Stop Hiring Great People and Hiding Them in Blazers

A guest checked into the hotel excited to visit a small restaurant that reminded her of her mother’s cooking. Later that night, she returned visibly disappointed — the restaurant had closed.

A team member didn’t escalate the issue or look for a workaround. She listened. Went home. Cooked the dish herself. Then brought it back to the hotel, set a table, and served it to the guest by candlelight.

No approval process.
No budget line.
No policy to reference.

That story wasn’t shared as a feel-good anecdote. It was shared as a clear example of what happens when people are trusted to act.

It’s one of the moments Dina Belon, President of Staypineapple Hotels, used at HotelSpaces to explain how her team operates — and why culture, in her words, is simply “what you allow to happen in your organization.”

The “Do the Next Right Thing” Rule

At Staypineapple, great service doesn’t come from scripts or thick training manuals. Teams are guided by one simple expectation: do the next right thing.

Dina described this approach as an innkeeper mentality — creating personal, host-led experiences without scripts or performative service, even at scale.

Dina’s reasoning is straightforward. Manuals don’t actually prevent mistakes — they prevent people from thinking. And when people stop thinking, they stop noticing moments that matter.

The San Francisco story wasn’t an exception. It was the outcome of a culture where people are empowered to act like humans.

Bring Your Whole Self to Work

That trust shows up in how teams are allowed to show up every day.

Staypineapple doesn’t require uniforms for front-of-house staff. There are no hair standards. Tattoos, piercings, pink hair — all fine.

Dina’s logic is simple: if you hire someone for their emotional intelligence and personality, why cover it up? You can’t ask people to create genuine human connections if they’re not allowed to be genuine humans themselves.

She was also honest about the challenge. Team members coming from more rigid environments often need time to trust that it’s safe to be themselves. That discomfort isn’t a flaw — it’s part of building something real.

Empowerment Has to Be Real

At Staypineapple, Surprise and Delight isn’t framed as a guest-facing program with rules or limits. It exists for a different reason: to give team members permission to act when a moment calls for it.

There’s no set budget, no approval chain, and no checklist of what qualifies. The goal isn’t to standardize gestures — it’s to remove hesitation. Housekeepers, bartenders, front desk staff — anyone can step in and make a decision if they believe it’s the right thing to do.

Dina was clear that this kind of trust only works if it’s genuine. In fifteen years, she said, no one has ever abused it. When people feel trusted, they tend to rise to the responsibility. And when they’re given room to bring judgment and creativity to their work, they’re far more likely to stay, and frankly, come up with better ideas than you ever will.

The Hard Part: Saying the Thing

Dina didn’t gloss over the fact that this kind of culture is harder to maintain than it sounds.

Hospitality attracts people who want to be generous and kind, which can make tough conversations easy to postpone. But avoiding those conversations doesn’t protect culture. It quietly reshapes it.

If someone isn’t aligned and nothing is said, that behavior becomes part of what’s allowed. Over time, it sets the tone for everyone else. Culture, Dina emphasized, isn’t just what you encourage. It’s what you tolerate.

Protecting an environment built on trust and empowerment means being willing to address issues directly — not harshly, but clearly — before misalignment becomes the norm.

Why This Resonated

What Dina shared wasn’t a philosophy exercise. It was a look at the decisions she and her team have made consistently — choosing to trust people, remove friction, and accept the responsibility that comes with empowerment.

Those choices don’t always take the easy path, but they’ve shaped a culture where people are allowed to think, act, and connect like humans. And that, more than any policy or program, is what sustains the work.

▶️ Watch Dina’s full HotelSpaces here: