Page 263 - Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company

244 The Disney Way

“100 Best Companies to Work For.” Changing an organizational culture is
a daunting task requiring much more than strategic leadership, but Ernst &
Young set out to do it and succeeded.

Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts
Dream

Doug Ludwig, recently retired CFO of Four Seasons, first met founder
and CEO Isadore Sharp more than 20 years ago when young Doug was an
accounting intern working on a class project. Doug told us, “Issy’s dream back
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then was as clear, precise, and thoughtful as it is now.” Back then, Isadore
was just getting started testing the theory that one could build a world-class,
five-star hotel empire on a simple ethic, The Golden Rule. Now, of course,
that theory is fact.
Doug joined the Four Seasons accounting department in 1984, after seven
years at a Big Four public accounting firm. He remembers how nervous he
was being called into Isadore’s office on his very first day—the experience cer-
tainly made a lasting impression on him. “Wondering what I had done wrong
already,” Doug recounted, “I was amazed to find out that Isadore just wanted
to welcome me to Four Seasons and to share his vision with me.” When we
asked Doug if Isadore remembered the class project, he replied, “At first, I
didn’t think so because he didn’t mention it, but all of a sudden I glanced
down and there was that college report of seven years ago. When you are in
the university, you think this is really important stuff; but after seven years of
experience, I wasn’t quite sure. Nothing was said about the report until I was
getting up to leave. Isadore said ‘Just a second, I want to talk to you about a few
things in this report.’ I didn’t know it at the time, but Isadore makes it a point
to spend time with every new corporate employee on their first day.”
Communicating the dream to each and every new employee on his or
her first day is just as important to Isadore today as it was back in 1984.
Isadore’s compassion and humility fit perfectly with the globally acknowl-
edged Golden Rule philosophy on which his company is based.
There is an old adage in public relations that the only bad publicity is none
at all. According to Elizabeth Pizzinato, director of corporate public relations at
Four Seasons, “The main PR objective of most companies is to get their name
in print or on the nightly news. More is better. That’s not the case at Four
Seasons. Here, in everything we do, it is quality over quantity. What we do
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with journalists is what we do with guests: we build relationships.”