July 1989: Stan Bromley: Clift Dwelling

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Stan Bromley’s brow furrows. This is a crucial moment in his hotel career and he doesn’t want to blow it. In the lobby of his hotel, The Four Seasons Clift (San Francisco), he draws me aside. “I have never—ever—been this nervous. I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in over a week. One screw-up—that’s all it takes.”

Bromley is the Clift’s general manager. His lobby is alive with idle chit-chat. He is monitoring every move. His eyes dart hither, thither, and yon searching for screw-ups. Busloads of guests and writers, shuttled from the airport VIP-style to the Clift, shuffle about the lobby, waiting for room keys. No one stands in line; no one signs registers; no one presents credit cards. The Clift is one of two host hotels for this auspicious event and Bromley has seen to it there will be no formal check-in.

Behind the front desk, employees announce names, pass out room keys and envelopes containing badges and information detailing the activities of the weekend. The lobby is a tight little island. It has, however, all of the power and majesty of atria one hundred times its size. It is a kind and gentle place (an oasis by comparison) packed with an assortment of guest-friendly services.

There is in the midst of all of this activity—the shuffling and searching—no confusion, no harassment, no discomfort, no impatience. Remarkably, but predictably, everything falls into place smoothly. It is a marvelous sight to behold; but Bromley continues to monitor, to look for screw-ups.

And get this: employees, eschewing the impassive rigidity of routine, even take the time (it’s really only a matter of a few seconds) to engage each guest in casual chatter that communicates instantly how genuinely pleased the hotel is that he or she has chosen to stay at the Clift instead of one of a dozen others in the city none—not by a long shot—the Clift’s equal.

The service is typically Cliftian: a work of art shaped, molded, and fired by Bromley—constantly refined. The measure of how well it works is not just in its execution, but in the spirit that suffuses it. Other hotels have tried to emulate it, only to have given up. Bromley is Bromley; he cannot be emulated. Neither he nor his management skills is emulatable.

Back in the lobby, he moves from guest to guest. He greets everyone, smiles at everyone, jokes with everyone. Between greets and smiles and jokes, he works the room. That is to say, he works the room. Some stuff, most of it imperceptible to the naked eye—lint, string, a speck of paper—clutters the carpet. He stoops to pick it up. Bellman scoot about lugging luggage. There is a lot more of the latter than of the former. Bromley lugs luggage.

Ever since joining the Clift in 1983 (he was formerly g.m. of the Hyatt on Union Square—also San Francisco), he does what he has always done when managing: he works with his employees, not indifferently, always sympathetically, concerned about their concerns on the job and off. Wherever and whenever he wanders throughout the hotel to talk with them, they know he is there not to intimidate or snoop, but to help, to instruct, to share in the pleasure of their work, to find out what they need.

He is still looking for screw-ups.

“I have never—ever—been this nervous.”

The Clift and The Stanford Court Hotel are co-hosting the annual Mobil Travel Guide Five-Star awards weekend. Both are 5-Star winners which is why they are splitting the hosting chores.

For several years now, the Clift has passed with flying colors the Guide’s rigorous inspections. Now, all of a sudden, descending on the hotel are a passel of 5-Star award winners and a bunch of writers who may or may not have ever stayed at the Clift but who, nevertheless, are eager to find out what all the fuss is about and what the Clift and The Stanford Court will do to prove they deserve the recognition from Mobil. The 5-Star winners, like it or not, will compare what the Clift has to offer with what they have to offer; and either conclude that they fall short or the Clift does. Add to these groups, heavyweights from Mobil from board chairman Allen Murray on down, and you begin to understand what it is that gives Bromley pause.

“We know we’re a great hotel,” Bromley says, “but the sort of scrutiny we come under this weekend is a far cry from the inspections Mobil conducts. It’s as if they’re saying, ‘OK, we gave you five stars, now prove it.’”

Throughout the weekend, the hotel performs flawlessly, functions effortlessly.

That, however, is not enough.  It is never enough for Bromley. The awards weekend behind him, he starts in to fret again. Matter of fact, I have never known Bromley not to fret. Fretting is in his genes. He is obsessed with quality, questioning always his values, his influence, his performance; the values and performance of his employees. He is obsessed with the fret of fretting.

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On an end table in his office a crudely carved fish sports a clothespin on its nose. It symbolizes Bromley’s fretting; it is also a metaphor for what bothers Bromley and what afflicts many of his competitors. The fish stinks from the head down. The putrescence of decaying management corrupts the work ethic, contaminates the work environment, and eventually drives from the joint everyone from employee to guest.

The fish image haunts Bromley. He frets about it.

He frets about the new hotels under construction in San Francisco; he frets about the new hotels just opened in San Francisco; he frets about their impact on his business. Developers are spending millions of dollars equipping hotels lavishly: The Portman, the Mandarin, the Ritz-Carlton, The Mega This, The Exquisite That. Bromley prizes his awards and he thinks the new Exquisite and Mega might snatch them from him.

The fish image keeps Bromley on his toes. He knows it. His employees know it. His competition know it. Here’s how it works. Here’s why Bromley, so long as he remains Bromley, has nothing to worry about even though he will never cease fretting:

If the fish stinks from the head down, then you must always have fresh fish. Whatever standards Bromley espouses today, he may discard—like smelly fish—tomorrow, especially when a competitor, in cribbing them, flaunts them as originals. Bromley’s standards are not those of the industry—they are beyond baseline, beyond best, even after he discards them. In discarding or superseding them periodically, he improves his stature in the industry and, at the same time, stays several steps ahead of the competition. Fringe benefit?  It pleases Mobil to know that what it has judged as one of the best, is.

Afterthoughts: A Last Minute Replacement for a Nametag…click here to read more.

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Afterthoughts: A Last Minute Replacement for a Nametag

I met Stan Bromley in 1973. He was food and beverage manager of The Stanford Court, San Francisco. We hit it off from the start. We’ve been close friends ever since. How close? This close:

My wife, Jeanne, and I are at the Mobil 5-Star event. When we arrive at The Clift, the front desk hands us our check-in envelope containing everything we need: room keys, a program of the weekend events, nametags with our given names in very large black type, and a few other nifty amenities, courtesy The Clift and Mobil. Once in our room, I check our nametags. Jeanne’s is correct; the name on mine is not: it’s Steve, not Stephen. I have never liked the nickname Steve. Because I don’t wish to go through the weekend known, summoned or shouted at as Steve, I call Stan—still up to his ass in fretting—and ask him if he wouldn’t mind printing a new nametag with the given name I prefer. Not a problem he tells me. “It’ll look just like the old one, not something free-hand-scrawled in Magic Marker?” I ask. Not a problem, he says.

Ten minutes later, one of Stan’s interns enters our room with the brand new nametag. It is on a silver platter, cloche-covered. As befits an intern of the Four Seasons Hotel, he ceremoniously lifts the cloche, gently places it on the coffee table, hands the silver platter to Jeanne, bows out.  As promised, the nametag isn’t Steve. It isn’t Stephen, either.  It is “Asshole.” Just like the original “Steve,” “Asshole” is in very large black type. Jeanne can’t stop laughing. She wants to know what I plan to do with it. “Wear it,” I say. “I’ll wear it tonight to the opening reception.” Don’t you dare, she says. I do dare. The photographer with Mobil takes a picture of me at the reception, the nametag on the pocket of my suit visible for everyone to see. Stan is standing next to me. I still have the nametag. And the photograph.

The next day Jeanne finds a note under the door of our room. It is from Stan: “You forgot to tip the intern.”

Stan Bromley: Prime Time DC PR

Did Stan Bromley’s reputation precede him? Well, sort of. Employees of The Four Seasons Hotel, Washington, DC,  had an inkling of what to expect, stemming from reports (in and out of the media) of how he comported himself while v.p.-ing and managing The Clift Hotel (also Four Seasons), San Francisco. It was a comporting, as anyone close to Bromley will tell you, unlike anything preached or practiced at Cornell or at the hotel school, Lausanne, France, which is where, you should know, Bromley learned quelque chose about running un hôtel grand.

Suffice to say that Bromley, in addition to knowing exactly how to run a luxury hotel (you run it the way you run any hotel—world class or underclass: you treat your employees like human beings and the guests like royalty), has a sense of humor, a feature as tough to find in the Land of Hoteliers (especially in that subterranea known as Washington, D.C.) as it is to unearth truffles in Newark.

Talk to any employee at the Four Seasons in D.C. and you learn quickly, even though apprehension loomed before he set foot in the place last summer, that there loomed, too, a promise that, from suitcases crammed full of treasures, Bromley would unpack jewels of management technique that not only would profit each and every one of them, but would stir things up in a city with a reputation for preening and pretense.





Before proceeding further, we should note here what is common knowledge for many of the poor souls trapped in an environment that feeds on flash and sham: that environment, they’ll tell you, is fertilized (no better word) by politicians, diplomats, lobbyists, and their retinues utterly consumed by illusion and detachment from reality; and cheer-led by a media always looking for ways to horn in on their shenanigans.

That being the case—and few there are who would dispute any of this—hoteliers in D.C. are, by and large, an uptight bunch sporting white gloves over the fingers of their minds, loath to remove them for fear what might be revealed to guests and colleagues is a personality bespeaking principle and integrity.

Enter Bromley who, in less time than it takes to say “anal retentive,” has endeared himself to the media, occupying gossipy spaces in the pages of The Washingtonian, a monthly city magazine, and The Washington Post.

Don’t get me wrong: it is not that Bromley has set Washington on its ear with his exploits (that would take a far more alarming event—say, mud wrestling in the Rose Garden between Raisa Gorbachev and Nancy Reagan), it’s just that the media has discovered in him a refreshing presence long absent from the city’s hotel scene.

Bromley’s most recent PR gambit was brilliant. It took place recently when First Lady Barbara Bush lunched at the hotel’s Aux Beaux Champs restaurant. Rather than fawn over her as every other hotelier is wont to do, Bromley instead—recalling the attention the press paid to Mrs. Bush’s faux pearl necklace—purchased at a nearby store a tiny strand of faux pearls for First Pooch, Millie. He had it gift-wrapped, then placed in the Bush limo with a note of thanks and explanation.

Did the press notice?

Aside from a recounting in the gossip column of The Post of what may have taken place at the First Lady’s lunch, there was this observation : “Known as a hustling hotelier with a sense of humor at a hotel that takes itself too seriously, Bromley decided he didn’t want to bother the First Lady with the usual obsequious fussing she has to endure.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Afterthoughts: Why There is More than One Essay About Bromley


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Afterthoughts: Why There is More than One Essay About Bromley

Whenever I needed a stimulating, occasionally colorful, comment about what was going on in the hotel business, I’d call Stan Bromley. Something about hotel food and beverage or housekeeping? Call Stan. An opinion of a newfangled, yet utterly insipid, hotel management strategy? Bromley, of course. A brand extension that made absolutely no sense whatsoever? Stan had ideas. A comment or two about the competition? Even though, wherever Stan worked, he was surrounded by 5-star and 5-star wannabe hotels, he welcomed the fight and told me of strategies he deployed that worked.

He was for me what Henry Kissinger was for every hard news reporter during and after the Nixon years: the reliable go-to person for suitable reflection on an issue; for quotable quotes: a soundbite, perhaps, that would rock the world. Was there anyone else reporters could depend on? Not many. Furthermore, for TV reporters, who else had that voice?

Just as Kissinger’s name would appear regularly in the news media, mentioned regularly during newscasts, so would Stan’s, every once in a while, in my columns. If I was looking for a candid, no-frills put-down of common sense gone haywire, Bromley had unadorned and, every once in a while, off-color jabs galore. Then, too, during moments of casual conversation when we might be talking about a ballgame, a great dinner, a wonderful novel, a terrific bottle of wine, or the dissing of fools (some of them suckups begging Stan for comps because they were, after all, comp-worthy), he’d recall something spur of the moment that had little to do with what we were talking about (something about an event that had just taken place at his hotel or his thoughts about a competitor who had done something reckless), I would make a mental note to use some of what he said with or without credit, the focus of a future column.

Of the more than 300 feature stories I wrote, Stan was the subject of four or five. The number was beside the point—column or feature; four, five or 100—he was a source of reliable, witty, candid, intelligent and, often, provocative thought. I trusted him, he trusted me. Why wouldn’t I want to go to him more often than I would to others, most of whom, unlike Stan, would hedge their comments, inflate advantage, milk the truth about themselves and their company or property, and be unfairly or irresponsibly critical of the competition, market conditions, and the state of the industry?

This also is worth noting: Stan retired October 2005 from an illustrious career as one of this country’s finest hotel executives. His last fulltime job: West Coast regional v.p., Four Seasons; and g.m., The Four Seasons, San Francisco. He had been with The Four Seasons in various roles for 23 years. Before that, with Hyatt Regency where he rose from general manager of the Ford Motor Co.-owned, Dearborn Hyatt to corporate v.p., food and beverage.  If today you were to ask anyone in the hotel business to name the top 10 innkeepers ever in the United States, my bet is that most would mention Stan as one of them. Currently (2014), Stan is a consultant for Meadowood Resorts ($500 rack), Napa.

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October 1992: “The Structure”: Narrowing the Margins of Consistency

The Four Seasons, Chicago

Cosmetically, it’s a knockout, an instant classic. Big deal: so are at least half-a-dozen others it competes with. One of them just across the street; another—the recent beneficiary of a pricey make-over—a couple of blocks away. All are wired with computer-age gadgetry offering state-of-the-art efficiencies. Amazing amenities dot their spaces. Rooms and public spaces are designer flawless. What separates one from the other? What earns one, in less than three years, Five Stars from Mobil—the first hotel in Chicago to be so honored in 25 years; the only hotel today in Chicago to be singled out? 

“When we started out, our service had peaks and valleys: some guest experiences were fantastic, others were lousy. Today, no peaks, no valleys: we have successfully narrowed the margins of consistency. We give the guest what he wants when and how he wants it—no questions asked—which means we don’t consider a guest’s request, regardless of how silly it might be, an intrusion into our time.”

I’m walking the corridors and halls of The Four Seasons, Chicago, with Hans Willimann, the hotel’s general manager. His voice, still spiked with a Swiss accent, lilts and soars—simultaneously soothing and serious. His thoughts are thoughtful—full of insights; overflowing with anecdotes; alive with a contemplative self-assurance that quashes humbug, but at the same time invites the honesty of a well-honed challenge.  

He tells me that when he arrived in Chicago a little more than two and a half years ago, he deliberately hired division heads who knew more about what they were hired to do than he did.

“Why not hire the best? I don’t know everything,” he says. “I have the best manager—correction: the most qualified managers in the company: the best engineer, the best comptroller, the best food and beverage manager. Whomever I hire, he or she is the best. And since they know I know they are the best and respect that they are the best, they do whatever it takes to make us the best. They make my job easier.”

He is neither troubled nor threatened by their authority. He rarely questions their opinions. It is part of what he calls, “The Structure.”

“What I do,” he says, “is set the tone: ‘a structure of excellence’ as it were. Once it’s set, employees try to match it.”

Once The Structure is in place, each employee effort, each contribution—regardless of effect or consequence—defines and fortifies the hotel’s commitment to excellence. And so it is that when someone quits, no one will notice the void. Or so Willimann hopes.

“I’ve been in this business long enough to know that nothing is permanent.”

Willimann has been with Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts for14 years. He knows he will lose good people. The Four Seasons in Boston, where Willimann (one of the good people) was general manager, lost him when the company opened Chicago and moved him there to run it.

Says Willimann, “That’s the drawback of having good people working for you: you know eventually they will leave to go someplace else, perhaps to another one of our hotels, perhaps to our competition. However, if The Structure is in place and working, then everyone—you hope—is consumed by quality; and, should you lose someone, the person in line to be promoted to replace the person you’ve just lost is just as good, maybe better. If The Structure works, our product quality—never static—improves.”

Ergo: The Structure is always in a state of flux. The movement and interaction of employees among themselves and with guests constantly reshapes and redefines it.

“Correct,” says Willimann, “but, for The Structure to work, you must hire competency at every level from entry to the top. Let’s say I need to hire an executive chef. First of all, he must have a solid culinary background; second, he has to have a hotel background. He has to be an accomplished chef even before I think about hiring him. And then—and then: he has to fit into the framework of The Structure. His behavior, his temperament must be compatible with the rest of the group.”

Unlike most other departments that collectively make up the guts of the hotel—whose activities, for the most part, go unnoticed; whose functions are criticized infrequently; or whose raison d’être questioned to the point of distraction—foodservice stands alone, is quintessential. “It is,” Willimann says, “the face of the hotel.” As such it is vulnerable to a wide range of criticism from anyone who takes advantage of it, not just hotel guests.

A warren of dust bunnies swirling beneath a guest’s bed or a malfunctioning front-desk computer will never bring down a hotel. Incompetent, uninspired, indifferent foodservice, no matter how trivial, will. It’ll scar the “face.” If the scarring takes place, let’s say in one of the hotel’s restaurants, it’ll stain the value of every food and beverage service the hotel provides to include banquet and catering.

“Remember when I said my executive chef must have a hotel background? Here’s what I meant. The marketing plan a hotel executive chef has to execute is worlds apart from the marketing plans anywhere else, especially those in independent restaurants. From banquet and catering to roomservice, from cafes to fine-dining, my exec chef is dealing constantly with a mixed bag of guests whose demands and choices are way different from the typical dining-out consumer who decides, often on a whim and from a list of miscellaneous restaurant choices—either chain or independent—where he or she will go to eat. The typical hotel does not offer miscellaneous choices; ours offers two, three if you include the bar and lounge.”

Willimann instinctively (14 years in the business helps) knows this: hotel customers are so diverse (from business people to tourists to families on vacation) and their needs so immediate, impulsive, and demanding that hotel food and beverage personnel must be prepared, psychologically and intuitively, to satisfy their often arbitrary and impetuous demands with all sorts of food and drink from the moment they wake up until they go to bed. A la minute is a Willimann core value.

“My exec chef must understand and be willing to deal with all of this, either by himself or instilling that attitude in every employee in food and beverage who reports to him,” he says.

This, too: The Structure works because Willimann does. He never pretends.

“I love to work here; but I also want everybody else who works here to enjoy coming here—to work in a safe environment; to eat what they want to eat; to have clean uniforms, clean washrooms.”

Guests check in, they check out: from public to private spaces, they wander in and out of pockets of extraordinary opulence. Needless to say, there exists a marked contrast between the experience of the guest and that of the employee. Their venues are different; so, too, their functions and purpose.

Says Willimann, “I am completely committed to creating a work environment that pleases everyone. If everyone’s pleased, I feel it, and so do the guests.

“I try to make sure employees are unencumbered by outside pressures; and if they exist, I want to alleviate them. I go out of my way to stimulate people. I talk to everyone. I comment on how they look, their lives, their work. I motivate them by telling them genuinely how I feel about them. When they slip up, we talk and that’s it. I bear no grudge and they know that.”

Four Seasons Hotel: Thomas Barrat