Leadership in Communication series
Communication overview
Global communication portfolio
The Marriott communication team leverages a suite of communication channels—both traditional and new media.
Commitment to communication
One of the basic tenets at the foundation of Marriott’s culture is to communicate openly and often. Bill Marriott is an example of a leader who truly “walks the talk” when it comes to communication.
Perhaps the strongest evidence of his commitment to communication was making Kathleen Matthews, executive vice president for global communication and public affairs, a direct report of his in 2007. Previously, the function reported through the general counsel’s office. In addition, the government affairs group now reports up through global communications. Government affairs is a very important function that is responsible for coordinating the activities of several outside lobbyists.
Bill Marriott is personally engaged in the communication planning process. He meets regularly with Kathleen Matthews on the delivery of the company’s communication strategy and headlines throughout the year. He also takes part in establishing the overall direction of the company’s communication each year and signs off on key messages.
The chairman and CEO blogs on a weekly basis, another way to get messages to both internal and external audiences. In addition, he spends about 250 days a year traveling and visiting Marriott properties and meeting with associates, property managers, partners and guests. He meets regularly with Kathleen Matthews and other global communication team members to identify opportunities for pulling headlines and key messages into his blogging, speeches and other communication channels.
The budget and staffing for communication have remained constant in recent years. However, another indication of the importance Bill Marriott places on communication is that when other departments have been asked to scale back their budgets in the past, the communication team has been able to keep its budget relatively intact.
Communication to Marriott associates, managers, shareholders, guests, partners and property owners takes a variety of forms: e-mail, blog, YouTube, special events, print, web sites, meetings, awards programs, PowerPoint presentations, conferences and video.
Personal communication
“I visit 250 hotels around the world every year…. At every hotel, I talk to associates, from housekeepers to general managers, to get their feedback. I call it ‘management by walking around.’ Like my parents, I value the input from our associates at all levels. I make lots of notes—and my best ideas almost always come from our people in the field.”
—J.W. “Bill” Marriott Jr., chairman and CEO
As the face and voice of the company, Bill Marriott routinely communicates with a wide variety of internal and external audiences, ranging from one or two individuals to thousands of attendees at international trade conferences or major media events. His communication takes many forms: personal visits, letters, broadcast voice mail messages, e-mail messages, videos, speeches, events, press conferences, podcasts, media interviews and postings to his blog, Marriott on the Move.
Bill Marriott’s communication activities during 2007 included:
- Launching a blog that quickly gained a global audience of more than 192,000 site visitors and hotel bookings of nearly US$3 million.
- Being “slimed” by Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants while announcing a new family-oriented resort/water park in San Diego called Nickelodeon by Marriott.
- Cutting the ribbon and dotting the eyes of a dragon for luck at the opening of Marriott’s 3,000th hotel in Beijing.
- Dressing in jeans and a letterman’s jacket to lead a sock hop rally for associates to mark the company’s 50th year in the hotel business.
Twelve rules of success
“These management philosophies are a simple but powerful part of our culture and create a living tradition of values and beliefs that we share with our associates all around the world.”
—J.W. “Bill” Marriott Jr.
- Continually challenge your team to do better.
- Take good care of your employees, and they’ll take good care of your customers, and the customers will come back.
- Celebrate your people’s success, not your own.
- Know what you’re good at and mine those competencies for all you’re worth.
- Do it and do it now. Err on the side of taking action.
- Communicate. Listen to your customers, associates and competitors.
- See and be seen. Get out of your office, walk around, make yourself visible and accessible.
- Success is in the details.
- It’s more important to hire people with the right qualities than with specific experience.
- Customer needs may vary, but their bias for quality never does.
- Eliminate the cause of a mistake. Don’t just clean it up.
- View every problem as an opportunity to grow.
Guideposts for management
When J.W. Marriott Jr. became vice president of the company in 1964, his father J. Willard Marriott wrote him a letter that offered the following guidelines for running the company. (The guidelines, in part, reflect the Marriott family’s strong participation in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.)
- Keep physically fit, mentally and spiritually strong.
- Guard your habits—bad ones will destroy you.
- Pray about every difficult problem.
- Study and follow professional management principles. Apply them logically and practically to your organization.
- People are No. 1—their development, loyalty, interest and team spirit.
- Decisions: People grow by making decisions and assuming responsibility for them.
- Make crystal clear what decisions each manager is responsible for and what decisions you reserve for them.
- Have all the facts and counsel necessary—then decide and stick to it.
- Criticism: Don’t criticize people, but make fair appraisal of their qualifications with their supervisor only (or someone assigned to do this). Remember anything you say about someone may (and usually does) get back to them. There are few secrets.
- See the good in people and try to develop these qualities.
- Inefficiency: If it cannot be overcome and an employee is obviously incapable of the job, find a job he can do or terminate now. Don’t wait.
- Manage your time:
- Short conversations—to the point.
- Make every minute in the job count.
- Work fewer hours—some of us waste half our time.
- Delegate and hold [people] accountable for results.
- Details:
- Let your staff take care of them.
- Save your energy for planning, thinking, working with department heads, and promoting new ideas.
- Don’t do anything someone else can do for you.
- Ideas and competition:
- Ideas keep the business alive.
- Know what our competitors are doing and planning.
- Encourage all management to think about better ways and give suggestions on anything that will improve business.
- Spend time and money and research and development.
- Don’t try to do an employee’s job for him or her—counsel and suggest.
- Think objectively and keep a sense of humor. Make the business fun for you and others.
—J. Willard Marriott, 20 January 1964
IABC International Conference 2008 WebCast: EXCEL Winner J.W. Marriott Jr. (registration required)
“Leadership in Communication” series – Table of Contents
|
