Core Values: Marriott Hotels

[October 1, 2013]  Senior executive leadership displays itself in many ways.  And so does success.  Today I’m using the Marriott hotel chain to discuss senior leadership values (see disclaimer below).

I do have considerable user-level experience with a variety of hotels across the world as part of my job. On average, I spend 100 days in hotels annually.  With this many overnight stays, I do get to meet many of the hotel senior leaders, staff, and customers.

The Marriott senior leadership has shared their core values with us on their website www.marriott.com.

“We believe our strength is rooted in our core values: putting people first, pursuing excellence, embracing change, acting with integrity, and serving our world.  These values are our legacy and our future.  As we pursue our vision of making Marriott the #1 hospitality company in the world, we never lose sight of our founding principles and our proud heritage.  Our business is always evolving…but we’ll always stay true to who we are.”   – Marriott Hotels and Resorts

• Putting people first
• Pursuing excellence
• Embracing change
• Acting with integrity
• Serving our world

This list is a classic for a successful business.  It has all the ingredients for a growing organization and is lead by an insightful senior leader team and chairman Mr. J.W. Marriott.  The first four values are necessary for any company to succeed but Marriott has added an unusual fifth item “serving our world”.

“We need to stand together to ensure that the travel and tourism industry is always a positive force for good in the world.” – J.W. Marriott, Jr., Executive Chairman and Chairman of the Board of Marriott International

Senior executive leaders provide a vision and Mr. J.W. Marriott has done this.  He even wrote a book¹on how to succeed.  The book tells the story of how Marriott became a successful company with a type of management and leadership based on a set of solid core values.

Here are a few fundamentals from his book that I liked in particular:

• Encourage teamwork among workers.  Create an environment in which the rewards of working together outweigh the rewards of individual interest.
• Take a hands-on approach to your firm.  Don’t sit at your desk.  Walk around your facility and interact with your employees.  Make sure they know that you care about what they do.
• Managing well depends on listening well.  Cultivate patience and keep an open mind when listening to ideas from employees and customers.

Of course there are many more.  I liked the book.  If you find a spare in your hotel, my recommendation is for you to read it.  It contains many solid ideas and simple lessons that Mr. Marriott has learned during his lifetime tenure at Marriott.

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Disclaimer: This is not a paid advertisement for and I have no financial interests in Marriott.  I am a Platinum level member in two hotels chains (Marriott and Hilton) and have stayed in many others to include non-chain hotels; some in third world nations.

¹ “The Spirit to Serve: Marriott’s Way” by J.W. Marriott and Kathi Ann Brown. 1997.