Page 240 - The New Gold Standard

PRINCIPLE 5: LEA VE A LASTING FOOTPRINT
offering of the Leadership Center and the Corporate Learning
Services division of NYU’s School of Continuing and Profes-
sional Studies. Being able to observe employees in action allowed
him to understand “the absolute importance of daily alignment
and getting everyone on the same page every day. It’s impressive
to see a nonnegotiable approach to daily reinforcement of the
company’s service values. It’s done through constant communi-
cation and the regular provision of the Wow stories that model
great customer service examples. You can talk abstractly about
great service, but when you hear 5 or 10 stories about people
who deliver it, everyone, including new employees, can get the
texture of what’s expected of them.”
President Simon Cooper concludes that the company’s staff
offers some of the most powerful, heartfelt lessons about Ritz-
Carlton: “A chairman of a global bank had heard from one of his
team that Ritz-Carlton was able to create a world-class global
culture with a small team of leaders. As a result, the bank chair-
man flew from London and spent the morning with my team.
In the end what really impressed this bank executive was the
lunch we set up with six of our Ladies and Gentlemen at Ritz-
Carlton in Washington, D.C. In essence, my leadership team
and I could talk about our culture, but the difference came when
our Ladies and Gentlemen shared how they lived it.”

C The Impact of Training Received D
from the Leadership Center

While The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center was created from a
commitment to elevate service excellence, the viability of its pro-
grams must be measured against the results produced for those
who attend. Mike Figliuolo shares his reasons for seeking train-
ing through The Ritz-Carlton Learning Center: “I attended the
course to look for ways to distinguish a service business. Essen-
tially many service companies are, at times, commodity indus-
tries. I believe that the best way to really differentiate oneself in

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