Trust Endures: Lessons from Hilton's Journey to Becoming the No. 1 Workplace in the World

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Please, welcome to the stage, Chris Nassetta, president and CEO of Hilton. Laura Fuentes, EVP and CHRO of Hilton. And Michael C. Bush, CEO of Great Place To Work.

Michael C. Bush (00:25):

Hey, everybody. This is a great place to work.

Chris Nassetta (00:30):

Hey, Michael. Before we get started, you would think, if you were number one in the world, number one in the United States, that one would get a mask. Right at the last second, I saw him put this mask on. I said I was looking for mine like, "Where's my mask?" Nothing. What else do we need to do?

Michael C. Bush (00:51):

You would think that, you would think that. But there's power. There's power, my friend.

Chris Nassetta (00:51):

I know, I know.

Michael C. Bush (00:58):

I got the mask. So this came from my friends at Worldwide Technology, thank you very much. From Anne Marr who just retired as their CHRO, and so she's the queen of New Orleans, gave me the mask, so I'm honored to wear it.

Chris Nassetta (01:12):

You look great, I love it.

Michael C. Bush (01:12):

But I'm about to take it off.

Chris Nassetta (01:12):

Okay. Yeah.

Michael C. Bush (01:19):

But I love it.

Chris Nassetta (01:19):

Wow, there you are.

Michael C. Bush (01:20):

Yeah, so here's me everybody. So thank you very much everybody for coming, I'm really looking forward to this panel where I get to talk with two outstanding executives who are also friends.

Laura Fuentes (01:35):

That's right.

Michael C. Bush (01:37):

Because we know this work is hard and we do it together. So as you heard introduced, we've got Chris Nassetta here, who is the president and CEO of Hilton, and thank you for taking care of us while we're here. We really appreciate it.

Chris Nassetta (01:52):

The thanks go to our team at this hotel, it's an extraordinary team.

Michael C. Bush (01:56):

Well, that's the thing about great leaders, we know that we're nothing without the people, and you're filled a room with people who know that and believe that, too. But thank you for doing that. And also, his secret weapon, Laura Fuentes, executive vice president and chief human resource officer at Hilton. So we're going to jump into it. Our list message trust, that's what we do, that's what we've been doing, and what we will continue to do. Trust is more important now than it has ever been into the age that we're moving into with generative AI. First of all, how's it feel to be number one and number one. I'll give you your one shout-out, Chris.

Chris Nassetta (02:33):

All right, listen. I would say Laura is the secret weapon, but it's been a long journey, as you know, and it feels great. It is the thing I am most proud of being involved in in my professional career, because the people of this company, Hilton, all around the world are so inspired and passionate about who we are, what we do, why the work we do matters. It's really incredibly uplifting, and I want to give... And this is not staged, I want to give you credit and Great Place To Work credit, because we've been on, I said, it's a journey. I got to the company 17 years ago, Laura got here 12 or 11, 12 years ago. And the truth is, in a lot of ways, we had lost our way. I mean, we were still a really good company and iconic, and it had invented the hotel business as you know it today.

(03:32):

For those that are old enough, they probably realized that, and had had an extraordinary culture. But the truth is we lost sight of what we really stood for, and so I made... Literally, the first thing I did, Blackstone asked me to come run the company 17 years ago when we went private and I said to John Grace, Steve Schwarzman, I said, "Listen, the number one thing I need to do at Hilton and the only way I'm going to take this job is, if you agree and will support it, is to transform this culture, to really reignite the things that we are doing. We need to ground everything we're doing in an extraordinary culture, and if we do that, I promise you it will translate into great results, but you're going to have to trust me and we're going to have to make some investments and we're going to do some things radically differently than we've done.

(04:26):

And if that sounds good to you, then I'm your person, and if it doesn't, I'm not and we'll be friends," because I've known both of them and all the Blackstone guys a long time. And to their credit, they said, "We agree. We're not sure we know what the prescription needs to be, but that's why we want you to come in and do it, so go do it. We're going to give you, within reasonable boundaries, carte blanche," and so we went at it 17 years ago. But back to the give you credit, we would not be where we are without you as a human being, without Great Place To Work as an organization, because it's hard. Everybody in this room knows it, there's... I always say you come at it from an ethereal way up top, but there's a lot of way down below grassroots work, grinding it out, really understanding what's working, what's not, being data-driven, being honest with oneself about, "What are we, really?"

(05:31):

We all, particularly as CEOs and leaders, we're very proud of our companies. We're there, we put our life's blood into it, we love our people, and we're really proud. So sometimes I think we end up with a huge blind spot and not understanding what isn't right and what we should change. And you and your organization have really helped put the spotlight over many years, as well Laura and our teams, we have lots of our HR team and others here to put the spotlights where we needed to put them to say, "Yeah, maybe this is a little uncomfortable, but maybe we're not as good as we think, and these are the areas that we really need to focus."

(06:14):

So back to the original question, how do I feel? I feel really proud. I'm proud of our people, I'm proud of you, I'm proud of the relationship. The fact is you know your work matters when it is translating into impacting, in our case, a half a million lives around the world. That, as a result of working with us and having a better culture, I think they have a better life and have more passion for what they do, more opportunity for growth and learning. So we're very happy to be here hosting and-

Michael C. Bush (06:49):

We're going to give you one congratulatory round of applause.

Laura Fuentes (06:53):

Yeah.

Chris Nassetta (06:57):

Thank you. Now you're going to bring the bright lights out and tell us everything we need to do better.

Michael C. Bush (07:05):

Well, yeah.

Chris Nassetta (07:05):

But that's good.

Michael C. Bush (07:05):

That will happen. But I live the same life. As a matter of fact, our survey is open now. It'll open on Monday, so I'll be needing some help emotionally in about 14 days, okay? Because we're like everybody else, there's always something in those open comments.

Chris Nassetta (07:19):

Yeah.

Michael C. Bush (07:20):

All right, so... Yeah. So Chris, I want to set this question up, because your path is a unique one as a leader. And so I just want to take a moment to set this up. In 2007, Blackstone bought Hilton for $26 billion, the largest PE deal in history. Three months later, they appointed you as CEO. One year later, Lehman brothers collapsed. It wasn't your fault. The economy followed and Hilton lost 70% of its value.

Chris Nassetta (08:04):

Yeah.

Michael C. Bush (08:05):

Okay, now you're smiling.

Chris Nassetta (08:06):

I remember it, yeah. Well, I can smile about it now.

Michael C. Bush (08:09):

Yeah, probably a little PTSD.

Chris Nassetta (08:11):

It didn't feel that good at the moment.

Michael C. Bush (08:13):

All right. In December of 2013-

Chris Nassetta (08:15):

When I got hauled up to Park Avenue to explain like, "No, this is all going to work out. It's going to be fine. You've just written off $5 billion, but I promise you we have a plan."

Michael C. Bush (08:26):

Sometimes you have to rebuild trust.

Chris Nassetta (08:28):

Exactly, exactly.

Michael C. Bush (08:29):

2013, Hilton goes public, 20% increase over Blackstone's purchase price, and Hilton makes them 100 Best in 2016 at number 56. Number 56.

Chris Nassetta (08:40):

Yeah, I remember.

Michael C. Bush (08:41):

Blackstone sold its stake in 2018 for the largest private equity profit in history, so we love that part. Taking care of the people leading to... We have a saying in Great Place To Work, "Money's not everything, but it's something." There you go, okay? That's my people out there, all right? So then, in March of 2020, the pandemic hits, market cap plummets, and you have-

Chris Nassetta (09:09):

I'm going to need a therapist.

Michael C. Bush (09:14):

Okay, yeah.

Chris Nassetta (09:14):

Is there a question somewhere in this?

Michael C. Bush (09:18):

I'm feeling like Oprah.

Chris Nassetta (09:19):

My God.

Michael C. Bush (09:21):

I'm going to take-

Chris Nassetta (09:21):

I think my heart's palpitating. I mean, I've just relived 20 years.

Michael C. Bush (09:27):

We need our friends to come out and lay you out... We need a couch.

Chris Nassetta (09:30):

I know.

Michael C. Bush (09:30):

Okay? For you to get laid out.

Chris Nassetta (09:30):

That's a good idea for next year.

Michael C. Bush (09:32):

All right, here you are four years later, number one, number one. With a market cap of $53 billion stock near an all-time high, all right? Tina Turner would say, "What's trust got to do?" All right?

Chris Nassetta (09:46):

You looked a little like Tina with your...

Michael C. Bush (09:50):

All right, my friend.

Chris Nassetta (09:51):

Trust.

Michael C. Bush (09:54):

So really, what I'm trying to point out is money matters.

Chris Nassetta (09:57):

Yeah.

Michael C. Bush (09:58):

It really matters, and so as you're leading and you have those moments where, "Do I lean to the Excel spreadsheet or do I lead to the people?"

Chris Nassetta (10:06):

Yeah. Trust, the key question that Tina Turner asked, "What's trust have to do with it?" Everything. So the way I think about culture ultimately is it is about building an ecosystem of trust between a company and all its stakeholders. It starts with the team, because if you don't have that, you don't have it with anybody. And building that trust allows, and this is philosophically way up in the clouds, but it is what drives me. Philosophically, it means that when something goes wrong, you are able to weather the storm. It is a foundation to deal with a crisis. It is also equally a foundation to deal with opportunity. Why? Because a lot of opportunities that you see involve risk and sometimes they work out and sometimes they don't, and so ultimately, being able to take advantage of those opportunities, the more trust you have from your stakeholders, the better you are set up to be able to take advantage of those.

(11:15):

I think of trust as the ultimate form of resiliency for a business. So I happen to firmly believe in our culture, because it's what I want, it's what I believe in, it's in my heart and in my soul, but if it's not for any CEO that doesn't have that philosophical view, it's just good for your business, because you are going to get... As Mike Tyson used to say, "Everything is great until you get punched in the face."

(11:44):

And so as a CEO, as a leader, you're going to get punched in the face, right? You're also going to have an opportunity occasionally that's like, "Oh, my gosh. I feel like I'm betting the farm and how do I do this?" The way you do it is you have a foundation underneath you that is an extraordinary culture that's built on people being part of something bigger than themselves, having passion for what they do, being inspired in what they do in a way that matters to them, that they would run through fire for you to get you to the other side of a crisis or to get you to the other side of an opportunity. I think one of the... Through the PTSD of going through that question with you, I think the greatest demonstration of that is COVID. I mean, I've been through a lot, as you pointed out, a lot of ups and downs in the great recession, but none that was more impactful than COVID.

(12:43):

I mean, we went to basically zero revenue. We went from $50 billion a year in revenue to zero, it had a... This was only three or four years ago, really. We didn't get out of it until two or three years ago. It impacted, one way or another, two thirds of our workforce. And you would say, objectively, what are Chris and Laura doing on this stage as the number-one great place to work in the world and the number... We're going to do it again. Number-one great place to work last time in the United States when they impacted two thirds of their workforce, either with layoffs, furloughs, et cetera, et cetera. How does that happen? Objectively, how does that happen? It happens because of trust. It happens because we have invested heavily in our culture, so we had a tank full of gas going into COVID. We were very thoughtful, even though we had to impact a lot of people's lives. How we did it, how we communicated, how we dealt with people financially, how we explained ourselves to get to the other side, so that we could get everybody back plus some, which we did.

(13:51):

And as a result, we were able to not only get through that crisis, but honestly, our company is growing faster, stronger, as you said, all-time high stock price. We're opening a hotel a day in the world, we're creating... We're a huge engine of opportunity and the reality is all those people, plus 100,000 others, are now part of our ecosystem. We went from 400,000 people to 500,000 people, if you go the year before COVID to now, as a result of being able to get to the other side of it. And that was all about the resiliency of our culture. We would not be where we are without that, but it's also important across all stakeholders. It starts with our teams, but we have an owner community. We had to ultimately... They had to have trust in us, we had to help them get to the other side.

(14:44):

We had customers that were going through a fair amount of PTSD and an important stakeholder for us is our communities. We had a huge and have a huge impact in the communities, just the nature of the business that we're in, and we couldn't just stick our head in a hole and not be part of the solution. I'll stop with this, because you know I can go on forever. The most poignant thing, like memory I have about COVID, there were some bad ones in terms of the impact on people and I try and push those out of my head, because they were very tough decisions and times. Thankfully, they're in their rear-view mirror, but when I think about a stakeholder like our communities, we were in the depths of COVID. Like zero revenues, everything's bad, everybody's thinking the whole industry and we are going to get washed out, nobody's ever going to travel again.

[NEW_PARAGRAPH]And I was watching the news and reading some periodical in the middle of it one Saturday morning and it said... They were talking about all of these people that were trying to support what was going on in the big cities and they're building clinics and you had traveling doctors and nurses and many in the health field that had to get around, and they had nowhere to sleep. And so the whole theme of these pieces, in the beginning of COVID, was they're sleeping in their cars, they're doing this, that and the other. And I said, "Listen, we're on our rear end right now, but we always have to be part of the solution. We have to think about our communities as a stakeholder, because otherwise, they're not going to trust us. If when things get tough, we disappear, then we're not going to have trust." And so I called my team, they thought I was crazy.

(16:33):

Laura remembers this and I said, "Here's what we're going to do, we're going to... I want to give away a million rooms." And they're like, "What? Are you kidding me? Give away a..." I'm like, "Nobody's staying in them, these people are sleeping in their cars. This is crazy, we can help." They're like, "All right, boss. We appreciate it, maybe you need to get a little more rest. You're under intense amounts of stress, people act strangely under stress." I said, "I'm not kidding, we're going to do it, we're going to announce it Monday, and I have an idea, I want to do it with another member of your list, American Express." And they're like, "Have you talked to him?" I said, "No, I'm going to call Steve Squeri in five minutes, so prepare for it." I called Steve, it took five minutes. He said, "I'm in, I'll do half of it with you. We want to be part of this."

(17:22):

And Monday morning, we launched giving away a million rooms to first responders in COVID. That, and by the way, it was good for the business in the end, but it was about trust. It was about, "All right, our customers live in all these little communities and we do work in all these communities, and every little news station in every one of these communities was talking Hilton and American Express giving away a million rooms." That was a demonstration of doing the right thing and also building trust with our communities and our customers and, for that matter, our team members. Because then our team members felt like, "All right, I am now part of a company that's part of the solution, and even though we're on our rear end, we're doing something that matters and it mattered to them."

Michael C. Bush (18:14):

Yeah. So Laura, being on a phone call like that, having a few days to make a miracle happen, a very impressive miracle, and you had been in the job a couple of years... No, you were just-

Laura Fuentes (18:29):

No, no. Yeah, I think it was actually even... It was the summer before, so I was promoted that fall. Sorry to interrupt. On that phone call, and we didn't prep this response, but I have to say the impact of Chris's challenge on the people on that call was far beyond even just building trust. I think it showed us that, even while we were on our knees, we were going to do something good and live by our values, which for 100 years have been to fill the Earth with the light and warmth of hospitality. And that was a moment where everyone on that call... Yes, we were like, "You're crazy, boss," and, "Give us a couple of weeks." And you were like, "No, no, no, we're doing this by Monday," but I think it also just gave us the energy to know that we are in the game, we're going to get this done.

(19:11):

It really was so motivational and inspirational, and it was a time, as I'm sure you all know, where there was no playbook for what was going to happen. So to follow a leader through fire, through the coals, to jump off the cliff, there has to be trust, and Chris has established that over the 17 years with his entire team in moments of growth and crisis, so I will never forget that phone call. I was at home, in my kitchen, and it was actually deeply inspirational and motivational for all of us.

Michael C. Bush (19:38):

Yeah, okay. Well, Laura, as the architect of the culture, and that's legit... And we did a panel with a bunch of HR people from companies around the world, actually. And I remember where one of the people asked if you could describe the foundation of the Hilton culture, and they were just taking notes furiously. So I would like you to provide that for our audience today, okay?

Laura Fuentes (20:07):

Yeah, absolutely. Well, look, first of all, thank you, again, Michael for having us. I hope everyone here who is staying with us is having an amazing stay, and I would be remiss if I didn't thank our team members, both at corporate who I know are here and have done so much work, but also our hotel team members who are working so hard-

Michael C. Bush (20:23):

Round of applause for them.

Laura Fuentes (20:26):

... to deliver an exceptional stay. All right, so here's... Yeah, we get asked a lot like, "What's the formula? How do you get to number one?" And look, I will say it's a lot of work and it didn't happen overnight. So we first made the list in 2016, super proud moment, but we had been working with you guys for a while before then, and I lovingly call it... We had our annual great place to work, Root Canal, and I think for those of you who aren't on the list, you know what I mean.

(20:50):

Because your team would come in and they were amazing, but they would tell us why we were good but not great. And then we'd get into the data and spend a whole day together really understanding our team member voices. But lifting up our strategy and our Hilton approach to the HR strategy has always been rooted on three key elements. One, our purpose platform, and so we are over a century old, we've been deeply grounded in our founders' vision, our values, and that is both what anchors us, what propels our future, but importantly, what connects our entire ecosystem, including franchises. So deeply grounded in purpose. Our goal from a culture perspective is to build the fully human experience at work, and we do that by focusing on four pillars. Inclusion, we want our team members to feel welcomed, and we do that through recruiting, through our ERGs.

(21:39):

Wellness, we want them to feel that they're joining a healthy, caring, flexible organization, so we focus on financial, mental and physical wellness. Growth, we're all about having team members reach their full human potential and we want each and every one of our team members to be lifelong learners. We want to push out just-in-time, agile learning that is business-aligned and really building that for-all growth environment. And back to purpose, we want to really lean on our purpose, we celebrate it, we amplify it, we measure it. Over 90% of our team members are telling us they feel like Hilton is doing their part in building a better world. So those are the four pillars of our HR strategy and we activate them with a number of different partnerships, with Thrive Global, with Better Up, with Guild Education, with our travel programs to really have proof points against each of them.

(22:26):

And then lastly, of course, you build a great culture, you need to activate it to drive performance. So we work really hard on cascading our corporate strategy that Chris and our board and our EC build out to each and every one of our team members. Through our performance management system, our succession planning, we make sure that we have the best person in each and every role, a backup plan for that role, and that every person knows how their contributions fit into the bigger picture, so we're relentless about cascading that, communicating, storytelling. Chris is always sharing the context of our business strategy with each and every one of our team members. We'll do it at the hotel shortly here as well.

(23:05):

And so we really want to make sure they feel connected to that. You do that for 15 years and you too can be at the top of the heap. But really lifting up, I mean, it takes friends and partners, and what I call you and your team, truth-tellers along the way, right? Because there are messages when we dove into the data that perhaps we weren't super keen to hear, but listening, persevering. And ultimately, as companies, if you figure out what your unique contribution to the world is for your product, you deliver on your promise to your people. It's my belief that the profits follow and you're both doing well and doing good by your people.

Michael C. Bush (23:43):

When you've got 500,000 people and we know part of being a great place to work is people going to work feeling like their job has special meaning. It doesn't matter what the job is. Just like the people who... I travel every week and I move through many hotels, some of them are yours. But no matter where I am, I ask the housekeeping staff, "What's it like to work here?" And have a conversation about it. And I'd like you to let the audience know about the program that you have, where you've got the little key rings that people have, your job makes the stay. And how that activates what people talk about, that everybody knows that they are important and they matter here.

Laura Fuentes (24:35):

Yeah, we intentionally connected our consumer-facing campaign, "For the stay," with our employer-facing campaign, our recruiting campaign, "Every job makes a stay." We used our own team members to tell those stories in our social media and the ads that we've put out. They were so proud to be a part of that effort. Actually, the team, I think, in front row is here who led that effort. And we've seen some extraordinary results both on the recruitment front, but importantly, even for our existing team members as far as feeling like they have the agency, that they are the architects of not only our guest experiences, but of course, building the culture of our Hilton family.

(25:11):

And truthfully, from the moment I've joined this company, and I came from consulting and financial services, to as recently as last week when I was traveling in Europe, in Turkiye, that word, "Family," keeps coming back over and over and over, and our team members where they've been with us for 40 years or two months, they feel like they're connected to something larger than themselves to their Hilton property family, but ultimately, to our global family of 500,000 men and women around the world, which is amazing.

Michael C. Bush (25:39):

Okay. And 500,000 people all around the world, a truly global company, and trying to make this connection with different languages, cultures, customs, and so on. And we know that we feel a great place to work, that ERGs are very important in terms of providing safe places for people to know that they matter and they care and they're supported, and we know that you feel the same way. And so I'd like you to talk to the audience. There are a lot of companies who have been working with ERGs for a while. They get it and they're a vital part of the organization, I'd like you to talk a little about that. And we have some companies here who are just thinking about it. They don't know if it's right for them for some reason, but if you could just pass something on, so that they can learn from what you've learned about them and what they've done for Hilton.

Laura Fuentes (26:39):

Yeah, sure. You know, you say the ERG should be safe places. To me, they are safe and strong places. That is how we always talk about them at Hilton, and we have a number of our TMRG leaders here today, so thank you for joining us. I love the ERG track that you're building. And I think it's super important to use them not only to celebrate and educate on different cultures, backgrounds, experiences, and we do a lot of that, and Chris is actively involved in helping us do that, but we also leverage them importantly for talent, retention, development, engagement, coaching, and business insight. So they are actually our preeminent built-in focus group, and depending on what we're trying to drive, whether that be a new brand, a new consumer outreach effort, a new marketing platform, we tap into our ERGs to help us drive some of those outcomes, and we've been really successful in doing that.

(27:34):

We also involve our executive council and executive committee and Chris very actively in having a two-way dialogue with our TMRGs on our business, on our culture. So we'll have each of our executive committee members sponsor a TMRG, as we call them. I happen to chair the black TMRG. Together, we come together as an executive inclusion council. Chris chairs town halls, has listening sessions, so we're constantly activating these around the world. We started in the US, we've now spread to all of our regions, and as you know, we're working with you on the great transformation. Our moonshot is to really activate them in meaningful ways across our hotels as well, so that we can capture both the essence of their insights, feedback, and experiences, a lot of our innovation happens on property, and make sure that we're listening.

(28:20):

And that is the key to building trust, success, performance, and culture. So highly recommend, it starts at the top with great advocacy and sponsorship, but those have been really extraordinary places for us to drive allyship. Of course, retention, engagement, but performance importantly, and especially we're living in uncertain times in this space and making sure that we're really hearing our team members has been essential to our work.

Chris Nassetta (28:46):

Underneath all of that, to me, there's another simple philosophical view, which is... I think, ultimately, to have a good life, run a good business, you need to be open to differences, and understanding these differences and blending all of this together to get to the right answers requires that you're asking and, importantly, that you're listening before you're acting. The TMRGs, to anybody that's not doing it, I would strongly recommend you do it, but I would strongly recommend you do it, as Laura described, in substance. Meaning that you invest in it, you spend the time at the highest levels engaged with it, because ultimately, there is... I think, in our organization, there are few better listening posts that we have. We ask a lot of questions, but it's really important that we're listening. And so we learn a lot about what is good and bad about our culture, when we think about a culture for all. Some of it sometimes, as we talked about, is hard to hear, but those are the things that you want to hear.

(30:01):

We also hear a lot about what we're doing to serve what is a very diverse customer base and the things that are good, bad, and ugly that we can do differently. And so I'd say, over the 20-year journey, definitely in the beginning, we had to get a rhythm and we had to really understand how to get the most out of that time and that structure. But I'd say, today, it's unbelievably invaluable. So I would say to any that are not, do it and make it real. It's not a check the box. Really, get key high potential leaders involved in those TMRGs. Make sure they're sponsored at the highest levels, not just by the CEO, but by XCOM members, so that you give it life and oxygen to really get the most out it.

Michael C. Bush (31:00):

Okay. And Chris, we've got people in the audience, some are like, "Wow, I wish my CEO was like Chris Nassetta," and some of them are like, "Hey, I want to help my CEO become more like Chris Nassetta," and so what suggestions do you have for people where... I mean, you mentioned a couple of things. One of them is blind spots, which we all have. Things that we can see.

Chris Nassetta (31:24):

We all have my [inaudible 00:31:26].

Michael C. Bush (31:25):

And so what can they do to influence their CEO?

Chris Nassetta (31:30):

Well, they could come work for Hilton. That would be the first thing. We do have a booth out front.

Laura Fuentes (31:38):

No charge on the house.

Chris Nassetta (31:39):

No, no offense to any other companies that are represented, but number one and number one. I said I wouldn't do that again, I said it. I'm sorry, Michael. No, listen, leadership's a journey. My leadership journey has taken rights and lefts and ups and downs, and I would say that the key in any organization, not just the CEO, but broader leadership across the organization, is just creating an open, safe environment where you can have constructive dialogue, where you can have, what I say... I call it "Cognitive dissonance," but it can be done in a way that is safe and comfortable and that is driven by data to the extent that you have data that then can reinforce that, ultimately, investing in your people and your culture is going to translate into a better business. There's no question, when you think about, "How do you balance..." People ask me, "How do you balance investing in your people and your culture and the financial side of the business?"

(32:55):

There's no balance. I can't do the one without the other, so it all starts with culture and people. And the rest of it follows, as Laura said. And so what I would do is encourage. I would say most evolved CEOs aren't trying to not focus... I mean, they may just have a blind spot that they don't understand the cause and effect, so help them understand it. Use data, use other examples of other companies that are doing things where they've done X, Y, and Z, and it's led to better outcome. Help in your own leadership brand, create an environment where there can be a feedback loop at the highest levels that is safe and comfortable. I mean, the reality is one of the biggest mistakes that I've seen CEOs make, and obviously, I've made it in my career. It's like you get in an echo chamber, you get excited, you get passionate, you have people around that a lot of people want to agree with you.

(33:58):

And so it's easy to one foot in front of the other and keep going down the path and not take the bob and weave, or take lefts and rights that you need to take. That takes some maturity over time, but it also just takes an environment where people are... Safe enough where people are willing to share that you can use data, that you can use other case studies. So I would say I rarely meet CEOs that don't want a great culture and don't want to do the right thing. I think if I were to say, from my personal experience, is that they just haven't connected all the dots. In a simple way, I'd say, help them connect the dots, the cause and effect. You can...

(34:47):

By the way, scientifically, it's been proven by Jim Collins and others that have been writing about culture for a long, long time, it's been proven by your work that companies that survive, endure, back to my resiliency thing, and succeed over very long periods of time, they have one common theme, great cultures. So just make sure that if... CEOs, we have a lot of things coming at us, a lot of people pushing and pulling, particularly CEOs that might be newer enroll lots of pressures. And sometimes... Most of the time, again, it's not malicious, it's just too much stuff coming at you. So I would say the best thing you can do is help slow it down, help inform with data, case studies, and in other examples of why it matters and why it will ultimately drive a better long-term result. And by the way, most importantly, Laura talks about family. I've been doing this a long time, longer than I want to admit. It makes it fun. I want to be part of a family.

(36:06):

I spend most of my waking hours... I have an amazing family, I have a wife and six daughters and I love them dearly. Six daughters. And they're grown up mostly, but the reality is, even when they weren't, I spent more time with the people of this company, by definition, than I did... I wanted to feel good, I wanted to feel like a family, and so there's a lot of joy for leadership and CEOs when you build a culture that feels like a family and really works. It works, it drives a better business result. It's better for opportunity for everybody in the company, and it will bring you joy. What's not to like?

Laura Fuentes (36:45):

But all that doesn't work, go find a better CEO.

Chris Nassetta (36:46):

Yeah.

Michael C. Bush (36:46):

There you go.

Chris Nassetta (36:48):

And if all that doesn't work, [inaudible 00:36:50].

Michael C. Bush (36:52):

Well, I love that and I love hearing you talk about family, because you can tell what it means to you. I've heard you do it since we've met. And I've interviewed people before and said, "Hey, we're going to treat you like family," and they're like... They hang up, because...

Chris Nassetta (37:07):

By the way, I say it, some people think it's corny. I say this to Laura all the time. I mean, you may think that, but that's literally how I come to work every day, is like, "This is my family. How would I treat them? We're not perfect." By the way, I'm not perfect. My children would tell you I'm not perfect, and sometimes they get mad at me, too. But this is a family, we are in this for the right reasons. We're in it together, we are all part of something bigger than any one individual including, and most importantly, any individual that's at the top like me, and so it needs to feel that way.

Michael C. Bush (37:49):

That's why I love it, Chris. It's controversial, the word, because of experiences, but I know how you feel about it, okay? It's clear how you feel about it. Let's wrap up there. Please, give one last congratulations to the number one and the number one.