Why do hotel teams fall apart in the middle of a season?
Hotel teams usually fall apart mid season through small misunderstandings that repeat under fatigue. A sharp word at the pass, a roster favour read as favouritism, a housekeeping delay blamed on reception. Under pressure, each person falls back on habits, and colleagues read those habits as character flaws or bad will.
The pattern is easy to spot on Mahé in high season. The chef believes the restaurant manager protects his waiters. The restaurant manager believes the kitchen decides alone. Front office stops calling housekeeping before promising an early check in, because the answer was short twice in a row. Each department retreats into its own way of working, and the guest meets the seams: a villa not ready, a table waiting, a promise made at reception that the floor cannot keep.
What does self-knowledge actually change on the floor?
Self-knowledge changes three things on the floor: how a person reacts under stress, how they ask for help, and how they hear criticism. Someone who knows their own pattern can name it early, adjust it, and warn colleagues before the pattern starts running the shift for them.
Take a housekeeping supervisor on Praslin, excellent in October, dreaded by February. Under fatigue, her checking becomes public, her voice rises, and two room attendants start hiding mistakes instead of reporting them. The work gets worse precisely because she cares about it. When she can say, in training and then at work, "when I am tired I control too much, stop me when you see it", the team gains a signal and a permission. The standard stays. The fear goes. Rooms get reported honestly again, which is what she needs at 14:00, when six departures and six arrivals collide.
How do the Enneagram and DISC help colleagues read each other?
The Enneagram describes nine patterns of motivation, what drives a person, what they protect, and how they react when stressed. DISC describes four styles of behaviour at work: pace, directness, need for detail, need for contact. Used together in a hotel team, they give colleagues a shared language for differences that otherwise turn into judgements.
The point of the language is practical. A colleague who asks ten questions before a banquet is not "difficult", he is checking the details that will save the evening, and his profile explains why he needs the plan early. A maître d'hôtel who decides fast and hates long meetings is not careless, he moves at a pace the team can use, provided someone checks the detail behind him. Our Enneagram work with hotel teams and our DISC sessions use real situations from the property, a difficult arrival, a wedding on the beach, a guest complaint at breakfast, so the profiles stay attached to the work. People leave knowing their own pattern, and recognising two or three patterns around them, ready to use on the floor the following week.
How can a manager pair people who work well together?
A manager pairs people well by combining profiles on purpose: a detail strong colleague with a fast starter, a calm presence with a nervous newcomer, a direct speaker with someone who hears the room. Pairing works when each person knows what the other brings, and what the other needs to do the job well.
This is where self-knowledge becomes a roster tool. On a small island property, where the same twelve people cover breakfast, beach service and dinner, the manager cannot hire around a clash. She can, however, stop scheduling the clash. Put the methodical commis with the chef who explains once, clearly, rather than the chef who shouts corrections across the kitchen. Send the warm, talkative attendant to the family villa and the quiet, precise one to the honeymoon couple who want to be left alone. Our team cohesion programme builds these pairings with the manager, department by department, and writes them into the way shifts are planned. Guests feel the result as smoothness. Teams feel it as fewer pointless frictions in a day that already has enough real ones.
What should a manager do when two strong characters clash?
When two strong characters clash, a manager should first check whether the clash is really about the task. Often each person is defending a different value: speed against precision, the guest against the rule. Naming the values behind the positions usually lowers the temperature faster than deciding who is right.
Picture a front office manager and a head chef on La Digue, both respected, both convinced the other makes their job harder. She wants the kitchen to confirm special requests faster. He wants reception to stop promising dishes the kitchen has never costed. In a team coaching session, with their profiles on the table, the conversation changes shape. She hears that his refusal protects quality, the thing guests praise in reviews. He hears that her promises come from a fear of losing the guest at the first contact. The fix they write together is modest: a list of dishes the kitchen pre approves for special requests, and a two minute call before reception promises anything outside it. The clash does not return, because the system stopped feeding it.
How do you know a team will hold until the end of the season?
A team will hold when three signs appear together: colleagues warn each other early instead of going silent, departments ask for help before a crisis rather than after it, and the manager hears about problems from the team itself. These signs show that people understand themselves well enough to speak before fatigue speaks for them.
None of this needs a crisis to start. The properties that build cohesion usually do it before the season, in the quieter weeks, when a training day does not compete with a full house. Two days are enough to give a team the language, map the profiles, and agree the pairings and the signals. Then the manager keeps it alive with small reminders: five minutes at a briefing, a pairing checked when the roster is written, a clash treated early while it is still small. A perfect season is rarely a season without problems. It is a season where problems travel fast and meet colleagues who know how to work together. Tell us about your team and the season you are preparing, and we will start from the people you already have.
Alain Palacios is the founder of ABP Hospitality. He trains hospitality managers and teams in Seychelles in frontline management, team motivation, luxury service codes, the Enneagram and DISC, and he coaches executives and teams on the island and beyond.