Tag Archive for: Hotel Management

The CEO Who Initiated a Dialogue Rather than an Instruction

The CEO Who Initiated a Dialogue Rather than an Instruction

The organisation had asked for performance management. At least that is what everyone believed.
The mandate sounded straightforward.
Improve performance. Increase profitability. Strengthen accountability. Introduce structure. Measure outcomes.
The objectives were sensible. The implementation began.

Managers learned. Reports improved. Discussions became more disciplined.
Departments became increasingly aligned. People started asking better questions.
At first, the questions were operational. Then commercial. Then strategic.

Then something unexpected happened. The questions started travelling upwards.
Department Heads wanted clarity. The General Managers wanted clarity. The senior leadership team wanted clarity. Eventually, the same questions began appearing repeatedly.
What are our objectives? What assumptions are they based upon? What are we trying to become? What are we optimising for?

The questions were not rebellious. They were logical. The organisation was learning.
And learning organisations tend to become curious.

When budgeting time arrived, the CEO was asking the organisation to improve profitability.
A reasonable request in any organisation.

The response from the management team was equally reasonable:

  • What is our Highest and Best Use?
  • What market positioning are we pursuing?
  • Which customer are we targeting?
  • What brand strategy supports that choice?
  • How much capital are we prepared to invest?
  • When will that investment occur?
  • What return are we expecting?
  • What organisational structure is required to deliver it?

The fascinating part was that nobody had instructed the organisation to ask these questions. The organisation had taught itself.
Performance management had created curiosity.
And curiosity has a remarkable quality. Once it takes hold, it becomes difficult to reverse.

There was no hostility in these questions. No resistance. No politics.
Simply a request for clarity in order to plan and execute effectively.

What followed was a growing realisation that important assumptions about who the organisation was, where it wanted to go, and what it ultimately wanted to become had never been fully articulated.
Eventually, the discussion returned to management itself: Tell us what you believe we can achieve. Tell us what you need to achieve it.
What had started as a project about measurement gradually became a conversation about direction.

Looking back, I believe this was the real success of the project.
Not the reports. Not the systems. Not the numbers.
The organisation had learned how to think and had begun discovering what it was and what it wanted to achieve.

Reflection

This article is about how curiosity transforms performance management into organisational learning.

This is the twelfth 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.

Many people believe performance management is about measurement.
I have gradually come to a different conclusion.
Performance management is fundamentally about setting expectations.
Measurement simply reveals whether those expectations have been achieved.

The difficult part is rarely the measurement.
The difficult part is defining the expectations first.
Governance begins with that clarity, because expectations define decision rights, accountability, information flows, and ultimately the basis upon which performance can be assessed.
And not merely the financial expectations.

Once people understand how a business works, they naturally begin asking why it works the way it does.
What started as a discussion about performance eventually became a discussion about purpose, positioning, capital, structure, and strategy.

Looking back, that was the real achievement.
The organisation had not merely learned how to measure performance.
It had learned how to think.

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

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The HR Director Who Learned to Love Numbers

The HR Director Who Learned to Love Numbers

If somebody had told me at the beginning of the project that the strongest advocate for performance management would eventually emerge from Human Resources, I would have been sceptical. Very sceptical.

At the time, the HR Director represented something important within the organisation: culture, care, wellbeing, development, and respect.
The company genuinely cared about its people. And she was one of the principal custodians of that culture.

Performance management worried her.
Not because she opposed improvement. Because she feared what numbers might do.
Like many people, she saw a potential conflict. People on one side. Performance on the other. Compassion versus accountability. Culture versus profitability.
The concern was understandable. Many organisations manage to create exactly that conflict.

Yet something unexpected happened.
She became curious. She asked questions. She challenged assumptions.
And, at times, she gave me a hard time.
She wanted to understand. Not the spreadsheets. The thinking behind them.
Slowly, patiently, and somewhat reluctantly at first, she began exploring concepts she had previously avoided.
Performance. Productivity. Profitability. Measurement. Expectations.

The more she learned, the more her perspective changed.
Not because she cared less about people. Quite the opposite.
She gradually realised that satisfied employees do not emerge from good intentions alone.
They emerge from functioning organisations.
Sales must perform. Operations must perform. Finance must perform. Engineering must perform. Managers must perform. Expectations must be clear.
Responsibilities must be understood. Resources must be available.
Only then can an organisation create the conditions that allow people to thrive.
That realisation changed her perspective.

She eventually understood something important.
People are not separate from capital.
They are one of the most significant investments any hotel makes.
Most organisations treat people and capital as different conversations.
One belongs to Human Resources. The other belongs to Finance.
Yet sustainable organisations depend on both working together.

She came to recognise that salaries, training, development, engagement, and leadership are not merely costs.
They are investments expected to generate outcomes, just as any other investment within the business.
Equally, she understood that capital without capable and motivated people rarely delivers its intended return.
People and performance are not competing priorities.
Nor are people and capital. In healthy organisations, people, performance, capital and purpose are interconnected.

Strong performance creates opportunity, stability, investment, development, and career growth.
Strong people create the performance that makes those things possible.
The relationship is not adversarial. It is symbiotic.

Over time, she became one of the strongest advocates for performance management within the organisation.
Not despite her commitment to people. Because of it.
She recognised that performance management, applied within a healthy and humane culture, protects both people and capital.
Most importantly, she reached that conclusion herself.

Years later she joined the Board.
The promotion was deserved.
Not because she had mastered numbers.
Because she had learned to integrate two worlds that many people mistakenly separate: people and capital. Humanity and performance.
She understood that neither can succeed sustainably without the other.

Reflection

This article is about how curiosity taught me that people and performance succeed together or fail together.

This is the eleventh 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.

One of the most persistent misconceptions in business is that people and performance are in competition with each other.
My experience suggests the opposite. Poorly managed organisations damage both.
Well-managed organisations support both. The challenge is not choosing between people and performance.
The challenge is understanding that sustainable performance creates the conditions in which people can succeed.

The HR Director taught me that lesson. And she taught it far more convincingly than any consultant ever could.

Looking back, one outcome gives me particular satisfaction.
The organisation no longer required external advocates for performance management.
One of its strongest advocates had emerged from within: The HR Director herself.

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

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The Credit Policy

The Credit Policy

Another country. Another hotel. Another culture.
In that particular environment, petty theft and corruption at scale were part of daily life.
At the time, people would sometimes say: “If you don’t steal from your company, you steal from your family.”

I spent much of my time firefighting.
Cash disappeared. Controls were weak. Responsibilities were unclear. Departments blamed one another.
There was confusion everywhere.

What fascinated me was not the theft itself.
It was how easily accountability disappeared once money started moving between departments.

I decided to approach the problem differently.
Not by punishing theft.
But by preventing it.

I did so by first following the flow:

  • How cash entered the business
  • Who touched it
  • How accountability was transferred
  • Where controls broke down

Slowly, patterns started to emerge.
Over many months, I developed a credit policy and control framework.
Not because I enjoyed writing procedures. But because I wanted accountability to become visible.

Years later, I visited another hotel.
The Front Office Manager, who I had trained while working in another hotel, welcomed me warmly.
Proudly, he showed me what he described as the best cash-control manual he had ever encountered.
He had discovered it in a previous hotel. Not one where I had worked.

The document had travelled.
People had copied it. Adapted it. Used it. Across multiple organisations.
My initials were still visible on the cover page.

The lesson was not about authorship. The lesson was about systems.
Good systems survive the people who create them. The best systems become part of the organisation itself.
Long after their creators have moved on.

Thank you for reading my article.

This article is about how systems taught me that sustainable improvement is measured by what remains after you leave.

This is the eighth 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

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

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The Revenue Experiment

The Revenue Experiment

While serving as Front Office Manager at a large hotel catering predominantly to leisure groups, I became fascinated by distribution.

At the time, revenue management – both in terms of systems and culture – was still emerging.
Convincing management and ownership to invest in dedicated systems and specialised staff often required as much selling as the rooms themselves.

Most business was negotiated with wholesalers and tour operators at fixed prices.

Something about the methodology fascinated me.
I wanted to understand how it actually worked.
Not the theory. The mechanism. The chain.
How did guests find us? Why did some channels perform better than others? Why did some market segments behave differently from others?

I became absorbed by questions such as:

  • GDS and OTAs
  • Distribution costs, commissions, mark-ups, kick-backs
  • Market segments and sources of business
  • Pricing, net or inclusive of VAT and city tax
  • Demand, pickup, washdown, pace, and double-occupancy density
  • Room categories and benefits, addressing leisure, MICE and business needs
  • Yield management
  • Reputation management

I experimented relentlessly.
Without specialised software. Without automated tools.
This was long before today’s user-friendly PMS systems and apps.
All I had were spreadsheets, observation, curiosity, and adjustment.

I changed one thing. Observed the result. Changed another.
Observed again. Slowly, patterns started to emerge. The result was not merely better occupancy.
The result was a different business model. New market segments emerged. Dependence on low-yield wholesale business decreased.
The hotel began attracting guests who had previously never considered it.

What had been considered an out-of-town wholesale hotel gradually became one of the city’s strongest online performers.

Looking back, the lesson was not revenue management.
The lesson was curiosity.
Understanding the mechanism often creates opportunities that remain invisible to others.

Thank you for reading my article.

This article is about how curiosity taught me to look beyond the obvious.

This is the seventh 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

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

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The Flooded Hotel

The Flooded Hotel

Another country. Another hotel. Another lesson.
I was Night Manager of a high-profile hotel frequented by celebrities, heads of state, and captains of industry.

A Sales Manager had approved the use of fireworks in a ballroom.
The sprinkler system activated. The hotel began to flood. Nobody knew how to stop it.
No one on the hotel team knew how. Nor me.

Water poured from the building’s entrance onto the street and down into the basements.
The situation deteriorated rapidly, and the basement where the kitchens and stores were located was beginning to flood.
Cooks started building dikes out of towels, aprons, and bed sheets to contain the water.

The fire brigade eventually arrived.
They located the switch. The water stopped.
But the crisis was far from over. Night cleaning teams from across the city were mobilised.
The clean-up continued into the early morning, with me sweeping the floors.

The hotel survived.

Looking back, the event taught me something important.
Systems matter. Training matters. Preparation matters.
But reality has a habit of introducing situations nobody anticipated.

No manual had prepared us for that night.
No training session had covered it.
No procedure explained what to do next.

Leadership often begins where procedures end.
One thing I have learned about myself is that I do not need to know everything before acting.
Sometimes leadership is not about having answers. It is about helping people keep moving until answers appear.

When I eventually arrived home, mentally and physically exhausted, I switched on the television to watch a movie on a 24/7 cable channel.
The irony could not have been greater.
The running film was “Towering Inferno”.
A classic disaster movie involving exactly the kind of problem I had just spent the night dealing with.

For the first time after battling my way through the night and into the morning, I laughed.

Thank you for reading my article.

This article is about how uncertainty taught me leadership.

This is the sixth 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

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

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The Overbooked Hotel

The Overbooked Hotel

I had built an early career in hotels where discretion was valued above publicity and where guests occasionally reminded you that the world was larger than the building itself.

Being young and, arguably, naively stupid, I became increasingly fascinated by a completely different side of hospitality: scale.
Large groups, airports, convention hotels, and the logistics behind them fascinated me.
I wanted to know how it worked.

The saying is “be careful what you wish for,” and this story somewhat demonstrates that I landed the jackpot.

I joined one of the largest hotels in town as its front desk manager.
Shortly after being hired, I found myself managing a situation in which the hotel had somehow sold every room twice, an issue that remained unresolved until the day of arrival.
The problem did not start that day. It had been created weeks earlier.
An ambitious sales team, accustomed to significant wash-down and operating in an unstable market, had taken a gamble. This time, the gamble failed.

The hotel had 400 rooms. More than 800 guests arrived. Simultaneously.
The front office team froze in horror.
Management panicked. Guests demanded answers.
Panic was not going to solve the problem. Reality would.
One thing I have learned about myself over the years is that the more panic there is around me, the calmer and quieter I get.

I am not a particularly extroverted person.
Nor would most people identify me as the loudest person in the room.
I may not have caused the problem. Yet when a crisis emerges, I have a tendency to quietly assume ownership.
Not because of a title. Because somebody has to.

Over the years, I have learned that responsibility and accountability are not always the same thing.
Sometimes the person who solves the problem is not the person who created it.
But the guests do not care whose fault it is.
They simply need somebody to take charge.

The bookings were for single occupancy. The rooms were doubles.
So we started with the facts. I spoke openly with the group leaders. I explained the situation honestly. No excuses. No attempts to hide the problem.
In exchange for compensation, many agreed to share rooms.
Additional reception teams searched the city for available accommodation.

Guests who preferred not to accept the proposed solution were relocated.
Hotel-chartered buses transported guests where necessary.

Slowly, the pressure began to ease. The problem was solved. What remained was another lesson.
Clarity becomes most valuable when everyone else loses theirs.
People often believe leadership is about having the right answers.
In my experience, leadership during a crisis is often about accepting reality quickly, staying calm, and helping others focus on solutions rather than emotions.

To understand the situation, it is important to realise the context.

This was Prague in the years following the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The city was changing at extraordinary speed. Tourism was booming, international investment was arriving, and demand often seemed limitless.
It felt at times as if an entirely new hospitality market was being invented in real time.

New hotels were opening, reservation systems were far less sophisticated than today, and market demand often exceeded available supply.
Occupancy levels that would be considered exceptional today were normal.

Our 400-key hotel operated at approximately 92% annual occupancy.
In such an environment, substantial overbookings on the day of arrival were not unusual.

It was a commercial risk many hotels accepted, based on historical cancellation patterns and expected no-shows.

Most of the time the calculations worked.
Occasionally they did not.

What struck me afterwards was how quickly established procedures became irrelevant.
The reservation system could not solve the problem. The manuals could not solve the problem. Escalating the issue could not solve the problem.
Only people could solve the problem.
The solution emerged through judgement, communication, improvisation, and a willingness to accept responsibility for difficult decisions.
It reminded me that systems and processes are valuable, but they are tools.
Their purpose is to support decision-making, not replace it.
Perhaps that is why I remain cautious whenever a process becomes more important than the judgement it was designed to support.

For me, however, the lasting lesson was different.
Crisis does not create character. Crisis reveals it.
And sometimes it reveals qualities in ourselves that we did not know were there.

Thank you for reading my article.

This article is about how crisis taught me calmness.

This is the fifth 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

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

/by

The Stewarding Manager

The Stewarding Manager

As a trainee in food and beverage, one of my responsibilities was serving coffee and tea during the hotel F&B Management meetings.

It was a good place to observe.

  • General Manager
  • Director of Sales and Marketing
  • Chief Accountant
  • F&B Manager
  • Executive Chef
  • And many others…

People discussing important matters I barely understood.

One thing puzzled me. Why was the Chief Steward participating in the meeting?
I understood the Executive Chef. I understood the F&B Manager. But the dishwasher?

At least, that was how my young and inexperienced mind looked at it. Only later did I understand.

  • Health and safety start and end with stewarding
  • Cleanliness starts and ends with stewarding
  • A perfectly prepared dish served on a contaminated plate remains a failure and a risk to guest safety
  • The most talented chef cannot succeed without clean equipment
  • The most beautiful restaurant cannot function without clean glasses, cutlery, and plates

Stewarding is the backbone of food and beverage.
In much the same way that housekeeping is the backbone of rooms, engineering is the backbone of infrastructure, and night audit is the backbone of financial control.

The lesson was simple: The most important functions are often the least glamorous and the least visible.
As young professionals, we are often attracted to titles, uniforms, status, and visibility. Life eventually teaches a different lesson.
Organisations do not succeed because of the people who receive the most attention.
They succeed because of the people who quietly do their job every day, often without recognition.

That observation shaped how I view organisations today.
Respect is not determined by title. It is determined by contribution.

This lesson in humility has stayed with me throughout my life and career.

Thank you for reading my article.

This article is about learning respect.

This is the fourth 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

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

/by

Growing Pains in the Restaurant

Growing Pains in the Restaurant

One of my earliest memories in hospitality dates back to my trainee period at a classical grand restaurant, one of the most prestigious dining establishments in town.

This was not merely a restaurant in the modern sense. It belonged to a different era of hospitality. Guests expected classical service, silver service, guéridon preparations, carving and flambéing at the table, and a level of product knowledge that is increasingly rare today.

I struggled with systems. I made mistakes continuously.
I mixed up dishes. I confused a Caesar Salad for Mixed Salad, Rösti with Pommes Frites, Chicken with Pork, and so on… Orders arrived in the kitchen one way and occasionally emerged as something entirely different.

The Executive Chef, not my direct supervisor but obviously frustrated with me as a young man, took me aside and told me I was the worst trainee he had encountered in his career.
At the time, he was probably right, and his feelings were shared by many in both the kitchen and service teams.

Every day, before the dinner shift, the Maître d’Hôtel assembled the service brigade for a formal briefing.
It always began with questions about the menu delivered in almost military fashion. We were expected to know every dish, every ingredient, every garnish, every wine pairing, the correct serving temperatures, and even which vintage might be most appropriate. We were also expected to execute the full repertoire of classical service techniques, from guéridon service to carving and flambéing tableside. Orders were committed to memory as they were taken, and executed. No handheld devices, no POS terminals, no technology beyond the NCR cash registers. The service brigade consisted of the best of the best, many of whom would later become celebrated sommeliers, fromagers, maîtres d’hôtel, restaurateurs, and hospitality professionals around the world. The Maître d’Hôtel’s management technique was not to correct or reprimand those who did not know the answers to his questions. The stares from the rest of the team did the job, and I received many of them.

Yet, for some reason, they kept me on the most prestigious shift: dinner service.
Looking back, I still do not know why. It would have been easier to move me to polishing silverware or room service. At the time, I would have considered that a demotion. Later, I learned that those duties were no less important than any other role in the operation. Hospitality is built on respect for every task, not just the visible ones.

I was a young kid, alone in a different country, trying to find my place in a profession I did not yet understand.
The venue I was working in was clearly in the highest league I could have found myself in. To make matters worse, I was far too proud to admit how lost I felt.
Or that some evenings I cried myself to sleep.

What stayed with me was not the criticism.
It was what I chose to do with it. And what happened afterwards.
I became determined to face the failure. To understand.
Not to defend myself. Not to explain. To learn.
I started asking questions. I watched. I listened. I practised.
Slowly, things started to make sense.

At the end of my training period, the same Executive Chef took me aside once again.
This time he told me he had never experienced a trainee who had transformed so completely.
Looking back, this may have been one of the most important moments of my career.
Not because I received praise.
But because I learned something much more valuable. Weaknesses are not permanent. Provided one is willing to confront them.

Today, whenever I encounter something, I do not understand, I often think back to that restaurant and kitchen.
The lesson remains the same. Failing at something is not the problem. Refusing to learn is.

Thank you for reading my article.

This article is about how perseverance is often learned long before competence arrives.

This is the third 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

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

/by

Numbers in the Ballroom

Numbers in the Ballroom

Growing up, my biggest anxiety was around numbers.
I still remember receiving a Chinese abacus during “Sinterklaas”, a Dutch festivity before Christmas during which children receive presents.
As the photograph shows, I had absolutely no idea what to do with it.

Looking back, perhaps that was the beginning of a much longer story.
Years later, working night audit in hotels, I had to face that same anxiety.
Excel. Daily reconciliations. Accounting. Basic spreadsheets. Basic financial reporting.

The problem was simple.
I was unable to see the forest for the trees.
I could not connect the dots.
I made many mistakes and gave both the accounting and IT departments a headache.
Back then, I was certainly not on the shortlist for Employee of the Month. Quite the opposite.

One night, after once again frustrating accounting and IT by breaking reports and spreadsheets, I decided to do something different.
I printed everything. Every tab. Every page. Hundreds of pages.
I covered the floor of an unused ballroom with all these hundreds of sheets, blocked its availability for a week, and spent several nights walking through the process.
Page by page. Report by report. Formula by formula.
Slowly the connections became visible. Not because somebody explained them.
Because I followed the chain.

That lesson stayed with me.
Whenever I struggle to understand something, I still look for the chain. The outcome rarely explains itself. The path that created it usually does.

Today, numbers are part of my daily bread and butter.
I overcame my anxiety by facing it.
More importantly, I learned that weaknesses are often invitations to learn rather than reasons to stop.
My colleagues and managers recognised the effort and supported me. I owe them my respect and gratitude forever.

Looking back, I do not think the lesson was really about numbers.
It was about humility. Acknowledging what you do not understand.
Being curious enough to keep asking questions. And being persistently stubborn enough not to give up until the pieces start fitting together.

That lesson has stayed with me far beyond accounting.
In operations. In commercial strategy. In governance. And increasingly, in life itself.
Curiosity and humility are a powerful combination.
Together, they allow us to transform weaknesses into strengths.

Thank you for reading my article.

This article is about how numbers helped me to channel my curiosity.

This is the second 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

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

/by

Hospitality Taught me Humility

Hospitality Taught me Humility

Over the years I have been part of, or supported owners and managers of, hotels, resorts, restaurants, tourism businesses, and hospitality platforms as they succeeded, struggled, recovered, and sometimes failed.

One observation has remained remarkably consistent.

Hospitality assets rarely fail because of a lack of capital, systems, brands, concepts, technology, or effort.

More often, they under-perform because of a lack of alignment between managers and owners about who is responsible and accountable; in other words, or more likely, the fancy language you may recognise from a poster put on the wall of the cantina: “Governance”.

Governance.
This word sounds distant when things are going well, or you may not know the full picture.
But it becomes the subject of each and every discussion when expectations are not aligned.

Much of what I know today was not learned in classrooms.
It came from years of operational exposure, difficult environments, blood, sweat, tears, mistakes, recovery, responsibility and accountability.

Responsibility and accountability are not LinkedIn buzzwords.
They require standing up for what you believe in, and taking the blame when you are wrong.
Managing operational crises, safeguarding debt service, payroll, supplier commitments, ownership transitions, business recovery, and complex stakeholder environments taught me that performance problems rarely exist in isolation.

Revenue, operations, commercial strategy, cost structures, governance, leadership, and capital allocation are interconnected.
Believe me, I have seen my share, and I have learned the hard way.
As a professional. And as a family man.
Standing up for what is right, also when you realise the failings of the other party as well as your own, is not an easy call to make.
It requires maturity. And over time, maturity shapes character. Which proves my point.

Failure in one phase of your professional life, or your business, can lead to maturity in the next. Failure becomes valuable when approached with humility, accountability, and a willingness to learn from operational reality.
The real danger begins when employees or organisations become emotionally invested in defending decisions that no longer serve the business.
That is when facts become inconvenient. That is when reporting becomes selective. That is when accountability becomes blurred. That is when capital starts funding hope rather than strategy.

Over time, I have developed three core management principles that continue to shape my thinking about how to responsibly run a business.

  1. Commercial performance does not operate in isolation.
  • Revenue is not the starting point, and must not be limited to revenue management, but start by asking what is the optimal use of the property (“Highest-and-Best-Use”, or in short: HBU)
  • Revenue is the consequence of a much larger system involving governance, capital allocation, product definition, market positioning, sales execution, organisational capability, and ultimately the guest experience
  • Equally, the outcome of commercial performance should not be measured solely through operating indicators such as Average Daily Rate (ADR), Occupancy, RevPAR, or Gross Operating Profit (GOP). These metrics are important, but they are not the final objective.

The real question is whether the business is creating value: value for guests, value for employees, value for owners, and value that can be clearly explained and demonstrated to shareholders, lenders, and other stakeholders.
Sustainable commercial performance is therefore not merely about generating revenue.
It is about strengthening the long-term value of the business, the asset, and ultimately the land upon which it stands.

  1. Portfolio growth requires differentiated strategies.

Governance frameworks can often be standardised. Economic reality cannot.

  • What works for a luxury resort will not necessarily work for a mid-market city hotel
  • What works for an owner-operated asset may fail completely in a multi-property platform
  1. Organisational capability remains the critical link between strategy and execution.
  • Many performance challenges are not caused by a lack of capital, systems, brands, concepts, technology, or intent
  • They are caused by inconsistent application, unclear accountability, and weak execution at both management and ownership level

Strategy is rarely the problem. Execution usually is.
The compass I use to navigate these situations is governance.
Not governance as bureaucracy.
Rather, governance is the operating system of decision-making.
It creates clarity around decision rights, accountability, expectations, information flows, and risk.
Because organisations generally perform well when people understand who decides, who executes, who is accountable, and how decisions translate into action.

After more than twenty-five years in hospitality, I remain convinced that sustainable EBITDA growth is rarely the result of individual initiatives.
It is usually the result of alignment. Alignment between ownership objectives, organisational capability, commercial strategy, operational execution, and capital allocation.
When those elements align, performance follows. When they do not, no amount of effort can compensate indefinitely.

Thank you for reading my article.

This article is about how hospitality taught me humility.

This is the first 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

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

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