hi my name is bill
amongst many other things the guy with
the least meaningful job title in any
room of Industry colleagues that I stand
in my titles stupid and I had to get to
that in just a moment but let’s
backtrack a little bit to try and figure
out how that came to be have you ever
really wanted something like any really
one to something you worked for it
you waited for it you strived for it and
when you finally got it it was a bit
yeah underwhelming as opposed to
everything you hoped it would be
perhaps it was a a toy in your youth
perhaps you waited for the latest album
of your favorite band perhaps it was
elected office in my case thank you
in my case it was about waiting to be
something I wanted to be the guy I set
out in this industry taking the garbage
out literally when I was 15 years old
and all I ever wanted to be was the man
the holy grail of achievement for me was
in three words those words were chief
executive officer chief executive
officer was my stepping off point on
this road map to pride I became the
chief executive officer I’d achieved
everything that I had set out for and I
said now I am he people will bow people
who sprayed I have achieved everything
that I set out to and I will be
respected for it one of my favorite
things to do in our company is
orientation I love to go and personally
welcome new people to the company and my
very first orientation as a chief
executive officer I realized how wrong I
had been I realized that I had been in
the pursuit of status and not the
pursuit of purpose and that was made
clear to me by the people I interacted
with I asked people in orientation to
tell me who they are and what do they do
I said what do you do and this guy said
my name is John and I’m a restaurant
manager and I manage a restaurant so
what about you she said my name is event
I’m a cocktail server I serve
hotels and they said who are you
I said I’m bill I’m the chief of the
executives they all had a purpose and I
had a status so that moment I decided
that as a leader I would concentrate on
my purpose and not in my statement and I
rebranded myself from Bill Walsh that
she’s the executive officer I’d always
wanted to be – bill was the chief pride
officer I was always meant to be
I think every business leader and
particularly in hospitality is a chief
pride officer irrespective of job title
our job is to create environments that
make people proud pride is probably the
most potent force in business what
happens when people are proud I look at
my own industry and hospitality well
what happens is that if our colleagues
are proud absenteeism decreases turnover
decreases productivity increases and
it’s just a much more fun place to be if
our guests are proud what happens well
one thing which is quite profound is in
these days of immediacy of communication
through social media
a proud guest becomes an advocate for an
experience and a brand and they tell
other people proud guests equals new
salespeople they’re out around the world
saying hey look where I was look what I
did let me tell you about my experience
I’m proud to share so here I am the
chief ride officer of the company and I
recognize that what we need is a way to
harness the power and deliver and
activate the power of pride within the
organization hence the need for a pride
driven ideology but what is pride this
is a definition of pride pride is a
personal commitment it’s an attitude for
me people who run their businesses
proudly and for whom pride is the end
destination they’re the people who
refuse
for example to accept the word fine fine
is the least acceptable word in the
English vocabulary for anybody involved
in hospitality I mean how can we accept
this a guest stays in a hotel or a
resort after 10 nights stay maybe it’s
over festive we know how to charge high
rates they check out the receptionist is
checking them out looking at her
computer now today I’m going to look how
was your stay it was fine okay good
it was fine okay good proud people don’t
accept mediocrity mediocrity is a virus
that will enter our businesses it will
take it over eat us from the inside out
and we will die proud people fight
against the very concept of mediocrity
so we need a pride driven ideology and
what the ideology will become is the
roadmap to success in a business with
purpose not a business with status a
business with purpose roadmaps are
important here’s the thing I think that
one of the greatest technology
advancements to happen in many many
decades was the creation of satellite
navigation not only does it help us get
from A to B I think it is the technology
invention that has probably saved more
marriages and relationships than any
other for those of you old enough to
remember what it was like sitting in the
car going you know wait I think it’s
upside down we should have turned left
about seven miles ago that always led to
interesting conversation satellite
navigation does a couple of things it
helps you to get from A to B usually we
know where we’re going satellite
navigation gives us the confidence for
when we are faced with unexpected
obstacles along the way because what a
satellite navigation system does is it
doesn’t change the destination it says
recalculating and we as business leaders
are the satellite navigation systems we
are the gps’s
of our business because when that
business hits an unexpected obstacle our
colleagues will look to us we cannot
change the destination we have to figure
out a different way of
that’s what a road map in business is
and we must maintain the ideology of an
organization in that roadmap so we have
the concept of pride and we have an
ideology and it struck me that these two
things need to come together and I was
trying to figure out a way to do it and
then I realized that hey I live in Los
Angeles Los Angeles is the home of
Hollywood what do we do in Hollywood
when we have two different things that
are coming together Ben Jennifer Brad
Angelina
Brangelina so I am pleased to announce
to the world today my new concept for
business my idea which is quite simply
the idea of pride e ology I think that
every business needs to put pride before
profit profit is a byproduct of having a
Purpose Driven organization that is
fueled by pride many times we will talk
about the journey through business and a
business roadmap or a business plan
being the A to Z of business I would
challenge us to think of it not as the A
to Z but the P to P and perhaps it’s the
P to P through P it is the pride to
profit through purpose and what we’re
seeing happening today is we’re seeing
ourselves living in a brand new America
and I quite deliberately call it brand
new America because it is an America of
new brands it is an America of brands
who are very clear on their purpose on
their ideology and they create a
relevant connection to an emerging
consumer group who actually give a damn
what you stand for and not just what you
produce our industry has been fantastic
for many years about talking about what
we do
we’re occasionally good at talking about
how we do what we do and usually we suck
when it comes to talking about why we do
what we do
the consumer that’s emerging today will
no longer accept that they want to
understand what is the DNA of a brand
what is the heartbeat of a brand what
makes us get out of bed in the morning
how human are we as the people behind
the brand on this slide there are a
couple of my favorite examples let’s
take Tesla I don’t believe for one
second that Elon Musk woke up one
morning and over his cornflakes said you
know what if I take gas out of cars I
think I can make a whole lot of money
I think Elon Musk is one of the proudest
people I have seen in business and what
he set out to do from an ideological
point of view was to accelerate the
advent of sustainable transportation he
was driven by a passion he wanted to
make this planet a better place and he
is proud of his contribution P pride P
purpose P profit 57 billion dollar
market cap if Elon Musk had set out to
say I’m going to set up a company that’s
gonna have a fifty seven billion dollar
market cap I don’t know if he got there
because I think that what has created an
extraordinary brand in Tesla it’s
similar to what Julian Elizabeth the
founders of SoulCycle created now I’m 50
years old I know the reason that I may
only look 49 and a half is because I
frequently sit on a spin bike a bike
that goes nowhere in SoulCycle
Julian Elizabeth set up SoulCycle in
order to rebel against fitness exercises
that just felt like hard work and they
created a mantra they created this
culture they have an ideology and in so
doing they created a tribe a community
who came on the journey and I think last
year at 125 million dollars in turnover
another example of a business driven by
purpose driven by proud people which
ended up being extraordinarily
profitable Shake Shack uber Airbnb all
of the brands that are emerging in our
landscape today that are making a
difference in the world seem to me to be
very clear of why they are doing what
they’re doing
and they put as much effort into
articulating that for their colleagues
for their business partners for
stakeholders for customers as they have
put effort into how they do what they do
so we have our pride e ology we’ve
written it up we have a mantra
we’ve perhaps talked about it at heads
of department meetings so it’s done
no it’s not done activation activation
activation the three most important
components of bringing a pride e ology
to life in any organization now as it
happens Viceroy spur ideology I like to
call the accidental ideology I had
joined the company in 2012 I was the new
chief executive officer I had just
coming to terms with the fact and coming
to realize that I was actually the chief
bride officer and I was meeting with my
senior team in Miami for the first time
I was opening the first senior
Leadership Conference since I joined the
organization and I had no idea what to
say
so what I decided to say was what I had
found in the organization and
articulated in a way that would be a
series of commitment statements to our
colleagues and customers and challenge
statements to ourselves this is it this
is my ideology and it talks specific to
hospitality about where we need to focus
who we need to be and why we do what we
do it talks about being hosts first and
always being innkeepers our industry
came from people opening up private
homes to allow weary travelers in
hundreds of years ago as they walked
from point A to point B to keep them
safe to keep them warm to keep them
nourished that responsibility hasn’t
changed we do it through a very
contemporary lens we do it with an
infusion of modernity but we must never
forget where we came from there’s a lot
of cool brands in hotels tell you what
when I go to a party typically I find
that the least cool person in the room
is the person in the room trying their
damnedest to be the coolest person
right let’s not try to be cool if people
say we are that’s a great compliment
we’re innkeepers first second and last
when I do orientation my favorite thing
that I talk to that I put this slide up
and we talk about it for 90 minutes
minimum it’s not a presentation it’s a
conversation we go through every line
and we activate it
some of my favorites are being unabashed
provocateurs let’s create positive
disruption all of the brands that I
mentioned earlier SoulCycle uber Airbnb
Tesla they’re positively disruptive
brands but they’re disrupting to a
purpose because disruption in its own
right disruption without purpose is
merely interruption it is noise for the
sake of noise as opposed to noise for
the sake of a cause positive disruptive
brands are taking over the brand
landscape and in order to have that
confidence that courage other words
spoken to in the ideology here you need
to be comfortable with why you’re doing
what you’re doing
we talked about creating wealth now as a
business we’re here to create well that
should be obvious but I’m not talking
about financial wealth the value the
impact of the travel tourism in
hospitality industry on the world in
2017 according to WTTC will be about
seven point one trillion dollars I grew
up in a small house in Limerick in
Ireland I don’t get to use the word
trillion very often but I am so proud to
be part of an industry that has that
impact on the world we educate people we
feed people we make communities stronger
and better for our guests look I run a
luxury hotel company my guests don’t
need me to create wealth for them
they’re pretty wealthy people but the
currency that they are in short is time
up the most perishable currency that
they have is time so if I help them to
use that time effectively to generate
memories that will last for a lifetime
I’m fulfilling my ideology so as the
chief activist so I’m a chief executive
officer chief ride officer on
company GPS and I’m the chief activist
of the ideology I have to lead by
example that everybody has to live it
how do you know if it’s working well you
know it’s working when it becomes part
of the everyday vocabulary of your
company when people talk to each other
in the language of ideology when pride
is very evident here’s the thing I dare
you to try the next time you’re in your
own place of business you’re walking
down the corridor you see somebody you
know walking towards you perhaps it’s
George and you say warning George how
are you
and he says morning mr. Welch I’m fine
two things had happened that I hate one
nobody cares about the conversation two
we accepted the word fine try this dare
you walk down the corridor hey George
hey mr. Welch Oh George how proud of you
not how are you how proud of you I dare
you if you have a business that does a
colleague satisfaction survey or a guest
satisfaction survey make it a colleague
pride survey make it a guest pride
survey have the courage to look people
in the eye and say is how I’m doing what
I’m doing making you proud at a doorman
and yes Viceroy in Abu Dhabi two guests
came out said we need to get to a
reservation for restaurant relate there
were no hotel car through no taxis he
could have walked through door a door a
would have been well you should have
left more time to get here shouldn’t Jeb
and he chose instead to walk through
door B and he went through door B which
led to the parking structure he brought
up his own car and he put them in it and
he got them there man was i proud of him
and was he proud of himself so be your
own chief pride officer have a pride e
ology that feels your business use it as
a road map and make it real and I hope
you take away something from today that
maybe changes the way you think or the
way you act Danny Meyer the founder of
the Union Square Hospitality Group
changed the way I think 15 years ago I
read his book setting the table Danny
said service is present when something
happens to you it becomes hospitality
when it happens for you I have built a
career
that one phrase it has led to me being
the chief pride officer of my
organization it has led to everything
that we talked about today and you know
what I’m not finished yet my name is
Bill Walsh I am the chief ride officer
of the Viceroy Hotel Group thank you
very much
[Applause]
amongst many other things the guy with
the least meaningful job title in any
room of Industry colleagues that I stand
in my titles stupid and I had to get to
that in just a moment but let’s
backtrack a little bit to try and figure
out how that came to be have you ever
really wanted something like any really
one to something you worked for it
you waited for it you strived for it and
when you finally got it it was a bit
yeah underwhelming as opposed to
everything you hoped it would be
perhaps it was a a toy in your youth
perhaps you waited for the latest album
of your favorite band perhaps it was
elected office in my case thank you
in my case it was about waiting to be
something I wanted to be the guy I set
out in this industry taking the garbage
out literally when I was 15 years old
and all I ever wanted to be was the man
the holy grail of achievement for me was
in three words those words were chief
executive officer chief executive
officer was my stepping off point on
this road map to pride I became the
chief executive officer I’d achieved
everything that I had set out for and I
said now I am he people will bow people
who sprayed I have achieved everything
that I set out to and I will be
respected for it one of my favorite
things to do in our company is
orientation I love to go and personally
welcome new people to the company and my
very first orientation as a chief
executive officer I realized how wrong I
had been I realized that I had been in
the pursuit of status and not the
pursuit of purpose and that was made
clear to me by the people I interacted
with I asked people in orientation to
tell me who they are and what do they do
I said what do you do and this guy said
my name is John and I’m a restaurant
manager and I manage a restaurant so
what about you she said my name is event
I’m a cocktail server I serve
hotels and they said who are you
I said I’m bill I’m the chief of the
executives they all had a purpose and I
had a status so that moment I decided
that as a leader I would concentrate on
my purpose and not in my statement and I
rebranded myself from Bill Walsh that
she’s the executive officer I’d always
wanted to be – bill was the chief pride
officer I was always meant to be
I think every business leader and
particularly in hospitality is a chief
pride officer irrespective of job title
our job is to create environments that
make people proud pride is probably the
most potent force in business what
happens when people are proud I look at
my own industry and hospitality well
what happens is that if our colleagues
are proud absenteeism decreases turnover
decreases productivity increases and
it’s just a much more fun place to be if
our guests are proud what happens well
one thing which is quite profound is in
these days of immediacy of communication
through social media
a proud guest becomes an advocate for an
experience and a brand and they tell
other people proud guests equals new
salespeople they’re out around the world
saying hey look where I was look what I
did let me tell you about my experience
I’m proud to share so here I am the
chief ride officer of the company and I
recognize that what we need is a way to
harness the power and deliver and
activate the power of pride within the
organization hence the need for a pride
driven ideology but what is pride this
is a definition of pride pride is a
personal commitment it’s an attitude for
me people who run their businesses
proudly and for whom pride is the end
destination they’re the people who
refuse
for example to accept the word fine fine
is the least acceptable word in the
English vocabulary for anybody involved
in hospitality I mean how can we accept
this a guest stays in a hotel or a
resort after 10 nights stay maybe it’s
over festive we know how to charge high
rates they check out the receptionist is
checking them out looking at her
computer now today I’m going to look how
was your stay it was fine okay good
it was fine okay good proud people don’t
accept mediocrity mediocrity is a virus
that will enter our businesses it will
take it over eat us from the inside out
and we will die proud people fight
against the very concept of mediocrity
so we need a pride driven ideology and
what the ideology will become is the
roadmap to success in a business with
purpose not a business with status a
business with purpose roadmaps are
important here’s the thing I think that
one of the greatest technology
advancements to happen in many many
decades was the creation of satellite
navigation not only does it help us get
from A to B I think it is the technology
invention that has probably saved more
marriages and relationships than any
other for those of you old enough to
remember what it was like sitting in the
car going you know wait I think it’s
upside down we should have turned left
about seven miles ago that always led to
interesting conversation satellite
navigation does a couple of things it
helps you to get from A to B usually we
know where we’re going satellite
navigation gives us the confidence for
when we are faced with unexpected
obstacles along the way because what a
satellite navigation system does is it
doesn’t change the destination it says
recalculating and we as business leaders
are the satellite navigation systems we
are the gps’s
of our business because when that
business hits an unexpected obstacle our
colleagues will look to us we cannot
change the destination we have to figure
out a different way of
that’s what a road map in business is
and we must maintain the ideology of an
organization in that roadmap so we have
the concept of pride and we have an
ideology and it struck me that these two
things need to come together and I was
trying to figure out a way to do it and
then I realized that hey I live in Los
Angeles Los Angeles is the home of
Hollywood what do we do in Hollywood
when we have two different things that
are coming together Ben Jennifer Brad
Angelina
Brangelina so I am pleased to announce
to the world today my new concept for
business my idea which is quite simply
the idea of pride e ology I think that
every business needs to put pride before
profit profit is a byproduct of having a
Purpose Driven organization that is
fueled by pride many times we will talk
about the journey through business and a
business roadmap or a business plan
being the A to Z of business I would
challenge us to think of it not as the A
to Z but the P to P and perhaps it’s the
P to P through P it is the pride to
profit through purpose and what we’re
seeing happening today is we’re seeing
ourselves living in a brand new America
and I quite deliberately call it brand
new America because it is an America of
new brands it is an America of brands
who are very clear on their purpose on
their ideology and they create a
relevant connection to an emerging
consumer group who actually give a damn
what you stand for and not just what you
produce our industry has been fantastic
for many years about talking about what
we do
we’re occasionally good at talking about
how we do what we do and usually we suck
when it comes to talking about why we do
what we do
the consumer that’s emerging today will
no longer accept that they want to
understand what is the DNA of a brand
what is the heartbeat of a brand what
makes us get out of bed in the morning
how human are we as the people behind
the brand on this slide there are a
couple of my favorite examples let’s
take Tesla I don’t believe for one
second that Elon Musk woke up one
morning and over his cornflakes said you
know what if I take gas out of cars I
think I can make a whole lot of money
I think Elon Musk is one of the proudest
people I have seen in business and what
he set out to do from an ideological
point of view was to accelerate the
advent of sustainable transportation he
was driven by a passion he wanted to
make this planet a better place and he
is proud of his contribution P pride P
purpose P profit 57 billion dollar
market cap if Elon Musk had set out to
say I’m going to set up a company that’s
gonna have a fifty seven billion dollar
market cap I don’t know if he got there
because I think that what has created an
extraordinary brand in Tesla it’s
similar to what Julian Elizabeth the
founders of SoulCycle created now I’m 50
years old I know the reason that I may
only look 49 and a half is because I
frequently sit on a spin bike a bike
that goes nowhere in SoulCycle
Julian Elizabeth set up SoulCycle in
order to rebel against fitness exercises
that just felt like hard work and they
created a mantra they created this
culture they have an ideology and in so
doing they created a tribe a community
who came on the journey and I think last
year at 125 million dollars in turnover
another example of a business driven by
purpose driven by proud people which
ended up being extraordinarily
profitable Shake Shack uber Airbnb all
of the brands that are emerging in our
landscape today that are making a
difference in the world seem to me to be
very clear of why they are doing what
they’re doing
and they put as much effort into
articulating that for their colleagues
for their business partners for
stakeholders for customers as they have
put effort into how they do what they do
so we have our pride e ology we’ve
written it up we have a mantra
we’ve perhaps talked about it at heads
of department meetings so it’s done
no it’s not done activation activation
activation the three most important
components of bringing a pride e ology
to life in any organization now as it
happens Viceroy spur ideology I like to
call the accidental ideology I had
joined the company in 2012 I was the new
chief executive officer I had just
coming to terms with the fact and coming
to realize that I was actually the chief
bride officer and I was meeting with my
senior team in Miami for the first time
I was opening the first senior
Leadership Conference since I joined the
organization and I had no idea what to
say
so what I decided to say was what I had
found in the organization and
articulated in a way that would be a
series of commitment statements to our
colleagues and customers and challenge
statements to ourselves this is it this
is my ideology and it talks specific to
hospitality about where we need to focus
who we need to be and why we do what we
do it talks about being hosts first and
always being innkeepers our industry
came from people opening up private
homes to allow weary travelers in
hundreds of years ago as they walked
from point A to point B to keep them
safe to keep them warm to keep them
nourished that responsibility hasn’t
changed we do it through a very
contemporary lens we do it with an
infusion of modernity but we must never
forget where we came from there’s a lot
of cool brands in hotels tell you what
when I go to a party typically I find
that the least cool person in the room
is the person in the room trying their
damnedest to be the coolest person
right let’s not try to be cool if people
say we are that’s a great compliment
we’re innkeepers first second and last
when I do orientation my favorite thing
that I talk to that I put this slide up
and we talk about it for 90 minutes
minimum it’s not a presentation it’s a
conversation we go through every line
and we activate it
some of my favorites are being unabashed
provocateurs let’s create positive
disruption all of the brands that I
mentioned earlier SoulCycle uber Airbnb
Tesla they’re positively disruptive
brands but they’re disrupting to a
purpose because disruption in its own
right disruption without purpose is
merely interruption it is noise for the
sake of noise as opposed to noise for
the sake of a cause positive disruptive
brands are taking over the brand
landscape and in order to have that
confidence that courage other words
spoken to in the ideology here you need
to be comfortable with why you’re doing
what you’re doing
we talked about creating wealth now as a
business we’re here to create well that
should be obvious but I’m not talking
about financial wealth the value the
impact of the travel tourism in
hospitality industry on the world in
2017 according to WTTC will be about
seven point one trillion dollars I grew
up in a small house in Limerick in
Ireland I don’t get to use the word
trillion very often but I am so proud to
be part of an industry that has that
impact on the world we educate people we
feed people we make communities stronger
and better for our guests look I run a
luxury hotel company my guests don’t
need me to create wealth for them
they’re pretty wealthy people but the
currency that they are in short is time
up the most perishable currency that
they have is time so if I help them to
use that time effectively to generate
memories that will last for a lifetime
I’m fulfilling my ideology so as the
chief activist so I’m a chief executive
officer chief ride officer on
company GPS and I’m the chief activist
of the ideology I have to lead by
example that everybody has to live it
how do you know if it’s working well you
know it’s working when it becomes part
of the everyday vocabulary of your
company when people talk to each other
in the language of ideology when pride
is very evident here’s the thing I dare
you to try the next time you’re in your
own place of business you’re walking
down the corridor you see somebody you
know walking towards you perhaps it’s
George and you say warning George how
are you
and he says morning mr. Welch I’m fine
two things had happened that I hate one
nobody cares about the conversation two
we accepted the word fine try this dare
you walk down the corridor hey George
hey mr. Welch Oh George how proud of you
not how are you how proud of you I dare
you if you have a business that does a
colleague satisfaction survey or a guest
satisfaction survey make it a colleague
pride survey make it a guest pride
survey have the courage to look people
in the eye and say is how I’m doing what
I’m doing making you proud at a doorman
and yes Viceroy in Abu Dhabi two guests
came out said we need to get to a
reservation for restaurant relate there
were no hotel car through no taxis he
could have walked through door a door a
would have been well you should have
left more time to get here shouldn’t Jeb
and he chose instead to walk through
door B and he went through door B which
led to the parking structure he brought
up his own car and he put them in it and
he got them there man was i proud of him
and was he proud of himself so be your
own chief pride officer have a pride e
ology that feels your business use it as
a road map and make it real and I hope
you take away something from today that
maybe changes the way you think or the
way you act Danny Meyer the founder of
the Union Square Hospitality Group
changed the way I think 15 years ago I
read his book setting the table Danny
said service is present when something
happens to you it becomes hospitality
when it happens for you I have built a
career
that one phrase it has led to me being
the chief pride officer of my
organization it has led to everything
that we talked about today and you know
what I’m not finished yet my name is
Bill Walsh I am the chief ride officer
of the Viceroy Hotel Group thank you
very much
[Applause]
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