Advisory Archive

The People Who Taught Me

When people speak about mentors, they usually describe a senior figure who intentionally guided their development.
My experience was different. Most of my teachers never applied for the role.

Some never realised they were teaching me at all.

An Executive Chef taught me humility
A Stewarding Manager taught me respect
A General Manager taught me authenticity
An HR Director taught me that people and performance are not enemies
A COO taught me pace
A CEO taught me to first set direction
A peer taught me the difference between competence and trust
Others taught lessons they never intended to teach

Some through generosity. Some through discipline. Some through conflict. Some through disappointment.
Many through example. A few through warning.
What connects them is not whether I agreed with them.
What connects them is that something survived the encounter.
A lesson. An idea. A perspective. A question.

The more mature I become, the less interested I am in judging people as successes or failures.
Most people are both. Most people possess strengths and weaknesses. Most people are struggling with challenges invisible to everyone else.
The same is true of organisations. And certainly, true of myself.

Looking back, I realise my career was shaped less by formal education than by observation.
Watching people. Learning from people. Admiring people. Occasionally arguing with people.
And sometimes discovering wisdom in places I did not expect to find it.

The people who taught me rarely resembled the teachers I imagined I needed.
Perhaps that is why their lessons endured.

Reflection

This article is about gratitude.

This is the sixteenth of a series of articles – “What hospitality taught me about myself” – in which I share lessons learned throughout my professional and personal journey, and how those experiences have shaped my thinking and led me to develop my own principles.

The most valuable teachers are not always the most impressive.
Often, they are simply the people who leave us unable to think exactly as we did before we met them.

I carry many such people with me. Not their titles. Not their positions.
Not their achievements. But, their lessons.
And in the end, that may be the only part of any of us that truly survives.

About the Author

Raoul Gransier is a Senior International Adviser and owner-focused hotelier with more than 25 years of operational and advisory experience in hospitality, tourism, governance, and performance improvement.

Website

https://gransier.com

International Financial Institutions (IFIs)

Years later, I entered institutional advisory work.
It was a very different world from hotel operations.

Instead of guests, employees, and owners, I found myself working with:

Banks
Donors
Development programmes
Procurement frameworks
Governance structures
International advisory assignments

The objective was simple: Help businesses grow. Create jobs. Strengthen local economies.
Use public and donor funding responsibly.
Much of the work was rewarding. Some of it was frustrating.

What surprised me was how similar the underlying challenges were to those I had encountered in hotels.

People remained people
Ambition remained ambition
Fear remained fear
And trust remained fragile

The larger the system, the easier it became for reality and representation to drift apart.

Reports could look better than facts
Processes could look stronger than implementation
Compliance could exist on paper while problems continued underneath
Whenever reality and representation diverged, difficulties eventually emerged

The larger the gap, the larger the consequence.

Over time, I realised that governance is often misunderstood.
Many people see governance as bureaucracy.
I came to see it differently. Governance is simply the process of managing expectations.
Who is responsible? Who decides? Who is accountable? Who knows what? What happens when things go wrong?

Without clear answers, trust slowly erodes.
That observation reinforced something I had learned many years earlier in hotel operations.
Integrity is not a slogan. It is alignment between what is said and what is done.

I achieved many positive things through international development programmes and remain grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the growth of many small and medium-sized businesses.
The work convinced me that IFI institutions remain necessary where markets, public administration, or political systems alone cannot adequately support economic development.

But it also taught me that no institution, process, or governance framework can substitute for personal integrity.
In the end, every system still depends on people choosing to do the right thing when nobody is watching.

Thank you for reading my article.

This article is about how institutional work taught me that trust is built when reality and representation remain aligned.

This is the ninth of a series of articles – “What hospitality taught me about myself” – in which I share lessons learned throughout my professional and personal journey, and how those experiences have shaped my thinking and led me to develop my own principles.

I hope it has provided some food for thought, encouraged curiosity, and inspired you to keep learning.

Curiosity, humility, and continuous learning remain among the most valuable tools we possess.

About the Author

Website

https://gransier.com

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The People Who Taught Me

International Financial Institutions (IFIs)

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