Immerse In Brand History and Culture To Guide It Forward - Michael Pace, The Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel

Josiah intro: Michael Pace is the General Manager of the iconic Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco. In this episode, you learn both how to understand and develop the culture of the hotel or organization you're working in.

Josiah: Everyone has a slightly different definition of organizational culture, but if you were to try to define it, what is organizational culture to you?

Michael: For me, culture, because I believe in it a lot, is having an alignment of values. Everybody being on the same page. I think when everybody gets why we're here, why we're doing what we do in our different jobs in the hotel, they all come together, because there's a common vision. Then you can create a culture. But if everybody is just doing their own thing, you don't have a culture, you just have a bunch of individuals getting a job done.

Josiah: That makes sense. In your career experience, is there something you believe about culture that you think is different from how most others in the industry think about culture?

Michael:

Well, I can say for myself, the way I see it is that it has to be true to the hotel you're in. I think brand and culture are intertwined, and I'll tell you why I say that. Having worked in a lot of different hotels, the first thing I do whenever I work in a new property is, I try and immerse myself and understand truly what that hotel represents. What is it? What is the history? What did the designers intend? And so on.

Josiah:

How do you immerse yourself?

Michael:

Ask a lot of questions, read a lot, read a magazine, read articles, Google my own hotel, talk to people who've been working here for a long time, just to try and figure it out. And then, I find for me, the more I think about it and the more I talk about it, things start falling into place. It doesn't happen overnight. It takes me a while sometimes to really get it right. But when I go to a hotel, that's my focus is, I am here to become part of the hotel culture and the hotel brand and make it better. I'm not here to come and do my ideas and make it the Michael Pace brand or culture. There's traits of the culture, which obviously are tied into my style and my personality, because I'm the general manager, but I have to be respectful, too.

For example, now what does the Mark Hopkins stand for? It's a 97-year-old hotel with great history, so I've got to understand that. I've got to understand the IHG culture, combine the two, get the best of both, so I do service to both.

With this hotel, for example, I realized when I started, and I knew pretty quick, beautiful hotel, amazing legacy, lots of history. That's part of our culture. Our culture is providing beautiful service in this elegant surroundings. Really, using the history to tell our story, but making it relevant. I don't want to be an old, boring hotel. I want to be an old hotel with great history, but bringing it to life in a bit more contemporary way, but respectful to the history.

I'll give you an example. The type of music we play in the lobby has to feel like you're walking back into, maybe, a bygone era. It cannot be trendy music. Okay? It should never be overpowering. It shouldn't be something modern. So I work with our music styling company, that's actually in the UK, and I give them playlists, and we work with their people to play different music. We have jazz, we have swing, we have Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald playing, depending on the type of day. We moderate it so that when you walk into the hotel, it feels like you've walked into this really nice, old hotel, but there's this nice sound going on.

And the scent machine in the lobby that every 30 seconds gives a little burst of scent, again, is a bit more what I would call an elegant scent. Not very modern smelling. Like a cologne is tailored to a person.

When you start putting that together, using the history, the brand, now I can go to the culture, talking to the people who also have been here, some of them a really long time, and use that as the basis for our culture. Our culture back behind the scenes is people working together, celebrating the history, understanding it, being proud of this legacy that we are holders in a way. We're custodians of this beautiful product. That we're historians; we tell stories. That's how I see it. Kind of just this evolution. You keep talking and discovering and figuring stuff out, and then you bring it back of house as well, and it comes to life.

Josiah:

It's very integrated. Travel is a sensory experience. Right? And so it's cool to hear about the music and the scent. You also mentioned thinking about this in some fresh ways, and can you give me an example of some of the fresh interpretations of hospitality you're thinking about implementing here?

Michael:

Yes. I'll go back a little bit. Many of the hotels I've worked with before coming to the Mark Hopkins were what I call lifestyle boutique hotels. The Kimpton Hotels were smaller hotels under 250 rooms, very themed, fun, playful, whimsical. Then I worked for W. That was definitely high-end luxury, but produced by a corporation that was created by Starwood. Very brand-centric. Learned a lot there, really, about the branding and the activation of spaces. Similarly, at the Cliff that was designed by Ian Schrager. Beautifully designed hotels.

Then I came to the Mark Hopkins and this place has been a legacy for 97 years, and it looks and feels very similar to when it did at that time. So how do I bring it to life? As I mentioned, the uniforms that we wear have to be elegant, but also slightly modern. Not too much. I haven't worn a tie in 20 years. I put my tie back on, because I feel that represents the style of the hotel a bit more.

Some of my managers are like, "Come on, Mike, nobody wears ties anymore." I'm like, "At the Mark Hopkins, we're going to wear ties and put on a pocket square and have a nice suit." No baggy suit for the guys. We represent. We are part of that painting. When people walk in, we're like actors on a stage. We're part of that painting. The expectation. If we're walking around in our jeans and open shirts like you would in a hipster hotel, wouldn't it look odd at the Mark Hopkins? It would look great in the boutique hotel. It would just be wrong here.

Josiah:

So it needs to fit. The style. [inaudible]-

Michael:

It needs to fit. Everything. The music, the clothes that they wear, the way we present ourselves, how we speak to each other, the way the restaurants are run, the type of music I'm playing now at the Top of the Mark, our rooftop lounge. We are reintroducing live music on Saturday because a lot of people loved that in the past. We had stopped it during COVID and had a tough time figuring out, "What type of music do we want?" A lot of people are saying, "Oh, we used to love dancing at Top of the Mark."

We used to have some really good bands, but when I started some of the bands were a little bit cruise line-ish. I don't know. It was like, "Come on everybody, let's do the line," the Conga, whatever. I was like, "Oh God, this is horrendous." So I just stopped everything and told everybody, "If we're going to get music back, it needs to feel a bit more glamorous. Can we get some swing? Can we get jazz? Can we get a crooner who's playing beautiful, soulful jazz music that you can dance to at the right time, but it's also a perfect background to the sunset on the Golden Gate Bridge?" Again, it had to be really curated. We have bands come and test with us. Sometimes we like the music, but it's just not the right fit for Top of the Mark.

So, everything has to be thought out and has to be relevant to the space that you're in.