The Four Seasons is a hotel chain catering to luxury stays in medium sized hotels. It is one of the best hotel chain in the world and even if have never stayed there, you should check out the hotel to see how it has retained its reputation as one of the best hotels in the world. The chain was started by Isadore Sharp who wrote a book called Four Seasons – the story of a Business Philosophy, Penguin Group, Toronto, 2009. Mr. Sharp outlines the maturing of the nature of the hotel business and how his and chains values and principles became the correct business model for the Four Seasons. People travel a great deal more than ever in the past, and there is a wide number of hotels to suit their needs. In the larger cities in the world, the premium market is dominated by Four Season, the Ritz Carlton and a few others. The Four Seasons business model evolved into a builder of hotels (there is great risk and great reward if it is a success) to a management company (running the hotel for a fee). The company takes other investors to own the hotel, puts up some equity putting up no more than hotel fees would pay over the first 5 years, an amount that could be used to borrow from the bank. The model the company went with was to specialize – midsized hotels on exceptional quality, hotels recognized as the best.

Having the model to be the best and actually achieving it would mean greater refinement of the business model. The trick was to give customers want they value the most to meet and surpass their expectations. We are only what we do, not what we say we are. The goal was to have everyone in the company who think for themselves and act on it, who can remedy service failures on the spot. We are asking them to see the company’s interest as their own and to voluntarily take responsibility. Those words are easily said that done because the method of managing people needed to be changed, for does management see lower employees as a cost or an asset? Remember most people are natural boss-watchers – it is not what someone else says or does it is what their immediate boss says and does.

When Four Seasons started down the road, all the systems had to changed so everyone would act that way. It took time, personnel changed and how people were hired was changed. The result has been rates of retention and productivity increased. Besides the internal change, communication needed to be opened up.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, all companies have to go through the process the Four Seasons did with defining who they are and equally who they are not. As long as they execute on who they are, as they expand to other avenues, that has to remain a constant. When companies expand as opportunities arise, who and what they are tend to get blurred and less money is earned. It is difficult to stay in the space because there is a tendency to look around and say if we allocated our people and resources to that problem we could solve it and make money. The Four Seasons changed their way they operate the company from the insides, it took time but they are still one of the best at what they do. The companies shares that you own, are they the best? have they been consistently good? or is a different management moving them in different directions? Learn the process from the Four Seasons, they have been very consistent and profitable to.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions