The Spirit to Serve


Book Description

Marriott was recently listed by Fortune magazine as one of "The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America" and the "5th Best Company for Asians, Blacks & Hispanics" and ranked by Business Week as one of the "Top Ten Companies for Work & Family."




Without Reservations


Book Description

Global business leader and hotel industry icon J W Bill Marriott, Jr shares both the story of and the recipe for the success of Marriott International, one of the worlds leading hotel companies. The company began with one family-run root beer stand and grew over eight decades, through his leadership, into a global corporation that is widely respected for the business it does and the way it does business. In 1964, on the eve of being named president of the company, Marriotts father, founder and then-CEO J Willard Marriott, Sr, tucked a letter in his 32-year-old sons desk drawer. The letter contained insights and guideposts that proved invaluable as Bill Jr, blazed the trail not only for his company, but for the hospitality industry as well. The letter, printed in this book, provides timeless advice for any person in any business who aims to achieve success. This is a compilation of engaging stories that takes the reader behind the scenes as events and decisions unfold.




Bill Marriott


Book Description

The author gives readers an intimate portrait of the life of a billionaire and business titan and shares his definition of success. This biography tells the remarkable story of a man who had the vision to create a multibillion-dollar business, who understood the power of giving, and lived the creed that hard work will pay off, but success is never final.




Delight Your Customers


Book Description

Discover the hidden ways to raise your organizations’ customer service experiences from ordinary to extraordinary. If you want to know how strong your company’s customer service is, ask your employees to describe what their work entails. Then pay attention to whether they simply list their duties and tasks or if they speak to the true essence of their job--to create delighted customers who will be less price sensitive, have higher repurchase rates, and enthusiastically recommend the company or brand to others. The latter should be every employee’s highest priority, because when it’s not, your customers are merely the recipients of a transaction, not an experience, and transactions do not make for a lasting impression or inspire loyalty. In Delight Your Customers, customer service expert Steve Curtin makes a compelling case that customer service managers need to shift from monitoring service activities to modeling, recognizing, and reinforcing the behaviors that create happy and returning customers. Things such as: Expressing genuine interest Offering sincere compliments Sharing unique knowledge Conveying authentic enthusiasm Providing pleasant surprises Delivering service heroics when needed Simply based on their own personal experiences, everyone knows that great customer service is rare. So why wouldn’t you want to provide a unique, caring, and beneficial experience for all your customers to rave about with others? With the real-world stories, examples, and strategies shared in Delight Your Customers, you can take the customer service experience you offer from ordinary to extraordinary.




Finding Our Way


Book Description

The acclaimed author “richly articulates how the insights of modern science . . . can usher in a new era of human and planetary health” (Systems Thinker). For years, Margaret Wheatley has written eloquently about humanizing our organizations and helping people to work together more effectively and compassionately. She has shown how breakthroughs in chaos theory and quantum physics can enable organizations to function more like responsive, self-organizing living systems, rather than cold mechanisms of control. And she has gradually expanded these ideas into the wider arena of human society. In short, Margaret Wheatley is one of the most innovative and influential organizational thinkers of our time, and Finding Our Way brings together her shorter writings for the first time, touching on all the topics she has addressed throughout her career, showing how she has applied the ideas in her books in many different situations. “However,” she writes, “this is not a collection of articles. I updated, revised, or substantially added to the original content of each one. In this way, everything written here represents my current views on the subjects I write about.” Provocative, challenging, at times poetic, and often deeply moving, Finding Our Way sums up Wheatley’s thinking on a diverse scope of topics from leadership and management to education and raising children in turbulent times; from societal commentary to specific organizational techniques and more. “Wheatley provocatively lays out how managers must operate to be effective in a system that is ‘alive’ . . . Finding Our Way challenges us to see the enterprises we lead in new light.” —Leader’s Beacon




50 Success Classics


Book Description

Discover the all-time classic books that have helped millions of people achieve success in their work and personal lives.




Every Shot Must Have a Purpose


Book Description

Two legendary coaches give golfers a powerful new approach to the game... and to life. As coaches to some of golf’s top players, Pia Nilsson and Lynn Marriott have designed and refined a revolutionary way of teaching the game, with phenomenal results. They don’t believe in prescribing the same stance, grip, and swing to everyone, followed by hours of purposeless drilling. They don’t even believe in beginning with physical technique. Their success has proven to them that a great game begins with a great vision. Unlike any other golf book, Every Shot Must Have a Purpose offers cutting-edge techniques for integrating the physical, technical, mental, emotional, and social parts of a player’s game. The book’s revolutionary pre-shot routine will improve your focus, leading to a golf swing that is not only successful but can be repeated under extreme pressure. Emphasizing the individual golfer rather than a rigid set of mechanics, their VISION54 method takes the frustration out of the game. Why 54? Because they believe it’s possible to shoot a 54 (making a birdie on every hole of a par-72 course) if you have the right mind-set and well-honed intuitive power. An engaging read for the beginner or the seasoned golfer, Every Shot Must Have a Purpose is inspiration for life, not just the links.




Hidden Agenda


Book Description

Each of us pitches ideas every day. Regardless of what idea we're selling-or who we're selling it to-it all boils down to the act of stirring someone to join you, to agree to follow you. Yet we consistently underestimate how critical it is to recognize the role of the decision maker. Decisions are, after all, made by people; and people have needs and agendas, spoken and unspoken. Understanding these needs and agendas are critical to success in business. Kevin Allen's approach is not about persuading, but about creating a connection that assures a mutual win. By unearthing the true motivation or desire of the decision maker, Allen shows how to craft a story or message around it, creating a predictable and repeatable end result. Full of stories and examples, this entertaining book teaches you how to effectively find, connect, and finally to speak to the Hidden Agenda to win business unfailingly, every time.




The Spirit of Hospitality


Book Description

The Spirit of Hospitality takes readers on a journey of passion for purpose that empowers the missing ingredients of hospitality into a proven leadership style that works. Time has sped up to the point where technology has surpassed the last few thousand years by only a generation. What happened to kindness, humility and the human touch vs. having our face buried into a laptop or IPhone? A life dedicated to excellence does not come by chance, or with age, but by choice and commitment. Larry Stuart strives to give The Spirit of Hospitality to others who are called to a life of prosperity and significance. He provides the tools, attributes and real-life examples of what works when it comes to serving up a memorable guest service delivery and describes the necessary ingredients of hospitality. There is hope only if individuals bring back the missing ingredients of kindness, humility, integrity, encouragement, generosity, team and accountability. Only then is the spirit of hospitality empowered to provide the right leadership approach in building relationships to a new level of expectation, and allows those who embrace that spirit to accomplish whatever they strive to achieve.




Sophie's World


Book Description

A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.