The Power of Possibility (even during a hotel check-in)

A month ago, I was in Dubai for a one-day workshop. I booked a standard room at a hotel in Dubai Marina, knowing that my membership status usually grants me an upgrade. Sure enough, 24 hours later, I got an email:

“Congratulations, your room has been upgraded to a Marina View with Club Access.”

Nice! I thought. A great view, a quiet lounge to work in—perfect.

But when I arrived, things took an unexpected turn.

At check-in, the kind lady at the desk smiled and said, “Welcome, Mr. Habets! We’ve upgraded you to a Marina View room.”

I waited for the rest—with Club Access—but it didn’t come.

So I asked, “With Club Access, correct?”

She hesitated. “No, this one doesn’t have Club Access.”

I pulled up my app. There it was, in black and white: Marina View with Club Access.

She glanced at it and said, “Oh, that’s just the name of the room.”

That struck me. That’s just the name of the room?

A manager was called in. He walked up, barely acknowledged me, and repeated the same line: “That’s just the name of the room.” Then he blamed IT, saying the system had mislabeled it.

I wasn’t upset. Look, I don’t need free stuff, but I am very sensitive to people saying A and doing B. I care about integrity.

It’s really simple: the hospitality business, like all businesses, thrives on trust. Their entire brand is built on delivering what they promise. It’s their reputation. If your reputation is damaged, it’s detrimental to your business.

The lady and her manager couldn’t see that. So I decided to stand for them more than they did for themselves. Not for me, but for them. In the name of service.

I wasn’t heard by the two people behind the check-in desk, so when I checked into my room, I sent a LinkedIn message to the hotel’s general manager.

Not a complaint, but a note of awareness: “Dear Sir, I thought you might want to know what’s happening in your hotel. Some guests will just never return. Others will make a scene. I’m simply letting you know what’s going on.”

Three minutes later, the general manager, James, replied: “This is unacceptable. My apologies. I would like to meet you for breakfast tomorrow and make this right with you.”

The next morning, over breakfast, James—who is the GM of five hotels under this brand in Dubai—opened up to me:

“Honestly, I’m struggling with team morale. We have people from five continents, ten nationalities. It’s amazing, but also difficult. Everyone sees things from their own perspective. If you had checked in with someone else, you probably would have gotten Club Access. But this employee saw it her way and didn’t take initiative. It drives me crazy.”

That struck me because here was yet another example of what happens unseen and unnoticed—on both a personal and an organizational level:

We’re stuck in a single point of view, and we don’t even realize it. And when we don’t see that, we can’t see anything new.

James and I spoke for an hour. That evening, I got another WhatsApp message:

“Can we meet for dinner?”

At dinner, he told me, “I had kind of given up. We’ve done so many trainings, had so many managers trying to ‘fix’ things. But what you said made me see it differently—it’s not about instilling rules, new processes, or procedures. It’s about getting people to be open to new perspectives.”

Then he asked:

“Would you be open to helping us with that?”

What started as a simple conversation about a hotel room became a deeper conversation about leadership, perspective, and transformation.