‘You Can’t Lead with Your Feet on the Desk’ is one book business leaders, especially those with extensive overseas operations, ought to read.
Its main thrust is pure and simple. You need to “ditch your desk”, as the author stressed, and go out and build relationships with your employees (or associates as he called them in Marriott International), business partners, suppliers and customers.
Written by Ed Fuller, President and Managing Director of International Lodging at Marriott International Inc, the book is easy to read and filled with ample examples, all drawn from his illustrious career in the US Army and 29 years with his present company. He also cited examples such as Netflix (subscription-based online video rental and streaming), Wegmans Food Markets (grocery chain) and USS Benfold (guided missile destroyer) for their managements’ exceptional leadership and respect for their employees.
Building successful relationships is no different from building personal ones, the author emphasised. Accordingly, he devoted a chapter each on values, respect, trust, communications and leadership ‒ all building blocks for successful relationships.
In the chapter on ‘The Value of Values’, the author recounted how he had seen firsthand the value system laid down by Marriott’s founder and maintained by his son Bill Marriott Jr that has produced a firm structure on which to build relationships with stakeholders.
Under his stewardship at Marriott, the author had visited 150 countries on six continents and launched the careers of 72,000 associates. When he undertook the international portfolio, Marriott International had only 16 properties abroad. Today, it has more than 500 hotels open or under construction outside the United States and has partnerships with more than 400 individual owners. In the process, he has met and learnt from a varied multicultural group of people comprising customers, owners, partners, associates and government officials, all of whom he claimed to have developed lasting relationships.
Anecdotes make for good reading and ‘You Can’t Lead with Your Feet on the Desk’ has lots of them. Some of the more interesting ones involved numerous crises the author was involved in. Practising what he advocates, Ed Fuller takes the first available plane out to the troubled spots. These include Hurricane Wilma that slammed Marriott’s three properties in Cancun, Mexico; the first bomb incident of JW Marriott Jakarta in 2003, followed six years later with the bombing of JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton Jakarta; and the total devastation of the Islamabad Marriott in Pakistan in 2008.
On all occasions, the author stressed the importance of standing alongside the owners and associates, visiting wounded guests and associates, and meeting local officials. And the results? All the affected hotels recovered and were back to their normal operations in a short time.
800-CEO-READ, a leading direct supplier of book-based resources in the US, compiled a monthly list of best-selling business books based on purchase by its corporate customers nationwide. The book, launched in March, made it to the No. 20 spot for Best Sellers during that month.
You Can’t Lead with Your Feet on the Desk, distributed by John Wiley & Sons, is now available in all Singapore book stores and retails for S$52.38 (GST included).
