Ritz-Carlton Founder: The Story Behind "Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen" (And Its Power Today) - Horst Schulze

Josiah:

Want to know the secret and the power behind Ritz-Carlton's iconic phrase, "Ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen"? If so, stay tuned, because today the company's legendary co-founder, Horst Schulze, is joining us to share how he developed this concept at just 16 years old, why it resonates so deeply in the hospitality industry and how it can transform your approach to hiring, training, and creating a purposeful work environment. Let's get into it.

[intro]

Horst:

It occurred to me when I was 16 years old. I was working for this great maître d' at the time, and a great human being. And I went, at the same time, hotel school. I was a busboy, and I wrote an essay about him, about my maitre d'. And I realized because he was so respected, why was he so respected? Because he was a person of excellence. And I realized the light went off as I wrote an essay. By the way, I named that essay, We are Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen, which in our industry became pretty famous.

Josiah:

When you were 16?

Horst:

16, yeah. That was the essay. All of a sudden, I realized, "Wait a minute. Even if I have been a dishwasher all of my life, I can still define myself as an excellent gentleman. It doesn't matter." So, I define myself. And we have forgotten that. Everybody looks for somebody to do something for me. I define myself. It's not society. It's not where I grew up. It's "I define myself." And I do that at work, and that's a huge thing. If I'm leading a company, I'm helping to define everybody else in there, too. And they define the company. If today an ex-Ritz-Carlton employee looks for a job, and a hundred others are applying for that job, and he or she says, "I work for Ritz-Carlton," they'd probably get hired because they have been defined as people of excellent. But they did that defining, and so did the organization as a whole.

Josiah:

When I was talking to people before this, an overwhelming number of people wanted to learn more about this concept of ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen. It really struck a chord. Everybody wanted to hear more about this. I appreciate you sharing the story. I'm curious if you could elaborate a little bit on why you think that resonates so deeply with people. Is there something about the dignity of work? Why has that done so well?

Horst:

It really goes back to this kid who was 14 years old and started working a hotel business, which was me, away from home. I left home when I was 14 because the finest hotel in the region was far away from home. I stayed in a dorm room. When the general manager welcomed me and my mother, he said, "Now, you are here to learn to be a servant, to fine ladies and gentlemen." That's what I wanted, mind you, working in this great surrounding. But he made very clear, "You're a servant. They're ladies and gentlemen." And that was the mantra of the hotel. "You are servants to ladies and gentlemen. Remember, you're servants to them. And remember that they're very important ladies and gentlemen." I went to school, came home, had to write an essay, came back to work, and I saw the maitre d' approach a table, and I could see that the guests were proud that he came to them. A reversal.

Wait a minute, they're important. He is not. And I realized, "Wait a minute, everybody is proud when he comes to them." And when I thought about that night, I realized because he had to find himself as somebody special. He didn't do anything without high intent. He didn't serve food and beverage. He wanted to instill well-being. So seeing that, that's when I realized, "Wow, ladies and gentlemen." And then I realized, we can be ladies and we are not servants. Ladies and gentlemen, if you do it excellently what we're doing, we are ladies and gentlemen. We are special. We define ourselves as ladies and gentlemen, if we do excellent. But if we don't, then we sentence ourself to be servants.

Josiah:

What's the idea behind this that makes it so powerful? Is it something about the value of people being... I'm hearing a difference in the power differential.

Horst:

I spoke to a large hotel conference a couple of years ago. And before me was a speaker, a lady who runs a great hotel, mind you, who said 30 times in a 45-minute speech, "Forget everything you know about the hotel business. Everything is new." When I came up and said, "Nothing is new." Because thousands of years ago, people wanted to be respected, honored, and recognized. And that was true this morning, this afternoon, and tomorrow, and 5,000 years from now, and we are here to do it. And all that stuff that's new should help us to do that. So what is it? People want to be respected. We have that need, all of us, somehow. And to be called a servant is not being respected, but being called a [inaudible 00:05:21]. But as a servant, I can be a ladies and gentlemen. So I will decide if I'm respected or not. That's the point. So to say to them, "You're not servants. You're professionals in the profession of service." And I made that the motto of the company, and it was with me. It was with me, to be very honest, I say that, because I got an A in my essay. And I never had an A before. It's true. And I never had one after that.

But that was an A, and there was a big bang in the school. Other teachers were there as the teacher read my essay about this story about ladies and gentlemen and defining oneself. So it stayed with me. In fact, when I became vice president and hired, I tried in one of our vice presidents' meeting to push that as a motto, and people laughed and made a joke about it. But when I started Ritz-Carlton, I was in charge, and I made it the motto!

Josiah:

I wonder if you could share some of the things where you reinforce this notion of people being ladies and gentlemen early in the process. My understanding is, even the language you're using, you were selecting people. Tell me about those first touch points or those first interactions someone had when they began working in the organization.

Horst:

This is a very important piece, selecting people. If a manager would tell me today that employee was not good, I would say, "That employee may have been raised wrong by his mother, but you were the dummy that hired him." What's wrong with the hiring process? So either you selected wrong or you oriented wrong or you trained wrong, or you have the wrong work environment. It's you leader. It's not that employee. In fact, you cannot do anything about it, but you can do something about your processes. So think where you can improve your processes of selecting. And the whole selecting issue is again, somewhat of a moral issue anyway. Because we have to understand, since we know... I mean every great philosopher wrote about it. Aristotle did. People cannot be fulfilled unless they have belonging and purpose.

And what we offer, we offer a function when we hire. I don't want you to come to work for me. Join my dream. Now, of course we have to work, but that's not why you come here. You're joining me in a dream. You can belong in a common objective and a common purpose, and that's what it should be. But we hire people for function, and a chair is functioning. So in a way we are treating that employee, that future employee like a thing. How about treating them as a human being who has feelings and thoughts, and invite him to join. And let them know who you are. Well, how can you, when you as an organization don't even have a purpose? Or you have a mission statement but not a purpose. I see it all the time. The mission statement says, "Oh, let me see your mission statement." "Here it is. Here's what we do excellently." That's not the purpose. That's what you do to get you somewhere, where you want it to get you. And that place where you want to be, is it good for everybody?