Hotel Culture and Strategy: The Mistake of Trying to Change What We Do Not Understand

There comes a point in the life of every hotel when the word culture appears. People talk about values. Presentations are designed. Internal programmes are launched. And yet, months later, almost everything remains the same. I have seen this process more than once in Hospitality. And if there is one thing I have learned, often through making mistakes, it is this: culture does not fail because we do not communicate it well. It fails because we do not understand what is really happening within the hotel.

The illusion of culture: what we say vs. what we do

I remember perfectly a meeting in which we defined the hotel’s values. We talked about:

• teamwork
• guest focus
• open communication

It all sounded good. But when we left that room, the reality was different:

• meetings where people were constantly looking at their phones
• information that was not shared between departments
• decisions handed down without explanation
• teams solving problems without truly learning from them

That was when I understood something uncomfortable: a hotel’s real culture is not found in its written values. It lies in the daily habits that no one questions. And the more I have experienced this contradiction, the clearer it has become: many hotels do not have a messaging problem. They have a problem of analytical honesty. They tell themselves a story that does not match how they actually operate.

Culture reveals itself in the details no one measures

If you want to understand a hotel’s culture, do not begin with the manual. Look at:

• how meetings unfold
• how decisions are made
• how mistakes are handled
• how information is shared—or withheld
• how the team behaves when there is no supervision

That is where culture lies. Not in what we declare, but in what we tolerate. In Hospitality, this becomes even more apparent because everything eventually surfaces in the operation. You see it at a front desk where the incoming shift is not given enough context. You see it in a restaurant where front-of-house and kitchen blame each other instead of finding a solution. You see it in a commercial department that promises an experience the operation is not equipped to deliver. You see it in the silences. You see it in the gestures. You see it in the small habits that ultimately define the hotel’s true personality.

The great mistake: working on culture from the top or the bottom… and forgetting the middle

Most hotels, when they try to align culture and strategy, act at two levels. On the one hand, at the macro level:

• values
• vision
• inspirational messages

On the other, at the micro level:

• individual assessments
• training
• expected behaviours

Both are necessary. But there is a problem: real change rarely happens there. It happens at the level that almost no one works on and which, in my experience, is where culture truly resides.

The meso level: where a hotel’s real culture lives

The meso level is the invisible system that defines how a hotel operates day to day. And it is where almost everything is decided. I am referring to things such as:

• who really makes decisions, beyond the organisational chart
• how information is distributed
• which metrics truly matter
• how the team is incentivised
• how conflicts are resolved when no one is watching
• how shifts are designed
• how departments coordinate
• which behaviours are rewarded explicitly or implicitly

This level is not communicated. It is lived. And if it is not aligned with the strategy, no culture programme will work. No poster can fix an incoherent structure. No presentation can change a poorly designed routine. No corporate value can outweigh a system that pushes in the opposite direction every day.

A real example that changed how I see it

At one point, we wanted to encourage cross-departmental collaboration. The message was clear: we need to work as one team. But the structure said otherwise:

• individual departmental KPIs
• unshared incentives
• separate meetings
• misaligned goals
• little visibility of the impact that one decision had on the rest of the hotel

The result was exactly what one would expect:

• each area optimised its own performance
• no one optimised the hotel as a whole

That was when I learned a lesson I have not forgotten: you cannot ask for collaboration in a system that rewards fragmentation. What is most interesting is that, for a while, we misread the problem. We thought there was a lack of willingness, that the teams did not understand the importance of cooperation, that managers were not sufficiently aligned. But that was not it. The system had been designed to separate, not unite. And until that changed, the message was irrelevant.

Culture and strategy: an uncomfortable but critical relationship

Not every culture supports every strategy. This may seem obvious, but in practice it is constantly ignored. For example:

• if you want operational excellence, you need discipline, clear standards and a healthy obsession with consistency
• if you are seeking guest focus, you need flexibility, autonomy and the ability to step outside the script when the situation demands it
• if you aspire to innovation, you need to tolerate ambiguity, accept mistakes as part of learning and allow room for exploration

The problem is that many hotels say they want one thing, yet operate with a culture that pushes in another direction. They want personalisation, but penalise exceptions. They want agility, but centralise every decision at the top. They want memorable service, but manage their teams as though they only need to execute a protocol. And that creates constant friction. Silent, daily and very costly friction.

The real work of culture: analysis, not inspiration

One of the greatest mistakes I have made was trying to improve culture without analysing it in depth. Thinking the problem was:

• attitude
• mindset
• motivation

When in fact it was:

• structure
• processes
• incentives
• organisational design

Culture does not change through speeches. It changes when we understand how the hotel’s real system operates, including what appears in no procedure. Over time, I have learned to observe more dispassionately, almost as though I did not know the organisation. To look at a meeting not for what is said, but for who speaks and who remains silent. To identify whether a conflict is resolved or simply buried. To see whether a decision is made on sound judgement or hierarchy. To interpret the small artefacts of hotel life: the physical layout of spaces, informal communication channels, side conversations, and the speed at which a significant incident is shared. All of this offers far more insight into culture than any formal statement.

What I discovered when I looked like an anthropologist rather than an executive

One of the most useful ideas I have absorbed over the years is this: to understand a hotel’s culture, you need to observe like an anthropologist. That means:

• stopping the assumption that we understand what is happening
• questioning our own interpretations
• triangulating observation, conversations and lived experience
• accepting that the organisational chart rarely tells the whole truth

I have seen hotels with open spaces and collaborative aesthetics where the real culture was one of surveillance, rigidity and distance. And I have also seen apparently more traditional structures, even with closed offices, where there was a much healthier level of trust, autonomy and respect than one might imagine at first glance. The artefact alone does not explain culture. What explains it is the rigorous interpretation of how that artefact is experienced day to day.

The ten levers that have the greatest influence on a hotel’s real culture

If I had to summarise where the alignment between culture and strategy is truly won or lost in a hotel, I would say there are ten particularly decisive levers:

1. Recruitment policies and selection criteria
2. Organisational structure and genuine decision rights
3. Performance management systems and KPIs
4. Incentives and compensation
5. Leadership processes and team decision-making
6. Leadership training and development
7. Operating procedures in relationships with guests and partners
8. Space design, internal networking, and physical or symbolic proximity
9. The genuine example set by leadership and the way unscripted conflicts are resolved
10. Internal communication, stories, interpretations and unofficial narratives

We could add an eleventh: cultural manuals or culture booklets. They can be useful, yes. But on their own, they transform nothing. What matters most is understanding that these levers shape the context people experience every day. And culture is formed precisely within that context. Not in a campaign. Not in a slogan. Not at an annual convention.

What happens when the system contradicts the message

When the system contradicts the message, the team always believes the system. If you preach openness but punish mistakes, people protect themselves. If you talk about collaboration but reward individual recognition, silos become stronger. If you say the guest is at the centre but decisions are made solely on the basis of cost or internal convenience, the message loses credibility. And once that credibility is lost, it is extremely difficult to regain. That is why I believe one of the greatest mistakes hotel leadership can make is trying to preach a culture that its own organisational design disproves every day.

A practical framework: how to align culture and strategy in a hotel

After several attempts, several mistakes and also some lessons that did work, this is the approach that has delivered the best results for me.

1. Analyse the real culture, not the declared one

Observe honestly:

• meetings
• decisions
• conflicts
• information flows
• coordination habits

Act as though you do not know the hotel. Challenge your own assumptions. Very often, the first obstacle to understanding culture is excessive familiarity with it.

2. Identify misalignments with the strategy

Ask yourself:

• is what we ask of people consistent with how we work?
• does the system enable or block the expected behaviour?
• which routines genuinely support our strategic proposition, and which ones undermine it?

This stage requires courage. Because sometimes the conclusion is unwelcome: the problem is not the people, but the design that shapes them.

3. Intervene at the meso level

Do not begin by redefining values. Begin by reviewing:

• KPIs
• incentives
• decision-making processes
• coordination between areas
• accountability structures

Change the context, not just the message. When the context truly changes, behaviours begin to shift.

4. Reinforce at the micro level

Once the structural levers have been adjusted, work on:

• feedback
• habits
• training
• follow-up
• reinforcement rituals

The micro level does not replace the structural level, but it consolidates it.

5. Maintain consistency over time

Culture does not change through intensity. It changes through consistency. It is not about doing one hundred new things, but about sustaining two or three sound decisions again and again, until they become part of the hotel’s natural way of operating.

The most difficult lesson for me to accept

After years in Hospitality, one thing is clear to me: you cannot preach a culture that your system does not support. You can communicate better. You can provide more training. You can insist more. But if the context does not change, nothing truly changes. And I would go even further: sometimes something does change, but for the worse. Because the more intensely you preach a culture that the system contradicts, the more cynical the organisation becomes. More sceptical. More immune to the message. More tired.

What deserves to be preserved rather than mistakenly destroyed

I have also learned something else that is important: not everything in an existing culture needs to change. Sometimes, when we observe rigorously, we discover valuable routines that are already beautifully aligned with the strategy, even though leadership may not have been aware of them. Small habits of mutual support. Informal information channels that resolve matters quickly. The ability to adapt to the guest without needing cultural theatre. Middle managers who quietly sustain the hotel’s coherence. This too is part of serious culture work: identifying what deserves to be protected. Because, in the name of change, we often destroy strengths we had failed to recognise.

Three final reflections from experience

The first: culture is not a project. It is the result of how the hotel is designed and how the organisation behaves when no one is delivering a presentation about values. The second: the problem is not that people do not understand the values. It is that the system does not always allow them to live those values in a credible and sustained way. The third: aligning culture and strategy is not about doing more things. It is about looking honestly, intervening where it truly matters, and sustaining the right decisions over time. That is the difficult part. But it is also the only thing that truly transforms a hotel. Because, ultimately, culture is not decreed. It is designed. It is observed. It is corrected. It is reinforced. And, above all, it is demonstrated. And in Hospitality, where everything ultimately translates into experience, that difference is felt. The team feels it. The guest feels it. And sooner or later, the business does too.