WHAT A FLY IN A DESSERT TAUGHT ME ABOUT DEBRIEFS
- Kketan Amarnath Waghmare
- Jan 29
- 2 min read
Monsoon nights are unforgiving to luxury.
Everything you usually control starts slipping.
Doors stay open. Humidity creeps in.
And the smallest things suddenly matter a lot.
That evening, dinner had already gone off track.
Flies.
Multiple complaints.
A table of expat guests in transit for just one night — which, in hospitality, means this experience is the memory they’ll carry.
Then dessert arrived.
Kulfi.
With a fly in it.
The restaurant manager smiled and said:
“Oh, it’s monsoon season here. This is normal.”
That’s when things truly went south.
The guests weren’t just upset — they were offended.
Not by the fly, but by the message: this is acceptable.
They asked for the night manager.
That’s how the situation reached me.
I apologised. Properly.
I owned it. Comped the meal.
The anger softened, but the moment had already passed.
Later that night, when the hotel finally went quiet, I sat with the restaurant manager.
Not to correct him.
Not to teach.
I asked one question:
“What do you think upset them more — the fly, or what you said?”
He answered without thinking, “The fly.”
I stayed quiet.
After a pause, he looked up and said:
“No… it was me making it sound okay.”
That was the debrief.
No SOPs.
No hygiene checklist.
Just a mirror.
We spoke about that one moment — the split second where defending reality felt easier than protecting the guest’s dignity.
The following week, something similar happened.
Same monsoon. Same restaurant.
Different response.
Immediate apology.
Ownership before explanation.
No escalation.
That night stayed with me.
Because it reminded me that learning doesn’t happen when things go wrong.
It happens when we slow down enough to look at how we respond.
A debrief isn’t a wrap-up.
It’s a pause that allows honesty to catch up.
And when that happens, behaviour shifts quietly — and for good.
#Debriefs #ReflectionInPractice #LearningFromExperience #HospitalityLeadership #ServiceRecovery #ExperientialLearning #LeadershipDevelopment #LuxuryHospitality #AdultLearning #kketanwaghmare
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