#184 Isadore Sharp (Four Seasons)
What I learned from reading Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy by Isadore Sharp.
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[0:01] When I built my first hotel I knew nothing about the hotel business.
[4:28] He refused to settle for the pragmatic dictum of maturity. Issy also skipped skepticism and "Let's be sensible." People said he was naïve, with a kind of glandular optimism. Perhaps. But as it turned out naïveté served him well.
[6:32] Early on he made some audacious statements that sounded like pipe dreams. He told me once that his aim was to make the name Four Seasons a worldwide brand, synonymous with luxury, like Rolls-Royce.
[8:39]Once, when Dad was excavating a basement with horse and plough, he broke his shoulder. But he shrugged it off and uncomplainingly kept on working, something I never forgot.
[26:52] I decided to go ahead. I foresaw only one difficulty, but it loomed large: How do you build a two-hundred-room resort without any money? This was literal fact. My earnings barely covered my rising family costs.
[35:23] I asked Sir Gerald Glover, "How do you keep your lawn so perfect?" “No problem”, he replied. “You just cut it every week for three hundred years.”
[43:48] I owe my success to my freedom. I think for me independence has an incalculable value.
[44:44] All business proceeds on belief: Trying to run a company without a set of beliefs is like trying to steer a ship without a rudder.
[56:03] The experience made me realize what I would really like to do: create a group of the best hotels in the world. And what we really want to do is usually what we do best.
[56:51] We will not be all things to all people. We will specialize.
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