This morning when I read the newspaper, I learned that J.W. “Bill”
Marriott, Jr., CEO of Marriott International, is retiring. As the Washington
Post said “J.W. Marriott Jr., who built the company his parents started as a
District root beer stand [19 seats in 1927] into a global lodging giant, is stepping
down as chief executive, ending a storied 39-year run that ushered in a new
standard of dependable, middle-class hospitality for travelers around the
region, the country and then the world.”
There are many lessons to learn from Bill Marriott, his
family and the company they’ve built.
My first job out of college was at Marriott. After several
promotions, I became the Manager, Cash Management. In that role I was
responsible for Treasury Management Systems, Banking Relationships, Corporate Loan
Agreements and managing the company’s $500 million floating-rate debt
portfolio. At the time, I was 26 years old. Marriott was doubling in size every
two to three years and the company had just passed $1 Billion in annual
revenue.
One day I was in a meeting in my office when my assistant interrupted
the meeting to tell me that Mr. Marriott was on the phone and that he wanted to
speak with me. Given that I was three levels below Mr. Marriott in the
reporting structure and this wasn’t an everyday event, I suspended the meeting
to take the call. Doing so had a huge impact on my career and the way I dealt
with my co-workers because, on that call, Bill Marriott taught me a very, very valuable
leadership lesson.
Here is how the call went:
1. Mr.
Marriott started the call by asking how my family was and noted that he had
heard that my wife had recently given birth to our first child.
2. Mr.
Marriott then asked me about my decision to award the banking business of a
hotel that was about to open to a certain bank. This was before interstate
banking in the U.S. and most banking was local or on a state level.
3. Mr.
Marriott went on to tell me that a very important contact of his was the
Chairman of a bank in the same city and the very important contact had called
him to ask why his bank had not gotten the business. He, in turn, wanted to
know why his contact’s bank had not gotten our business.
4. I
explained to Mr. Marriott
the business reasons why I had awarded the business to a competitor of his
contact’s bank.
5. I
then asked Mr. Marriott if he wanted me to award the business to his contact’s
bank, noting that he was the Company’s CEO and that his family’s name appeared
on my paycheck.
6. Mr.
Marriott then asked me a question. I quote “George, does the company pay me to
do your job or does it pay you to do your job?”
7. I
answered “It pays me to do my job.”
8. To
which, Mr. Marriott responded “And you are doing it very well. George I will
call my contact and tell him why his bank didn’t get the business. Thank you
for your help. I really appreciate the great work you’re doing.”
Here are the leadership principles I learned from that brief
leadership lesson I received from Mr. Marriott:
1. Know
and care about the folks on your team. Make what’s important to them important
to you. Note how Mr. Marriott knew about my new son and asked me about how he
and my wife were. He had taken the time to learn about me and ask me about
something that was important to me.
2. Ask
questions. Note how Mr. Marriott told me the situation and then asked me “why?”
He didn’t tell me what to do; he asked me why I did what I did.
3. Trust
the people closest to the situation to do the right thing and show them respect
for who they are and what they do. Mr. Marriott listened to my reasoning and
trusted my judgment. In keeping with Marriott’s values and culture, he treated
me like an adult and respected my abilities.
4. Say
“Thank you”. In every situation where I personally dealt with Mr. Marriott and
every time I observed him interacting with others I ALWAYS heard him say “Thank
you”.
Mr. Marriott is a great American business leader and one of
my role models, a great man who “walks the talk”. I hope you have learned from
his simple, but profound, lesson to me in leadership.
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