Grand Hotel: Lessons From America's Summer Place For Us All - David Jurcak, Grand Hotel

Josiah: If you want to learn about leadership, there are few better to turn to than David Jurcak, president of the iconic Grand Hotel on Michigan's Mackinac Island. There's something about the complexity of a huge resort hotel like this that makes systems thinking and operational excellence so important. But above all, leadership. So stay tuned to hear how David leads this place. There's a lot of counterintuitive principles and approaches they take, from asking things of their guests at certain ways at times so they can immerse themselves more fully into the experience, to David's belief that focus on exceeding expectations actually isn't the best way to really delight guests. On a personal note, I was really excited to speak with David because I spent years in high school very, very close to this place and always looked up to this hotel as the dream of everything that was so cool about hospitality. But in any case, I think you'll be as intrigued and inspired as I was with what David shares here. So let's get into it.

Josiah: David, I wonder if we could talk a little bit about the location of the Grand Hotel. I've been thinking a lot about the power of place. Mackinac Island is very unique, no cars allowed. It has this amazing tradition of America's summer place, right? But specifically the Grand Hotel. And I'd love to hear your words. How has the island and the environment that you're in shaped the approach to hospitality and guest experience that you are hoping to provide your guests at the Grand Hotel?

David: So at Grand Hotel, one of the things we talk to our team members about is extended service or creating transformational summertime experiences. Transformational summertime experiences are beyond what you would get at, let's say, your normal hotel. And we are different. We are this Grand Hotel, 138th season, but we are located on a nationally historic landmark island, Mackinac Island. And that in itself brings the extra visit and transformational summertime experience to the guest. Guests arrive via a ferry. They're immediately taken back in time. And it's, you know, the absence of vehicles is a pretty intense experience for somebody who has never been here.You immediately feel it. You immediately walk onto the street and you walk into the street and across the street and you don't see vehicles. You see people walking. You see people slowing down. And what I like to explain to people is the removal of vehicles out of your life, whether it be for two days or two weeks, or in my case, seven months, it is something different in your life. Everything slows down. It is a far more personable approach, face-to-face, chest-to-chest, that you get to see somebody. Whereas in a vehicle, I jump in a car and I drive across town and I get where I'm going and I get back in my car and I drive home. Here, None of that happens. I walk most places, so do most guests. Sometimes, people are on bikes, but most people walk or run on a carriage ride. And even in a carriage, They're not too fast. And so you get to see a lot more. And so Mackinac Island brings that essence or that additional bonus to those people coming to Grand Hotel to hope to get the experience of what they used to have years ago, which is a slowed-down pace on a beautiful front porch facing an incredible, beautiful lake and water and taking in those breezes. But everything just slows down, and your entire body, you know, kind of just melts into everything on Mackinac Island and Grand Hotel.

Josiah: Amazing. And that's what we all want from vacation, right? Slowing down, a change of pace, a different environment. As the person leading this iconic hotel, I'm curious about what you think about leveraging everything you mentioned. You talk about the iconic porch that is there, but even just the environment in general, how do you think about making the most of that? Very special place. How do you take what you have at your property and help people make the most of their experience there?

David: You know, it is a slower pace. There are traditions and rituals that we hold throughout the course of the day to allow people to understand what people would have been doing, let's say in 1887 in our first season, or let's say 1900 or the 1940s, that it is front porch, front and center. You come out in the morning, you might walk the porch and see the sunrise or just take in the morning breeze and I see a couple carriages coming up the street. You go in and you dine, and it's funny to say, but you can never go hungry at Grand Hotel. We feed you nonstop. I mean, you will always have someplace to eat and something incredible to experience. But you go into their dining room, which is a one-of-a-kind dining room. It seats 700 people. You sit in. You're greeted by a wonderful maitre d'. You're led to your seats by our wonderful hosts. We have either a buffet or a la carte breakfast for your choosing. And then you get to relax in that setting. You can return to the parlor, go to the porch, kind of play for the day. But in the evening, the tradition is You join us at about 5.30 in the evening for music played in the parlor or on the porch, weather dependent. And then at 6.30, everybody goes into the dining room. You dine for about an hour and a half, an hour and 40 minutes. It's a five-course preset menu. We have a three-menu rotation. You have five beautiful courses of food at a relaxed pace. You have a beautiful orchestra playing while you're listening, some jazzy, some nice tunes to keep the energy up in the room. And then you return to back to the parlor where you have an after-dinner cordial, cocktail, or demi-taste, and you sit and relax, and you enjoy the people and the company of people around you that you might have met at dinner, or just your family, or significant other that you dined with. Then, at 9.30, the grand opening of our terrace room is held, and the invitation to the first dance is given each evening. And we dance from 9.30 to 11 o'clock, and people then can go out and have fun on the rest of the island or do what they did years ago is that you then retire to your room and you call it a night. But that experience, whether you do that every night or you do it at least once one night of your stay, does kind of change the entire idea of dining because we don't dine like that any longer. Also, we have a dress code at 6:30. So it is required to dine in the main dining room or go to the parlor in the evening; men are in a jacket and a tie, and women are dressed appropriately for the evening. And it's like everywhere else in the world. People don't dress up to go to work anymore and they don't dress up to go to church anymore. Usually, you don't dress up to go on vacation, but it is something special to get dressed up and experience this beautiful dinner.

Josiah: I wonder if you could elaborate a bit more on that, David, because I've been thinking a lot about timeless hospitality, and we're obviously in a quickly changing world. But for me, there's something about history and legacy and traditions that feels appealing. Are you sensing this from your guests as well?

David: We are. I mean, guests will tell me, even with their child, that this is an opportunity they don't get anywhere else. You go out to dinner, and you're in your jeans and a t-shirt or jeans and a button-down, and the kids kind of, you know, you go in for dinner, and that's how I vacation. And so I understand that. But something special about this place, because there are rules around the behavior and conduct is probably a bad way to say it, but your experience because dressing up does change the way in which you dine. You are your children, and I see so many parents teaching their children manners and what fork to use and where to put the napkin, how to get up, and how to sit down. And our servers help through that process as well. But it is a more refined dinner experience when you start to dress up. When you do that, it's relaxed, but relaxed in a way of refinement.

Josiah: Yeah, well, I feel like there are fewer and fewer hospitality businesses that ask something of their guests. And this is super interesting because you mentioned at the beginning wanting to create these transformational summer experiences. And I think whether it's with this at dinner or other aspects of the guest experience, how would you describe that? What is a transformational summer experience? What is the journey you want to take your guests on?

David: We want them, our guests, and our team members to form a connection or form a bond. we talk about to our team members, add value, and create value in all you do. And a little example as I share with them how to do this because people believe that you have to exceed someone's expectations. And I don't necessarily believe that. I believe you have to meet their expectations, but you then have to have a connection. And so how many times do you go to get coffee at Starbucks or even our Grand Coffee and Provisions, and you come in, and you're happy, and the person there is happy? You ask for a cup of black coffee, they give you a cup of coffee, dark coffee, nice hot cup of coffee. That experience is you ask for a hot cup of coffee, they delivered a hot cup of coffee. And do we need to meet your expectations by giving you two? That'd be kind of a waste. But what we share is there needs to be a connection that goes along with that cup of coffee. So as Mr. Smith walks into the Grand Coffee and Provisions, we want to start connecting with them. What is the conversation? How are you? I'd like a cup of coffee. That's great. Would you like any leave room for cream? What are your plans for today? Is this your first visit to Grand Hotel? Have you visited Mackinac Island in the past? You then immediately know whether they have or haven't. Then you can enter into conversations about what to do or what you have done, or tell me a little bit about your stay. They want to, in interactions like that, share information. They want to have a connection. They want to learn from you as a team member, things to do, or maybe some hidden sites that they know that the team might not know. That connection then builds something of value, and I've now connected with individuals. At Grand Hotel, we have team members that have been here. We have one gentleman who's been here since 1965. We have ladies and gentlemen. that have been here for 30 years or more. And we tell them they have created history and memories in other people's lives by creating these connections. And so we have people that have been, Glenn Bulgin, who is our server number one, number one server, he's in the number one section of our dining room, has been here in his 33rd season. And there are people that check into our hotel, before they get their key, they go up to see Glenn in the dining room, make sure Glenn's here. They give Glenn a big hug, They welcome him back. They ask him about his winter. They ask him about how it's been since they've last seen each other. They have this connection with him and other team members. And then they go down and they check in and they enjoy the rest of their stay. That's what Grand Hotel and a hotel that's been around for 137 years, 138 seasons brings to the game and brings to those people as they come into the hotel. We want this to be a generational experience, not a one-time stay, but a stay that says my two days, when that's our average length of stays, was just not enough to see everything Grant has to offer and everything the island has to offer, and I need to make a return trip. And our staff plays an enormous role in doing that.

Josiah: Well, you have a lot of return guests. And I feel like it's interesting to me because every hospitality business I feel wants to have return guests. They want that guest loyalty. But you not only have an impressive guest return rate, but there's many multi-generational guests who visit year after year, generation after generation. And I was going to ask you about what do you attribute that to? But you may have touched on that. It sounds like it is, yes, it's the overall experience, but it is the people as well. And I feel like that stands out because it's such a large, complex organization. But that being said, it is the people that these people, these guests are interacting with is a big part of the draw.

David: It is. And we do a Herculean effort. I say to our HR department every year, we bring 730 team members to the island every year to work and we recruit all over the world. This year we have 32 countries represented in our population this year of 730 team members. We have our first team member from East Timor. East Timor is a tiny island just north of Australia and she's with us this year and she's experiencing halfway around the world coming to Mackinac Island and treating and speaking and working with our guests. And our guests, I think, see a great amount of value in learning not only about our team members, learning how many years they've been here, learning about the way that they interact with other guests and what they love about working here and why they come back year after year. It's just another element of the incredible service and the incredible experience that happens at Grand Hotel. It's because these team members amongst themselves make lifelong friends, in a lot of cases, also make lifelong friends with our guests.

Josiah: In our last conversation, David, one of the things that stood out to me was how you were making the case for the career accelerant that working at a place like Grand Hotel is, given the complexity, given the high service levels. I wonder if you could elaborate a bit more on that. I'll link to that story in the show notes here. But I'd love to get your latest thinking around how working at a property like Grant Hotel helps develop leadership skills that are helpful to someone's career and maybe transferable in the future to some other setting.

David: So learning about a career in hospitality can sometimes be taught in school, a little bit of it, but most of it is on the job training. There's nothing that in a textbook or in a training class that is going to prepare you for everything that might happen to you. In a regular hotel that's busy on a regular basis is a 12 month kind of experience. You're there for 12 months, you're working in different seasons and you have different experiences. Grand Hotel combines all of that in a six month experience. We're open from the first Friday of May to last Saturday of October. We will run 94% this year. So we sold out on our third day of the season and we haven't stopped. And so, The experiences that someone receives here from working here is not only a hotel experience, but also a resort experience. So in most places that I've worked in hotels and I've worked in resorts, and usually they are separate. A corporate hotel is a corporate hotel. A resort is leisure, travel, and destination. We are both. This week, we have the Michigan Bankers Association, and it's holding their annual convention with us. That's more corporate-driven. We do a lot more banquets with them, and it's a more corporate feel of not necessarily service. They still get the same type of service, whether it's leisure or group or corporate event. but the way in which we deliver our products and services are delivered in more of a groups-like setting as opposed to individual meals and things like that. So you get to have this fast-paced, incredible experience at Grand Hotel from both lenses in a very concentrated time period of six months.

Josiah: Just to bring that to life, I wonder if you could share an example of someone that has worked on your teams that you feel has really thrived or accelerated in their career through the experience of working at Grand Hotel. Does any come to mind?

David: I would say Michaela is our Director of Front Office Operations. She is going into her fourth season. She's a graduate from Purdue Hospitality School, and she came here as an Assistant Front Office Manager and has moved her way up. It is the intensity of the season has really elevated her experience level. But the other thing that has happened is she has been able to, in the off season, go to a couple of her other Davidson properties to learn other things. And this past year, we didn't send her anywhere because we wanted her to concentrate on bridging the gap between our reservations department and our front office department, because our reservations are done offsite. And as you know, everybody else is on the island. And we wanted to bridge that gap a little bit better. And so she got to have a full off season of experience of just focusing on processes and procedures where you don't get that in necessarily another hotel because you're working 12 months out of the year. And so she's elevated in a much faster pace than I would say if somebody were to have just you know, work the normal way like I did, you know, working at hotel 12 months and moving into your next position, she's been able to elevate at a much faster pace, not only in her position, but also in her knowledge and work experience.

Josiah: Amazing. I'd love to get your thoughts, David, on mentorship. It feels like such an important part of career development, leadership development. What is effective mentorship to you? What does that look like?

David: Mentorship number one is time, that you make time for the person that you're mentoring. And that's more than I set up a one-on-one with them and we meet every week. That's a give it. But what other time are you spending with them in their work environment or at lunch or at times where it's just a pass by and we meet in the hallway and we talk about how their day's going and what experiences they're having. It needs to be a relationship where someone that's built on trust and built upon the ability to not just think about mentorship in a job perspective, because I think in hospitality, it's much about lifestyle as it is about the job. One could burn out in our industry pretty quickly. So who's actually taking care of you in a way outside the job as well and what your guidance is, whether it's how are you performing in your position or what your next position might be. But I think that in order to be a good mentor, you have to dedicate the time. And it's, again, it's not just the one hour a week kind of thing. To be a good mentoree, I think you have to be open and I think you have to be able to ask the tough questions and feel confident that you can go to somebody to get good advice and direction.

Josiah: That makes sense. Well, I just kind of if I could ask one more question on people, I'm trying to connect all the threads of what you mentioned of time. You just mentioned fighting burnout. I'm also thinking of the unique environment that you're in. And so, you know, it's a seasonal environment where you have all these people from around the world that are joining your teams. I'm curious how you think about fostering a sense of community or culture. I don't know if you want to call it, but among your staff in this very unique environment. How do you think about that?

David: So we talk about that in orientation. And one of the points that we make is we're together unlike any other place you've ever worked. So if you work at Grand Hotel, you work together, you live together, you eat together, and you play together. Because we're all on the island together as one. So you leave your family behind and you move to Mackinac Island for the six months. And so you're committed to your career and yourself personally, but you get to meet people from around the world and experience that. Sometimes in that experience, you get a little homesick. Sometimes you don't like your roommate or you and your roommate might have a disagreement. You might be struggling with work or, God forbid, something happened to a family member back home or something's going on back home that you can't go halfway around the world really quickly to do it because you've left that family behind. When that happens, one of our core values in Davidson is have each other's back. And we talk a lot about that during orientation, is there's a lot of time where you're gonna have to lean on each other. Whether that be, I need help in the work that I'm doing today, that can you help me carry my tray out to the dining room? Or can you help me bust these tables? That's one part of leaning on the people. The other part is the personal side of it is, you know, How do I build friendships? How do I engage with a different culture that's not my culture? How do I involve myself with people that have different values than I have because they were born and raised in different parts of the world than I have? That, at Grand Hotel, to go back to our original question, that on Grand Hotel increases not only your leadership ability, but also your overall scope on society and where you work. Because hospitality is an international business. You're going to be dealing with customers and team members from all over the world. Here, we're just immersed into it throughout. So from a cultural perspective, We don't all look alike. We don't speak alike. We might not like the same foods, but we all are on the same team and we have to respect each other and we have to get to know each other and depend on each other to get the job done.

Josiah: I love that. So you talk about orientation, you're setting the stage for the expectation of how people are going to show up. I'm also reflecting back to what you mentioned a few moments ago about just the diverse nature of your guests. You mentioned the Michigan Bankers Association. You have, of course, a lot of leisure. guests, I'm sure weddings, the whole mix. How do you develop your team's skills to deliver this highly personalized service that you alluded to? You have this whole cohort of people coming in, what is training or kind of service expectation look like as maybe as you begin a season?

David: So we talked to our team members about the most important guest is the guest that's standing in front of you. And then what are you going to do to match their passion level at Grand Hotel and at Macko Island, when people come here, in some cases, it's a bucket list destination. In some cases, people save for years to come here. In some cases, it's, I've been coming here since my great grandma or my grandma came, brought me and my mom and dad, and we've coming here for the last 30 years. And I would grew up here. So whether you're a first year team member or a 30th year team member, the passion level has to be met. And your overall value that you're going to deliver to that person is the person directly in front of you. That 100% of your focus needs to be on that person that's there, and that you're on stage and your performance is for that person. And so when we understand and we break it down, regardless of the number of groups that are coming, regardless of the number of weddings and other things that happen, that are happening this week or happening today, none of that matters. The person that matters is the person that's standing in front of you. And when you're done with that individual and that person is satisfied and that service experience is taking place, then the next most important person is the next most important person is the next person you speak to. And so what it does is it breaks down Are you a group guest or are you a leisure guest? Are you a wedding guest? Are you a person coming up for the day to visit Grand Hotel but not staying overnight? It doesn't matter. All of those people are at Grand Hotel and should have the service experience similar to anybody you bump into that day.

Josiah: In our last conversation, you talked about the importance of transformational service. And I think it's that attitude, right? It's that orientation that allows your teams to deliver that. Is there a story that comes to mind in terms of what that has looked like between one of your team members and a guest that you like to tell as a way to illustrate for your teams, this is what great service looks like?

David: I think it happens every day. You think that somebody has to do something super special for somebody, and that's not the case. Sometimes it's the simple things. It's addressing somebody on the front porch, and I see this every day. I was walking down the front porch the other day, and one of our team members You know, we have 10 flags that fly across the porch, and everybody's sitting on the front porch in their rocking chairs and enjoying the sun. And sometimes our flags kind of flip over on the post, on the pole, the diagonal pole. And we have this little training session we give to each team member that's out there on how to unfurl a flag that's tied up so it's not. We want our flags to be down and, you know, flapping in the wind. And sometimes they flip over and they don't. So I saw a team member stop what they were doing. put their stuff down, reached over, took the cord off, and then unfurled the flag to where it was flying. It's re-tied it. and then turn around, and there was a gentleman that was sitting down, stood up, and thanked that individual for doing what they did, because he's a veteran. And he said, the flag means that much to me that you stopped to unfurl it. That created an experience that I need to thank you for. And you get goosebumps, as I'm telling you now, I get goosebumps. Because it doesn't mean you have to go above and beyond and create this enormous service experience to create a transformational experience. That individual was watching that flag tied up and not furled. He would have had a great experience throughout the day with it or with it not unfurled, but he saw that the individual that was walking by was going to take their time to unfurl it, not necessarily for him, but he took it as a symbol that it was something that he would then experience and it was something heartfelt for him that he was able to share with a team member. So my point on that subject is, Every little opportunity you have to service somebody could make the difference in their experience. And so again, it goes back to the most important person is the person in front of you, and what are you doing to take care of them?

Josiah: Well, I love that. And you mentioned the passion level has to be met. But I think maintaining that, I imagine it is challenging, right? Because just of the high expectations that people have when they're visiting Grand Hotel. I love the notion of focus on who's in front of you. So it's sort of this moment by moment display of hospitality. But how do you encourage your teams to maintain, I guess, that level of enthusiasm moment by moment, day after day? Because it seems like a lot. It seems like it's a season, but all these guests are coming in, so many interactions. How do you and, I guess, your teams maintain that over time?

David: It's difficult, and I won't say it's not, but we share amongst our leadership team and our management team and our supervisory team, anybody in the leadership role, that your staff is a reflection of you. If you're stressed out today, your staff is going to be stressed out today. They see that and they're stressed out. They'll understand that there's something going on and I stress out. If you are passionate about what you do, if you are taking opportunities to serve them as team members, as well as to the customer. So again, the person in front of you is the most important customer. That person in front of you might be a team member that asking a question or, or needing some assistance so that they can take that on to the customer. the way in which you interact with them is the way they're going to interact the next time. So if you come in and you're upset at the world or something happened to you and you don't meet the passion level to your team member, you rise to the level of expectation. So if your boss doesn't have high expectations, neither will you. And so that sets the tone all the time that we want to be able to share this passion and talk around. And it's tough and it's sometimes difficult for me, but I will find people throughout the course of the day that will do incite passion in me. Because there's a few people on this that I work with that are team members that are always, no matter what day it is, what day of week, whether it's our first day or 177th day, they're outstanding and they're excited and they just can't wait to do something else. And I go find them if I need to be uplifted. And so we try to talk to our team members about doing the same thing, lean on each other, have each other's back, but also kind of hold each other accountable to that, to make sure that you're rising to that passion level each time.

Josiah: I love that. I love that notion of inciting passion, right? Because it's, I think energy is, is contagious, right? And it spreads. And, um, and so I think- So does negativity though. So does negativity. Which makes the moments better. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. So as we close, David, I always love kind of asking my guests what they're looking forward to in the future. You know, what's changing. I'm, to be honest, a little bit conflicted of asking you this because from our conversation, it's this interesting balance at Grand Hotel because There's a certain level of excellence. I do see innovations in programming and so there are changes, but I feel like it's a little amiss to ask you what's changing that you're excited about. So I'll just keep it open-ended. I guess as you look into the future, as you think about stewarding the legacy of this property, what excites you or what are you thinking about moving forward?

David: This hotel has been around for 138 years. We have found opportunities, just as the Mussers, our previous owners did, is to create something new and different every year at Grand Hotel. And it could be a guest room. It could be a new dish. It could be something that's new and different, but doesn't take away from the core, incredible experience of Grand Hotel. Because people have to have a reason to come back every year, but not these wholesale changes. Nobody wants that. But one thing I'm extremely proud of of our ownership group and agreeing to do this is a restoration of the front porch, the facade of the front porch. And so we don't renovate anything at Grand Hotel. We restore things at Grand Hotel. And that's what happens to historic buildings. You don't really renovate a historic building. You restore it. And you restore it to a period of time that you think is fit for the hotel. However, Grand Hotel is unique in that we have never put ourselves into a period of time. We are a collection of experiences over time in our hotel, with the exception of the front porch. The front porch is iconic from the day it was built in 1887 and then extended in 1901 to the current 660 feet of the front porch, the world's longest front porch. And so over time, there's been some deferred maintenance. You know, it's difficult to care for a wood frame structure sitting, you know, up on a hill, off a lake in upper Michigan. It gets beat up in the winter. We only open up half the year and half the year we don't heat it. And so it takes a beating. And so our owners two years ago said, we're committed to a five-year restoration where we will take all the columns down and refinish them, take out all the wood rot and rebuild those columns back to their original look and feel, and original look and feel isn't perfect. So this building wasn't built perfect. And it's 93 days it took to build this building, and about day 50, 45 to 50, Charles Kasky, our builder, told our owners, if you want to accept it, you will accept it as is. It is going to stand strong, but it might not be level, and it might not be plumb, but it will stand strong, and it's a beautiful facility. And they chose to take it that way so they can open. And so over time, there are some things that aren't straight and there's some things that are crooked. And we we embrace those as part of the legacy of Grand Hotel. But our so our porch, we want to strip down some of the old paint. And we found this year when we're going to the wood, which is now we're on the on the actual face of the hotel, we're scraping off old paint. We found a paint chip that was a quarter inch thick. That's 80 years or plus worth of paint, layer after layer after layer. And so it kind of takes away from the real look and feel of what Charles Kastke was looking for in the wood on the building. So wood had rotted away and some deterioration of some of the balconies or princess balconies. So we're replacing all those and restoring all those. And then we hope to, in year four and five, replace our current front porch back to the wood front porch that originally existed in 1887, all the way up until about the 50s or 60s. Because I feel, as well as our owners feel, that it's important when you walk down a historic front porch that you're walking on a porch. And if you've ever walked on a porch that's made of wood, you feel it from your feet all the way up. There's something about that that you know that you're on a wood front porch. And that's what we want to build back. And we think that we're right on the right track, we're on the timing. The right time was brought back a piece of the building that was removed in the 1950s. We added that back to the building this year, that piece. And so we're doing some really cool things to bring back some historical elements, but yet also restore the building for the next 138 years.

Josiah: Amazing. David, I am very excited to explore the property. So thanks for taking the time.

David: Well, thank you and congratulations on your success. And I look forward to talking to you again.