Page 160 - The New Gold Standard

PRINCIPLE 3: IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU
I go back I will talk to my team, and we’ll get that resolved.’ It
really got our attention. We were very impressed.” In the end,
all business is personal. Great leadership involves putting deci-
sion makers in a position to listen to the needs of those who un-
derstand how to make your business stronger.
Along with travel agent councils, Ritz-Carlton invests con-
siderable amounts of time listening to those with whom they
enter into partnerships and with the owners who choose them
to manage their properties. Simon Cooper suggests that listen-
ing to these relationships ultimately makes Ritz-Carlton a wiser
company. “These brands we work with—Spago, Eric Ripert, or
BLT—are well-defined and bring tremendous knowledge. They
also bring their own following, and we learn something from
every project we do with them.” Simon adds, “For example, I
know we learned to push harder and expect more from working
with Chef Eric Ripert when he opened his restaurant with us in
Grand Cayman. We expected it to be a difficult place for an
opening, and sometimes at Ritz-Carlton, we will allow a slower
period in the beginning when we bring on a restaurant. But
people like Eric are running hard from day 1, and they expect to
be able to fill every seat on the first day. It’s almost a different ap-
proach than we would take, and we learn from them and hope-
fully they learn from us as well.”
Karim Alibhai is founder and manager of the Gencom
Group, which has several properties developed or under devel-
opment in conjunction with Ritz-Carlton. Karim shares how
ownership input is secured and addressed by Ritz-Carlton lead-
ership: “We are involved with a number of hotel chains and are
always pleased with the openness of the Ritz-Carlton’s leader-
ship to listen for possibilities. Not to just listen out of politeness
and then dismiss complex or ‘off the beaten path’ ideas but to
listen for ways to make innovative concepts happen.”
Listening does not ensure that situations will always go
smoothly, but ultimately it is the path to mutually acceptable so-
lutions in challenging times. Dermod Dwyer, chairman of Trea-

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