Transcript
Introduction
"So much of long-term success is based on intangibles, beliefs and ideas, invisible concepts. People often ask me about my original vision for Four Seasons. Well, the truth is, there was no vision or grand scheme. In 1961, when I built my first hotel, I knew nothing about the hotel business. My only professional experience was in building apartments and houses. I was just a builder and the hotel was just another real estate deal. I never thought that this is going to be a career nor did I ever imagine, I would one day find myself building and managing the largest and most prestigious group of five star hotels in the world."
"I approach the business of in-keeping from a customer's perspective. I was the host and the customers were my house guests. I decided what to build and how to operate by asking myself, what would the customers consider important? What would the customers recognize as value? Because if we give them good value, they will pay what they think it's worth. That was the first strategy, and it continues to this day."
"The company evolved slowly at first, and I'll admit, I made a few mistakes along the way, but I never made the mistake of putting profit ahead of people. Looking back over the last 40 years, I've identified the four key strategic decisions that form the rock solid foundation of Four Seasons. They are now known as the four pillars of our business model. They are quality, service, culture and brand."
"Curiously, the last of these four key objectives was set way back in 1986. Sometimes people ask me, does that mean that you haven't thought of anything new since then? And I tell them that we make new initiatives every year, but nothing so far has been as fundamentally important. Our main focus is to continue refining and reinforcing those original four pillars. It's not as though lightning struck, and I said, I've got an idea, and we put it all together in a day."
"These decisions evolved over 25 years, each decision supporting the one before. Over the years, we've initiated many new ideas that have been copied and are now the norm in the industry. But the one idea that our customers value the most cannot be copied, the consistent quality of our exceptional service, that service is based on a corporate culture and a culture cannot be mandated as a policy. It must grow from within based on the actions of the company's people over a long period of time."
That was an excerpt from the introduction of the book that I'm going to talk about today, which is Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy, and is written by the founder of Four Seasons, Isadore Sharp. And real quick, let me go back to those last few sentences in the introduction, where he says that the service is based in our culture and culture cannot be mandated as a policy, it grows from within based on the actions of the company's people. The note I jotted down on that page two was this is the same for individuals. We become the actions that we take over an extended period of time.