Purpose Over Process: Leading Luxury Hospitality

it's important to also understand altogether that we have different leaders in hospitality you you can't all lead the same way so welcome to lead the experience part of the future of hospitality podcast this series is about the leadership choices that shape culture standards and leadership in luxury hospitality my name is emma wendering and today's conversation is a special one for me my guest and i go back many years we actually worked together at sofitel legender grand when i was still an intern jarun is currently working at hotel de l' europe located in the center of amsterdam a property that has recently been rewarded with three michelin keys jaron has great operational responsibility being the director of operations of this historic property and since our early days he has grown through the ranks of hospitality building deep experience across food and beverage operations and senior leadership roles along the way his view on people standards and decision making has clearly evolved shaped by time on the floor as much as by time in the executive hospitality environments in this episode we'll talk about how those early operational years still influence the way you lead today what changes when accountability expands and how you stay grounded while running complex high expectations environments so jaron how are you doing today it's nice to speak to you again it's been a while thank you emma for that amazing introduction first of all i mean it's i'm a bit flabbergasted by all the all the nice words but so i'm doing great thank you i'm doing great nice nice so i have known your leadership style from an intern perspective many many years ago how would you say you have evolved as a leader i think we started working together i looked up look at it today almost a decade ago so it's been that long i guess yeah so that was my 1.0 version of my leadership i would say then it's been a while and it's been for me for myself it's been a very interesting journey of course being in hospitality for almost two decades but of course in in being in amsterdam for for over 15 years now in various positions in various in various hotels but especially also across the globe within the hotels not only in fmb i would say so that that's been very interesting for me and i've been very thankful for all the opportunities i got along the way because it's always good to be able to keep on pushing yourself forward and developing yourself and the people around you exactly so specifically if you really look back to 10 years ago how would you say what is the thing you can really pinpoint on maybe insecurities that you had to win over or ones that you really look at from a different perspective not even if you have grown as a person as well you've gotten older yourself as well right i think there's a few things ten years ago first of all i had no kids so you have all the time in the world to focus on your career and also to focus on developing yourself and the product around you and i think in especially in my early days i also wanted to prove myself a lot so you really push for results and push yourself for that result i think also if you look at it in the general sense of mentality 10 15 years ago the expectations were also different from yourself but also in general in hospitality so you also go with the flow i would say and i think where especially in a five star luxury environment we do everything for our guests and you don't say no to anything you always come up with solutions and you learn that in a very early stage that the only answer there is is a solution and not a problem and i think that that that really shaped me and also stayed with me along the way that there is always a solution and you're very solution driven in general in hospitality and i think that's a very good thing myself as a leader or as a manager as a person i'm very direct so my leadership style is also very direct which is especially when people get to know me can be a bit intimidating when you don't know me that well it can be yeah it can be a bit intimidating but it's always it's always it always comes from from a good heart i would say so you know 15 years later i i am very aware of my style so it's not so much that i changed my style because i think it's i think it's a very for me it's a very good style because i am very direct but i'm also very transparent i'm very honest in that sense so whatever answer or what you see is what you get and i think that's for me along the way is very important to show people to whether it's guests or other colleagues or your peers to be honest and to show them your real intentions and not work with second or third agendas along the way so yes sometimes that can be a bit harsh but it's always with good intentions and it's business it's not personal so we're here to improve we're here to improve the general guest journey and i think that's from that sense we need to take that into perspective and act accordingly exactly so that's really been something that obviously you just told me you've been in hospitality in general for almost two decades and it is important to also evolve as a leader but i think being a leader for a longer time maybe over a decade already you also have to be aware of things that are also your personality but it's also something that you need to be aware of to also have other people understand how you lead right so with you you're you say you're quite direct but it is with intention so if people know that the intention is right in general and people maybe sometimes have to learn that about you or that is the way you lead that can be very important i assume so self awareness and that i guess is extremely important and i think that comes with years and so yeah very interesting perspective it's important to also understand altogether that we have different leaders in hospitality you you can't all lead the same way so you know is you also need to gather people around you in your leadership team that also basically fill in the gaps that i miss because you know that which is okay i think it's as long as you are aware where you stand as a leader and what are your strong suits and where are your your pit holes your your you know your your downfalls if you gather a management team around you that that that fill those gaps and that you can work with and develop all together and also learn from of course because then again i i'm also still learning of course so i think that's that's you should not gather only people around you that have the same leadership style because then it becomes a bit of a you know one single type of group group of employees or a team which was also not be for the benefit of the guest journey fair enough no definitely that's that's an interesting perspective and you mentioning that you have have been present in hospitality space for so many years what would you say what what park what part of your work today gives you the most energy even on harder days more challenging days what is something that really gives you the feeling i think the busier the better sorry what the busier the better the more vibrant the environment is the better it is i mean for me my best days in in hospitality is when when everything runs like a well oiled machine you know it's it's so much fun to see that when there's just a good flow and good energy and you feel the energy in a building or in a in a group of people you feel how the energy is when there's a great energy and it's busy but still you know it's it's manageable and you don't you know you don't you know you don't need to busy doesn't mean that people are drowning it's good to be like exactly on point of capacity but that everybody has to push a little bit but when you also see the results there is a great feeling of satisfaction altogether also within the teams and for me those are the best days where you can you know you can add those tiny little gaps that that that are created but overall it's just everybody has that sense of belonging and it runs like a well oiled machine nice and that's the that's the goal yeah i can understand that and of course you working in luxury hospitality five star plus luxury hospitality as we call it i've always been told that 100% occupancy is not ideal i mean obviously operations in a five star luxury property is completely different so many more touch points that you have maybe than in a three or four star property what is your perspective on that you just told me that at a certain capacity you operate at well oiled machine is there a certain percentage or perspective that you have on occupancy of a property that maybe can challenge all depends on the property of course and from a commercial perspective you want everything at 100% because that may then there's the of course the or 95% especially with rooms of course it's always the balance between the room rate and the occupancy so being at 100% could also mean that your room rate has been a bit too low so it's it's finding that that balance i think in like in general what from my experience in the hotels that i've worked in just let's put it that way normally around 90% between 85 to 90% everything goes the best in the best way possible when you hit that 100% it also means that nothing can go wrong anymore because you have no alternatives to offer and especially in a luxury environment you always want alternatives to offer because there's always guests that have certain demands or when something breaks down you need to be able to to give an alternative because you can't say no so you want to be able to offer that alternative but then again from a commercial point of view you want to sell that seat in the restaurant and you want to sell that room that is vacant so it's it's always it's always it's always a bit of a balance i would say i think overall it's very important to manage the expectations so in your restaurants you don't want all your guests to come and join you at the same time and that has to be managed by the restaurant manager or by the reservation system or by whoever is in charge of doing that but it's crucial for a good flow that the booking pace is managed and the same accounts for if you i mean it hardly happens of course that you go from from 20% occupancy to 100% over one night but if it happens also there you want a good flow in your rifle experience because all the guests come at the same time at 12 o' clock and the rooms are not ready it's going to be one big mess and then that well oiled machine is not there so communication with your guest but also amongst the other teams is crucial to get that even though you're at 100% capacity to get that flow and to have that perfect well oiled machine is entirely possible with 100% occupancy as long as you manage the flow fair enough and as long as the communication between the teams of course has also been done properly to to ensure that so i mean we're talking about a well oiled machine and and and operational excellence in that regards and occupancy wise as well i can understand that sometimes things also even if five star properties go wrong um and yeah looking back on the leadership your leadership role and your leadership journey so far what leadership mistake are you comfortable talking about now and and what stayed with you from it or what have you learned from it maybe i'm i think i'm too young to have a certain moment in time or at least it did not happen to me that i can recall as such where it really stayed with me for years that i made it like this crucial that i really did something completely wrong in hindsight still looking back on that black day in the past where no i think in general i mean of what i mentioned earlier my directness is definitely something that has worked against me in the past being politically incorrect sometimes really worked against me being too fast in decision making and being too opinionated and outspoken outspoken about it definitely has worked against me although i don't think i ever regret it i have become of course better at it and but yeah that's not when to speak and when to sometimes still sometimes i don't but i think it's also there it's it's part of the character right so as long as as long as what you say you don't regret that you said it because then it's just stupid like that it works against you that yeah that might happen but at least you know you have shared what you wanted to share which i think is is great just as important but if you regret what you have shared then yeah then it's then it's definitely a mistake because then then you're jumping the gun too quickly because i'm also one that that when i'm wrong i i'm very comfortable with admitting that i'm wrong so if somebody you know if in discussion or something turns out you know against me totally fine i'm very you know i'm not somebody to hold a grudge against that or we're not too proud no no not in that sense i'm definitely proud but not in that sense no no only in only in a positive way yeah so interesting enough i mean also looking back on the past few years we've spoken about this earlier i'm curiosity when you compare leading teams today versus ten years ago in hospitality what feels fundamentally different not just harder or easier but really different than in comparison i mean i don't think it ever gets easier or harder in that sense indeed but definitely different i think when i started in hospitality it you know you show by working you show by being there being present but also making your hours and making sure you push harder than everybody else in order to show that you are in that sense better than other people or wanting to push more for your your self development and hospitality is is a people business and we need we need the people but we also need especially in a luxury environment we need people that really want to deliver that five star service to their guests because showing up is not enough and i think that especially if you look at it like 15 years ago there has been a mentality change in general where i am very used to be able to you know when there's a challenge you just push harder and when there's a challenge with a guest or with a situation or you know you need to turn a room around in in two hours to make sure that you go from an empty empty boardroom to full dinner setup of 200 people i'm used to that challenge in a sense that it's just something that you do it's not something that is optional or that can be discussed as like are we able to say no and nowadays it's more towards you really need to ask people everything and it also feels that everybody wants to know why about everything and anything whereas you know if you look at the very traditional leadership from years ago you do as you're told by your manager and i'm not sure as if that's the best way to lead a team because you of course want their involvement you want their support and it's called team for a reason and it's not i the manager and them having to execute it so i think that doing it as a team is very important but you can't run the whole hotel or the whole operation with the whole team as a manager because i mean what's the purpose of a manager if everybody is involved in all the decisions and wants to be with all the meetings and wants to be always everywhere and then when you had a meeting and you need to be able to explain everything that's been discussed in a meeting and also explain why we came to certain conclusions and so on and so on and so on i mean there's no work being done anymore if we're just going to talk about why we do everything so it's finding that balance with giving the information that people nowadays require to work effectively but at the same time don't get lost into a complete business model where every decision or every course of action is being challenged and therefore completely ineffective and also takes out the efficiency of a team so would you maybe say that leaders in general have to be clearer about purpose and not just standards 100% 100% i think just standards and sops are useless without purpose while i also think 10 15 years ago you could give a book of standards and say this is how we do it and we stick to that and it and it would not be questioned maybe in a way like hey can we improve it but it would not be questioned why are we doing this without coming with a solution because there's you know there's there's there's there's different types of questioning of course and i think questioning something a process or procedure in with the intent to improve it is always good because at the end of the day we there's new new technologies there's new ways of working so we should always stay stay on top of the ball but questioning it without having thought of it yourself i mean that's a very hard discussion to have because if you if you say why i need to do this but you have no idea why you're asking the why then it's a very challenging situation and and and that's occurring yeah more than 10 years ago i would say exactly so interesting interesting point because you've mentioned working in general i mean we are working with a different generation in hospitality at the moment and you've mentioned that there's also something how you call it is a generation yeah i mean it's you know a four day working week 15 years ago i mean i don't think we ever thought about that and when you were in working in events like you know you did very long days you could do days of 14 hours 16 hours it's not that you then say like the next morning oh no i only had like six hours of sleep and there's like seven hours in between my shift i can't be there at seven in the morning because you know there's not enough rest in between and nowadays that's more present not always but it's more present and it's it's also a good thing because you know there also needs to be time for other things than just work but it also should be a bit of a balance and at the end of the day we need to work to also be able to enjoy our free time without working there's not a lot of enjoyment in your free time unless you're already loaded with something from the past but the majority of us is not so yeah you need to work and sometimes it looks like the younger generation prioritizes the free time over the work time but then again they still need to work to provide their free time so there's a bit of a yeah it's not really balance in that regard it's not very balanced i would say no because for example i mean we've worked together 10 years ago when i was working in events and indeed those days you're talking about i have done many of those and i would say looking back on it if i compare the two mindsets so to say like the generation y that we've talked about just now i see that around me as well and i do think it is a good thing as well being more aware of your the time that you rest the time that you sleep the time that you are you are able to process the day that you've had to also think about things process them indeed but also maybe learn from certain things because if you are just focused on working seven days having eight hours of sleep in between i don't think that is the most ideal situation but also looking back on it when you are younger i was i think i was around 16 17 18 years old back then i do look back on those days really having shaped my mentality now as well because my perspective is different if i look ahead of me when i want to have a busy week next week for example i feel more confidence in myself as well having known that i've been through those times as well i think it's really also a mindset thing so do you also maybe agree that it's the best thing to take the generation y into consideration but also to look at those really really hard days and maybe find a middle way but i think it's you summarize it perfectly i mean for me i love those days and still looking back on it i really love that period where you do all these events and you just keep on going and yes of course after a high season of three months in a row you are exhausted and you do need a holiday break and then after two weeks of being at the beach you could go again and that also has to do with your age of course but i completely agree that it shapes you as well into into having a mindset where you know you have busy days and you have more balanced days which is which is good and while you get older you find that balance more and you prioritize different things in life but i do need i do i do truly believe that it's very important to have that period when you are young when you are very capable of doing it and when you don't need that much sleep when you're young to push a bit harder than you're you know you're comfortable with to begin with and i think pushing that that pushing is is missing now because there's there's a quicker the the people are quicker in resistance to it so they also don't challenge themselves in that sense to see until where they can go and also get that mindset right if you don't challenge yourself enough you don't know sometimes how far you can go right it also gives you a certain confidence rest of your career as well absolutely yeah it's an interesting perspective and i think also for the new generation that is something to maybe think about and it's you know it defines itself when there's two you know you have two two types of people when there's when we're hitting 100 center competency or a major event you have a group of people that really looks forward to it and says like can't wait for all those people to come here you know when we have like an event of 500 people it's going to be so much fun and you're gonna and you have a group of people that is really like stressed about it because will everything go right you know so many people so many events so many years so many that yeah i mean i think it's it's very important to to try and shape yourself in a way that you look forward to those moments because you also have way more fun than that way exactly interesting perspective so when leadership decisions backfire i mean i guess in in in all those years you have made maybe certain decisions or you have seen decisions being made that maybe backfired or did not work out in the way that you hoped they would have worked out is there a general thing or is there usually something that you find missing that was missing in hindsight i mean when you when you have decisions that are made you know top down it could very well be that they are not very feasible to execute or that in in the already ongoing operation they are not very practical or manageable so you know when saying when you have this very classical type of leadership where top down decisions are being made that works against you and i think especially i mean that's then the good thing of this generation when people do need more explanation and they do want to understand what the purpose is of what they're doing and why they are doing also gives you more insight in where you should adjust a certain strategic decision but overall i think it's very important that you keep your eyes on the horizon or reach for the stars and not be blindsided with too much ad hoc decision making or too much daily challenges because you need to trust your leadership teams that are behind the desk or in the restaurant or wherever you need to trust them to solve it in the best way possible and then together see where we can improve for the future and the future is not tomorrow it can be tomorrow but it's mostly next week or next month and when you're when you're making decisions too radical they mostly backfire because you focus too much on the problem that is then occurring and you're not taking the full scope of the decision or the change in strategy that you that you make and i think in the past that's that that's always has been a bit my struggle where you know especially when i was in a leadership role and not in an executive role you you know you were led by the executives and being to sensitive for all ad hoc changes really disrupts a leadership team in general and the operational teams so for me that is really something which i'm very mindful of not being too invested in in really the the day to day yeah how do you say like day to day i will not say day to day management because of course it is day to day management but not being too yeah micro not nitpicky or to like exactly nitpicky would would be good yeah do you also think because i have been in a leadership position as well but also have been operational for a very long time do you think it's also very important as a leader getting instructions from the executive team as you you are now an executive role but before when you were not do you think you should also sometimes be pushing the brakes a little bit from the expectations being set from the executive team filtering those expectations through as a leader to your team because too radical of a decision can also if those decisions are being made too radically too often i can also imagine that the team loses trust in a leader right if things are yeah absolutely i think that's i mean the people in the leadership teams those are the ones really taking the heater on a daily basis because they're in between they're in between their operational team and they're in between the executive team and they're always i mean i think those are really i mean i don't want to offend anybody but those are really the most challenging roles in in any business where you are responsible for a team but you still have to be responsive to what the people above you say and coming for myself from a very broad spectrum of operational roles i always try to keep this in mind and i always you know when you talk with your leaders and you you know you don't want you don't want to be unrealistic when when you say like this is to be solved today or tomorrow it needs to be manageable and you know you can you can jump very high and say i want it solved but if you set an expectation which is not reasonable it's not going to happen and it's only going to lead to a lot of frustration with your leadership team your leadership team is going to be frustrated towards the operational team and your operational team they don't know why everybody is frustrated but they will get frustrated because everybody around them is frustrated so you need to be very mindful of when you want things to be done and how you want to have them executed so accountability is a very you know a very important aspect here where you together with your leadership team you set a certain you make an agreement you set a standard you take a strategy but also you know the the timing needs to be discussed but when discussed people also need to be held accountable and that's also something which is you know it's not always nice to have you know to keep people accountable for what they do and especially nowadays it's a bit more challenging because you need to be very mindful in the way you keep people accountable for what they should do but yeah important to see where we can support them to make sure that we follow through yeah so but do you think hospitality has become too cautious in its leadership approach or is that a necessary sometimes yes today's workforce yeah but it's the chicken and the egg so if the softer you become as a as a leadership team or as an executive team or whoever but the more softer you go the more softer you the workforce is going to be in in two years in three years like you know it's also it all slides down in that sense so i think we we should be you know sometimes should be able to be a bit more strict and direct and you know tell it how it as it is how it is because it it's it is what it is you know and there are things necessary right there's sometimes that are necessary especially in luxury that sometimes you don't have to like every decision it's not optional to like it or dislike it you know sometimes it's just it is what it is and we can explain why we made that decision and you know you can understand it you can question it and we can talk about it but the end of the day it's the decision the decision has been made so we need to execute it and we can adjust accordingly but we still need to execute it so that sometimes i think is misinterpreted with decisions they're not optional you know we need to we need to go in a certain direction otherwise you know change is always the the biggest fear of everybody right so you want to keep it in the same direction you want to keep the same work but we need to change with all the technology that's going on around us with ai of course and now we said it because it's mandatory to say in every call that you know ai is there but it is there and i think we in hospitality are in general very far behind and of course you have a few few very nice companies and very you know future driven companies in place but in general i think we're still very very much behind and that that has two reasons because we are where people business so it's very hard to have that taken over by ai but i don't also don't think that's the purpose the purpose is to work with it to create a better guest journey altogether and to enhance that guest journey and take away the the work that we actually don't like anyway you know filling out spreadsheets and filling in taking surveys and so on and then put those surveys into a guest profile so that when the check in is there that we know what the survey has said so if you can all optimize all those processes where it gives us more time to really focus on the guest and have that interaction and have that connection it only helps us forward but it's very challenging because there's so many separate different systems and you know you don't have one reservation system you have many and you have many booking sites and you have all those connections so it's it's i think in general for hospitality it's a challenge to to get that all connected in the right way and in a authentic way because if you know it's driven by ai you also lose interest very quickly in general yeah usually feel when ai i think is maybe being overused right when the sincerity isn't there anymore and that's for us the key because especially in five star luxury the the the human connection is is key having you know making the guest feel like they're belonging and that they're home you know you want to have that connection i think with that also comes we just spoke a little bit about ai but also about the people who work at the property from from operational positions to executive to managerial positions it's all very important to have a certain mindset i think that is extremely important and taking into consideration mindset do you believe for example that the industry still overvalues experience and undervalues mindset when it comes to leadership roles i don't i'm not sure about the industry i think mindset i think in general the hospitality industry and especially the good leaders will value mindset over experience and of course you need a certain amount of experience because you know you also see in hospitality especially in leadership roles that if you are a great waiter you are a great supervisor and if you're a great supervisor you're quickly a great manager but that's not the case so not you know you you can be a great host and a shitty manager so i think it's you know it's it's very important to those are different very different skill sets and being a great host with your guests and being the person that they come back for and being you know being that full scope of experience for them doesn't make you a great leader and that's i think one of them the most common mistakes in hospitality is that those two are being mixed up and when we see that somebody is a great great you know floor man and a great leader on or not leader but great visible person on the floor that it also becomes the manager and then needing a different skill set where it doesn't doesn't add up so i do think that mentality definitely is is is is yeah i mean you need to give people a chance that have the right mentality because they want if you want to grow you can grow very quickly if you you can have all the experience in the world but if you are if you're unwilling to grow then it doesn't add it's not going to add any value because you need to be an inspirator for your teams as well you need to be yeah you need to be a leader and you need to lead them it's important right because some people really have a personality that fits better with the leadership role i think people in general who start in an operational role and who see certain things that need to be taken care of some people really have the personality that just take on more things in general who feel comfortable giving people instructions or helping people assisting people or having other people succeed within their team even without being a leader i think at least my experience in hospitality and i don't know how you see that is usually you are you already are a leader before you are promoted so to say yeah 100% yeah fully agree yes taking into into consideration i mean the podcast is obviously called lead the experience so it's also important for me to know as a last question what gives you confidence about the next generation of hospitality leaders i think especially i mean it's what you just said you have a large group of people that want to do more and want to do better and even though the landscape is changing and the workforce is changing you will always have a very large group of people that want to see other people succeed or take energy out of guiding other people and making them more successful but also improving that guest journey which is for us in a five star property one of the most important things of course so you will always have people that step up and move forward and try to do new or different things than other people in order to stand out and lead the way exactly well it's a very interesting perspective and i myself have always found it very important for people still really wanting to work in hospitality i think it's a fantastic industry i think there's so many choice so many options options so many choices to to take within your career in hospitality even if your career is not in hospitality after a few years it's a great foundation and this i think a very broad right exactly and becoming a leader in hospitality and coaching other people within their career and also making decisions to have guests obviously also very important hospitality experience what you want them to experience or how you want them to feel or feel at home even is also very important within hospitality industry leadership is needed good leadership is needed and i think it's at the yeah one of the most important things for property to be successful and i think you're a very good example of it and i really want to thank you for joining the podcast today and giving your insights on leadership in general and how you lead and what your style is and yeah i really want to thank you for your perspectives and very welcome and thank you very much no thank you for the nice conversation and it's been great seeing you again yes likewise thank you jeroen thank you