Ladies and Gentlemen Serving Ladies and Gentlemen, Part 1 of Defining Culture
October 20, 2008 by dr. lam
Horst Schulze, the former president of the Ritz Carlton, penned his famous Ritz Carlton motto, “Ladies and Gentlemen Serving Ladies and Gentlemen” at the tender age of 15 for a term paper in hotel school. Mr. Schulze explains how he came up with these famous words, “I started in the hotel business when I was 14 years old as a busboy. When my mother took me to the hotel to work for the first time, she said, ‘We could never go to this hotel. This is only for important people. For important, fine people. So you’re lucky. Behave yourself. Wash your hands.’ She was a typical mother. I went to the hotel and the general manager talked to my mother and me for 15 minutes and told us we could never be like the guests who came to his hotel. ‘So don’t ever get jealous. This is for Ladies and Gentlemen–very important people.’
“By the time I started working in the restaurants, I knew the guests were very important. But a few months later I realized that the maitre d’ I watched every day was just as important because every guest was proud when he talked to them. Why? Because he was a first-class professional. He was somebody special–because of the excellence he created for the guests. So when I went to hotel school about a year and a half later, the teacher asked me to write a story describing what I felt about the business. And I wrote about the maitre d’ at my hotel. I titled it, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen Serving Ladies and Gentlemen.’ I wrote we could be excellent like he was…absolute excellence. When you walked into a room, you know he was there. In any moment all of us who serve can be Ladies and Gentlemen, just like the guests. I think it’s a powerful thing that shouldn’t be missed by the wonderful people in the industry. They should understand that.”
I truly believe that my fine staff that work with me are true representatives of the motto. They are real Ladies and Gentlemen. As much as I expect my staff to treat you as Ladies and Gentlemen. I expect you to treat them as Ladies and Gentlemen. Remember that all of us in life are Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen.
Comments
Feel free to leave a comment...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!