In 1965, Marriott opened its fifth hotel, a 500-room convention facility two blocks east of historic Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta. The huge project was designed to put Marriott on the map as a hotel company, and we poured all of our energies into creating a showcase property. Just as we were putting on the finishing touches, we learned that another hotel under construction not far away was up for sale. At the invitation of the architect and developer John Portman, a team of Marriott hotel people toured the site.
Our guys shook their heads over the work flow of the heart of the house. They craned their necks and squinted to find the tip-top of an open-air, multistory space in the central lobby that wasted thousands of cubic feet. They exchanged glances over the confusing location of restaurants and ballrooms. Other aspects of the unusual design came in for silent censure as well.
ÒItÕs a disaster! The building will never work! WeÕd have to be crazy to buy it!Ó was the groupÕs considered opinion. Besides, who would want to have two hotels of the same brand in one city? Insane!
We politely declined to make an offer.
Out of our ÒwisdomÓ was born the Hyatt Regency of today.
As soon as the Atlanta Hyatt Regency threw open its doors, a steady stream of people passed through the hotel simply to stand in the ÒAwesome!Ó spot in the lobbyÑthe best vantage point for appreciating the dizzying heights of the light-filled atrium. In no time, almost every major city decided it needed to have a similar showplace hotel. Hyatt Regencies soon sprouted up in key markets around the country. All because Marriott (among others) couldnÕt see past the buildingÕs unusual mechanics to the architectÕs grander vision.
To rub salt in the wound, our certainty then that having two Marriott hotels in the same city was a crazy idea is now laughable. Today, we have nearly 50 Marriott hotels in the Atlanta area alone!
When I can stop grimacing long enough, I like to use the Atlanta Hyatt Regency story as an example of just one of the thousands of forks in the road that Marriott has faced over the years. Most forks have been small decisions that simply keep the daily grind grinding along. But once in a while, weÕve been presented with a choice that turns out to have dramatic consequences. As we learned in Atlanta more than 30 years ago, you canÕt always tell which decisions are which until long after the choice has been made. All you can do is make the best decision possible at that moment, cross your fingers, and keep moving.
Making decisions, of course, is a big part of running a business. Not a day goes by in the life of a company that you donÕt commit yourself to a particular path, turning down one or more opportunities in favor of another. IÕve found that following a few simple rules keeps me from getting bogged down by the dozens of puzzles, queries, and opportunities that land on my desk every day.
The first and most important rule is: Be willing to make a decision. Not everybody finds this easy. My father hated making decisions, for fear that some better option was just around the corner. He analyzed things to death, believing that one more fact or figure could make all the difference between the right decision and a wrong one. Through the years, I spent hours responding to a steady onslaught of detailed comments and concerns from him about every aspect of our business.
DadÕs constant barrage of questions drove me a little crazy. If I had stopped to answer his every inquiry, I would never have gotten anything else accomplished. On the other hand, some of the points he raised did help sharpen my own arguments for the decisions I was making on behalf of the company.
Watching and working with my father for years, I determined not to suffer from the same kind of indecisiveness that plagued him. In fact, IÕm sometimes accusedÑprobably with some justificationÑof being very impatient about making decisions. ItÕs probably a natural reaction to my father, a case of the pendulum swinging the other way. Unlike him, IÕm a graduate of the Òbias-for-actionÓ school; IÕd rather make a decision and get on with it. If new information comes in, IÕm willing to listen and adjust accordingly.
One of the simplest but most effective ways that I put my bias for action into effect is to handle each piece of paper that comes across my desk only once. As promised by time management gurus, this small act of self-discipline has amazing effects. Not only does it keep the avalanche of paper that comes into my office somewhat under control, the daily practice keeps me in training for decision-making on the larger scale.
The second rule for decision-making, I think, is to do your homework. Our organizational decision-making skills definitely improved in quality after we put more muscle into disciplined study. I donÕt think we would have been able to diversify successfully into the limited-service lodging market, for example, had we not devoted so much energy to studying the competition thoroughly in order to design Courtyard by Marriott.
On the flip side, study needs to come to an end at some point and a choice must be made. DonÕt let dotting iÕs and crossing tÕs become a convenient way to avoid following the first rule: Make a decision.
If this caveat sounds contradictory coming from someone born into a perfectionist family, who makes a fuss about MarriottÕs obsession with detail, allow me to clarify. I think a lot of executivesÑmy father among themÑuse minute analysis as a way to cope with the fear of making a decision. If youÕre someone who suffers from analysis paralysis, you know what IÕm talking about. More often than not, the critical information needed to make an informed decision does not require delving into microscopic details. To use Courtyard as an example again, we studied the competition to a fare-thee-well in order to design the product; the decision to go after the market was made long before we got into convening focus groups, constructing potential room layouts, and so on.
The truth is, when it comes to making decisions, doing your homework only gets you so far. Which brings me to my third rule of decision-making: Listen to your heart. Research and analysis should give you the hard data you need to debate a decision with intelligence and insight, but facts alone arenÕt always enough to make a correct decision.
Heart is not Òwinging it.Ó It is experience speaking. NothingÑnot even number-crunching at its bestÑcan take the place of cumulative, hands-on knowledge. ThatÕs because the central ingredients of heart are your understanding of and experience with your business. TheyÕre legitimate, if not vital, factors in making a decision.
IÕll give you just two examples from MarriottÕs past to illustrate my point. One decision was made virtually overnight. The other involved more than two years of careful study. In the end, heart was the true deciding factor in each case.
In February 1995, Jim Sullivan, one of our senior development executives, was meeting with Fred Malek, former head of MarriottÕs Lodging Group, for one of the pairÕs periodic ÒWhatÕs up with you?Ó chats. As Jim was heading out the door at the end, Fred casually asked, ÒOh, by the way, you wouldnÕt be interested in Ritz-Carlton, would you?Ó Jim quickly closed the door, sat back down, and on April 25, less than three months later, Marriott and Ritz-Carlton closed a deal to bring Ritz-Carlton into the Marriott family.
The determination to acquire a major interest in the management of Ritz-CarltonÕs 31 hotels was probably the quickest major decision that we have ever made. We had been thinking about getting into the luxury tier of lodging, so the opportunity was right on target. We knew the hotel business, we were very familiar with the Ritz product and its great market appeal, and we could see clearly that the fit would be a good one. The number-crunching before the paperwork was signed was important, but it was definitely not the deciding factor. Heart was.
The second example of heart in action involved a two-year debate in the early 1980s over whether or not Marriott should acquire Disney. Our flirtation with the idea is probably the companyÕs most dramatic example of a well-studied fork in the road. One former Marriott executive who was a pivotal figure in exploring the Disney possibility believes itÕs one of the most significant Òroads not takenÓ in American business history.
His characterization is too grand, but Disney does definitely rank as a defining moment for Marriott. When we were looking into acquiring the company, Walt DisneyÕs original empire had been treading water for a number of years. Walt had died in 1966, and it seemed to many observers that the creative spark of the company had died with him. The Disney organization was ripe for revitalization.
I was attracted to the idea of acquiring Disney because of the companyÕs legendary success with Disneyland and Disney World, as well as, naturally, the hotels associated with the parks. It seemed to me that the combination of the Marriott brand with the Disney brand could have been phenomenal. Both organizations are family-oriented and share clean-cut values. Each had had charismatic founders who forged strong corporate cultures. Together, we might have dominated the family and leisure travel markets.
The idea of acquiring Disney had plenty to recommend it, butÑunlike Ritz-CarltonÑit was not a decision that could be made in the blink of an eye. For one thing, Disney was larger than Marriott. WeÕd have had to borrow $2.5 billion to bankroll the acquisition. Even in the big-deal days of the 1980s, that kind of money would have been a bet-the-ranch transaction for our company. And there was a good chance that Disney wasnÕt going to welcome our interest. Disney also consisted of more than hotels; we would be taking on the créme de la créme of theme parks, plus a film business about which we knew absolutely nothing.
We quietly studied Disney, trying to get a feel for not only the numbers, but the culture and traditions of the company. The Disney organization was known for being pretty tight-lipped about its internal workings. We even approached Disney to do a small hotel deal to get our foot in the door, meet the key players, and get some first-hand experience with the company.
For more than two years, we scrutinized DisneyÑcoming as close as IÕve ever experienced to a case of analysis paralysis on my watchÑuntil we knew the company almost as well as we knew ourselves. In the end, it came down to exactly that: knowing our strengths and weaknesses well enough to have a strong feeling that the acquisition simply was not right for Marriott.
What precisely did my heart tell me? For one thing, too much of DisneyÕs success and intrinsic value rested on a creative spark that I didnÕt feel we had. I knew that we would not be comfortable trying to run a businessÑespecially one larger than MarriottÑthat depended upon a steady stream of creative juices focused on entertainment to make it work. At the time, we had learned this lesson in our own Great America theme parks. I couldnÕt, at that moment, foresee finding anyone to take over Disney and provide it with the imaginative leadership that I knew the company needed to reach its potential. It was too risky to acquire Disney if we couldnÕt make it extremely successful.
At one point, we looked into the possibility of asking someone else to buy DisneyÕs movie division, leaving Marriott with the parks and hotels. Although DisneyÕs film business in the early 1980s was small compared with what it is today, it was one of the key points of the company that I personally didnÕt feel comfortable with. We suggested to Coca-Cola that they take a look at the film side; they owned Columbia Pictures Industries Inc., and former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent was running it as president and CEO. MarriottÕs chief financial officer, Gary Wilson, and Vincent talked it over during a flight aboard Coca-ColaÕs corporate jet. Vincent gave it some thought and made a mid-air decision: No thanks. Columbia was providing enough challenges at the time, and another film venture didnÕt sound appealing. Not long after that, I decided to let the opportunity go.
The upshot is that Michael Eisner soon came along and helped catapult Disney back into the forefront of the entertainment business. Today, as everyone knows, the Disney empire is wildly successful.
Eisner once asked me why I decided not to buy Disney. I told him it was because I didnÕt know someone like him existed. If IÕd been aware that a leader with his creative talent was available to run the show, I might have made a different decision.
The reality is, I probably still would have said no. My personal desire to be hands-on would have prevented me from giving even someone as talented as Eisner the run of the placeÑwhich is what would have been required to make the acquisition a success. I would also have been constantly worried about DisneyÕs size and complexity siphoning my attention away from MarriottÕs original businesses. I would not have been happy to make that sacrifice.
We made the right decision about Disney for Marriott based on what we knew and what my heart told me at the time. I wonÕt deny that the high financial stakes were part of the decisionÑthe price tag of Disney would have exceeded MarriottÕs total annual sales at the timeÑbut ultimately I made the choice based on knowing my own limits. The fact that it took us nearly three years to reach a definitive decision itself tells me that we probably made the correct choice. If Disney had been right for us, it would not have taken us so long to see it.
The Disney question is a fine example of an opportunity that came and went, never to return. ItÕs also a good illustration of what I think is the fourth rule of decision-making: DonÕt waste time regretting, revisiting, or ruminating over what might have been.
Have there been moments when IÕve wondered what might have happened if Marriott had acquired Disney? Sure. But I made peace with the decision years ago. The making peace part is important in decision-making. If you spend time going over the what-ifÕs of every decision you make, you do nothing but waste time that could otherwise be going into exploring new opportunities.
From ÒThe Spirit to Serve,Ó by J.W. Marriott Jr. and Kathi Ann Brown. Copyright © 1997 by Marriott International Inc. Reprinted by arrangement with HarperBusiness, a division of HarperCollins Publishers.