Arne Sorenson
President and CEO of Marriott International
Summary
“You should never make every decision just because you have the power to make the decision. Don't. Let people learn from the decisions they are making and let them own the results.”
In this episode of Leadership Matters, Alan and his good friend Arne Sorenson discuss what makes someone a successful leader, including teamwork, listening, exploring, and taking a stand on controversial issues.
They dive deep into Arne’s childhood, having been born in Japan to missionary parents who were driven to explore the world by their faith. As Arne got older, he started to appreciate different cultures and exploring, including travel during his teenage years to war-torn Beirut for what he called an “extraordinary summer.” Arne explained that good leaders are always listening, whether that be to their team, experts, employees, competitors, or other industries. From 2012 to 2021, Arne was the CEO of Marriott International, where curiosity helped guide his leadership style.
Guest Bio
Arne M. Sorenson is President and Chief Executive Officer of Marriott International, Inc. Mr. Sorenson led the acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide in 2016, creating the largest hotel company in the world. The company now has more than 6,700 properties across 130 countries and territories and 30 brands. The merger also created the travel industry’s largest customer-loyalty program, with more than 110 million members.
Mr. Sorenson joined Marriott in 1996 and held a number of positions before serving as President and Chief Operating Officer. He was elected to Marriott’s Board of Directors in 2011. He became Chief Executive Officer in 2012, making history as the first person to hold the post without the Marriott family name. Before joining Marriott, he was a partner with the law firm Latham & Watkins in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Sorenson was born in Tokyo, where his parents were Lutheran missionaries, and lived there until he was seven. His father and grandfather were both Lutheran preachers. He graduated from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and the University of Minnesota Law School.
He passed away on February 15, 2021, after battling pancreatic cancer, at age 62.
Episode Transcription
Introduction:
Leadership Matters. Conversations with innovators, visionaries, and leaders from across industries and around the world. With your hosts, Colorado governor, John Hickenlooper and business advisor, Alan Fleischmann.
Alan Fleischmann:
Welcome to Leadership Matters. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann, along with my co-host John Hickenlooper, the governor of Colorado. On today's show, we're joined by a good friend. CEO of Marriott International, Arne Sorenson. One of the things that makes Arne so interesting and Marriott so incredible is their global reach. Today, we're going to talk about how that company, this extraordinary company of 91 years old, touches millions of people every day.
Alan Fleischmann:
I admire Arne for being a true CEO statesman, someone who is unafraid to be a leader even on causes that are controversial. We're going to get into those issues today as well. He has a deep understanding of the role of CEO, what it means to be a leader, and why it matters. Looking forward to talking with you today. Welcome and welcome to Leadership Matters, Arne.
Arne Sorenson:
Thank you. Great to be here.
Alan Fleischmann:
I'm glad you're here. It's really wonderful and you get to be with a great governor, John Hickenlooper. We can have a great conversation about a topic that John loves by the way. It's a word he doesn't like so much, is leadership, but we snuck it in.
John Hickenlooper:
I just think when leaders are talking about leadership, it gets a little bit self-congratulatory sometimes. I much prefer just to talk about the issues and someone's approach to getting things done. What is service? How do you inspire groups of people? Without saying ... I wonder if that comes through on the radio that I'm thumping my chest?
Alan Fleischmann:
Not self-promotional.
Arne Sorenson:
I agree 100%. Human nature being what it is, you get a leadership job, and suddenly you think you deserve it. And that you're uniquely set up to lead. I actually think leaders can and often do dramatically overstate their own importance.
John Hickenlooper:
Especially, in government. But also in the business world as well.
Arne Sorenson:
In every walk of life.
Alan Fleischmann:
But we're lucky that the show is called Leadership Matters, because we can talk about things that matter. We can all underscore the fact that we do need leaders and they do better, which we're really glad you can be that leader today.
John Hickenlooper:
I thought it would be interesting just off the top ... Did you feel like you were a leader in high school and in middle school? Did you always have that sense that other kids wanted to hang with you or follow you?
Arne Sorenson:
I don't know. I probably had a fearlessness or maybe a foolishness that had me sticking my neck out maybe more than others did. There are stories. I remember one of the first leadership lessons, if you will, that I got. I was a counselor at a summer camp. I grew up the son of a Lutheran preacher. Long Lutheran roots. Maybe after my freshman year of college or senior year of high school, something like that, I was a counselor.
Arne Sorenson:
A pastor of a bunch of kids came in and said, "You know, Arne, you've got to let the kids make their own mistakes." He was sort of saying you're going too far in essentially telling everybody what they need to do. I don't think he was saying I was doing it in a way that was unfriendly. But he said, "These kids have got to grow up."
Arne Sorenson:
And it's a great lesson actually even today for me, which is you should never make every decision just because you have the power to make the decision. Don't. Let people learn from the decisions they are making and let them own the results.
John Hickenlooper:
I had dinner last night with a guy named Joshua Boger, who you've probably never met. But a brilliant, brilliant biologist. He started a company called Vertex. A big pharmaceuticals company, very successful. One of their criteria when they have projects and assign people tasks ... I couldn't believe this.
John Hickenlooper:
If you did the whole solution by yourself, you would get demoted or you wouldn't get your full bonus. You had to reach out even if you didn't need them. You had to involve other people, break down different silos and get them involved, for exactly what you're saying. You don't want everyone thinking they've got to do it all themselves.
Alan Fleischmann:
It probably ensures success also. Or at least guarantees a better chance of success.
Arne Sorenson:
Well, in a big organization, A, you have to. Because you can't do everything yourself. And if you're not making sure that folks have got the comfort in making a decision, you're going to end up with a stultified organization and nothing ever happens. Although you could go the other extreme. I listen to my kids talk about team projects in school, often in college.
Arne Sorenson:
I was with somebody who was in business school recently, and he said how much of what you're doing is team-based. 100% is team-based. A team is also a place you can hide. It is as important that you really individually understand the issue and do the work. Do the research. Do the reading. Do the statistical work. Whatever it is that you need to do in order to get smart about it.
Arne Sorenson:
But then, engage with others and make sure you're getting their input. Make sure that ... Often, somebody else is making the decision, maybe. But you can't let this notion of a team tell you, you actually don't have to do your work until you get into the room and start putting post-it notes on the walls.
Alan Fleischmann:
You have a voice and you should use it.
Arne Sorenson:
Yeah, that's right.
John Hickenlooper:
I love the notion of hiding in a crowd. Hiding in plain sight as we used to say. If I'd been a little more thoughtful, I would have been the kid hiding in high school saying, "I'll be on that team. I'll be with the team." Because it's safe.
Arne Sorenson:
It is safe. And it's safe in a big organization. If you can hide in a team, but you didn't do that mistake-
John Hickenlooper:
Not be the one to stick your neck out ...
Arne Sorenson:
... And have somebody say, "Oh, that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard."
John Hickenlooper:
The notion of getting people to work together is probably ... Especially, right now, we've talked a number of times about the dysfunction of government at all levels. It seems to be the worst at the national, and then still pretty dysfunctional in challenged at the state-level. Problems, but less so with mayors.
Arne Sorenson:
Right.
John Hickenlooper:
The more granular you get, it seems like there's more done. But a big part of that problem, I think, is the inability of people to work in teams. It's different than in a corporation where you can compel everyone to work together. In the public sector, outside of the people in your own sphere that you control, a lot of it is just trying to convene people and get them to show up.
Arne Sorenson:
I think that's right. I think the other place is, "There's no place to hide the closer you get to a city." Or to running something where people can touch it and feel it. You get to national politics ... What are the results that people are going to look at? They're going to look at whether you're re-elected.
John Hickenlooper:
Yeah.
Arne Sorenson:
If that's your main outcome, all you're going to do is the things that help you get re-elected. And you can't impact the way a mayor can impact the development of a few blocks there downtown. Or the quality of their schools. Or their tax-pays. There's going to be all sort of things that every resident of that town can look at and say, "My mayor is doing a good job." Or not doing a good job. They can't hide behind simply running for office.
John Hickenlooper:
There's the old joke of a well-known mayor. One of his constituents comes up and starts complaining to him about, first, it's the graffiti on the back of his garage. Then, it's about the potholes out front of his house. And then, it's trash in the park. Finally, the frustrated mayor says ... Or I got the joke wrong. This is a frustrated governor. They're complaining to the governor about the potholes.
John Hickenlooper:
Finally, the governor says, "That's not my job. Why don't you talk to the mayor?" And the frustrated citizen says, "Well, I will, but I didn't want to go that high at first." There is a certain point where mayors do outrank governors in terms of the granular things like solving problems.
Arne Sorenson:
Yep. Ability to get stuff done.
Alan Fleischmann:
You loved being mayor.
John Hickenlooper:
Yeah. I was in the restaurant business for 15 years. I was a geologist for 10 years. I was mayor for eight years, and now governor for eight years. I would say that being mayor was about the most fun ... Not necessarily always the most fulfilling, because sometimes you aren't doing something as meaningful as some of the things I did in the private sector or in public service.
John Hickenlooper:
But there is something about when you're mayor. Denver is one of, if not the most strong mayor form of city government in America. The mayor hires everybody. No one has to approve or sign off on them. The mayor makes the budget and the City Council would need nine out of 13 votes to change one line-item of the budget ...
Arne Sorenson:
Oh my goodness, so a super majority?
John Hickenlooper:
It's a super, super majority. Seven out of 13 would be a majority. And then, eight out of 13 would be a super majority. Super, super majority. It's just a great system if you're the mayor. Not so much fun if you're the City Council.
Arne Sorenson:
We have something similar at Marriott. A lot of our folks would say the general manager's job, running the hotel and the individual hotel, is the best job in the company.
John Hickenlooper:
That's very similar.
Arne Sorenson:
Because it's like a mayor. Right? You've got your team. You're welcoming guests in from all over the place and all the time.
Alan Fleischmann:
You know your community.
Arne Sorenson:
You can impact things. You can touch it all. You can assess whether you're doing a good job. We'll see people that ... Obviously, the great ones get promoted to positions above the hotel. And some healthy percentage of those will say, "Yeah, but none of my jobs have been as good as being a general manager." They work less.
John Hickenlooper:
I can see it.
Alan Fleischmann:
How much is the greeting culture too? You know your community. You actually can put your footprint and say, "This is my community. My people." You know your constituents.
Arne Sorenson:
Well, you're right. It's not your community in the sense that you own it, but it is much more definable. Actually, one of the things that we've struggled with over the last five to 10 years as we've grown and grown and grown is, how do you actually distribute authority back to the general managers and to the teams around the world? Because they are the ones that are most important to both creating and maintaining the strong aspects of the culture that we've got.
John Hickenlooper:
That is so interesting, because that's exactly what a number of governors have been trying now, is to push more responsibility back down to cities and counties for, I think, the same reasons. It gets you closer to where the action is and gets you better outcomes.
Arne Sorenson:
Yep. Although in politics and elsewhere, it's not easy to do. You get to the most volatile issues. You can see states pre-empting cities, for example. Sometimes because there's a political flavor to the issue. And so, they are saying, "Well, yeah. I want you to have total responsibility for your schools or your roads or whatever it is that you're doing in your city," until it comes to this issue which I think is politically sensitive. And then, I'm going to insert my own point of view and pre-empt what you have the power to do.
John Hickenlooper:
Or what the states often used to do is they would say, "This issue is so important to me. You all have to do it this way, but the state's not going to give you any money." And those unfunded mandates ...
Arne Sorenson:
Are not popular.
John Hickenlooper:
Oh my gosh. Drove me as the mayor ... When I ran for mayor, back in 2003, I'd never run for anything. And it was a big issue. I ran on the basis that Denver would never be a great city without great suburbs. I was the first Denver mayor, Denver is about 20% of the whole metro area, where I publicly campaigned, said I was going to help the suburbs.
John Hickenlooper:
Everyone said, "You're going to get killed." Or, "You'll never get re-elected." The funny thing is, the suburbs loved it. Because Denver has senior water rights, so we can help share water with the suburbs in the south. All this stuff. I won two to one when I was running. And then, we went out and did fast-tracks, and did a bunch of regional collaborations together. And I got re-elected with 87% of the vote. There's a hunger and a passion for people to collaborate and work together.
Arne Sorenson:
Get something done.
John Hickenlooper:
And get something done. Exactly the point there. I think that's ... When I was governor, our first day, I did my inauguration. You do the big address. It's allegedly a big deal, but it wasn't that big a deal. Don't tell anyone I said that. But anyway-
Arne Sorenson:
You just did.
John Hickenlooper:
... Yeah. Anyway, after I finished the speech, I signed an executive order. We low-keyed it, but it was an executive order to pledge never to make an unfunded mandate of any of the cities or counties. Boy, they never let me forget it, because sometimes it just sneaks in. But it created such a powerful relationship between the state and the local municipalities and the local counties. Everybody has a sense of ownership of what we did decide was a priority.
Alan Fleischmann:
And respect.
John Hickenlooper:
And respect. I think, in Marriott, that has got to be a big part of when you're delegating the responsibility down to the manager of the actual hotel. How do you do that? And yet at the same time keep looking over your shoulder?
Arne Sorenson:
Marriott is 91 years old. Actually, the founders who are the parents of my boss ... Bill Marriott is our Chairman of the Board and 85. Fabulous teacher to me, and partner now in the business. His parents started the company in 1927 as a nine-stool A&W root beer stand in Washington D.C. That's the story. But very early on, they coined this phrase, "Take care of the associate, the associate will take care of the guest ..." Or the customer, they said then, because it was a restaurant business, "And the guest will come back again and again."
Arne Sorenson:
In a way which turns upside down what we hear from most consumer businesses today, which is, "The consumer always comes first." No matter what, the consumer always comes first. Of course, you want that flavor too, but we know that in the service business you can't get to our guests except through our people. And so, actually our people have got to come first.
Arne Sorenson:
You've got to say what is it that makes them feel good about their work. Part of that, of course, is wages and benefits. But a big part of that is, do I have the power to influence the work I'm doing? Do I have the tools I need in order to drive the results I think I can drive?
Alan Fleischmann:
Yep. We should remind everybody that we are on Sirius XM Radio. This is the show Leadership Matters. This is Alan Fleischmann. I'm here with Governor John Hickenlooper and our guest today is Arne Sorenson, the CEO of Marriott International.
John Hickenlooper:
And the first CEO of Marriott International not to have the name Marriott, if I'm not mistaken.
Arne Sorenson:
That's right. Yes, that's right. J.W. Marriott, the founder, was CEO for 45 years. And Bill Marriott was CEO for 40. I'm about seven years, I guess. Or nearing seven.
Alan Fleischmann:
Only another 35 or so.
Arne Sorenson:
I told Bill Marriott when he handed the reins to me, I said, "I certainly won't last as long as you." Never be 40 years. But that comment, of course, is raised frequently. Because it's seldom you get a company that's been around for 90 years and has had, A, only three CEOs for the entire time, but only one without the Marriott name.
Arne Sorenson:
It sounds more dramatic than it feels internally. In part, because I worked with him for 15 years before becoming CEO, so I wasn't a stranger to him. I had learned a great deal from him. It was a very natural transition that, again, just up-close and personal doesn't seem as remarkable as it sounds.
Alan Fleischmann:
The other phenomenon is so many brand names that you have within the Marriott family of hotels, which I don't think people always realize. And certainly with the Starwood merger, many, many more. But it's the name or the values, I guess. The Marriott values and culture transcends all.
Arne Sorenson:
We believe it does.
Alan Fleischmann:
Very important values. I'd love for you to talk about that actually as well, but also how you bring the new brands or the new names of the different hotels into the same.
Arne Sorenson:
There is a whole bunch of questions there. We have 30 brands today. Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis, Bulgari, EDITION. Luxury Collection would be of the luxury flavor in it. Through Marriott and Sheraton and Weston and Renaissance and Le Meridien and Gaylord in the full service space. But into Courtyard, Residence Inns, Fairfield, Aloft, AC Hotels. Be careful, I can name all 30.
Alan Fleischmann:
I love to hear it. This is good. This is impressive.
John Hickenlooper:
Now, he's just showing off.
Arne Sorenson:
And so, you end up with one question, which is, "How do you make sure that you're doing business in a way that is consistent with your culture across all those platforms?" That takes you back to the GM and basically says, "Okay, you are in charge of this hotel. Build your team." We're going to measure what your associates say about your leadership and how they feel about their work. We're going to measure it every year and it's going to be one of the things that we track.
Arne Sorenson:
It's important to you that you're empowering them. I'll walk through 300 some hotels a year. A detailed tour. Back of the house and obviously seeing the guest rooms and public space as well. Shaking hands with as many associates as possible. You can tell quickly, a general manager who knows his or her people, connects with them on a personal level. It doesn't mean they're not also a driven boss. They might well be. But they are connecting in a way which is very different from descending down from a fancy office upstairs occasionally when the big boss comes into town.
Arne Sorenson:
If that's the environment, you can sense that quickly. That's a culture operating piece, which is one thing. And then, there's a marketing piece. How do you make sure that customers understand what the brands stand for? Do they need to know all 30 of our brands? If they did, we'd be doomed. You couldn't find loyal enough guests to have most of them know what our 30 brands are.
Arne Sorenson:
But there you end up with ... For us, it's the loyalty program, which basically is the umbrella. It is really the brand, in a way, that allows people to come to us and say, "Okay, I'm going to go to New York." I think we have 80 hotels open in Manhattan. Something like that. But once they're on our site, they can look at the portfolio and say, "Where am I going to be in New York, exactly?"
Alan Fleischmann:
I have options.
Arne Sorenson:
How much do I want to spend? What kind of sensibility do I want to have? By giving them more options, hopefully, we get of course more of their business.
John Hickenlooper:
Are there certain things ... Two questions really. One. Do you look for the same qualities in leaders and in general managers across all the brands?
Arne Sorenson:
Not identical. No. There are pieces which are common. Again, that's about motivating people and being driven for results and being fair. All of those things which I think are pretty fundamental. But a W Hotel, a lifestyle hotel, came to us with the Starwood acquisition. It's a very loud and vibrant lobby. It's a social scene in many respects. It needs a lot of local programming.
Arne Sorenson:
That general manager is going to be attuned very differently than somebody who is running a Courtyard in a suburban Denver market, which by and large is just serving breakfast. It might be serving some beer and wine at night, but it's not even really a full-service restaurant. It's by and large providing a rooms product only. And so, those are different skills.
John Hickenlooper:
And if you were to describe the over-arching ... Is there anything the customer would recognize and say, "Huh. This must be a Marriott because this happened to me. Or because that happened to me."
Arne Sorenson:
Hopefully, yes. We have 7,000 hotels. I wish I could say we delivered perfectly, flawlessly-
John Hickenlooper:
But in the ideal situations.
Arne Sorenson:
... A million times a day or something like that, which is about what our numbers are. A million guests a day or a million and a quarter, maybe. We hear this often, and we want folks to say, "I always get an authentic welcome at Marriott."
Alan Fleischmann:
And there's this culture idea and this idea that you are integrating different brands together, certainly with the merger. Are there certain aspects of the Marriott culture that you are leading and that you see transcending across the different brands? Are there things that you're hoping that will continue to be part of the culture going forward?
Arne Sorenson:
Well, I think this authentic welcome, this person-to-person welcome. Real grounded, so that you're not getting attitude, for example, from the hotel staff. But you're instead being very much welcomed as if you're coming into their home. I think that's something that I hope and pray we deliver as well as anybody or better than our competitors. But it's, to us, an obvious place that we want to be focused.
Arne Sorenson:
Now, that welcome varies place to place around the world. Think about all the places that you all travel. Compare Denver to Tokyo as an example. Denver is a quintessential American city. Western flavor, very casual. An authentic welcome will be very casual and very friendly. Almost in a colloquial way.
Arne Sorenson:
It's Japan with much more formality and much more set of social rules and expectations about the way conversations take place. You can still do an authentic welcome, but it's going to feel different than that welcome that might have been given in Denver.
Alan Fleischmann:
I've stayed in the Ritz-Carlton in Tokyo. It's very different than other Ritz-Carlton's elsewhere.
Arne Sorenson:
That's right.
Alan Fleischmann:
You feel like you are in Japan.
Arne Sorenson:
And the best hotel staff is going to be able to not only do that in Japan ... Now, mostly they'll be Japanese, but also do that in a way which is modulated somewhat based on the customer. And they'll know when you're checking in, you're an American coming. You'll show your passport at the front desk.
Arne Sorenson:
And, A, we want them to welcome you in English, of course. But beyond that there can be a flavor of that American personality even in Japan. But, again, that's a challenging thing to make sure people are as literate with different conventions around the world.
Alan Fleischmann:
Scaling authenticity is not easy.
Arne Sorenson:
It has to start with real authenticity.
Alan Fleischmann:
Exactly right.
John Hickenlooper:
Well, and you get into places like Tokyo or many parts of Asia where they have what Malcolm Gladwell called, "power distance." If you're higher up on the food chain, you dress more elegantly and you are addressed verbally more formally. And it seems to me if you switch cultures, the potential for accidents to happen must increase dramatically.
Arne Sorenson:
Oh. You could offend ... If you gave a Denver welcome, the way I just described it, to the CEO of one of the biggest Japanese companies in Tokyo, you're probably going to have a disappointed guest.
John Hickenlooper:
Right. Maybe even worse, someone who goes out and ... One of my favorite stories is whatever happens, you want everyone to leave, this was for us in the restaurant business, never to leave as an enemy. But sometimes when those cultural things happen, they leave as an enemy and you're not even aware. They haven't expressed any anger.
Arne Sorenson:
Yep. I wonder what your experience was in your restaurant time. For us, of course, you want every experience to be flawless. Interestingly, often the fixing of a mistake actually creates more intense loyalty if it's fixed right. Which means quickly, before they've left.
Alan Fleischmann:
And if you own up to it.
Arne Sorenson:
With sensitivity. Of course, you don't even want to say we're going to make a mistake just so we can fix it. You wouldn't want that, because you're much better off never having to fix anything. But it's amazing how often a customer will send me something and say, "I got there. There was a problem. They didn't have my room or it wasn't ready." Or, "I got there and the bed wasn't made right." Or whatever.
Arne Sorenson:
"But so and so jumped on it and instantly had it worked out. And there was a half-bottle of wine in my room and I loved it." It ends up being this glowing customer story. Much more glowing than it would be if that thing had been perfect in the first instance.
John Hickenlooper:
Yeah. That used to happen all the time. It was funny. When we first opened our first restaurant in Denver, I would try to get to every table and talk to every customer. Just briefly, but on a busy Friday night. And on a busy Friday night, we would do over a thousand covers. That's a lot of people connecting, but I wanted them to know that I was the owner. That I wasn't just some skinny guy with thick glasses.
John Hickenlooper:
And so, I worked to try and find ways ... Especially, when someone looked a little bit unhappy, I'd say, "How is everything?" And they'd say, "Fine." And then, I'd kill two birds with one stone. Because I'd say, "Fine's not good enough. My house is up as collateral for the loans of this place." There by letting them know I'm the owner. But I'd say, "Fine isn't going to be satisfactory. How can we make it better?" Even with a little mistake. Because almost always, someone had done something wrong that we were completely unaware of. Often, it's just asking.
Arne Sorenson:
Absolutely, it is.
Alan Fleischmann:
When we come back in a minute, I'd love to get into a conversation with you about some of the big stances you've taken. Some of the big things you've done. Because you've actually gone out there and stood for things, frankly, that you normally might have seen in government, actually. Our political leaders. And you're taking some tough issues on.
Arne Sorenson:
It's an important conversation to have.
Alan Fleischmann:
Let's do that. We'll be right back. You're listening to Sirius XM Radio. The Leadership Matters.
Speaker 1:
What does it take to be a great leader? How are leaders of today changing the world? Leadership Matters. With your host, Colorado Governor, John Hickenlooper, and business advisor Alan Fleischmann.
John Hickenlooper:
Welcome back. This is John Hickenlooper along with my friend, Alan Fleischmann. We are Leadership Matters on Sirius XM. Today, we have Arne Sorenson with us from Marriott, and has been regaling us with adventures in the hotel industry. And the challenges you can have with 30 brands in one corporation, and how you create the consistency of leadership and vision and authentic welcomes within all that.
John Hickenlooper:
And then, Alan was just asking about some of the more controversial, and I guess you could say political issues that you have been willing to stand up for.
Alan Fleischmann:
One of things that I think is striking ... I think about this a lot, talk about this a lot. Is that we're living in the age of CEO statesmen and we need it. You and Marriott are building, you often refer to the word, "Home." Culture. The values that, frankly, started with your founders and then you as the third generation, the third CEO. It's a big priority to you as well.
Alan Fleischmann:
We're looking for leaders, not only in the public sector, but also the private sector who will speak up and talk about those values. You've taken on some big challenges and big controversial issues to underscore what those values are. I'd love you to tell us a little bit about them.
Arne Sorenson:
Well, maybe I'll tell you two stories. And one will make this sound pretty haphazard and maybe not quite as statesman-like as you'd like. But the two things that probably got the most attention. One, was a statement I made about a law that had been passed in Indiana, which basically was going to permit businesses to discriminate against customers based on sexual orientation.
Arne Sorenson:
I was giving a speech at a LGBT gala function in New York a day or two after this happened. We were honored as a corporate partner or something. And so, I was up giving the speech and I made powerful comments about the Indiana law. Basically, saying that it's just plain wrong and we should do everything in our power to change it. I can't imagine how you could enshrine a right for business to discriminate against people based on something like that.
Arne Sorenson:
Now, to be fair, I didn't know that CNBC was there videoing the whole thing. I guess I'm glad, in retrospect, I didn't know. I might have been more careful about some of the most aggressive words I used in that. But because the aggressive words were used, it was replayed on evening news shows all across the country. The next morning, Bill Marriott called me, and he said, "What's going on?"
Arne Sorenson:
Which is often what a good boss will do, by the way. Because it's a way of not directing the conversation to the thing that you're concerned about, but making sure that you're hearing, what are you working on? What you worried about? Et cetera. And so, I talked about a couple of deals that we were working on and some other things. He said, "Anything else?"
Arne Sorenson:
And I said, "Yeah. Well, I got into the midst of our social wars last night." He said, "Yeah. I wondered if you'd raise that." But for us ... Remember our business is hospitality. We are an extraordinarily diverse group of people, welcoming an extraordinarily diverse group of customers. We stand for welcoming everybody by everybody. And so, the notion that we would not address something like this is actually harder to confront than speaking out about it.
Arne Sorenson:
The second story, I wrote an open letter to Trump after he was elected. The week ... Let me think about this. The election would have been on a Tuesday. I think I wrote it on a Wednesday night. And it was an emotional week for me. My mother had passed the Friday before. 89 years old, it was time for her to go. But you're still reflecting on the life of a parent. My last parent. And I was working on writing her pamphlet that we were going to use in the church service a few days later. Telling the story of a Depression era kid, World War II generation, and the extraordinary life that she had.
Arne Sorenson:
Well, then Trump gets elected, which of course was a surprise to me, as it was to many others. I didn't vote for him. I'll confess that. But I thought, okay, he's now president. What would you recommend to him based on what he ran on and what you think he is? And so, I wrote a letter. Probably, wrote it first for me. To think what would I-
John Hickenlooper:
Cathartic.
Arne Sorenson:
... A little bit cathartic, but also a little bit, "Wake up. It's the real world. What is it that you can hope for?" Secondly, I wrote it for our associates. Many of whom had the same mindset of questions. We've got 700,000 people around the world that wear our name badge every year. There are probably 350,000 of them in the United States. Just for them to see, okay, there's a voice that's affiliated with my company that I can see that they are wrestling with these issues.
Arne Sorenson:
By the way, I'm sure there are thousands who disagree with some of the things I said in it. But that's okay. As long as it's expressed in a way which is constructive and thoughtful, as opposed to being needlessly divisive. And I suppose, thirdly, I wrote it for the president. I don't think the president ever read it. Certainly, there's no sign of that.
John Hickenlooper:
How many times did you mention his name in the letter? That would help I've been told.
Arne Sorenson:
It was addressed to him.
John Hickenlooper:
The gay issue, I think, and especially when you get into the transgendered ... I've had people tell me that the number of transgendered individuals is so small that it shouldn't be that big a divider. And yet it's become very clear to me that for those people that are transgendered, their life is so frequently beyond our ability to understand the challenges that they face.
John Hickenlooper:
And it's not just the bias, it's the persecution. I had, just a month or so ago, a woman on an airplane. I was walking to the back of the airplane, for the reasons you walk to the back of an airplane. And a woman, as I went by, grabbed my arm and started thanking me profusely for coming out for transgenders, for the LGBTQ community. Saying that her daughter was transgendered and was deeply bipolar, and that she thought I had saved her daughter's life by just coming out publicly.
John Hickenlooper:
Just tears pouring down her face. I've never ... I've been in public service, I was a mayor for eight years and governor for almost eight years. I've never had that strong a response from any person on any issue. I've had some strong responses, but I think we forget that for those individuals that are transgendered, certainly they didn't choose it. It's not a preference. It's something that they are living and that they deserve our embrace in a very real way. For some people, it's a barrier they can't get past.
Arne Sorenson:
There's nothing more personal than identity. We all yearn to have our identity recognized. No matter who we are. And it could be as a Nebraska farmer, which is where my mother started, to go back to that story. But it is, "Who are you?" And, "Are you seen?"
John Hickenlooper:
And not only are you seen, are you being attacked or belittled? Or bullied at school. We had a 10 year old kid commit suicide. Some of the issues where identity is being challenged so cruelly in public spaces like schools, it's something that ... I got bullied when I was a little kid. There's a certain point ... This only happened once.
John Hickenlooper:
You have to punch the kid in the nose. And then, he beats the tar out of you, but he never bullies you again. I think many, many kids have had that in their life. But we're way beyond that. The level of hatred and vitriol that we hear about is unthinkable.
Alan Fleischmann:
And because of that, actually, what you did was quite risky, I would argue. Or at least it was unknown. You were certainly the first to have done it and to say it. You don't know whether or not your customers are going to say, "Well, you don't share my values. Therefore, I won't stay there."
Alan Fleischmann:
On the contrary, I think the response you got was, "We're all strangers until we're not." We have to show respect to one another. You had a lot of people actually, if I understand this correctly, who you did not expect to rally and say, "Well, thank you for speaking up."
Arne Sorenson:
Yeah. That's right. This is an important conversation. I think it's still a very tough place to know when to speak and when not. Because we are in the hospitality business, this is an issue that feels absolutely essential to us to talk about. Take another hot button issue. Take two. Take gun rights and take choice issues. They are germane to our associates in the way they live their personal lives for sure.
Arne Sorenson:
In a big community of 700,000 people, it would be germane to many of them. But it is not germane to our business. And so, while I have points of view on it, I haven't spoken publicly about those, because I think the right response if I did from folks would be, "Well, why should I care about what you think about that? I haven't elected you to any office. You're running a hotel company." And is it germane to the hotel company? I do think there is a-
John Hickenlooper:
Authenticity.
Arne Sorenson:
... There's a relevance there that ... I think you've got to be satisfied it is relevant, whether it's risky or not, before it's worth stepping out.
Alan Fleischmann:
What was the other issue? You mentioned this time you came out there and you were surprised that there was media there. But there was another one.
Arne Sorenson:
Well, the Trump letter was the other one.
Alan Fleischmann:
Oh, the Trump Letter was the other one? Okay.
Arne Sorenson:
There were voices on our team that said, "Why do you want to publish this letter? It's a needless risk." In fact, some of the things that were the most attention-grabbing in that letter came back from my team having been excised from it. I said, "No, I think it's important we keep that in."
John Hickenlooper:
You've got a good team, speaking back to power.
Arne Sorenson:
Yeah, exactly.
John Hickenlooper:
You listeners are listening to, this is Leadership Matters with Alan Fleischmann. I'm John Hickenlooper. And we're with Arne Sorenson. Arne, during the break, you were talking a little bit about your parents having been missionaries. Now, as we're talking about dealing with difficult issues and that sense of identity ... How did that shape you as a kid growing up in a family of missionaries?
Arne Sorenson:
In some respects, my story is not very different from anybody my age. Certainly, coming out of the Midwest. My father was a World War II veteran, my grandfather was a World War I veteran. Fortunately, my dad was born in '27, so he was 17 when he enlisted and young enough to ... He got to Japan in '45 just as the war ended. He did not see the kind of horror, and we didn't lose him. Obviously, I exist. That's a sign that we didn't lose him.
Arne Sorenson:
But he went to Japan, came back and went to college and seminary. His dad had been a preacher too, so he followed in that footstep. But because the Japanese bug, the international bug had grabbed him, he went back to Japan in the early 50s and was there for 13 years with my mother. My dad grew up near Madison, Wisconsin and my mother near Omaha, Nebraska. Small farming town.
Arne Sorenson:
Here, imagine in the early 50s, going to Japan, which you do by ship. No telephones. Certainly, not telephones the missionaries could afford. And so, they wrote home every week. Their parents came ... My mother's mother came once over 13 years. My dad's father came twice, I think. They came back once during that period of time. In Japan in the 50s we were as exotic, foreign an idea, a presence, as could be imagined.
Arne Sorenson:
We had a little tiny lake cabin up near Lake Nojiri by Nagano where the Winter Olympics was held. There was a big gate over the gravel road where you pulled in that said, "Gaijin Mura," which means, "Foreigner's village." Right out there as the label. And so, was it a profound experience for me? Undoubtedly, it had some influence on who I am today. But I was a kid. My memories are running races, for example, and broken bones. They're not necessarily-
John Hickenlooper:
A place that sticks, necessarily.
Arne Sorenson:
... Deep, cultural conversations as a six year old.
John Hickenlooper:
But were you born there?
Arne Sorenson:
I was born there and all my siblings were.
John Hickenlooper:
Oh, that's so interesting. And you can still speak some Japanese?
Arne Sorenson:
Very, very little.
John Hickenlooper:
Your accent's good though. I was impressed.
Arne Sorenson:
I was seven when I came back, and we moved to Minnesota. It was much more important to try and learn hockey, which I failed at.
John Hickenlooper:
Talk about a culture shock to go from Japan there. But your parents were doing that in a completely selfless ... Obviously, a missionary to leave everything behind and not to see their families and to begin raising a family on their own must have been very hard.
Arne Sorenson:
He was called by his faith and it was ... They were each fluent in Japanese. My father read Japanese in the original kanji. Then, even when we came back to the United States, he was traveling around the world for the rest of his career. And so, there was a flavor of what's going on in the world, sometimes showing up in our living room with folks visiting from abroad.
Arne Sorenson:
Without doubt, I think some of my interest in the rest of the world, I think, was fueled by watching this and getting letters from him when he'd go for three or four weeks. Letters from Africa, and I would collect stamps that came on the letters. That sort of thing.
John Hickenlooper:
That's so cool. And then, we also were talking about you worked at least one year as a counselor. A summer camp counselor. That's also the same thing, going away from your home and separating from the core recognition elements of your identity. But also, giving of yourself. It's sort of a service industry.
Arne Sorenson:
Yeah. The story that I tell my kids a lot is in the winter of '78, '79, my father has been in Cyprus for a church convention of some sort. He came back and he said he met this guy, Riad Jarjour was his name, who was pulling a group of people together in Beirut in the summer of '79. And he said, "Why don't you go?" Summer of '79, Beirut was in war.
Alan Fleischmann:
That's exactly right.
Arne Sorenson:
And I say to my kids, "Can you imagine my coming home from a trip and sending you to a war zone?" Well, I was young enough and stupid enough to do it. And it was an extraordinary summer, but also a sign of how, in a way, unwise he was. Because he was taken with this mission that he had. It's probably not the smartest thing in the world to send your kid to a war zone.
John Hickenlooper:
Certainly, depending on how deep his affections for you were.
Arne Sorenson:
Exactly. But he did this out of love, I think. Not out of anger.
John Hickenlooper:
And it turned out okay. My mother was widowed twice and raised four kids by herself. She was a great believer in the experiment in international living. We almost always had someone from some foreign country who would come and spend-
Arne Sorenson:
Stay and live with you?
John Hickenlooper:
... Two months or three months. They didn't pay anything. This was just part of how you made the world better and how she felt that it made us kids better, by having that experience.
Arne Sorenson:
Was she right?
John Hickenlooper:
Yeah, I think so. I definitely think so.
Arne Sorenson:
And it probably has gotten into the DNA of your leadership, as being governor and mayor certainly has gotten into your leadership as well. You have to speak to so many cultures on a given day. Every day. Alan, you know this too. You've been collecting experiences all around the world and languages all around the world from your earliest times. I do think you either love it or you don't.
Arne Sorenson:
I think there are a lot of folks who ... You can see American businessmen or American politicians or whoever travel abroad. There's some fairly high percentage of them that if you watch it, they are just plain tired. And they may be putting a good face on it, but you can tell they're not really thinking about much other than, "When is this agenda over and when can I go home?" And there are a few that, I count myself lucky to be one of them, I just think it is endlessly fascinating to go and see what's happening around the world.
Alan Fleischmann:
You and I once had a conversation about leadership. We had breakfast together, and I'll never forget. I told this to John. Where you talked and you said ... I remember asking you, "What do you think the number one ingredient in a leader is?" And I thought it would be about humility or gratitude. Things that you almost say that has to be a given.
Alan Fleischmann:
But you brought up curiosity, which you just touched on a little bit. And you have this sensation with curiosity too, of always wanting to know that thing I don't know. Talk about that a little bit. That's actually something I [crosstalk 00:43:25].
Arne Sorenson:
Well, I talked about curiosity in the context of listening. And listening really means, not just what is it that you're saying and am I hearing your words. But listening really deeply means, are you taking in new information and new input? You can have a conversation and not really pick up any ...
Alan Fleischmann:
Almost like ...
Arne Sorenson:
It's a polite exercise that you're going through. But if you're listening right, which means with curiosity, you are pulling things in all the time. That could be from your people, your team. Sometimes they are experts, sometimes they are not. One of the important reasons to get out into the field and see hotels is, by the time you go through all the layers, the input might be so massaged that don't even really hear what is bugging them, what's not working right.
Arne Sorenson:
But it might be listening to what your competitors are succeeding at or what other industries are succeeding at. I think one of the biggest challenges for business leaders ... Maybe not different from other leaders, I don't know. You always start with a strong desire to do things. Change things. Impact things. And you're listening to folks, because maybe you're trying to learn a new company or a new business.
Arne Sorenson:
You're certainly learning a new role. But then, you get in about five or six years, about where I am right now, so this is a good reminder to me too. Often, what you're confronted with then is decisions that you made which have been implemented in [crosstalk 00:44:55].
Alan Fleischmann:
Now, it will cycle back.
Arne Sorenson:
And they actually have to be changed. Human nature being what it is, our first response to this is, "Well, wait a second. I made that decision. It had to be right."
Alan Fleischmann:
There's a reason for it.
Arne Sorenson:
And I'm going to defend that.
John Hickenlooper:
They made a mistake in implementation. I know that.
Arne Sorenson:
Yeah. And so, you're actually no longer curious and you're no longer listening.
Alan Fleischmann:
You're almost defensive.
Arne Sorenson:
You're defensive. You've got to find a way to maintain that curiosity through that period of time and have the strength to say, "It might have been the right idea at the time, but it sure is dumb idea now and we got to change it."
John Hickenlooper:
When you do that, once you've gone out on the plank, then you just got to embrace it. And you've got to express some joy. It's a good thing. You said something right in the beginning that reminded me of that first house I renovated, when I was working my way through graduate school as a geology grad student. I bought this house for 20 grand in Middletown, Connecticut. 20,500 bucks.
John Hickenlooper:
Little teeny, ancient old, 200 year old house. We renovated ... I'll spare you the details. A couple of dumb decisions. I ended up working 11 and a half months, seven days a week. And I made a total of, I think, 670 bucks. I basically worked all the time for nothing. A friend came over and said, "You know, if you'd known back in the beginning what you know now, you would have never done this whole project." And what a shame that would have been.
Arne Sorenson:
Then, I would have only known what I knew at the beginning.
John Hickenlooper:
Exactly.
Arne Sorenson:
I would have learned nothing. Great story.
John Hickenlooper:
Exactly. And I think that's when ... I'm at the point in public life that I am seeing some things that we are very optimistic about and we thought were going to be great successes. And they haven't done as much as we wanted them to do. You sort of have to embrace it and express some level of joy saying, "Huh. Now, we've got real information. We're going to fix it."
Arne Sorenson:
Here's a question for you. This is your trade. Why is it so hard for politicians to admit they were wrong? It's like a right in the federal scene. A president can never admit that they made a mistake.
John Hickenlooper:
Well, because it's a binary system of winners and losers. If you admit you're wrong once and you're on camera saying that, that image, those words will come back again and again and again. The media will use them, naturally, while it's in the news cycle. But then, your opponent when you run for re-election is going to come out and just beat you over the head with, "How could you have been so stupid?" They make it look like the worst decision ever.
Arne Sorenson:
But is there a single one of us in real life who believes we've never made a mistake?
John Hickenlooper:
Of course not. No, of course not. You would think people would be more forgiving, but they're not.
Arne Sorenson:
They're not.
John Hickenlooper:
And I think what's interesting is that if you do admit you made a decision ... When I first became mayor, and I'd never run for student council or anything. I got up there and I said, "Denver has these garish holiday lights on top of City Hall." And it says, "Merry Christmas. Seasons Greetings." And I had a bunch of Jewish friends and I thought, well, that's okay. They've accepted that. It's been there for 50 years.
John Hickenlooper:
Well, the public works people came and said, "We're going to replace all those lights." And I thought, well, we'll take off the, "Merry Christmas." We'll put, "Seasons Greetings. Happy Holidays," in the new lights. I thought I'd be a big hero. Well, some reporter gets ahold of that. It's on the front page of the Denver Post. And my staff says, "Well, you can't change now. You're the mayor. If you admit you made a mistake and did something wrong, you will dilute the authority of your position."
Arne Sorenson:
Oh my goodness.
John Hickenlooper:
I swear, this is what they said. The talk radio was just eating me alive. And we were just trying to roll out a really comprehensive plan to address homelessness. We had back then, just like now, a real issue around homelessness. I picked up the phone and I call the local, super conservative talk radio station. I said, "This is Mayor Hickenlooper." They said, "No, it's not real."
John Hickenlooper:
I said, "Yeah. This is Mayor Hickenlooper and I made a mistake. The new lights will say, "Merry Christmas. Season's Greetings." Just like the old one." And I paused and then just out of the blue it came to me, I said, "Just because there are two Os in Hickenlooper, doesn't make me Scrooge."
Arne Sorenson:
Oh, clever.
John Hickenlooper:
That was blind luck. But the beauty of it was, I became a hero, not just to the conservatives, but to everybody because it was so unusual that somebody admits they're wrong.
Arne Sorenson:
And you listened.
John Hickenlooper:
And I listened. Exactly. And I realized ...
Arne Sorenson:
And your original intention was to be sensitive to others, which actually ... While it didn't give you a lot of credit, and you got a lot of people telling you don't change things, some people heard that too.
John Hickenlooper:
Yeah.
Arne Sorenson:
I imagine.
John Hickenlooper:
One hopes.
Arne Sorenson:
I hope.
John Hickenlooper:
I tried to do good things.
Alan Fleischmann:
I guess the answer to that one is to be selective when you make a mistake, when you're in public life a little bit. Again, the authenticity. But I think people do like it if it's genuine and you're telling people, "I made a mistake." Let me tell you, it's hard to do it when you're in politics. Because you're going to be a victim of other people's ads.
Arne Sorenson:
Well, the broader lesson here, and here's another old Marriott saying, which of course is not original to Marriott, but, "Success is never final." It's been a phrase that's been used with the company forever.
John Hickenlooper:
Wow, I love it.
Arne Sorenson:
And it doesn't mean don't celebrate when you've accomplished something good, but don't get mired in the celebration. That doesn't mean make up mistakes if you didn't make mistakes. When we did the acquisition of Starwood, it closed in the Fall of 2016, it was a big deal in the hotel business. We became the biggest hotel company.
Arne Sorenson:
Our team, we started going around the world. We had general managers meetings in all the continents around the world. A big, celebratory time. And I was listening to the leadership team on the stage and, way too frequently, people were coming out and saying, "We're the biggest hotel company in the world." After the first meeting, I said, "I don't ever want to hear that again." Because it feels to me like we're stopping and saying, "Okay, we've accomplished what we needed to."
Alan Fleischmann:
Size.
Arne Sorenson:
The fact of the matter is, we just paid more for Starwood than anybody else did. That's not a sign of brilliance. We were making a bet. But to show whether that bet was successful is going to depend on the work done in the next five or 10 years after getting that done.
Arne Sorenson:
And so, it goes back to ... Not only do you make a mistake or can you admit to making a mistake, but can you say, "I'm not going to talk about what we've accomplished right now. I'm going to talk about where we need to go." And see if we can build a consensus around the problems that have to get solved, not celebrate the last [crosstalk 00:51:15].
Alan Fleischmann:
Also, the humility to know that when you are one to maintain your leadership as a company or a person that you're only as good as you are tomorrow. That humility to know your Day One is again tomorrow, which is important. Which I know you live by every day as well. That seems to be a legacy of Bill Marriott and his father and mother.
Arne Sorenson:
Absolutely, it is. Yep.
John Hickenlooper:
Arne, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day. I know how busy you are, and rearranging trips so that you could come join us. And Alan, always a delight.
Alan Fleischmann:
Big pleasure is mine. I love being with you. This is great.
John Hickenlooper:
It's a big treat. Anyway-
Arne Sorenson:
Thank you, John.
John Hickenlooper:
... Well, thank you.
Arne Sorenson:
Thank you.
John Hickenlooper:
You're listening to Leadership Matters on Sirius XM.
Alan Fleischmann:
Thank you.