Horst Schulze: Episode Description

On this episode of The Inspiration Project, Brendan Corr talks to renowned hotelier and business leader Horst Schulze, best known for transforming the hospitality industry through his leadership at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company and later founding Capella Hotel Group. Mr. Schulze shares the deeply personal experiences and philosophies that shaped his life and career. Beginning as a 14-year-old busboy in Germany, he learned formative lessons from a mentor who taught him that excellence is not just about performing a task, but about the intent behind it. He explains that human beings should never merely “fulfill a function” like a chair, but instead approach every responsibility with purpose, dignity, and care for others. Then Mr. Schulze emphasizes that true hospitality is not limited to hotels, it applies to every profession and every relationship. Whether in business, healthcare, banking, education, or family life, he believes people fundamentally want to feel respected and valued. Plus so much more!

Episode Summary

• How Horst became a Christian
• Why Horst wanted to be involved in the hotel industry
• Why leadership was a foundational principal in young Horst life and who taught him it’s value
• Why excellence always wins
• How to perform any task with excellence
• The power and importance of mentors
• Why who you marry is the most important decision you will ever make
• What true success looks like
• How to change your intention to care for others and not just yourself

Horst Schulze: Episode Transcript

Sponsor Announcement
This podcast is sponsored by Australian Christian College, a network of schools committed to student well-being, character development, and academic improvement.

Introduction
Welcome to The Inspiration Project, where well-known Christians share their stories to inspire young people in their faith and life. Here’s your host, Brendan Corr.

Brendan Corr
Well, hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of The Inspiration Project Podcast, where we get a chance to talk to leading luminaries in their field who have been able to make a success of their professional career while including a strong foundation of their faith. I’m personally delighted to have the opportunity this morning to talk with Mr. Horst Schulze. Mr. Schulze is legendary in the service industries, and his teachings have been influential in shaping, in fact, reshaping the concepts of the service industry across a number of opportunities. Throughout the years, he’s worked in a number of hotel chains, including the Hilton Hotels, Hyatt Hotels, but he came to significant prominence in the leading of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. It was in that role that he rose to become the president and COO of that organisation responsible for up to $2 billion worth of operations around the world, and elevated the Ritz-Carlton to be amongst the most highly respected organisations in that service industry. He’s also been a consultant across different hotel chains and in different industries. My personal connection or my personal appreciation for this opportunity for conversation is through the book that Mr. Schulze has written, a seminal work called Excellence Wins. Mr. Schulze, it’s absolutely a delight for me to have some opportunity to talk to you this morning. Welcome.

Horst Schulze
Thank you very much. I will make one correction offhand. Consulting with hotel companies, I have never consulted with a hotel company and I will never do it. I consult with all kinds of companies. I came back yesterday. I’m consulting with a bank, with a hospital group, with an investment group, with a real estate group, I consult with about 10 companies right now, right now none of them are hotels. I have done that and I don’t want to do it anymore. I consult with all companies, but the principles are the same, that is, caring for people.

Brendan Corr
Yes. I’m looking forward to exploring that central tenant of your vision about people, because as I mentioned, it is significant in our own context. We’re really a large school here in Western Sydney, Mr. Schulze. We currently serve about 2,700 students, and we have about 180 teaching staff, which means we also have about 80 administrative and support staff, and we issue to every one of those administrative and support staff a copy of your book, Excellence Wins.

Horst Schulze
Thank you so much.

Brendan Corr
We use it as guide for

Horst Schulze
I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Brendan Corr
Yeah. Well, we appreciate what it means for us to speak into the attitudes that we want for our administrative staff.

Horst Schulze
It’s very interesting because that is how the book is sold. It sold very well. It’s sold because some CEO read it and then bought it. I have one CEO who bought 5,000 for all his employees. So another 3,000 and so on and so on, and through that, the book is involved in many companies now, and has sold dramatically because of these large purchases by various companies.

Brendan Corr
Yes. Well, I think that is testament to the strength and the power of the message that it conveys, Mr. Schulze, which I know has been the distillation of your extensive career, and the deeply thoughtful way in which you’ve engaged in that career. But for the sake of our listeners, I am familiar somewhat with your history, but could you give us a little story of the 65 years that you have invested in the business?

Horst Schulze
Sure. For some reason, as a little boy I went to my parents and said, “I want to work in the hotel business.” Nobody knows why. I don’t either. I was about 11 years old growing up in a small town in Germany. After my parents realised they cannot talk me out of it anymore, I was begging and crying, so they looked for the best hotel in the region, which unfortunately was over a hundred kilometres away from my hometown, but they found a job there in that hotel as a busboy. So I moved there living in a dorm room with four other kids and started working in the hotel, which was the experience I wanted, being in a very beautiful surrounding, learning the business of caring for others. I was fortunate because the head chef in that hotel who welcomed me the first day when I arrived there had a major impact on me. In fact, on the first day of work he said two sentences which changed my life. I didn’t understand it at the time, mind you, I was 14, but I learned it over the next three plus years when I worked with him. The first sentence was, “Young man, tomorrow show up to work here at 7:00 AM. If I meant one minute after seven, I would tell you so.” What he meant with that, which was very clear over the next few years, anything we do, we do with absolute accuracy. We don’t cheat on what we say. We do what we say and we are sincere about what we are saying. The next sentence was, “And don’t come to work, to create excellence.” Now that really went over my head at the time, but I learned that gentleman, and I tried to live up to it as well as I can, I cannot live it the way he did, but that gentleman didn’t do anything without a high intent. He made it very clear. It’s not about the function if you’re a human being, it’s about the intent of your function, and the intent of that function should determine your function. In other words, for instance, he said, “We serve food and beverage in this restaurant, but that’s not our intent. Our intent is to instill well-being in people. That means we do it elegantly. We do it nice. We do it caringly. We’re friendly. We are helpful to everybody.” So he made it very clear, a human being fulfilling a function, that’s not being a human being, a chair on which we’re sitting is fulfilling a function. We, as human beings should, is that the function is just a means to accomplish the objective, the higher thinking of a human being. Of course, that’s the type of human being he was, everything was done correctly and so on. I had the very honour to work with him for three and a half years.

Brendan Corr
You mentioned, Mr. Schulze, that at the time when you first heard those words you didn’t appreciate the depth of the meaning or the power of them.

Horst Schulze
I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand it.

Brendan Corr
Did you by the end of the three and a half years?

Horst Schulze
Oh, yeah, you better believe it. He didn’t give you a chance, you learned it. In fact, interesting enough, he always compared, he said, “A chair fulfills a function, a human being has a higher purpose for their function.” And he made it clear, “If you just do things without a high intent you’re only a chair, that’s what you are, you have sentenced yourself to be no more than a chair.” Before I left there, three and a half laters to work in the next hotel, he called me and said, “Please look me in the eye and promise me never to become a chair.” And I promised him. In between once in a while I became a chair, but I always fell back because he was standing in front of me many times saying, “Hey, you are a chair.”

Brendan Corr
This is intriguing to me, Mr. Schulze, because you’ve risen to the peaks, to the pinnacle of influence, and of becoming a teacher of others with profound range of impact, and yet you are still respectful of a fellow who you learn from, who I suspect has not enjoyed the same degree of success for you, has not become a global leader, and yet the things you learn from him are still part of the core values you hold.

Horst Schulze
It’s pretty clear all of us are who we are and who we become is a result of the influence that others had on us. We cannot have that, and of course for myself, including the influence, if you read the Bible that has. So there is somebody who has influence on you, or the one that they work with and influence you, and you see they work with integrity and value and they have high thinking. I can truly, and I’m not throwing it in as a makeup in the story, but truly I remember very well an Indian gentleman by the name of Settu, who was our head dishwasher, was our dishwasher, became our head dishwasher, who really influenced me by his organisation. When I wanted to promote him from dishwasher, mind you, I said, “We can promote you into pantry work and so on,” he said, “No, Mr. Schulze, I want to work a few more months as a dishwasher, I haven’t perfected my art yet.” Now that impacted me dramatically, dramatically, and from there on I’m and he said, “I don’t want to be a dishwasher, I want to be the very best dishwasher.” So from there on, I didn’t take a job. I didn’t do a job unless I knew I could be the very best. I mean, my promotion to general manager, for example. When I left that hotel, I worked around Europe at the time, in the finest hotels in Europe. I was an assistant waiter, as a waiter. I worked for a while in the kitchen, and worked in Switzerland and the American line. I worked in Paris for two years. I worked in London. And then I was offered a job in the US, and in ‘64 I went to the US, eventually worked for Hilton, for Hyatt, went through Corinne in Hyatt, where I was eventually food and beverage director, and then rooms director, then general manager, regional vice president, corporate vice president of operations in the United States. And then somebody offered me to start a new brand, and I did because they assured me I can do operationally what I wanted to do. I was not an owner. They were owners, moneyed people who wanted to invest money, were building two hotels and wanted to start their own brand, and wanted the hotelier to run that company operationally. So they hired me and we started a brand which became Ritz-Carlton. So I opened the first Ritz-Carlton, it became a luxury brand, and I stayed until we had 50. I retired on a Friday. My wife picked me up. Because I was travelling 250 days at the time it was time to retire, and the painting was painted, mind you. I went home on a Friday, and Monday I said to my wife, “I’m going to do it one more time,” which really annoyed her because of the travelling. I have a beautiful, wonderful wife, but after a few days she said, “That’s who you are. I support you,” and I consequently created Capella. There is a Capella in Sydney, a Cappella Hotel Company. I created that hotel company. I sold that a couple of years ago, a few years ago now. So that was the next hotel company I created, and it is on an ultra luxury level. It’s a luxury. Capella is ultra luxury, and it’s a fantastic hotel in the old post office in Sydney. So I created that one, and then of course some years later I sold the company and retired, because after all I was in the 70s. Now in the meantime, I’m 87, but I’m consulting with about 10 companies now, making speeches, because you should keep on sharing what you learned. At the same time, younger people should run the companies because I don’t live where those young people live. I live in Mala, but I have a lot of experience, human experiences I should share. For example, the story about not doing things without purpose, that will never change. Interesting enough, or to understand that if you have a business, one of the key elements that your objective has is to respect people, that means employees and customers. I made a speech, if you don’t mind, a few years ago, a couple of years ago for classic hotels in America. Before me was a speaker, and she said, “Everything is new. Forget everything you know. Forget everything you know because everything is new. Technology here. Technology, if you don’t know that, you’re going to fail.” I was the next speaker and I said, “Nothing is new. 5,000 years ago people wanted to be respected, and that was true this morning and 10 minutes ago, tomorrow, and in 5,000 years. And if that helps you to respect them, then use it. If not, don’t use it.” Yes, I have people come in and they want this or the other to purchase, but really down there they want to be told also that I respect them, that I care, that I’m actually here to help them, that I’m actually here to give them the best advice. I can tell you it is fascinating. A recent study in the US that studied the American consumer, and the American consumer says, mind you, you have to comprehend 80% of the consumers say, “I purchase from you if you treat me nice, even if I could buy the same product for less money next door.” That means hospitality. That means caring. That means if you care. Why is that true? Because if I care for you, you will trust me. So this caring has to be expressed. Hospitality, and allow me on the role of my business now, forgive me, but what is hospitality? By the way, the word hospitality belongs in a hardware store, in a beauty salon, in a doctor’s office, everywhere, respecting your customer and your client, your patient, or your parishioner. In fact, hospitality, the first teaching about hospitality was done by St. Benedict. St. Benedict in the year 500 wrote to his monasteries in Europe, he wrote to the head of the monasteries, “If a guest arrives, treat him as if he was Jesus himself.” In other words, any guest that walks in is the most important person in the world, and that is caring with hospitality, care for the people that you deal with and that makes a difference. So that is the real differentiator between you and the other product, because the product can be copied and repeated anytime.

Brendan Corr
Yeah. The comment you made earlier about function and intent or the action versus the intention behind that action.

Horst Schulze
That’s right. That’s right.

Brendan Corr
Mr. Schulze, it is so very clear that you are motivated, not motivated, you are that there is a central tenant of belief that dignifies every human person, every soul, whatever is that state of existence, whether they are wealthy, whether they’re poor, whether they’re trying to do hardware, whether they’re trying to enjoy a meal, that there is an inherent value in that entity.

Horst Schulze
Of course. Of course. I mean, let’s phrase it. What did Jesus say? What’s the most important commandment? Love the Lord your God. And next, love your neighbour as yourself. He doesn’t say the poor neighbour or the rich neighbour. I always said to my managers, “If you’re a Christian, are your employees your neighbours or are they not your neighbours suddenly? Is your guest your neighbour?” They are our neighbours, and God himself said, “Love them and respect them as yourself.” Wow, if you cannot take that seriously, you cannot take humanity seriously.

Brendan Corr
I want to respect that, and it is so obviously the theory, not the theory, the concept that permeates your work, your teaching, your philosophy, and I particularly appreciated the notion that you expressed that hospitality is an expression of that. It is a respect for the other person regardless of context, but there is also this notion that hospitality has become an industry, that it has been commercialised. I wonder, without denying the eternal and enduring truth that that notion of humanity holds, whether you’d let me ask you some questions around how we reconcile some of the questions around the commercialisation of that relationship. I’ll start with people responding to great service. That’s one of the things that you recognise at-

Horst Schulze
Well, as I said before, think about the study, “If you’re nice with me, that is great service. If you’re nice with me, I’ll deal with you.”

Brendan Corr
Yeah, that’s right. So from you, I understand that service emanates from your beingness and from who you are, but I also understand that the other person responds to that generosity, that hospitality. I want to ask you why you think good service is good, why do you think excellence and care matters so much to the person receiving it, to the client, to the customer?

Horst Schulze
Well, I kind of expressed that already. 5,000 years ago or 10,000 years ago people wanted to be respected. If I show caring that means I respect you, and everybody wants to be respected. By the way, the word hospitality, you mentioned hospitality, is disappearing relative to business. Well, hospitality is not only the pursuit of business, to deliver business, that pursuit, hospitality is also a reflection of your character. Hospitality is a reflection of your character. Do you care for people or don’t you? It reflects your character. And I have to think if I’m in business and my intent is to serve you. As a hardware store, my intent is to serve hammers and nails, et cetera, et cetera, that’s my intent in order to make a business, in order of the family. That’s one thing. But if my intent is to help every customer that walks in the store to the utmost relative to their needs, things have changed dramatically. Now I’m not only in hardware, I’m now in hospitality in the hardware store or in any business. If I’m a doctor, in my opinion, the opinion about a doctor is not what he did medically for you because you don’t understand that. We don’t understand that. The opinion of the doctor is how he expressed hospitality. Did he express caring? Did he talk to me? Did I sense that he cares for me? Did he sense that he wants to heal me? Did I sense that he really wants to be of support to me, which will change the healing process dramatically if I sense that? So hospitality as an expression is who you are also. If you don’t have that in you, then it will be hard to give it. Then it will be hard to give it. And with today’s fast world, a business is not charged by its hospitality, it’s charged by the numbers that they create. However, if I have a business gift, now be with me here. If I have a business that gives Christ’s hospitality, I will have more guests and eventually I will have better numbers. But because Wall Street says you’re a good president of a company or not because of the numbers, the concentration is not only more caring, the concentration is all cost, and income, and price, and so on. So we are pushed by our systems, by our society, we’re being pushed not to worry about the hospitality. When I was running Ritz-Carlton we made more modern hotels because we were able to charge more because they wanted to stay with us. Because they knew we cared. So in the end, it was our differentiator, it was our competitive edge, and because of it we, in the end, made more money.

Brendan Corr
I guess that tension is what I was hoping to explore with you. The notion of service as a value that’s inherent as a character trait in the people that are engaged in the delivery of the enterprise versus service as a strategy, that it becomes a tool that is used to increase market share, or increase profitability, or to become a point of market distinctiveness. There is I think you’ve answered it quite well to say that for those that are providing the service it has to be a resident, or to be most effective it has to be the expression of their own character and their own value system, not just, “This is the business strategy that you’re going to do X, Y, and Z. Regardless of how you feel, it’s going to be our strategy.”

Horst Schulze
Let me give you an example. I just came back from a grocery store. I was in a grocery store. The grocery store has mostly self-checkout. Self-checkout. And of course, it is for the convenience of the guest, which is of the customer. This is pretty much a lie. So it costs less money because you don’t have to pay somebody to check in. That’s really what it is. So the money drove the convenience, if you will, of our checkout, so I checked out. If I was that grocery store, I would question myself, “Have I convinced the buyer, the purchaser that just leaves my store, have I convinced that purchaser, he or she, have I convinced them to want to come back because I showed them that I care?” Remember that survey, that is an overwhelming survey, 80% of the American consumers say, “I come back to you and deal with you even if I have to pay more next door.” So they haven’t expressed care to me by me checking out myself. If I would have had a human being that bagged this down and that checked me out, and that human being said, “Sir, I hope you could find everything. I hope we served you right. Thank you for shopping with us,” I would say, “Wow.” If that human being with no training just throws it in the bag that’s a different story again. That doesn’t show caring. But if I show hospitality in the hardwares there, in the beauty salon, and the hotel, it doesn’t matter where, the service shows it clearly, clearly shows it, “I will win and the customer will come back to me because they will trust dealing with me.” Hospitality, and that hospitality should be expressed to you, by the way, to your neighbour. And guess what? You have a better neighbourhood.

Brendan Corr
Yeah. Well, that’s another thing I was wanting to explore with you in this conversation. I’ll ask a question, but put it on hold for the time being. The mindset as I’ve been thinking about our conversation, and exploring for myself what I wanted to ask you, this notion of inherent expression of a characteristic of value versus a business strategy, and the tension in that, which we’ve been discussing. I also then wanted to talk with you about how that notion of hospitality appears in the workplace? Okay, we get that. How does it appear around in the family room, and the kitchen, and in the most immediate relationships that you hold?

Horst Schulze
Yeah. Well, it’s the same if you don’t mind, and I was touching on that several times, is the intent. I mean, I will dare to share with you a very personal story for a moment, that is marriage. Marriage. About 48 years ago, I was invited for lunch with a couple, good friends, young couple, very good friends, they said, “Let’s have lunch.” And I have lunch with them. They called me for lunch because they wanted to tell me that they’re getting divorced, which was a terrible shock with friends and so on. My question was, “Why?” And the answer was, “We just don’t feel like it anymore.” Well, the next day I happened to pick up my then girlfriend, which I soon later married, and I realised how much I was in love with her. I saw her, she’s beautiful, she’s honourable, she’s a dignified, wonderful young lady, and I realised how much I was in love, and I realised, “Wait a minute, that is a feeling.” They told me the day before they got divorced the feeling was gone. They said, “When we married, we had planned to get married.” How do I make sure that feeling doesn’t go away? So I decided that the feeling of that feeling will never go away. I made a decision, “I will be in love for the rest of my life.” Now, wait a minute. It’s not enough to have an intent, you have to be committed to that intent. After you do that, you have to decide, “What will I have to do to accomplish that intent?” My intent was, earlier, to build the finest hotel company in the world. Well, that was my intent, but I had to commit myself to it, and have to initiate the things that accomplish that. In the case of my marriage, my marriage.

Brendan Corr
Yeah, that’s good.

Horst Schulze
You’re right. I have to set down, “What do I have to do to stay in love with my wife?” For example, men, young men, you have to ask your wife once in a while, “How can I be a better husband?” And implement the things. Do the things so that you have a life together in the greatest institution in life, marriage, the greatest institute, the only God-ordained institution. So you have to initiate things to be sure it’s good. So it belongs in the home. It belongs in your workplace. It belongs to your friendship. It belongs everywhere. Don’t trust something without an intent there, the intent will direct your action and function. If you intend this, “I will be building the best hotel company in the world.” Well, then I have to make sure that every employee is nice, and I have to learn how to hire great employees. I have to learn how to teach employees. I could not hope that my doorman in Shanghai is friendly. I had to learn to make sure he is driven by my intent.

Brendan Corr
Yeah. Excuse me. I want to come back to that because the second major theme that I wanted to talk with you about was your concepts of leadership. So we’ve been exploring this notion of hospitality and service and where does that come from, and I just can’t help but be struck, Mr. Schulze, by the consistency of the notions that you hold of the highest view of what it means to be a person. The highest concept of agency, the responsibility that we hold as created beings to decide and choose, and exercise self-determination, purpose, precision, rather than just be tossed to and fro by circumstances or by feelings. It’s a very inspiring view of humanity that you have developed for yourself and can express so well.

Horst Schulze
Yeah. But at the same time, we are a creation by God who created us individually, and with our individual character and being. Either I maintain that or I lose it, or I give it away, or I let the world steal it from me, my identity. My identity, I have to make sure as an individual that I maintain my identity, and driven by my purposes rather than fall into the purposes of the world. Either am I I or am I the world and everybody around me or society? As I said, today’s society is the same thing. Am I just on that or am I still driven within that society? The identity that God gave me as much as possible, I will keep it as much as possible, or it is either stolen or it’s given away, unfortunately. Today everybody follows, they’re followers. They’re not driven by it. I mean, I give you a silly example which may sound political. It’s not meant to be political, but if you look at cities in America, some of them, take Detroit. I lived in Detroit. I’ve never met anybody in Detroit that didn’t complain about their city. It is a pretty miserable city, and they have a right to complain about it, but for the last 80 years they have voted for the same party every year. They’re just following, they’re not thinking. They follow. You don’t follow, have a high intent. Look what is honourable, what is good as a leader? Your identity, that’s your identity, and there is purpose as a leader. Leading applies that you have a destination in mind, and if I have a destination in mind then I have to question myself, “Is that destination, my intent, good for all concerned? Is it good for, if it is business, hypothetically, if it is business, is it good for an investor?” Well, it must be, otherwise you won’t have a business. “Is it good for every employee? Is it good for every customer, every guest? Is it good for society as a whole? Will God approve? Will God approve?” And as a leader, once this is true, it’s good for all, you have no more right to compromise it.

Brendan Corr
I get that. So what I’m hearing there, and I’ll pick it up after a little bit of a diversion, is the view that you are espousing the dignity of every human, which needs to be expressed in service from whatever company or whatever relationship you’re in.

Horst Schulze
That’s right.

Brendan Corr
That is also the imperative on leaders to dignify their workers.

Horst Schulze
That’s right.

Brendan Corr
You use a phrase in your book where you were bringing this view, and the way I read it, the way I interpreted this section of your Excellence Wins was dignifying the workers, dignifying those that society would have seen as being less important, less valuable, just tools to get a job done, and you used the phrase, “You are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.”

Horst Schulze
That’s right. They’re not servants. We are ladies and gentlemen, and if we’re excellent in service, we are doing it with dignity as ladies and gentlemen. Or should we do it as servants?

Brendan Corr
Yes.

Horst Schulze
No, we are ladies and gentlemen, and nobody makes me or anybody servants, but my profession is service and I’m applying it as a lady or a gentleman. Yes. And I made that very clear, all employees, you’re not servants. By the way, I didn’t hire people to work for us ever. I learned that from my first maître d’. I’d asked them, “Join me in a beautiful vision and a beautiful journey to become the best in the world in what we are doing. Don’t come to work here, join me. Be part of us.”

Brendan Corr
Yeah. Right, back to that individual that shaped you at 14, “Don’t come to work tomorrow. I don’t think I’ve understood. While I did understand that phrase and that intention, I don’t think I appreciated fully what I’m learning from your conversation this morning, that you were ennobling those people and dismantling the construction of their identity that society would demand or expect, or that their history would demand or expect. And you were establishing, first and foremost, their creativeness and their specialness, their uniqueness as created beings to exercise choice and decision, and agency in whatever their hands were called to do that day.

Horst Schulze
Very good point. Very clear. Very clear. Exactly. And respecting, and not only. There is such a thing, what is called Taylorism, and Taylorism was, in other words, that is also, you may as well call it management still today. That means I tell you what to do, I watch over you, and make sure you do it right. Instead of saying, “Here is your job, we teach you, and if you know how to make it better, tell us. If you learn how to do it better, tell us.” You are empowered to come to me and say, “I’m now doing this particular job.” How could I be the expert of somebody who’s been doing the job for a year, and I have never done it before, yet I sent memos on how to do it?” That is silly. So they are respected and empowered in their area, and it’s well known. You may have seen in the book, we are empowered … In fact, we wanted to make sure that everything’s perfect for our guest, and if they were unhappy and expressed that they’re unhappy, every employee was empowered to make that guest happy. Buy them breakfast. Every employee, every single employee, busboy around the world was empowered to make a decision up to $2,000.

Brendan Corr
Yes, I remember this.

Horst Schulze
Without question. To take care of a guest that wasn’t fully and well-served. I want to do two things. I didn’t want to lose a single guest, and I wanted to tell my employees, “I trust you,” and it worked. It worked, the guests were overwhelmed. When a guest expressed to a busboy one day that his TV didn’t work, and that busboy apologised about it. “My TV,” he said, “I’m sorry about my TV,” and the guy said, “It wasn’t your TV,” and he said, “But I work here. It is my TV, and I feel so bad I will buy you breakfast.” That guest became an ambassador rather than a terrorist against our company.

Brendan Corr
Yes, yes. We’ll dip into that conversation about leadership and influencing others in just a moment. But in this world where Google reviews and ratings, and keyboard warriors, do the same principles apply? Are you finding that calling people out, and the canceled culture complaint, has it altered the way your philosophy hits the ground?

Horst Schulze
No, it hasn’t. Again, last night, I came back last night at two o’clock because the plane was delayed. I came from consulting with a bank, with a bank in Texas. I started consulting with them eight years ago. They were a neighbourhood bank. Today they’re number five rated in the United States as excellence of a bank. Our image is still driven. The numbers, of course, play a role in any business, but the fact that the customer, that every customer votes us as the friendliest bank still impacts the business in every community where we are, and impacts the opinion clearly about even the evaluation. It is the reason why our deposits are up and our loans are up. It is the reason. It’s still driven, and the bank will say. The bank, in fact, was honouring me and saying, “The reason why we are where we are, over eight years, has grown that dramatically, it’s because of Horst who taught us service, who taught us caring about anybody coming.” I make it very clear, like in a hotel, any guest, any human being that enters our hotel, we are here to convince that guest to want to come back and want to recommend us. This we taught in the bank, anybody we have contact with in the bank or on telephone for that matter, convincing them by our caring that they want to deal with us, and that is still done with caring and personal relationship. Yes. Yes, there’s online banking. They told me in the beginning they’re on it. So make sure that that is the most convenient, the most caring expressed, made easy for the customer.

Brendan Corr
That’s good.

Horst Schulze
And sooner later, you will talk to them.

Brendan Corr
Yeah, that’s good.

Horst Schulze
And then show them that you respect them. So it’s still driven. In fact, I want to tell you something very interesting. It’s kind of fascinating, even though the man, the customer, has changed dramatically over the 45 years since we opened our first, or 42 years, our first Ritz-Carlton, at that time it’s the father of today’s guest. The father showed up in a suit and a tie at arm’s length distance with the employees as a gentleman. Today the son shows up, the son of that father shows up with blue jeans, and holes in their blue jeans, where he gives the impression saying, “I’m a dude like you.” But we know for a fact that he has more needs, to be told, “You are important, and we respect you,” than the father did.

Brendan Corr
Yeah, interesting.

Horst Schulze
It has not gone away. So it has not gone away. Do not be fooled. Do not be fooled by the saying, “Oh, I’m cool just like everybody.” No, no, don’t be fooled. They’re saying. Think about it, in America it is a dramatic things. The suicide rate of men 45 to 60 is higher than ever. Dramatic. Why? Because they’re not fulfilled. They just live by. They just functioned. They have no higher connection, not to a higher being, not to higher people, because we didn’t connect them in schools to a higher being.

Brendan Corr
Yeah, that’s good. And it comes back to the, you talked about whether if technology can facilitate person to person connection, it’s the relationship that is the bread and butter of what we’re doing.

Horst Schulze
That’s it. That’s it, exactly. That’s where we are. And the leadership part, not to forget, it is so amazing to me when I have talked, and I’m not exaggerating the number now, over the last 10 years, I talked to at least a thousand employees in many companies, and I questioned them, “What’s the vision of your company? What’s the purpose of the company?” I haven’t found one of them that knows the purpose of the company. In other words, they were hired for functioning. They were hired for nothing but the function and not to be part, and then we complain that the employees are not good anymore, they’re millennials. No, no, no, it’s you, the leader that is failing, not the people. You, the leader, are failing. Sorry.

Brendan Corr
So let’s step into leadership because clearly you are a very successful leader. You’ve led large companies, you’ve led large communities, and led them very successfully. I wonder what would you summarise, what are the things that set aside your successful leadership?

Horst Schulze
Well, yeah. Again, I’m thankful for so many people that impacted me, and my leadership is where this, it’s something, it’s a synopsis of what we talked about. It’s a repetition of what we talked about. As a leader, in everything you do, what is your high intent? What is it? But that’s not enough to know that, otherwise those are pipe dreams often. They are pipe dreams unless you really think them through. Question yourself, “Is this good for everybody that’s impacted?” And then commit yourself to it. Commit yourself to the visions in the various things that you do in your life. And the next thing is, “What do I have to do? What do I have to do to make sure I am accomplishing what I’m dreaming about?” The very thing to have a great marriage, “What do I have to do to be in love?” What are the actions of, I mean, I can tell you, I know it’s a mind thing too every day. So I work on that. Every day I drive into my home here, a long driveway, I thank God for my wonderful wife, you put it back in mind. I tell myself I cannot wait to hold her in my arms in a minute, and I’m married for 47 years and still in love. So the model is vision, purpose, commitment, application of the non-negotiable things that you have to do, and keeping focus on it. That’s where the problem lies, people don’t keep focused. They find excuses as to why it cannot be done. In my marriage, I found reasons why I shouldn’t be in love anymore with my wife. Yeah, we have conflicts, but I refocused on my dream of being in love for the rest of my life. Honestly, after 47 years, we are in love.

Brendan Corr
Amen. Bless you.

Horst Schulze
Of course, always look for the direction, what would God do? What would Jesus do?

Brendan Corr
Amen.

Horst Schulze
Come on, everybody. You have a beautiful book there, that’s a guideline for everything. Why do you ignore that? Think about the decisions we make. Everything is a decision. The decision determines your destiny, it’s your decision. For example, just think about the decision of believing or not believing. Just think about it. It’s a decision, but think about how stupid it is. Here are two things. I pick this, and I know behind there is maybe something terrible or nothing, or should I pay this, and the promise is there’s something beautiful behind it? But certainly there is hope. What would I pick? Would I pick this? So with other words, people do things without even making the decision. That’s what I told you before. That’s what they do in Detroit. They don’t make a decision, just follow. If you are a non-believer, you just follow something silly. Forgive me for telling you that. You follow nothing instead of following hope, and beauty, and direction, and eternity versus nothing. What kind of decisions are that? And that’s the thing, people are not even learning anymore to make decisions and really evaluate things properly. We, as elderly people, who have learned that, who have seen it clearly without any argument, we have a responsibility to share it with the world, with young people. That’s why I will never retire. I will go out there and speak, and I pray that in every speech I make that at least one person will understand and will capture life. Be alive.

Brendan Corr
Amen, Horst. That’s a beautiful account of how leadership emanates from an authentic self is how I sort of capture that. You do the work that you need to do to wrestle with your own decision-making, what do you believe, what are you pursuing, what’s important to you, you commit to acting, and then you hold yourself accountable to those commitments. Right?

Horst Schulze
Absolutely, and always question, is it good for all concerned? It cannot be a selfish decision for you, and your decisions, your objectives must serve all concerned. Now you’re on the right path, and in my opinion. I work with so many companies, those who adopted it. As I said, I was in Texas because they have moved from a lousy little neighbourhood bank to being the fifth most respected bank in America because they have adapted to care for people. They have adopted the respect of their employees. They have adopted the system. Of course, it would take a conversation forever. It takes many processes and work, and you don’t hire people anymore, you select people, et cetera. A manager would never tell me the employee was not good. What do you mean the employee was not good? That means you don’t know how to select people. It’s leadership. If I forfeit and turn it over to somebody else, it’s somebody else, I own it.

Brendan Corr
Without sort of distracting this conversation, but this notion of it’s a leader’s responsibility, you made an example a little while ago in our conversation that you couldn’t be sure that the doorman in Shanghai knew how to be friendly. You’d have to teach him how to be friendly.

Horst Schulze
I have to make sure. I have to select the right employee. I have to orient them. I have to teach them right, and I have to keep the teaching sustained. We teach every minute that nobody can go to work. We have a six to eight minute teaching session, where we teach the fundamentals of our business. Every day, you cannot go to work, every shift, “We are a 24 hour business,” where you’re reminded, “We are here to care, et cetera.” Every day.

Brendan Corr
And you choose one of your values, right? And you unpack, “This is what this value looks like in practice.”

Horst Schulze
That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. So I can only do, in finishing here, say have a great purpose, be sure you understand that particular leaders, the greatest honour we have as leaders is that we have the opportunity to positively impact a lot of people for their life. Our employees mostly, we have a chance to impact their life positively. We have a chance to make sure that they impact the country we live in, their families. We have a chance to put that in their mind. What an honour that is for us as leaders, and of course to be successful as a company, and that’s what I want to live with. Yes, the model looks like purpose, commitment, implementation of what gets you there, and keeping focus on it, and that’s a difficult thing. Keep your focus on it.

Brendan Corr
Yeah, don’t get distracted.

Horst Schulze
And not be sidetracked by all kinds of incidents. You, as a leader, I submit to you. You, as a leader, have no right to make excuses. You have accepted the role as a leader, and everything you see why things cannot be done is an excuse. You have no right to make excuses. You are to find the solutions, not excuses. All the best to you.

Brendan Corr
Horst, it’s been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for the influence that you’ve been in so many places through your speaking and through your book. I have personally valued and benefited from that, and I know many other people have. We pray for blessings upon you.

Horst Schulze
I’m welcome for another conversation sometime.

Brendan Corr
That would be fantastic.

Horst Schulze
In the meantime God bless you and all the people that are listening. Amen. I hope that God blesses you and live a great life. Live a great life with high intent, and consequently be fulfilled. All the best. God bless you.