How Great Leaders Build Other Leaders in Hospitality (Career Reflections & Lessons from Former Starwood CEO Frits van Paasschen)

Josiah: Frits, I'm very excited to be speaking with you. I guess as a way to get into our conversation, I want to talk a little bit about your background. And it's great because in the Disruptors' Feast, you talk about the transformative power of travel and experiencing different cultures. And I'm curious if you could share an early memory or story of that, of traveling, experiencing hospitality in some form. And I'm curious what that looked like for you.

Frits: Yeah, I was exploring my own memory about what was my first real hospitality experience that affected me. And what came to mind was a trip I was with my family. I was nine years old. And, you know, for the most part, we were the classic Dutch tourists, which is to say we were camping. So it was all about being as frugal as possible on the road. But this particular time we were in Innsbruck. This is pre-Airbnb, but it was a B&B nonetheless. And there was a sign out front that I'm sure said "zimmer frei" and there had been no reservation or anything before that. There was just room free, right? We pulled in and it was a family and it was up on a hill outside or on the outskirts of the city. And I think what struck me about that experience was it felt like we were visiting people we knew. You know, when you're nine years old, you're kind of aware and kind of unaware, but They had a dog that I could play with. We sat and had tea in their living room. They showed us some walks. They told us what might be fun to do in the city, maybe some less expensive places to eat, that kind of thing. And looking back on it, it was really the essence of hospitality in its most spontaneous and, I think, genuine form. And I look back on that really as a model of what I think a great hospitality experience can be.

Josiah: I love that story because I think I'm thinking of what you've done over your career and kind of led such iconic brands, but kind of returning to the roots of hospitality, I find fascinating. You held a number of roles across different industries over your career before taking the role that you had at Starwood. I'm curious, as you were evaluating that opportunity, what attracted you to the business of hospitality and working and leading at Starwood?

Frits: You know, it's interesting, one of the first things I told people when I showed up at Starwood at age 46 is, all of you are smarter than I am because you found hospitality long before I did. What I realized about hospitality as an industry is it's such a great spectrum of different aspects of life, right? So, you know, you have this really interesting creative part, which is so important, the design, the menus, the architecture, the branding experience. But you also have the numbers and the analytics of real estate. You have the need to think near-term as in, are we full tonight? Should we be full? Should we be pricing differently? And at the same time, very long-term, like we're going to build a hotel with someone that's going to stand for decades, maybe, you know, beyond our lifetimes, right? So there's this really interesting long-term, short-term aspect to the business and the technology overlay. You know, for me personally, I have wanderlust and we can talk more about that, but I've always loved to travel. And then I think above all of that is the human aspect of it, right? The people and the fact that at the end of the day, this is really about people making people feel comfortable and giving them great experiences. So, you know, you kind of look at that and you say, what's not to love about this industry? Why didn't I get here earlier?

Josiah: That's great. And it's so interesting. You mentioned Waterless loving travel personally, and then working across all these different industries. I feel like you've spent so much of your career really focused on innovation. But what you just described seems maybe a perfect platform for innovation, because there's so many levers you can pull so many ways you can express new ways of operating.

Frits: On the other hand, the challenge in this industry is You have massive amounts of real estate that you can't change on a dime. You have huge numbers of people spread across cultures and languages and levels of sophistication and understanding. And it's a super tanker, right? To try to change the hospitality industry or a business in hospitality. And so it's ripe for innovation. There's so much that still needs to happen, I think. the industry of hospitality, but it's also very challenging at the same time.

Josiah: I'm curious if there is a mentor that stands out to you as you reflect back on your career so far that was influential, maybe specifically as you think about innovation and leadership and innovation. Does a mentor come to mind or some piece of advice that you heard that was formative for you?

Frits: You know, I think I would have done is taken piece parts of mentors along the way. So I was a consultant for eight years. There was a particular manager, Bob Dvorak that I worked with. And you know, what I learned from him was you can analyze and come to the conclusion and understand a business deeply by analyzing it. And once having done that communicate in simple terms, what the conclusion is. And I took that kind of objectivity with me. I then went to Disney. And I had a wonderful leader of the division. I was working in a guy named Bo Boyd at Disney Consumer Products. And what I, what I took from him was he had this congenial style, right? He made you feel special. It was an interesting sort of hospitality aspect to that, but he was, he was this sort of a vuncular guy who, when you went into the meeting with him, even though your day was frenetic and you know, he had this big job. Time just slowed down. And he'd stop and kind of look at you and kind of ask you how you're feeling and about your day. And then you kind of just took a step back. And I think it was very productive actually, because it forced you to think about what was important in the moment, not the 18 things that have to get done, that kind of urgent versus important distinction. And then I'll just add one more. When I got to Nike, I got to work with the COO at the time and still a friend of mine, Tom Clark. You know, he really taught me the importance of thinking about brands and marketing. And as much as I had learned to be analytical in my consulting days, that there was an aspect of intuition and understanding and classically not focusing on market research. but going out and listening to people and experiencing what athletes are talking about and seeing what people are talking about, not at the time in social media, but in various ways of dialogue and drawing more abstract conclusions and making that concrete and then allowing people to make mistakes and exploring how to make that part of innovation and growing a brand. So for me, it was really, it was an evolution of thought and it's not that any one of those styles was better or more important than the other, but it was the combination of all of those that for me was a real education.

Josiah: I appreciate you sharing that because people are always the sum of the people they've known over their lives and their careers, right? And you learn a little bit from each person. But I want to actually hear a little bit more of your thoughts on what you just shared, because was it Jeff Bezos who said something to the effect of when the data and the anecdotes disagree, trust the anecdotes. And I'm curious how you think about that in the context of sometimes I feel like it can be challenging because am I too biased towards the most recent thing I heard? And is this just one individual's opinion? How do you think about hearing individual people and stories as compared to just market research?

Frits: It's a great question. I think there was a book I read some time ago called Small Data, right? And it's really this idea of the power of observation. And I think it's also part of the art here is choosing who to listen to, right? And having an understanding of whose insights matter on which subject, right? And I know that having been the non-expert as leader in a number of situations, the art of figuring out who really knows what's going on and has insight is, I think, one of the tricks to the trade, right? So, which comes down to listening. And I suppose a certain amount of intuition on your own part, but hearing what people say, trying to reconcile that with your own experience. I like to ask a lot of questions. I think that one of the things I learned as a leader was that, you know, when you have the authority of being the boss, if you probe too intensely, that can be very uncomfortable for some people. And I sometimes have to just to apologize and say, look, I'm going to drill down into this and this is not me quizzing you. This is me trying to get to the point of understanding what it is you know so well. You know, doing whatever I could to disarm people so that it didn't feel like an intellectual attack as much as me trying to understand the situation well enough to know whether they were in fact someone whose observations I wanted to listen to.

Josiah: That's fascinating. I think it's very applicable for all the leaders listening to this, right? The style matters a lot. And I'm thinking back to this person at Disney, you learned a lot from just your presence, how you show up matters a lot as a leader. I think on the topic of leadership, one of the things that stands out to me is it fuels a measure of the effectiveness of a leader is the other leaders they create, right? And it has been remarkable, Fritz. On this show, I've done 800 some interviews and the number of people who built their careers at Starwood and look back, who worked across multiple companies, look back specifically to Starwood and the time that you led at Starwood as being so formative to how they think about culture, about innovation. Now they're doing amazing things leading companies across the hospitality ecosystem. You're involved in a lot these days. I'm curious to hear, you can go any way you want with this question, but I'm just curious what else is on your mind these days?

Frits: You know, I have a wonderful portfolio of different things that I'm working on, both in the hospitality industry and outside. And to see things from multiple perspectives, I work with a few startups. I'm advising a couple organizations that look at all kinds of different opportunities. And then being on the boards that I'm on, There's a composite picture there that I think is really, for me, interesting and an opportunity to grow. At this stage in my career, what I'm working on is trying to be a better mentor, trying to be a good conscience for a company. So, you know, I think the European boards, I think, have a more balanced view of what the responsibility of companies are than in North America as a generalization. but that in the boardroom in either case being a voice for, hey, what are we really doing about the climate crisis? What are our metrics on social equality within our organization? How can we be responsible in other ways? I feel like I have a voice at least behind scale and growth that allow me to express my values in a way that's that's meaningful and personally enjoy that, but I also hope that through that I'm making a contribution that goes beyond. And I think, I guess the other thing I would say separately is, and this comes more in the form of advice to people is, you know, I think one of the wonderful things about your podcast is that's a, you know, a recurring focus of yours really, right, is how to sort of impart wisdom for others to use as they wish, is I looked at jobs and opportunities less through the lens of promotion, but more through the lens of what capabilities can I add by taking this new job? And what could I tell someone a year or two from now having done that job? that I can list as a skill, a capability and experience that broadens my opportunities for what's next. So you're going from consulting to Disney, I learned about global branded companies and how companies operate. And then going to Nike, being the head of strategic planning and knowing what it's like to be in the C-suite and working in a company that was growing through innovation, you know, 70% of our products were new each season. And, and then having the opportunity from there to being a leader and a general manager and being able ultimately to run Europe, Middle East and Africa, you know, a business of scale and adding that and then saying, Hey, I really want to be a CEO. I want to have some opportunity to be on boards and leveraging those experiences to becoming a CEO at Coors. So that each of those things kind of built on the next, and I wasn't completely programmatic about it, but I did look at each opportunity more as a, how do I grow here? And that at a certain point, coming back to mentorship, what I realized the next phase for me was, is, you know, creating other opportunities for people to do exactly the same thing. And as we've talked about, you know, finding those faces in the crowd or finding high potential people. And, you know, one of the most fun things I did at Starwood was I would take someone who has a high potential, you know, who was early in their career as a sort of aid to camp as I travel just to say, Hey, you know, when I was 30 years old or 28 or whatever, if I could have sat next to a CEO for a week and see what they do, it would have been so educational. And I've really, I formed some great friendships with some of the people I did that with some of whom I'm still in touch with. So,

Josiah: That's amazing. So wait, this was this was just for a week. Let's say it wasn't necessarily for a year. It was a shorter time period.

Frits: No, it's like I'm going to Asia for, you know, 10 days and I would just pull some of my some of the senior execs. Hey, who who in your organization is someone you think is really curious and has a lot of potential and can you spare him for a week and just take him along with. It's amazing. Yeah, it was a blast. It was a blast. And by the way, you know, not entirely without interest for me because getting the perspective of someone in a different part of the organization from a different generation was really informative as well. And I would ask them like, what do you think? And it was, it was great. It was really, it was one of those super fun things about, you know, having a job like that.

Josiah: Well, Fritz, thank you so much for taking time to record today. I've learned a ton from you. You've shared so much across so many different areas. Thank you. I'll link in the show notes where people can learn more about you and your work.