Passion-Driven Management Can Transform Your Hospitality Career - Michael Pace, The Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel

Josiah Michael Pace has been one of the most popular guests here on the show this year. He's the general manager of the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel here in San Francisco, and he talks about something he calls "passion-driven management." I wanted to bring him back here on the show today to explain what he means by this and how it can make you a better hospitality leader. 

Michael My friend Roger, who's the GM at the St. Regis, is going to laugh if he hears this, but I always refer to it like the ignition switch on the stove, you know, that little pilot light. that's always burning on a commercial stove. And when you turn on the switch, it just fires up. I see that as that's what your passion is inside of you. We all have that little pilot light inside. If you know what it is and you know what triggers it, it's easy to fire it up and then let that passion drive you to success. But sometimes we have a tough time figuring out exactly what it is. I didn't know what my passion point was until I discovered hospitality and I called my parents from England and said, I want to be a hotel GM. Suddenly it went, okay, this is it. And then I was all excited. And to this day, I use that analogy and I think about it because I get excited about stuff all the time. I'm a very impulsive person. because I'm so passionate. This morning I'm reading a magazine before coming to work, I take a photo of a new recycle can that I saw. So I'm researching it today and then I'm bringing it to work and looking at it. The flame exploded there, right? And finding that passion point though is important because sometimes we don't know what it is. And I've talked to students at university and I've said, how many of you know what you want to do? And they look at me like all nervous, you know? And I was like, it's okay, you can be honest, you know? And how many of you don't know what you want to do? And I'm like, I was there too, guys, it's okay. And they're like, eh, they raised their hand a little bit. I'm like, okay, good. If you know what you want to do already, fantastic. Keep pursuing it. If you don't know, go on an adventure like I did. Just take risks. Somebody offers you a job in a foreign country. If it feels good, go for it. If it doesn't, don't. If you're uncomfortable and second-guessing yourself, then take it. Don't second-guess yourself.

Josiah And maybe hospitality presents a unique opportunity because you can try on these different roles.

Michael There are so many different things. So that's what I did by working in different countries and having different jobs. I did food and beverage. I worked in, you know, front office. I did housekeeping. I did a bit of sales. You find what you really like. And the passion isn't a technical thing. Right. And hospitality. We have technical technology to do our jobs. But for me, the passion is about what makes me excited every day. And for me, I discovered that my passion is I like to fix stuff and I like to make it better. OK, so in a hotel, there's ample opportunity for that because we are a 24-hour business run by hundreds of people with different opinions and different lives and different priorities. So that never goes away, that passion for getting it right and improving on something. And then also the creative side is what I realize is my passion point. And I discovered that when I came to San Francisco Kimpton Hotels allowed me to be a creative thinker and allowed me to make mistakes and thanked me for it. And that was mind-blowing. And nobody back in Europe had ever said that to me. If I made a mistake because I was trying to be creative, I've probably lost my job, you know. So yeah, find that passion, whether you're starting off or you're in an existing job. What makes you really happy? Whether you're a salesperson or a front office manager or you're a student at university, It shouldn't be the money, it shouldn't be the title, it shouldn't be the prestige, it shouldn't be because you get a Monday through Friday job. What is it, genuinely, that makes you happy? Because you don't wake up in your 50s and think, oh, I checked all the boxes, but I'm not truly, truly happy doing what I do.

Josiah That's the scariest thing. Right. Well, and this shows hospitality daily. I started it because I'm a big believer there needs to be daily inspiration to reconnect with that passion. You talked about opening a magazine this morning and seeing something that got and gave you an idea. How do you stay reconnected with your passion on a daily basis?

Michael just by walking around the hotel and talking to people, getting ideas. It's amazing how much you learn from your own teams. I don't think in hotels we do enough of it as leaders. We don't truly ask questions to learn how we can do things better from our staff. I think we gloss over it sometimes a lot. you know, either out of ignorance or lack of awareness of it. Somebody just have to ask the questions and you get a barrage of either frustration because nobody listens to me, unfortunately, or, you know, have you ever thought about doing that? I had that amazing discussion with one of our stewarding attendants. They run the dishwashers and the pot wash and so on, right? For food and beverage. And we're chit-chatting in the cafeteria and he was asking me about a particular department and he said, why don't you just shut that down? and outsource buying those products because it would be a lot cheaper. And I read in this magazine, that magazine, and I'm talking to him thinking, my God, this is a great conversation. You're really making me think. Now, shame on me that I didn't think that anybody in this hotel has a different interest other than their job. And he did. He was really into the financials and the asset management side of it. It made me think. It got my energy going. Now I'm going back to him again to ask him questions about it because he's making me realize that when I hear other people talk about a topic, it makes me think differently because they're thinking differently. Coming back to conversations, right? Yeah, so you grow. And then, you know, I've been a GM, what, 25 years? I'm still learning. When I came out of hotel school, I was convinced as soon as I got my degree, I was going to be the best GM in a couple of years because I knew it all. Man, I was good. I went to hotel school. I was working for a great company. I knew it all. I was so cocky. Man, I'm still learning, you know? I'm still making mistakes. And that's part of the process, though, you know? And you learn self-awareness along the way, hopefully. I wish I'd learned it earlier. That gives you good insight.