good job today, we’re going to go from control, inclusion to control to openness. And at 4.30, one of the leaders in the room looked at their new GM and said, you know what?

I do not appreciate this and I’ve been dealing with this and this is really challenging for me. And that leader looked back at the leader on their team and they simply said, thank you. And I said, we made it. We made it to openness and trust in that it wouldn’t have happened without probably someone facilitating, you know, that wasn’t within the organization.

Anthony Codispoti (30:07)
So I get that, you know, there’s a lot of thought put into who’s in that room, right? And the combination of people, the number of people that are going in there. ⁓ And you’ve got sort of these pre interviews that you do to kind of as much as you can understand some of the dynamics that are going on. But what’s the actual content that’s taking place? Is it you know, you’re not doing I’m going to guess you’re not doing like trust falls and that kind of a thing. It’s more like I don’t know what tell me.

Lindsy Wnorowski (30:14)
Thank

Yes.

That’s great analogy, by the way, though. I love that trust falls, right? And ideally, we don’t do trust falls, by the way. My favorite is when the person falls forward. it’s, in the beginning, it’s kind of, ⁓ what don’t you know about this leader that you’d like to know? And then them kind of sharing that feedback. ⁓ It is, what are some things that have been going on at this property forever that don’t make sense and that you’d really like to stop?

⁓ The first thing that I share with the leader, the new GM, having been one, especially a young one, I felt like we always had to be the change agent. You’re bringing me in here to be the change agent. One of the things that we talk about very openly in this meeting is, what are the things that we have to protect? You know what, John?

You can have the freedom to change anything, but don’t touch these 10 things. These are critical to the core of the hotel. These are critical to who we are. having the leader learn from the team what they can’t change before they even start to think about all the things that they want to change is a mindset that isn’t typically talked about. So those are some of the things that we talk about in this meeting. And we end with, you know, with a dinner that night and

I ask everybody to just kind of go around the room and say one or two words about how they felt about the day. And it’s typically, well, it’s been always good. It’s, don’t know if I’d like the word vulnerable, because I think people hear vulnerable and they look at a picture in the dictionary and they see, maybe they see weakness. I don’t know. I’m hoping that changes, but it’s a vulnerable meeting. It’s a meeting where it’s safe to share what’s really going on.

Anthony Codispoti (32:20)
Hmm. I might ask you to be vulnerable here for a moment and it would be good to explore a serious challenge that you’ve overcome in your life. How did you get through that and what did you learn?

Lindsy Wnorowski (32:34)
I would say the most, there’s a few, but one that comes to mind that ties back to something that I briefly touched on earlier was the proximity to Lori’s children. And I don’t know what you can see behind me, but there’s a little bit of a picture right there. And you can kind of see it of a young lady ⁓ who lived at a hotel with me. She was born in Iraq, lived in Dubai at age six, was diagnosed with cancer.

And oddly enough, as rich as the country is of Dubai, their health care from a children’s perspective is really lacking. We would all want to go there if we had something going on with us. But from a child, they brought this child to Chicago, to Lurie’s to be treated. There was a change in administration in the US where the fact that their passports were from Iraq.

became difficult for them to stay in the country, even though their six, seven, eight, nine and 10 year old, which is the ages that this young lady, Haya Arkhan Abdulazim ⁓ ended up living with me. They had to go back to Iraq, this couple. It’s a bit of a long story, but I was the general manager at the hotel and they spoke basically just Arabic. ⁓ I got introduced to them because they were going to be moving in for who knows how long, it ended up being four years. ⁓

They ended up leaving and their six-year-old, seven or eight at the time, was still there. I became the medical power of attorney and essentially a surrogate mother for this young lady. ⁓ The hospital is literally two blocks right down Mies van der Wey from the hotel. ⁓ God bless my team at the hotel who allowed me to basically take my laptop to the hospital and work most days. Haya ended up

learning English, becoming a little bit of a mini me. We had a name tag for her that was, you know, resident manager. She walked around with a notepad and I would take a little bit of time off on vacation and my phone would ring and she’d say, Lindsay, nobody’s doing anything. You know, calling me. The team hated it when, this is during when the Cubs won the World Series, by the way, which they were all at the parade and she definitely called me and told me. Long story short, which it deserves probably a book to be written, ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (34:38)
Hahaha ⁓

Lindsy Wnorowski (34:53)
in the middle of the night one night, they called, she needed a new liver. And they called and there was a liver. Unfortunately, there was a car accident on the Kennedy and there was a liver. And so we went rushing over to Lori’s. I pulled up in my Jeep, I left it running in valet. I knew them so well. We were there pretty much every day. Went into the ER of the Children’s Hospital and she started to have liver surgery. And as they removed her liver, the surgeon,

came in and he said, and they’ve done, we had so many PET scans, so many CT scans. I I thought we knew where the cancer was. I thought that we certainly felt that if there was a new liver, there was hope that she would live. And when they took out her liver, it had just spread everywhere. And he said to me, I really shouldn’t be doing this transplant because we’re supposed to be giving this liver to someone that, you know, has a good chance of living. He did the transplant.

she woke up and was so excited and having to tell her that what had transpired, it’s difficult right now even, but this kid just changed my life and… ⁓

taught me more than any lesson about fighting and about perseverance and love, unconditional love. And unfortunately, the liver did extend her life. Haya made it to July 28th of 2017 at 2.16 PM. My birthday is July 29th and her…

goal was to make it to my birthday. ⁓ That’s something overcoming that, trying to go through that and run a hotel. Having her parents on a screen with an Arabic translator, they made it back. Her parents were back before she died. This is actually her mom’s wedding ring, which I will never take off, but is the gift that they could give me that ⁓ thanked them for

you know, providing love to their daughter, which if I could only share with them how much she, you know, she provided to me, but that’s overcoming that in learning from her. I mean, we were in a country that struggled with folks that looked like the folks looked in Middle East and there were just so many things that I learned from that family and what they went through and going back to the hotel the next day. And you know, that’s, led

like this, you I couldn’t keep it in and the team knew her, everyone knew her. We basically raised her within the hotel. ⁓ The most special individual I’ve ever met in my life. And I think about her every single day, every day. Thanks for letting me share that. Thanks for letting me show that. It’s been a while. It’s been a while.

Anthony Codispoti (37:53)
Thank you for sharing that.

You talked about there being so many lessons that you’ve learned from her. What’s the one that sticks with you the most?

Lindsy Wnorowski (38:06)
just, you know, I would always regret what I didn’t do versus what I did. And she, that child, 23 rounds of chemo, in every single one thought that she was going to make it and her ability to fight. mean, during COVID, you know, when I was in a regional capacity, I went from 27 hotels to 80 and it was, you know, seven days a week.

16 hours a day and I had I not gone through and learned from her about perseverance. Nothing else in this world was a challenge. When I saw what she went through, I thought, it’s hard. I don’t leave my seat. I put on some weight. I’m a little stressed. This is impacting my relationships and my health, but

There’s nothing that I’ve come up against that as I reflect back on what she went through, I don’t think I can make it through it. I can do it. This team can do it. Right. I mean, that’s what I, you know, I have leaders that, are struggling and I know people can make it through if we, you know, if we just put the right emphasis on it. And, she, she’s just taught me to live optimistically. Every single day that I wake up is a blessing for me. It’s a blessing.

Anthony Codispoti (39:24)
Hmm.

I love that. And I’m guessing you, you find strength in that as you’re, you know, working to build this new consulting business, you left the security of, you know, corporate America and, ⁓ it sounds like you’ve, know, you’ve got a bunch of clients, like a lot of good things going on, but this is still, you know, uncharted territory for you. How are you approaching kind of the day to day?

Lindsy Wnorowski (39:47)
It is. I mean, one of things I take from Hiya is just, is I think of the word courage. ⁓ You know, going from the comfort, you know, the comfort of Marriott, I knew Marriott, you know, I mean, I could sort of do it really well based on what I knew. And I think of the courage that it takes to, to launch a new business and find clients. You know, I hate selling. I hate sales. I just, I’m uncomfortable with it. I would rather just sort of perform. And this is,

I’m on a new trajectory right now. It’s a trajectory filled with hope, new relationships, new learnings. ⁓ It’s humbling to me how many people I call and sort of prospect that don’t have the money or aren’t ready to work with me. ⁓ I’m driven by accomplishment. I like to win. ⁓ And so I’ve had a lot of failures, you know, as this business has started, but

I think it’s like a golfer and I’m not a golfer, but I think people golf like really poorly and then they hit like an incredible shot and it takes them back to golf again. You know, I’ll have five rejections and then in ownership group that is like, we need you and what you bring. And then I’m all in. I think lastly, Anthony on that, I mean, the relationship that I had with Haya, I don’t think my team would have ever described me as patient.

I do lack a little bit of patience. ⁓ She taught me patience. And in this new world, in the consulting business, I have the ability to give all of me to every client. I’m not battling 27 different things and kind of going through the sort of law of diminishing returns. They get all of me. And it reflects back to when I would walk into my office, no matter what was going on in the hotel.

I just stopped and my blood pressure went down and I had this little human being in front of me, right? And I feel that way with clients where it’s just us, one-on-one, there’s nothing else going on. And it’s been incredible. It’s been incredible.

Anthony Codispoti (42:01)
It’s,

it’s, it’s a gift to have, especially today where I feel like it’s harder and harder for us to focus on a single thing. You know, I’m sitting here in front of my computer all day long. My phone is lighting up with calls and text messages. I’ve got all kinds of stuff beeping on my computer. I’ve got different channels of communication I need to check. And so I could see like the experience with Maya being like, nothing else is that important right now. Like I’m here with you. And when you.

Lindsy Wnorowski (42:29)
Right.

Anthony Codispoti (42:31)
have an opportunity like that to focus all of your attention, your brain, your heart, everything is on this one person, this one moment. What a gift to be able to then take that into less serious situations, but give your clients sort of the same gift of your complete and total presence.

Lindsy Wnorowski (42:52)
It’s really the differentiator. mean, it is, I was walking into having sort of 57 hotels or 57 direct reports. And I just thought, that’s not the best use of my skill set. Real quick, I had a couple of clients who were previous general managers that used to work for me. And they’re like, my gosh, we’ve never had a conversation like that. I wish you would have led me that way. And I said, well, you were.

I was trying to get your issue solved like really quickly so I could go on to the next thing and how different the depth of the interaction is now and how they’re learning so much about themselves through my ability to just be all in. I mean, we are in a world that is racing towards impersonalization, whether it’s through AI or, and I want to stay in this lane as long as people have me.

Anthony Codispoti (43:46)
Hmm. How do you work on culture? I know that’s one of the things that’s really important to you. But as you come in as a consultant or you know, for listeners who are like, I’ve got a company, I’ve got a group, I got a team of employees, and I want to work on our culture, I don’t even know where to begin. What do you say?

Lindsy Wnorowski (44:01)
Yeah,

yeah, I mean, absolutely. There’s a model. I’m not a big model person, but there is a model that you can kind of go through. But at the end of the day, the culture is, I think of it in a couple of ways. mean, there’s got to be fair pay. To be honest, that’s part of the culture, right? There has to be fair pay. And I talked to some teams about sort of felt fair pay, where they feel like, I would say to folks, ⁓

We’re not going to be paying you David Marriott’s salary. None of us are getting that. However, for the job that you’re doing, are we taking care of you here in sharing, even with regards to pay, being very transparent. Here’s what the hotel’s paying across the street. Here’s what our total compensation includes. You were talking earlier about benefits, know, in health care and providing health care to individuals. So that’s a component of it is really fair pay. A huge part of it is

And I hate to really curse, but I talk to these guys about sort of no asshole bosses. If you have bosses that don’t believe in servant leadership, you’re going to have a significant problem with the culture. So so much time we focus on selection. I let people know deselection, deselecting somebody is as important as selection. There’s another layer that we talk about, just making me feel like I’m somebody.

When’s the last time your wife or you have gone home from work and it’s been like, how was the day, ⁓ same old, same old. What about if they came home and said, it was absolutely unbelievable today and you’ll never believe what my leader did for me. They took me to lunch. We didn’t even talk about work. We just chatted about the kids, right? So those sort of unexpected, not all the time, but genuine ⁓ interactions that are their heart.

Anthony Codispoti (45:57)
like a real human

connection moment. Like I’m focusing on you. We’re not here to complain or talk about work necessarily. We’re just, I want to hear about you.

Lindsy Wnorowski (46:08)
I agree. in my kind of world, and communication are the same thing. If you don’t effectively communicate, you can’t lead. And part of the culture thing is, you know, go in and ask leaders. mean, who are some of the greatest communicators you’ve ever heard of? Martin Luther King, you know, whatever. They go through a list of people and it’s like, who are some of the greatest leaders that you’ve ever? And there isn’t a great leader that isn’t a great communicator. And that permeates down through the culture.

I mean, there’s a huge component on effective communication. the most important piece, truly, Anthony, is, and I always have people write this down, make me feel like I am somebody. That’s what we all want. Make me feel like I’m somebody. And then how? OK, great. How do you do that? How do you do that? Communication, communication, communication. ⁓ It’s not complicated, but it’s challenging.

because somebody has to do it. ⁓ That’s the culture piece. It really is.

Anthony Codispoti (47:12)
need to get around resistance to change, right? Because that can really derail even the best strategies.

Lindsy Wnorowski (47:20)
It’s, goes back to these leadership transition meetings, right? mean, talking about the fears of the unknown, bringing it up, what, what, and resistance to change is, you know, I love starting with everything that we’re not going to change. change is so scary for people. It’s amazing. The pause that happens in an organization. One of the last clients that I had an opportunity to work with, the pause started.

when this leader announced three months in advance that they’d be retiring. That’s when the pause started and all the work kind of stopped. I mean, just to think about how much was lost during that time. And had we come in and really talked about ⁓ what their fears were, what the unknowns were, ⁓ how they’re still going to have control over the environment, what that looks like. But change management is… ⁓

It’s psychological. One of the things that I’ve had the freedom to do after leaving Marriott is take some graduate level courses in psychology. I took a couple in ⁓ interpersonal dynamics and wow, just learning how the brain functions and what we attach to. I mean, that’s all about change and what happens when change is occurring within our psyche and bringing it to the forefront and naming it and talking about it. It sounds so basic.

When I start these leadership transition meetings and say to people, you’re all sitting here right now, and likely, if you’re being honest, this is what you’re thinking. Boom, boom, boom. And they’re all like, yeah, that is what we’re thinking. I can’t believe we’re calling that out. ⁓ We don’t do that typically.

Anthony Codispoti (49:06)
When a transition in leadership is anticipated, what’s the right timing to engage with you?

Lindsy Wnorowski (49:15)
This particular meeting best works around the second week. It gives the team an opportunity to have some time ⁓ with the individual. We’re doing some that are five weeks out and the meeting is still just as good. But, you know, I enjoy ⁓ starting that process maybe two or three weeks in advance of the transition actually occurring with some one-on-ones.

And then the meeting taking place around the second to third week of them actually being in place is really good timing. It’s ideal.

Anthony Codispoti (49:53)
Can you recommend a favorite podcast or book for the audience, something that’s been really helpful for you?

Lindsy Wnorowski (50:00)
It’s funny, kind of sitting on my desk and it’s so old school. It is like so old school that probably if you went onto Amazon, maybe there’s two copies left. But it’s my Bible and it was written in the 70s and it’s actually called The Lessons of Experience. And it’s how successful executives develop on the job. is the book. And what this talks about, and I’ve used this throughout my career is

The way that we learn and grow as leaders is through is there’s three ways. Primarily, who’s your boss? ⁓ Is critical. ⁓ Good or bad, it’s critical. The second one that we just spent a lot of time talking about hardships and failures. Hardships and failures that you go through. How quickly and how do you adapt to those? How do you come back from them? And the lessons learned and the third thing.

in which we grow and develop from is assignments, jobs, opportunities. When people are so comfortable and want to stay in the same hotel, the same brand, the same discipline, they’re avoiding those assignments and the lessons learned from them. those three things, hardships and failures, bosses.

and assignments and this book goes into a lot of other things, but they’ve been critical for me. I’ve learned more from bad bosses than I’ve learned from good bosses. My own boss right now, that’s a little crazy. ⁓ My partner would probably say they’re my boss, but that’s a book that is near and dear to me.

Anthony Codispoti (51:41)
Hmm. You made an interesting comment about learning more from your bad bosses than your good ones. Why is that? How is that?

Lindsy Wnorowski (51:49)
You know, feeling it, being in it, living it, knowing what it does to your mental health ⁓ on a daily basis and then how that impacts the rest of your life. ⁓ I sort of vowed not that I even needed to vow. I think I learned this early on in sports, but to never sort of be that way. ⁓ You know, I think we can learn things through the reverse. You know, here’s absolutely who I don’t want to be. And how do I, how do I go about that? But I do, I really firmly believe that aside from

I don’t know, maybe your priest, your pastor, your immediate family, your boss has the biggest impact on your entire life. And so the privilege to be someone’s boss is it’s a privilege. ⁓ And I’ve worked for people who did not feel that way. They’re sort of autocratic and top down command and control approach, which just it doesn’t work.

Anthony Codispoti (52:46)
they end up being good examples of what you don’t want to do, behaviors you don’t want to repeat.

Lindsy Wnorowski (52:52)
Yeah, I never want someone to feel that poorly about themselves based on, you know, an environment that is not a culture. I mean, getting back to culture, right? The culture, the culture, how should we behave, right? What’s the behavior of people in this environment? I mean, that’s the culture, right? What’s the expected norms? ⁓ I’ve learned a lot from bosses that were promoted beyond their capacity.

for sure.

Anthony Codispoti (53:23)
What daily practices do you engage in that either help your day get started or keep you on track?

Lindsy Wnorowski (53:31)
Yeah, I have that is so evolved through the years has so evolved. It used to be Orange Theory. I remember, think when I was, you know, the most stressed, the best way to start my day was either in a boot camp running over the Lakeshore Drive on the bridge that went over to Oak Street Beach there. Now being in sort of suburban Kansas City, it is I’ve been in an urban environment my entire life. I’m now, you know, sitting in

Kansas City and every morning reading LinkedIn. do read, I do start the morning reading the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, typically LinkedIn to catch up on a couple of things with a cup of coffee on the back deck, listening to the birds. I’ve downloaded an app, thanks to my mom called the Merlin app. And if you would have told somebody five years ago, I would start my day saying, I think that’s a Carolina Wren.

They would have told you that I’ve been ⁓ taken out of my body and an alien has abducted me. It’s a bird watching app, but I definitely start the morning. ⁓ I’m early riser. I think the best in the morning. I tend to hit a low at like between two and three. And then I feel sharp again around five and feel like I do my best work early in the morning and even from like five to nine at night.

Anthony Codispoti (54:31)
This is a bird watching app.

Lindsy Wnorowski (54:52)
But the routine for me, want to keep up to date on what’s going on in the world, although it’s not always good right now. So I’m always starting the day reading New York Times, Wall Street Journal. There’s always something in there that is applicable to leadership, good or bad examples. But that’s a routine that I’ve been in for quite some time.

Anthony Codispoti (55:15)
What’s your superpower, Lindsey?

Lindsy Wnorowski (55:17)
I would say establishing and not only establishing but maintaining relationships. I give all of me ⁓ in relationships that are important. I don’t have a ton, but the ones that are important ⁓ feed me. ⁓ Most of my best relationships right now are people that I met through Marriott. ⁓

to be able to work with them, not as their leader or boss now, but as a coach or consultant or just friend is really a very cool evolution of the relationship.

Anthony Codispoti (55:59)
Lindsay, I’ve just got one more question for you. But before I ask

it, I want to do a few things. First of all, everyone listening, if you want to get in touch with Lindsay, recommend her LinkedIn page, Lindsay Wienerski. And we’ll put a link to that in the show notes. ⁓ Also visit her website, is executiveleadershipco.com. Executiveleadershipco.com. If you want to get in touch with Lindsay, her website is executiveleadershipco.com.

Also as a reminder, if you want to get more employees access to benefits that won’t hurt them financially and carries a financial upside for the company, reach out to us at addbackbenefits.com. Finally, if you will take just a moment to leave us a comment or review on your favorite podcast app, we will be forever grateful. So last question for you, Lindsay, you and I reconnect a year from now and you’re celebrating something big. What’s that big thing you hope to be celebrating one year from today?

Lindsy Wnorowski (56:56)
Is it crazy that my mind went initially to the fact that I will be married one year from today? So I’m looking forward to ⁓ that. It will happen in April. And I think secondarily and truly secondarily, ⁓ having impacted and helped multiple leaders find their true

true passion and their true authentic self. I cannot wait. I’m looking forward to doing it tomorrow. I’m looking forward to doing it this weekend. I hope that, you know, it becomes I’m teaching people how to fish so they can then fish for themselves and it just trickles down from there. That’d be an amazing, amazing year ahead.

Anthony Codispoti (57:40)
moment. Lindsay Wynorski from Executive Leadership Consulting. I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Lindsy Wnorowski (57:50)
Anthony, thank you so much. What an absolute pleasure. Go Bucks.

Anthony Codispoti (57:54)
Go Bucks. Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.