The Spirit to Serve Marriott's Way

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Summary: Good principles to be learned here.
Review: I am a real estate investor and read this book to learn some principles which apply to my profession. Marriott clearly related historical anectdotes, business principles and his thought processes. I got some insight into Mr. Marriott's personality as well. He has an impressive track record, sound business principles and morals, and a clear and appropriate focus. I found this book very readable and full of things I can apply to my own business.

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Summary: Take care of associates and they can take care of customers.
Review: I bought "The sprit to serve" 2 weeks ago for prepare the interview J.W. Marriott Hotel in Seoul on 20th of February. It really helped me to know J.W. Marriott hotel itself, the CEO's hotel management mind, Marriott hotel's begin, success, risk and stable success. I was impressed by the sentence "Take care of associates and they can take care of customers" I read this book 3 times and I will read more for the second interview and just for study hotel management. I'd like to study more about hotel management. I read this book in Korean so I am searching Marriott's way in english and I found the review of this book in amazon. It will help me very much. I really want to be Marriott's family after read this book. In first interview I did my best but still have some regret not to say about this book and my spirit.Good Luck to me. Thank you.

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Book About Business Principles
Review: I really enjoyed this book. I was vacationing at a Marriott Hotel and actually bought this book I wanted to read it so much (even though I thought it should just be given away to the guests). It did not disappoint me. As one of the other reviewers noted, it was a well-written, easy read.

Mr. Marriott inspired me with the business tips contained in the book. I especially enjoyed reading about the checklists that Marriott Hotels uses in its business. I really like checklists too. Why invent the wheel everytime you want to do something? Why try to remember all of the steps needed to complete a task, such as making up a room at a Marriott Hotel? Why not just find out what works and put it on paper?! In this way, a business can create a standardized process that can be taught to its employees, instead of relying upon each individual's whim. This idea is also discussed in Michael Gerber's excellent book, The E Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It.

I also enjoyed reading J. W. Marriott, Jr's criticisms of his father's way of making decisions (I also thought it was interesting that he was so negative with regard to his father, in a published book). Jr. said that his father fretted too much about decisions and basically drove himself crazy. Jr. says in this book that one should not try to make a perfect business decision. That involves too much angst and is a waste of time. One should gather the necessary information to make an informed decision as best as one can, then actually make the decision. The price of pefection is prohibitive.

I hope you find this book as enjoyable and as inspiring as I did.

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Book About Business Principles
Review: I really enjoyed this book. I was vacationing at a Marriott Hotel and actually bought this book I wanted to read it so much (even though I thought it should just be given away to the guests). It did not disappoint me. As one of the other reviewers noted, it was a well-written, easy read.

Mr. Marriott inspired me with the business tips contained in the book. I especially enjoyed reading about the checklists that Marriott Hotels uses in its business. I really like checklists too. Why invent the wheel everytime you want to do something? Why try to remember all of the steps needed to complete a task, such as making up a room at a Marriott Hotel? Why not just find out what works and put it on paper?! In this way, a business can create a standardized process that can be taught to its employees, instead of relying upon each individual's whim. This idea is also discussed in Michael Gerber's excellent book, The E Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It.

I also enjoyed reading J. W. Marriott, Jr's criticisms of his father's way of making decisions (I also thought it was interesting that he was so negative with regard to his father, in a published book). Jr. said that his father fretted too much about decisions and basically drove himself crazy. Jr. says in this book that one should not try to make a perfect business decision. That involves too much angst and is a waste of time. One should gather the necessary information to make an informed decision as best as one can, then actually make the decision. The price of pefection is prohibitive.

I hope you find this book as enjoyable and as inspiring as I did.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent business advice
Review: I stayed at a Marriott in Denver last week and found a copy of this book in the nightstand. I expected it to be hogwash and instead found it to be the most useful business book I've ever read. It is a quick read (about 150 pages, not the 240 mentioned in the Amazon catalog). It is entertaining without being self-indulgent and informative without being preachy. The anecdotes revealed an appropriate level of introspection (my one quibble is that Mr. Marriott claims that his family and faith come before business and yet also describes himself as a workaholic). I'm not in the hospitality industry and yet I found dozens of parallels to my own business (computer software and book publishing). Most interesting were the frank assessments of Marriott's business mistakes. He truly used them as an opportunity to learn. The book is chock full of excellent and thought-provoking strategies and totally devoid of the cheesy buzzwords so prevalent in, say, the latest Tom Peters books. Although I have no association with Marriott, the book will cause me to examine the entire service industry in a new light.

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Summary: Inspiring business advice from a non-business book
Review: Ran into a copy of this succint biographical book at the Sydney Marriott alongside the Bible/Gita/Buddhist manual, and I wasn't too sanguine about something from the hospitality industry being too relevant to me. But this slim, easy read may actually connect with almost any business person. More so if you are in any way related to customer services or marketing.

Without skipping any beat on chapters of glorious prose, ala TypicalBusinessBook, it shoots straight from the gut about the tenets of Marriott -- how with sheer determination it shot to the big league from a small cottage inn, the MBE leadership style of Marriott (the younger Marriott that is) who prefers to walk his troops instead of boardroom inertia, lessons in team building, the importance of listening to all the levels of the organization, codifying past experiences into business philosophies (not the usual "Best Practices" bromide that is bandied about in elite echelons of business) etc etc.

In all respects, a hidden business gem of a book.

Now the million (ok, 11) dollar question. You can imagine how I got my copy. So would I *buy* this book if I had to? For the basement price, and for the simple but compelling REAL WORLD lessons, most likely yes.

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Summary: I love this book so much.
Review: Well, I think it is a very good book and there are a lot of usuful things we have to know, especially if you are in the hotel industry. Since I was so impressed by it and I am majoring in tourism management I want to apply to Marriott Hotel which is opening in Seoul, Korea, in March 2000. I read it in Korean a few months ago and tried to find it in English. But it was not easy and I had to forgive up. I want to know more about Marriott's company and the spirit of the author, J.W.Marriott Jr. I hope you can help me and any small information will be very helpful. Thank you.