“I’m Working For Barbarians” - Ritz-Carlton Founder REFLECTS On His Culture Shock In America
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
148.01717
Summary
In this episode, Ron Meyer talks about his early career in the hospitality industry and how he went on to become one of the most successful men in the world. He talks about how he got to where he is today, what he did to change the world, and why he decided to write a book.
Transcript
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When you got that call at 23 to go to Houston, was that Hilton or was that Hyatt?
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It was Hotel Corporation of America, which became Sonesta later.
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So I went to Houston. Frankly, I didn't stay long.
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And when you have cultural beliefs, they're sometimes very stupid.
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And the first day, first of all, I lived in Hawaii, no air condition.
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And the first day I worked, as a waiter, actually, it was there a few days.
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And the first day I worked as a waiter, I had an order of fish order.
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And I looked, where are the fish knives and the fish forks?
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I had worked in the finest hotels in the world, mine knew.
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And I came to the conclusion, I'm working for barbarians.
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And I live, and they live in a situation where human beings shouldn't live with this heat.
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I thought, I didn't know that was air condition.
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And Houston is pretty hot if you're coming from Europe.
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So I called a friend of mine who worked in San Francisco, a civilian in a French restaurant.
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That shows you how silly we sometimes have beliefs, our beliefs that we set because the culture is sometimes very silly.
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So I left there, took the bus to San Francisco, worked in San Francisco, started in a restaurant.
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But then I worked back in a hotel because I wanted hotels and worked for Hilton and afterwards joined Hyatt.
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But then I went to the club and back to Hilton.
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What did you learn at Hilton that you took on with your career?
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Well, process of management of what you do or the organization.
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Because I worked for a while in catering and selling, how you organize to sell and so on.
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So I learned, but not traditional service, because we have kind of all forgotten what is table etiquette and so on.
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I learned that when I was a kid, believe me, that everything had to be 100% correct.
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I realized that every effort has to have a process.
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Is Hyatt where you became, where you made a name for yourself?
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Is Hyatt where you wrote your first book or was it at Hilton?
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But after, the book was written, I became quite good friend with Stephen Covey.
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And Stephen was urging me to write a book about what we had accomplished with Ritz-Carlton.
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This is at Ritz when you met Stephen Covey and he said write a book.
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And then one day I was driving home and he called me.
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You have still not written your own people, your own people to write your book.
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I was so, and he always said, I want to be the one who writes you forward.
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And I said, Stephen, I write a book for you now.
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Well, I mean, he wrote a book that sold, I don't know how many copies.
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He wrote a book called The Eighth Habit as well.
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