Podcast alert. Again.
In this episode I wanted to take a look at the evolution of leadership in hospitality.
Understanding that in today’s economic context the old models of optimizing for efficiency, stability and perfecting the systems are losing traction fast, we should build for adaptability and lead through context setting, when we move from decisions under information scarcity to judgement under information overload, we should learn to ask better questions, understand nuance.
Also, looking at hotels, specifically, outstanding guest experiences – the holy grail – are made up of hundreds of micro decisions, a truth calling for frontline empowerment rather than top down control, for leaders who can create coherent culture and purpose.
To get a deeper understanding of what might be next in leadership, should be next, I invited Jannes Sörensen to the pod, a world-renowned former GM, alumnus of places like George V, Le Bristol, the Connaught and the Beaumont and who today is the founder of the Kepler International Hospitality Academy (and also the Kepler Hotel Group).
We talked about sense-making and self-leadership as mission critical super powers, about why SOPs still have a reason to exist and how hiring for personality is often misunderstood, we talked about the idea of deep service, the philosophy of Omotenashi, about focusing on attention and care in the process, about inhabiting the work and how the state of being transmits through the act, and how what Jannes is aiming at is not adding another certificate to the curriculum but a rethinking of excellence.
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In the second part of the talk we talked about a different idea of luxury, as everybody does these days, but Jannes really caught my attention by claiming this:
“True luxury is about being uncomfortable.”
To get to the bottom of that we talked about Maslow, of course, the self-actualization and transcendence stages, about how this is not about the Esalen Institute coming to a theatre near you, we talked about how transformative experiences shouldn’t be another case of more content, we talked about whether luxury is the removal of everything but yourself and about how that does not translate into monastic asceticism but maybe into stopping the noise and at the end Jannes delivered a closing statement that definitely no one should miss.
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In the end, it seems, in leadership as well as in luxury, it is all about creating an environment in which we observe, where there are minimal but precise interventions, where it’s not about giving answers all the time, but creating conditions for meaningful discovery.
That being said, thank you so much, Jannes, for an hour of meaningful discovery, I have come out all the wiser and it was great fun, very much hoping for a sequel.
Also, again, a big thank you to Josiah Mackenzie for giving me the space & freedom to have those conversations.
Available from today on Hospitality Daily and wherever you get your podcasts.
(Image: KIHA)
