The Secret to Building Award-winning Teams | LowKey Podcast (ft. Philip Steiner) #27

Speaker A: Hey there. You're tuning in to Loki by Oki, our easygoing sessions for hotel professionals where we chat about industry trends, issues and solutions. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Loki by Oki.

Speaker B: Hey.

Speaker A: Today we're joined by Philip. Welcome, man.

Speaker B: Cheers. Thanks. Nice to be here.

Speaker A: It's been a while. Yeah, it's been a long time. We haven't seen each other for almost. It was like a lost decade. Uh, but we. But maybe some people don't know. Philip and I studied together at hotel school and we were in a year club called the Gentleman's Club.

Speaker B: I like how you call it studying. Exactly.

Speaker A: Well, something became of us.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, we literally studied together and we were in a club together,

Speaker A: um, for a while, organizing a lot of parties. And I remember we had, uh, money, uh, for the first time, and I said, let's invest it in sports betting. And then I lost a lot of it.

Speaker B: So this is true. Um, we made a lot of money, um, doing all sorts of things. Catering parties. I focus on the catering, professional elements. But yes, yes. And we bet everything on you. Yeah, that was not good. And here we are.

Speaker A: And here we are. Hey, Philip. It. I. I was thinking about it as I was, uh, you know, thinking about this conversation, which is about culture and how you create a winning team. I'm very inspired by your, uh, career. I think a lot of people are. And if they don't know you, I want to just highlight it in a way that you don't have to do it. So it doesn't sound so braggy, but. So basically you went from hotel school, you started working at iss. What is iss? For people who don't know.

Speaker B: ISS is one of the largest, uh, facility management firms in the world. So they provide facility management services in all sectors. Um, hotels being a smaller section of their business, but they're a global, global business, looking after the back of house. So if you think of an office like this, uh, their teams look after the reception, the ways, the back of house, the bit you don't see. And so they do this in lots of sectors. Health care, uh, pharma, uh, all sorts of, uh, places in the world. I ended up working for them in the Netherlands and the UK and basically

Speaker A: Philip ended up managing about 300 hotels with, like, countless staff. Hundred staff per Hotel, like 3,000 people or something.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Pretty impressive. From there, uh, Philip joins Cycas Hospitality, becomes general manager. I saw interim for one of the 25 hours hotels, but also, of course, stayed for quite some time at the lovely luxury uh, Bankside Hotel, which we're going to talk more about you under your leadership, bank said became top 10 on TripAdvisor which is not a bad feat considering the competitive market market in, in London. And we saw TripAdvisors best of the best in 202487 that go there intend to recommend it. It's just incredible uh, what you, what you made of that and actually we are very happy that you became CEO of Cycus Hospitality, uh, uh, at large too. But it was mainly what you achieved uh, at Bankside that that uh, propelled us to wanting to invite you here because um, you've had a really interesting career we think in that you've managed a lot of hotels on a distance, but also a very tight knit team. And I remember seeing all of your LinkedIn posts with all of your people as you win these accolades. It was so nice to see it looked like a very diverse group of people and you're there in the middle with your bow tie.

Speaker B: Yeah, the bow tie thing, I mean it's worth to say and the things you mention are linked uh, to me because I'm the forefront of it.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And the bottom helps with being you know, vocal and visual in the forefront. But the reality is as you know, um, running a business as well, it's all about the team.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: So you're just a person representing them. Yeah. And so I think it's always important on LinkedIn or wherever you go, you, you recognize the fact that you're just a, the captain of the ship. There's people rowing, there's people, you know, doing the work. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker A: When I think back to gentlemen's club, you have this, you had this personality that you were able to get people to rally behind you. And if we were going, oh, I want to do this, I want to do that, you made sure that we kind of went as one team. And I thought back. That's an amazing trait to have as a leader. Um, what are you like as a leader today?

Speaker B: I guess I always start with what is the one trait. If you remember back in hotel school, we used to have this quadrant where you look at what is someone's core skill and then also sometimes in some cases when your core skill is too much, it becomes also your challenge. Kind of. If I look at what is my core skill, I'd say there's a, there's a people element, but I think the core of it is planning. I'm a thinker and a planner in everything I do. So wherever I go, whatever I do for work, for even private life. Poor, poor Joshua. My, my partner is. Hates it, but also loves it. Um, I constantly think ahead about everything and so um, I tried to plan out a year, plan out the weeks, the months. Uh, and I think people in a life that is becoming much more um, agile, um, gravitate to structure, uh, and a system and planning. And I think if you mentioned one thing I do with my teams or everywhere, it's that I create some form of structure and planning that then enables people to be themselves. I mean we'll speak maybe a little bit about how do you, how do you enable teams, uh, and things like that. For me, the ground level, the um, what I, what I call the prerequisite is structure and planning. A base level. Everyone knows what's going to come, you know, next week we're going to do acts or uh. And when you have that, people gravitate towards how this guy has a plan. M. Let me follow him because he knows what he's doing. Nice. Whether that's true is another case. But at least there's this notion of, you know, there is a plan. We're going to follow him, he knows what we're doing. And I think that's. And maybe in Gentleman's Club there's this. Yeah, there's that element. Um, I also think that it's just important to bring people together and sometimes it doesn't really matter what you're then going to do or what the outcome is or what the decision is that ah, is being made. So as long as there's a clear decision and everyone follows that, um, and if you're endlessly going to explore different avenues, then yeah, I think that's an important one.

Speaker A: Philip, how would you describe a, uh, winning team and how would you describe a losing team?

Speaker B: I think in the current world diversity is probably the most important thing for me. Um, diversity. I mean in every sense, horizontally, vertically, in every theoretical sense. So I don't mean diversity in the obvious sense of, you know, different multicultural backgrounds or etc. But that is one of them. But I think the most important for me is when you have a lot of different people. So if you think about the Gentleman's Club time, we had a really eclectic group of people. I always, um. Marcus, who's a good friend of ours, um, who now works from Muse, he, uh, we always joke we are polar opposites. He's literally.

Speaker A: You live together?

Speaker B: Yes, we used to live together. And if you talk about planning, for instance, Marcus is not a planner, uh, but what mark his Core trait is this ability to sell anything, right? You have a similar sort of juxter to me. And I think when you have that diversity in a team, you complement each other. So, like as an example, back in the Gentleman's Club day, I remember we were organizing a party and, um, I had this whole plan for this party. And then we had this idea that we were going to sell hot dogs at the end of the party because everyone has this craving at 4 in the morning. And so we created this whole idea, we're going to sell and we'll make some money out of this. And then three o' clock comes and Marcus or you maybe someone said, screw it, we're just going to give these away to everyone and the whole plan is gone. And I hated it. And I was like, no, no, no, we had a plan. We're going to sell these, we're going to make money. Um, but we did it anyway. We gave them all away for free. And I think it was one of the biggest traits that then led to the next party being blown up because you have to go to these guys, because, you know, so I think that balance, that diversity you get in a team where, where someone is counterbalanced, you know, me planning sometimes goes too far. And if you're balanced by other traits in a team, you excel together. And I think that's really an important trait.

Speaker A: So looking back to your time at Bankside, how did you create a diverse team? How do you hire those people? How do you retain them? How do you let go of when you have maybe when it's like, maybe too close?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, we took over Bankside when it was already trading, when it was already in business and it was already doing really well that it's important not to forget. Bank site had a very good base. I mean, it was already in the top 25 of London interpret Pfizer. So we didn't come from a far place. There was just more potential. Um, when you arrive in a space like that, what is really important is to recognize what is already there and what is good and not to come in and say, we're going to change everything. So recognize knife what is there accelerated. So give that attention. But then I really believe in the empowerment of people, but also in the best of people. Um, to my own detriment. Sometimes I really believe you got to give everyone a chance. Nobody comes to work, nobody wakes up and says, I want to, you know, I want to disrupt everything. Um, there are some. But it's one in 100. Right. And that one, that one outlier you can deal with. But if you just believe in good of people, then you just need to ask yourself what enables you. Why are you perhaps not performing? Is that a lack of training? Is that a lack of guidance? Um, is it because you're not happy? Is something going on in your private life? I think it's really important to just recognize that. And so I started the bank side really what is the base, what is the good and where's potential improvements?

Speaker A: And then how did you do that? Did you create categories of this is what's important for the hotel to operate and then you kind of fill that out because you're a structured guy.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Take us into your Excel sheet here.

Speaker B: Yes. Not an Excel sheet. OneNote. One note is my king. Okay. Um, literally the first weeks I took notes of everything. So in your first weeks when you arrive in a new place, everything comes at you, everyone wants to talk, everyone. There's, there's a lot of senses. And so I wrote down everything in categories. Um, and that became my base level list that I referred to because then the day to day take it over. You know, there's employment issues, there's know merit brand, um, uh, requirements, there's owner's requirements, there's lots of stakeholders and then your life gets taken over by performance M reviews, you know, guest engagements, uh, VIP preparations. There's so many mundane tasks that come with a role. When you have that baseless you, when you have a moment to breathe, you can go back to that and say oh yeah, that was one of my priorities. So that, that's why structure for me is a prerequisite. Because when you have that you can always refer to it and it's your base level.

Speaker A: Yeah, but how, how many, uh, we hear a lot from hoteliers I think, I think is a general challenge uh, with like um, staff turnover. M. And like the people that typically go into hospitality don't see it as like their long term career is like I'm going to go in there, work a little bit, I'm young and then I'm going to go and do something else that's really meaningful. That's, that's not uh, like how do you find really great people who really thrive there and who see it not as like a stepping stone but maybe the end game, you know.

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, it's a really relevant question I think of the current time as well. It's a cultural thing is important to say. So we have hotels in France for instance where that Career path and hospitality is much more established. People are in there for years and it's still like you would say, perhaps in other countries like the Netherlands or the uk, you know, used to be like, I think in the current climate, companies like yours are attractive for a lot of young people, um, on social media, you know. Yeah, no, but it's this, you know, we are not doing podcasts and cool stuff like that. And so young people see that and they see that you can work flexible, you can go wherever. And the hospitality by nature of its trade is quite rigid. You know, it's 24, 7. Ah, it's uh, you have to work and shift. Um, you can't work from home, you can't serve someone from home. So you have to be there. And so by nature of that, it's quite a difficult proposition in the employment market. And I think we don't do enough as an industry to make ourselves attractive and to talk about the positive side of that and that the positive side is you're part of a team. You arrive at work and you have a base. There's the travel, there's the diversity, there's the extreme pleasure of making people's memories. I mean, I keep saying this to everyone. There's nothing better in the world than, um, you know, creating someone who arrives and just making it all smooth and just, uh, relieving them, but also creating moments, brilliant moments that people love. There's nothing more better and rewarding than doing that for other people. We don't talk about those enough to balance out the challenges that come in the current employment markets. And then of course there are the geopolitical and uh, challenges that, that come in any employment market that we face, just like anyone else. I think then the other element to consider is are you attractive as an employer in a market where there is, you know, In London, there's 1200 hotels. What makes you stand out from those? 1200? Yeah, why, why do people want to gravitate to you? What makes you different? You know, we're all hotels, everyone has bedrooms, everyone has staff entrance, everyone has a. So what makes you different?

Speaker A: And even in London, you probably, I don't know, but you must have probably 100 five star hotels.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Not even in five star.

Speaker B: You are special. Yeah.

Speaker A: Hey, so talking about that and how, how did you, how did your leadership style kind of evolve over time so that you were a really competitive GM that could get the right best people that could get to the top 10. And then after that we'd love to talk about what a Massive shift it now must be to be COO and you're not an all on location anymore.

Speaker B: Um, I suppose in a hotel it's easier and easier. What I mean is you are in charge of a team that is in charge of a team and that's about it. And so the levels that are there, the complexities, the lines are shorter. And so that is beneficial because if you have a vision or you have a direction, you can implement it pretty quick which, which is helpful. So in Bankside, Bankside might seem from the outside like a grand hotel to some people. In reality it's 161 bedroom hotel and so quite compact. It's a new build build in 2018. So um, lines are quite short. It's quite a compact team where we're just about 100 people or so and so you know everyone by name and so that makes it easier. I think like I said earlier, there was a really good base. They were doing lots of fun stuff but I think it wasn't channeled. And so uh, I thought it was really important to introduce fun elements. You know, some, some of the things that you guys in your industry do, which is normal to you guys, but it doesn't really exist in hotels which is just going out for drinks and, but it not being team led but really company that we enable this, you know doing, doing breakfast sessions or focusing on the, on the bits that sit ancillary to, to just a normal employment, a nice staff restaurant or ah, all of these kind of things. They might be normal here because you have, you know, someone looking after amazing uh, F and B facilities here. We don't do that enough in hospitality industry. It's all about the guest. Um, and I think you know, if you read books like Service Profit Chain or Unreasonable Hospitality, it's all about the team and team does the guest. Exactly. It's the classic uh, Ritzer, um, Ritz or this, you know, we are ladies and gentlemen looking after. It's that kind of notion. But maybe refreshed a new. Yeah, yeah. And then in my current role, so,

Speaker A: so wait, just explain to everyone you went from being a GM, now you're chief operating officer for Cycles Hospitality, 5050 odd hotels all over Europe.

Speaker B: Yeah, so I share this role as it's a dual role. Um, so I look after predominantly UK and Ireland, Netherlands and Portugal, um, and my counterpart looks after another element, um, or other countries in Europe. So we joined this together, Julia and I. Um, it's a very different role, it's much more complex. It's stakeholder Management. So your world in a hotel is mostly predominantly downward facing. It's on the team, on the guest, etc. There's an element of brand owners, management company, but that is limited to certain interactions during the months. Um, my current role is much more um, split.

Speaker A: Um, in that sense looks like a Michael Jackson move.

Speaker B: Yes, it's like a dance. It's literally like a dance and it's a dance balance between, you know, in, in the cycles world. Just to explain to people who don't know cycas, we are very complex business in the sense that we work with all the major hotel brands. We work with 27 equity partners, we work with in, in, you know, over, over 12 countries and um, in that world and, and we also work with different asset classes. So extended stay to full service and, and, and the split there is in bias. So it's literally that complex. And so there isn't one way of throwing out the company and saying this is how we do things. So you might face a certain equity partner that has one hotel in central London and for him that is, or her, that is their one hotel that they're super focused on whilst on the other and that might be an unbranded hotel that is smaller. On the other hand you might have a private equity fund who has invested in hundreds of hotels and they've just given one to cyclists to manage. And to them the part and parcel is hotels, they know everything around that and they have a certain um, investment case where they want to change it around or refurbish it or they have a certain investment case and we have to deliver on that. And you have to jump between conversations with all of those different stakeholders, but also with the Marriotts, IHGs, the Hiltons, the residents, decor heights, all of those. And then you have the piece we just spoke about which is the general managers, the teams, ah, but also our corporate structure and all of those stakeholders. So my role has changed from uh, downwards. You know, I'm in charge of the ship to, you know, I'm at a fleet and there's lots of different kind of vessels there, there's canoes and there's, you know, there's, there's there's massive ships and so that stakeholder management is much more complex.

Speaker A: Uh, as your gm, I just wrote down uh, on my notes, enable with massive capitals. That sounds to me like that's your like keyword. Is that still like a thing for you as a CEO and if so how.

Speaker B: Yeah, enable or empowerment. It's I really that the believing in the good of people really translates also in my current role. Um, so, you know, in that complex world you cannot be precious around I my vision, my thing, because it doesn't work everywhere. No. And so you can't be precious around your view. You have to be precious around what are the views of the stakeholders that are important on each individual deal and enabling them to do that. And I think the clarity, uh, if I look at m the less performing hotels versus the better performing hotels, I'd say it's the clarity on the vision and the approach where there are many stakeholders involved and there's a lot of adjusting of that direction that hotel takes. They tend to, to gravitate into uncertainty. I mean think about it from a consumer facing point of view or even your clients in your world, when there isn't a very clear we want to achieve this with Oki, of course, then it doesn't work, doesn't. But if there's a very clear we want to drive X upsells. Um, if I look at what Okie did at bank said, for instance, we had a very clear vision of this is what we want to achieve. This is an untapped ancillary revenue stream that we haven't explored. We found a good partner in you and so it worked. I think if you just oh, as a company we do Okie and we do this everywhere and so we just implement it everywhere and there's no clarity around it, then it doesn't work, does it?

Speaker A: Cool. Hey. Um, really, really interesting. I think maybe as a final uh, comment, I think uh, it's really inspiring to see you, but it's also because I knew you and how we were sitting.

Speaker B: It's funny because I think it's inspiring seeing you with your business. Yeah.

Speaker A: We were giving away these hot dogs and you were screaming, I don't give

Speaker B: away these hot dogs.

Speaker A: But uh, for, for anyone who might be like in operations now or want to get into it and uh, looking at your like, whatever it is, decade long journey so far. What, what advice would you give to anyone who is like, hey, I want to be CEO of Cycles one one day.

Speaker B: Be yourself. Um, it's very simple for me. Everyone has their traits and everyone is unique. And don't do what I did because that's what I did. Do what you do and stick to it. And don't let yourself be biased by lots of the diary of the CEO. You need to wake up at 5am M. If you are a morning person, be a morning person. If you're an evening person Be an evening person, do you? And then people gravitate to whatever that thing is. My thing is the planning thing, but your thing is something else and people gravitate to you. If you do that and you go full frontal, don't push it too far. You don't want to, you know, alienate people. But do you. And I guess it is worth to say, you know, you have to also sometimes be in the right place, the right time. You have to have built the right relationship. You need to be a bit lucky sometimes that circumstances go as they go. Um, and I'm very conscious always, I always say I'm a white man. That helps. Um, unfortunately, in a world where we are not yet appreciating enough the diversity and what strength that can bring, um, and so I think it's always important to, to say I'm privileged. Um, and so that, that helped me in that journey. Not everyone has that benefit and I'm very conscious of it and I want to avoid that, um, for the teams I work with and the influence I have. But, yeah, the most important thing is be yourself. People will follow you because they love what you do, because you're confident. As soon as you start trying to be something else or adjusting yourself, I think you're lost. This is now the sales pitch. Look, um, I'd say anyone listening to this, um, uh, in this environment, you know, um, if, if you are, if you have a hotel, if, if you have a business case where you need a company that, ah, that understands this complexity and this, um, uh, this multiverse environment, you know, come and chat to me, come and chat to Craig. Um, we'd love to talk to hotels and see how we, how we can help. We, we explore our deals from one year to 15 years to, um, every complexity, every brand, every refurbishment, but also particularly ongoing hotels that are struggling. You know, get in touch with us and um, we'd love to look at your hotel and see if we can, we can help you and do something.

Speaker A: And these hotel owners, do they have to change the branding or can you take it over as is? Like, how flexible is this?

Speaker B: Take Bankside bank site was an autograph collection hotel. We didn't change anything on the, we didn't refurb, we didn't rebrand, we didn't have. Sometimes the business case is just improving the results. Um, Bankside being that example. But it's also, if there is a business case, a brownfield, a greenfield site where, you know, work needs to be done, we have the expertise to help people with that. Um, but yeah, it can be. It can be any case. Um, look, get in touch.

Speaker A: Uh, Filip, thanks so much. This was amazing. This was one of the episodes where I feel like, uh, time flew by the fastest. Normally Olga is like, eric, Eric.

Speaker B: I don't know.

Speaker A: But it just felt like super smooth.

Speaker B: Hey, I'll come back. We can do this a week.

Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes, yes. You're more than welcome because I think we covered some interesting ground, but there's a ton to talk about. And, uh, you're very good at talking, you're engaging. So I think from your specific career of having worked in, uh, which is super interesting because you worked on like above property, working, um, with thousands of employees, to then becoming super knit in like this confined space of the beautiful bank side and creating a winning team and culture there, to then now going back and being CEO, coo, joint CEO, and dealing with, uh, different stakeholders. The two things that we take with us is that you just believe in the good of people, which is amazing, which is so beautiful. And in doing so, you just, uh, ensure that you can empower them and, uh, enable them doing as much good as possible on the basis of a really strong foundation, which is your structure.

Speaker B: Uh, and look where it gets you in life. You get on a podcast with Oki. There you go. This is.

Speaker A: Was amazing having you here, man. Thanks so much.

Speaker B: Thanks. Thanks for having me.