Treat People Uniquely, Not Equally: Paul Hutton on Building a #1 Great Place to Work

Having known you for a long time, I think, you know, I don't want to make an unequivocal statement like you are the. But you possibly are the most warm, people centered leader I've ever met in my career. You have this uncanny ability to remember things about people, their names, and there's this quality of connection and joy in the way you bring directions. Can you just talk a little bit about that? Particularly to people listening to this around how big a deal it is from your perspective in leadership that you can connect with the individual, that you remember their names. How much effort do you put into that? Is that just a God given talent or do you actually work at that? Thank you. Interesting enough. It's probably the most important thing that I'd want to share today. Right. I think it's not a God given talent, but it was something that I realized quite early on. I wasn't a great student, I wasn't a scholar, but I had a couple of gifts and one was through the life that I lived with my parents who traveled a lot and moved around the world and lived in different countries, was that I could connect with people. And I was pretty good with languages, which was. The languages part was rare for an Australian. Right. So. So that's quite an important. That that would help. I studied in French and so I think of everything. Michael, that is the most critical thing. Right. Funnily enough, my. My wife would say of my many faults, the worst is my great memory. My wife shares the same problem. There you go. So I think, you know, you and I have discussed this from. I remember our very first ever meeting at our old offices down in Pitt Street 10 years ago that I had said to you that my great mantra that I'd love to see on my tombstone is that I will treat people uniquely, not equally, that I will find a way that I will connect with them. No, I can't do that with everybody but the critical people around me. I will find a way. My viewers at the the Org, the Enterprise, will treat you equally. You will get what you're entitled to. You've signed a contract. So the uniquely is the reason that you stay. The uniquely is why you work a little bit harder on a bad day. The uniquely is when you see that your boss is having a rough week, that you decide to do something else and ask if there's some additional things that you can do and whether that's, you know, it could be the connection. It could be about the fact that somebody has daughters. It could be a football team. It could Be that they like to cycle, it could be that they like to hike, it could be whatever, that I find a way. And, you know, it was never more important than during COVID because I couldn't see you. I got this mono vision of you on a screen for the best part of two years. I didn't see a single member of my key leadership team face to face for 24 months. And often we weren't talking about business because there was no business. So there's no point making somebody feel bad about the fact that their hotel was at 2% occupancy. I wasn't going to lead in with that. Right. They knew that already. And then all of a sudden it was what I realized quite quickly, whether it was WhatsApp or we were using Zoom and what other things we've moved to teams now that what they needed was the personal connection. That's what they. That's what they really needed more than ever before. And I think that I just worked harder on that as we came out of that. You know, I was fortunate. I didn't lose a senior, a single senior manager. We didn't make anybody redundant either. Great investors who supported us through that really difficult times. So there is actually nothing more critical. You know, in a world of AI, Everyone loves to talk about IO, they like to talk about robotics, they like to talk about. Our view is that our industry is still deeply, deeply people rooted. And whether that's in a corporate environment or if I go to the most remote hotel in Papua New guinea or Baselton in Western Australia, that the people piece, that has to be what I leave behind. Welcome to the Secret Life of Great Leaders, a podcast by Triple Goal. We share deep, transformational conversations around leadership and personal development to help you uncover the unseen facets of human growth and leadership impact. I'm your host, Michael Bunting. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Secret Life of Great Leaders. Michael Bunting here. And today I'm with one of my favorite leaders in the world, Paul Hutton. Paul is the area vice president of Australasia Hilton. Welcome, Paul. Thanks. Great to be with you, Michael. Glad we made this happen. Paul, Paul, at the very first question, you guys are just kicking goals on. Great place to work. You're just consistently winning number one, number two. Number one recently. Number one. Again, this is a leadership podcast, so can you just firstly tell us how many awards you've won and then tell us the secret. What's the secret to Hilton and the challenges of the hospitality industry as well? Still winning that incredible award. Well, obviously you and I Have been talking about such things for a long time. I was trying to figure out how long ago it was, Michael, but I would say it must have been, I don't know, 15 or 16, I think the first time we worked together. Right. So it's already a decade. I think when you go into something like this, the great place to work platform, you need to be very avert to the fact that you're going to have to be vulnerable because you are going to ask thousands of people what they think and you can't vet what they say. What they say will be what comes back. Right. And I think, and as you know, not only for Australia, but we've done it for the South Pacific, we've done it for Papua New Guinea, Fiji, New Zealand now. So that's been very exciting. And we're actually, we're accredited in all of those countries. They don't have a ranking system. Only Australia has the ranking system. So six years, six consecutive years now, leading hospitality company. And then three years ago, we were overall fifth, two years ago, overall third. And indeed, as you so kindly said last year, first. And I think, you know, what's critical there is that we're a hospitality company. You know, we are not financial services. We are not this, we're not at the big end of town where everybody's on mega salaries, mega bonuses. You know, 90% of our team members are immigrants to our country, Michael. They are on potentially minimum wage. So to go out and ask if they then vote for you, I think there's a, there's a big nod to that. You must be doing some things well. Yeah, and I think that that's, that's the way they see it. We do our own internal one, of course, which is, which is a, which is an anonymous internal survey that we do every year. So that's important that, that needs to mirror what we hear from great places to work, to be fair. So, yeah, listen, I mean, we're, we're really proud of that. One of our competitors was also up there. So I think it's, you know, it's a, it's a nod to the, a couple of the. Frankly, the two largest hospitality companies in the world rate favorably in Australia. So as they say, you know, once you're on top, it's, it's harder to stay there than to get. Thank you. So tell us the secrets. I mean, we know in our world we're constantly talking about leadership is the key, but we're learning more and more. There's other things as well, but, you know, from your perspective, how did you get there? What did you do? Well, I mean, as you know, you've done a lot of work with us and obviously we benefited from your team's work as well. I think the company has really strong values, right? And I think. And they're quite simple, right? And it's, it's translatable into, you know, the 140 odd languages that of the countries that we operate in, right? So H, I, L, T, O, N. Right? So it's hospitality, integrity, leadership, teamwork, ownership and now, right, action orientated, right? So it happens to work out quite nicely with the spelling of those six letters. So I think they're quite simple to sell that message down the line and to cascade it in our hotels. I think also we are an industry that the most successful companies will be ones where it sounds obvious, where accessibility of leadership is just critical, right? That they are really visible, the authenticity of how you go about your work and that you are. If I think of my key team and, you know, many of them, they've all cut their teeth in hotels. We didn't get a master's at 25. And then suddenly it became, right, we have all, we have all taken and done significant careers, not necessarily all with Hilton, but they've ended up with us. So I think that that gives you a great deal of respect and kudos, even if you're dealing with young people, to basically say, you know, I have worked in the kitchens, I have worked in the bars, I have done night shift, I have done stewarding, I have moved countries, right? So. So accessibility, the authenticity, the visibility, I think is really critical. As we always say, you just. In our environment, you cannot have impact if you're not visible. We talked about integrity, right? We make a joke of it. It's the I in Hilton, but it's a capital I. It's a. It's a capital I in Hilton, right? So integrity. And the last one is just is activity. I know it all seems to come with an itty on the end, but. But it's quite useful. Accessibility, authenticity, visibility, integrity, but then activity. And I think that that's for younger people today. They want to join a company that is, that is, that is going places. I spoke to somebody recently who joined us from a competitor and after two weeks I'd said to her, she's quite senior, how is it? And she says, you know, the biggest difference is you don't pretend to be perfect, right? But you have a plan. But the plan's bold enough to know. She says her Words were if I look to the left and I look to the right, I'm going to have somebody supports me in this project. But we are not going to not move forward because we're too scared of the outcome. And I, you know what, I quite like that. If that's, if that's how people would like to describe us, I think good. So I think, you know, our research shows that the average workplace, particularly large workplaces like yours have 40% of time and energy is wasted on image management. And what you're talking about there is someone saying, well, you guys are not image managing at least, right. You're actually being authentic and real. One of the nicest comments that came back from this, you know, and of course there are some good comments and of course there are some comments where we should improve, but one of them which came from my corporate office said that they really enjoy the senior leadership, just pass by us, pass by our desk and have some banter, you know what? And if that's, if that's what a 27 year old is saying today about their workplace where they are prepared to come in and work five days a week now, not two. Yeah, I think we'll thank and thank them. Paul, I want to just go a little bit towards your personal leadership. Having known you for a long time, I think, you know, I don't want to make an unequivocal statement like you are the. But you possibly are the most warm people centered leader I've ever met in my career. You have this uncanny ability to remember things about people, their names and there's this quality of connection and joy in the way you bring directions. Can you just talk a little bit about that, particularly to people listening to this around how big a deal that is from your perspective in leadership that you can connect with the individual, that you remember their names. How much effort do you put into that? Is that just a God given talent or do you actually work at that? Thank you. Interesting enough. It's probably the most important thing that I'd want to share today. Right. I think it's not a God given talent but it was something that I realized quite early on. I wasn't a great student, I wasn't a scholar, but I had a couple of gifts and one was through the life that I lived with my parents who traveled a lot, moved around the world and lived in different countries, was that I could connect with people and I was pretty good with languages, which was the languages part was rare for an Australian. Right. So, so that's quite important that that would help. I studied in French, and so I. I think of everything. Michael, that is the most critical thing. Right? Funnily enough, my. My wife would say, of my many faults, the worst is my great memory. My wife shares the same problem. There you go. So I think, you know, you and I discussed this from. I remember our very first ever meeting at our old offices down in Pitt Street 10 years ago, that I had said to you that my great mantra that I'd love to see on my tombstone is that I will treat people uniquely, not equally, that I will find a way that I will connect with them. No, I can't do that with everybody but the critical people around me. I will find a way. My viewers at the Org, the Enterprise, will treat you equally. You will get what you're entitled to. You've signed a contract. So the uniquely is the reason that you stay. The uniquely is why you work a little bit harder on a bad day. The uniquely is when you see that your boss is having a rough week, that you decide to do something else and ask if there's some additional things that you can do and whether that's. You know, it could be the connection. It could be about the fact that somebody has daughters. It could be a football team. It could be that they like to cycle. It could be that they like to hike. It could. It could be whatever, that I find a way. And, you know, it was never more important than during COVID because I couldn't see you. I got this mono vision of you on a screen for the best part of two years. I didn't see a single member of my key leadership team face to face for 24 months. And often we weren't talking about business because there was no business. So there's no point making somebody feel bad about the fact that their hotel was at 2% occupancy. So I wasn't going to lead in with that. Right. They knew that already. And then all of a sudden, it was what I realized quite quickly, whether it was WhatsApp or we were using Zoom and what other things we've moved to teams now that what they needed was the personal connection. That's what they. That's what they really needed more than ever before. Um, and I think that I just worked harder on that as we came out of that, that, you know, I was fortunate. I didn't lose a senior, a single senior manager. We didn't make anybody redundant either. Great investors who'd supported us through that really difficult times. So there is actually nothing more critical, you know, In a world of AI, everyone loves to talk about IO, they like to talk about robotics, they like to talk about. Our view is that our industry is still deeply, deeply people rooted. And whether that's in a corporate environment or if I go to the most remote hotel in Papua New guinea or Busselton in Western Australia, that the people piece, that has to be what I leave behind. So for, for a person like myself, I had to train myself on this and I'm very much at work in progress. I used to have this thought in my mind, you know, the classic how was your weekend? Question, right. On Monday morning, I used to have this thought in my mind, I don't give a damn about your weekend. I just want to get to talk to the tasks. Right, let's just get on with the tasks. And then eventually sort of to force myself to ask, how was your weekend? And eventually slowly but surely becoming more interested in the hum. Women and noticing this tension, point to myself, while I'm talking to you about you, I'm not talking to you about the stuff we've got to get done. Right. And again, just help me understand, in your mind, you're saying the most important thing is that person feels connected with me, that they feel seen, that they feel like they matter more than a task machine. Is that what you're saying? Is that the key philosophy that the person needs to know that they matter, they're seen, appreciated, they're understood. I think, Michael, that they see, they see the relationship as a safe haven. Right. Particularly again, through the toughest sign of COVID Right. You know, I had, I had female managers who chose to entrust in me that they had marriage issues, that they had, that they had mental health issues. And as they said to me, in a normal environment, you would never have said that to your boss. Yeah, you didn't, you were just, you were only worried about the outcome of how that. However, if you felt safe enough, then that's what you needed to share with me, you know, and in fact, in this particular case, and she's, she's now been promoted and she, she's, she's been transferred. She's, she's doing very well and she managed to save everything and she's, she's in good shape. So I think some would argue that that's an enormous amount to take on top. Do you really want to, you know, Sorry, isn't that, isn't that what the HR department's for? And I view potentially it is because there'll be some issues, you know, potentially I might have been the issue. Well, then they weren't necessarily going to come to me. They had to go and talk to somebody else. So, look, it's just my personal, it's my personal way I will connect with people. My, my, you know, my key, let's call it 30, 32 people who are the most senior people in my world know that if they see a call coming in from me, that it's going to start with a warm conversation. Yeah. You know, it will start maybe there's a guest complaint, maybe we, you know, we had a fire in the basement. Maybe something's happened. But it will start with the fact that, as I said, authenticity is one and that connectivity is two. And I suppose most importantly, that if there's something really difficult or drastic or important or priority talk to me about, they're not going to be, they're not going to worry about calling me. They will know that I pick up the phone and that I'm going to listen. So I don't know if there's a steadfast rule to how you go about it, but I think it doesn't, it, it, it comes over time. Many of the people I've talked to in those 30 or 32 months, they've worked for me in multiple places. I've, I've got managers that have worked in seven countries. It's a very unusual world that we live in, right, that they have, they joined me at 24, they're now 44. They have moved their career, their children, their spouse know around with me. And so it's almost like, you know, it's, it is a little bit like a tribe. Right. But it's, you know, it has to be right, fit, right, whatever. And visas, some visas added to get visas into Australia. So, you know, there are, there are, there are mechanics about making this thing happen. It's what we do in our industry. And I'm for one thing, not suggesting that it's unique to me or to Hilton, but it's how we do go about things. And as you've seen and you, you've helped me at GM's conferences and things, we have ridiculous loyalty and tenure in this company. Tell me, Paul, how do you manage accountability? Because we, our research talks to the fact that the most effective leaders have got, and I honestly think you are absolutely masterful at what we call Engage the Heart. It's one of the six key green zone practices we talk about, but we've consistently seen, and our research is showing that when leaders are brilliant at Engage the Heart and people have really high safety, psychological safety, like you've put it. It can be very, it can very easily turn into what we call a decaying country club. It's a really nice place to be, but it's not particularly high performance. And so we've begun to see that the assumption that high psychological safety translates to performance is not true. It's essential as a part of high sustainable high performance. But it's quite easy to have high psych safety and low performance. Hence the term decaying country club. We have the flip side where you've got low psych safety and high performance. We call that the golden torture chamber. As one of our CEO clients said then you have to pay people a lot of money to stay and it's a very high drive, thriving and non sustainable over time environment. So you guys are kicking goals financially, performance wise. And you've also got this clearly wonderful workplace. How does that, how do you do that balance? How do you ensure that there's still accountability? That, how do you manage the tough conversations without ruining relationships? Well, again, you know, you have been in. I would say that when we first started working together we were, we're 107 year old company. Right. So I mean we are, you know, May 1919. It's, it's, it's an impressive ride. I would say that we were guilty of, of the country club. We were guilty of that. So the inability or the, the, the lack of desire to take on those, the tough love conversations. Right. It was something that we have, that we worked very hard on. I think it was very easy. We had previous leadership that would, that you could work on if you had a set of metrics. Well, if, if Michael or Paul is meeting all of those metrics, they're doing okay. Well, but there's a lot of things that we expect out of a leader that aren't necessarily covered by metrics. It's what other people are going to say. Right. So, so that was the first thing. We also had a new head of HR who came in and it was quite fascinating and she'd said after having seen a couple of our regional meetings. Interesting. There's a lot of. You have such some incredible leaders with charisma, very kind, but me and some other people. But when I look around that room, there are a number of people who don't exude that they have the best possible role models to look at. So why aren't they trying to emulate and indeed some of them. Michael, we felt that it was exactly what you said that it was year after Year, you know, do your numbers, you, you'll get your bonus, your kids are comfortable, your wife has got a job, you don't want to move where you are. So the last 24 months in particular, we've really started to look at that, that some people may indeed be able to stay. And it's not so much that they should be comfortable, but there needs to be a good reason, needs to be about the business, needs to be about the ownership relationship with the owners of the hotel, that they like the person to be there, that we challenge that status quo, that we don't want people to be comfortable, we don't want them to be uncomfortable. But I think particularly, particularly I just come back from two hotels and obviously we've just done year end reviews and I've had, you know, some fairly, some fairly strong conversations with a few people basically saying you're doing quite well, but I expect more, I expect, you know, you don't have to be me, but you have to be a bit less of you in that, comfortable coming in at, you know, you're at sundowners by 5 o' clock on a Friday afternoon. There were things happening in the hotel, but you needed to be at Nippers. And so there just needs to be a balance, there just needs to be a balance of showing that. And I think it's a really, really valid point. I think in hotels that's called the operations. In hotels it's not so endemic because you can't be invisible, right? You have to, you know, they work long hours, you are very visible. And we now have these two measurements where the team, our internal one and external one where the teams will tell you if the leaders are not respected, if they're not leading the values, if they're not, if they're not pushing the mission state. So when we. Thank you, Paul. When we look at what I'm trying to get to in this, one of the key things I'd love to get out of this interview is for a listener to go. Let me just really understand the key levers I can pull if I'm role modeling Hilton's approach to make my workplace better. The first one you've talked about is a unique approach, a warm approach, a connected approach from leaders towards your people. That's a big deal. You need to get good at that, right? And I know for you that's remembering things like family backgrounds, birthdays, what that person's interested in. And you do that always. You're checking in with a human being. So, okay, that's a Very important lesson for all leaders. Then we also have noticed that when we working with clients to help them move along. There's these other two things that we've discovered are also important around leadership. Role modeling, which is rituals and rewards. So rituals are a really big deal because every organization has them and has them in spades. They're the meat, the month, the weekly operational meeting, the all hands, whatever, the town halls, the one on one catch ups. They're all rituals. I know it's catching you off guard, but is Hilton deliberate about its rituals and what it's trying to achieve? And then the second thing is the reward system. So we've noticed that they're really successful companies. Their reward system's firstly transparent. There's no, you know, people don't get random bonuses and they don't really understand why. But the reward system is tied to the values, it's tied to the outcomes people are achieving. So can you just give us a little view on, on your perspective of how does Hilton do rituals? Like I'm trying to, we're trying to understand how does Hilton do so well on Great place to work. Yes. It's leadership. Yes. You've talked about clarity and accountability as well. What else? Question. I mean, I think what's important to note that the vast majority of our team members all around the world do not work in a bonus system. Right. As I said, they are, you know, you're basically entry level positions in hotels. If you walk into a hotel, that's what you're going to see. So I think that that's really important to note. So it' possibly makes the job even harder. There are rituals and rewards. I think it's, it's also about, about changing, evolving into the different generations that come before us. Right. So for instance, at the moment we have our programs called Thrive at Hilton. So we put out, you can apply, you can apply for a sabbatical, a 5,000 US dollar sabbatical. And we give out dozens and dozens and dozens of them so that you can actually get a month of leave painful with an amount of money because you want to work with, you know, an indigenous tribe. You want to go and do reforestation. I'm giving you real examples here. Refore. Southern island of New Zealand. You want to go and do work in the Northern Territory, right. So yes, it can't be for everybody, but anybody can apply for that. So I think that that's, I think that that's really valuable. And then of course the ones who are chosen get, get deeply celebrated. Right. So I think when we sign up, when we. I mean, you and I went to China together, right? So when we sign, when we sign into an area, we're there as our competitors are. We're there for 15 to 20 years, right? That's how long our management agreement is. It's a marriage. So if we go into that, it's about the society, it's about the needy, it's about the underprivileged, it's about reducing plastic bags in the waterways. It's about. So we view that we have a, you know, that, that we have a real responsibility for using our name. I mean, we're quite a powerful name. So. So we do. So there's a. There's a community piece which obviously, if I walk into, let's say, Darwin, well, clearly 95% of the people who work in that hotel live in Darwin. So whatever we do in that hotel is going to impact negatively or positively Darwin or Busselton or Fiji or the Gold coast or wherever. So I think that that's quite critical that you live and work in an environment and that Hilton can make an impact. So I think that that's one of the key rituals. Yes, of course, we do normal communications in and around the hotels all the time. We will do mini ones as well. I will do a connect. We don't have to be face to face. We view that. Of course, many of our hotels are quite remote, so the people in Alice Springs, I mean, they don't need to hear from me every week, but if I can get them on a call and share them and their employee of the month and heart of the house and front of the house and celebrate somebody who's now done 10 years of service for the company and a young lady perhaps in HR who's just had a child. Right. So, you know, we're quite good at celebrating those. Right. We want to feel that we're as good as our most remote hotel. We're as good as the ability that we have to connect to those people. And I think that ultimately that's what we're, you know, I suppose our teams are saying we're good at, but we don't. We certainly don't rest on our laurels. And if we look at. There's one of my middle daughters says to me, and she's very eco and she says, she reminds me that my generation, we're 25% of the gender of the population on the planet at the moment, but don't forget, we're 100% of the future. So can you start, why are we still doing. Why are there still plastic cups? Why have we got wrappers around the slippers in the rooms? Why do you know what I mean? And I think we just need that. We want to be attractive. Hospitality is not necessarily an easy job. It's quite a hard, you know, particularly at entry levels. It's quite a hard place to go into. There are lots of easier jobs. Yeah. So you've struck on something that I've noticed as well. There's a tremendous amount of celebration and connection and rewarding that's informal or event based in rituals in your organization. And it's quite striking because I was speaking with a CEO just the other day who doesn't have this strength at all. In fact, he's high on accountability and low on engage the heart. And it hurts morale, it hurts performance in the business. And so it sounds like your advice would be to that leader who's just all about results and outcomes. A, connect with people on a personal level, find out about them. B, it sounds like, you know, let them know that you're seeing what they're doing is good or what good they're doing. Let them know you're seeing it and then organizationally celebrate the hell out of people, whether it be a personal event of a pregnancy as you described, or excellent work or employee of the month or whatever those things are. And I think Hilson's particularly brilliant at this. And I've been in the room when those events are happening and they are an incredibly rewarding experience to sit as an outsider to see that this is an organization who sees and values its people deeply and the senior leaders take it seriously. And there's also a fun noticed as well. It's a lot of fun and I think a lot of our clients could do a whole lot better on this area. And I don't, you know, I'm going to make it a bolder. So I think it's a lot to do with your great Place to work award. I think we have a view, Michael, that I was going to say, you know, a five minute praise. It's not, it's often not five minutes. It's possibly 40 seconds. Yeah, 40 seconds delivered to the right person at the right moment in the right way can lift somebody for three months of work. That's, you know, we truly believe in it. And you know, I find that, I find that scary that you. Because my role and my title gives me that power, but it's also unbelievable. No, I've just come back from Darwin. We did a Food and Beverage Academy that you've got 25 people who just want to have their selfies with you, you know, and they want to have their selfies with you and their friends. You know, somebody comes up and says, oh, you're a rock star. When are you not a rock star? They love the fact that you have flown all the way to Darwin to be in there. There's not 600 people in the room. There were 22 of our brightest chefs and food and beverage and restaurant managers. But for a day and a half, they had me and my senior leadership team. And that was about. Yes, it's about learning. Yes, it's about drive, but it's very much about retention. It's very much. We're just. Even if you're thinking about leaving, we're going to make it really hard. We're going to make it hard for you, love you into staying. I'm going to love you into staying. And, you know, if somebody out there wants to give you 25% more to do the same thing, I probably can't compete with that. And you may need it because you need the money to send back to Hyderabad or to Manila or to wherever you, you know, wherever you came from to our country initially. So I think that that's really, really important. Right. And I think, you know, recently when you came to China, right. We did that event together. And then the next night you'd flown back already. So the next night was my 40th anniversary with the company. So I'm now the longest serving. You know, we have 107,000 employees here, and I'm the longest serving leader. Right. So. And so they had asked me, 1400 people in the, in the ballroom, right. For the gala dinner, Krishna, our CEO, was there, and I was one of only two speeches on the night. I was told four minutes. Don't go one second later than four minutes. And of course, our CEO and our president, Alan Watts, and I decided at that time, what could you say in four minutes? You could say a whole bunch of thank yous. Right. Which frankly, I didn't need to do because they should be thanking me. I didn't. I didn't have anybody I needed to thank. Right. I, you know, I do it by my words and my actions. And so before I came on, I was, I was holding everything together. And then Alan Watts said, can I just ask everybody in this room, has either worked with Paul, been mentored by Paul, tutored by Paul, transferred by Paul, could you please stand up? And it was the most. It was hundreds and hundreds. And hundreds of people. Hundreds. I mean, four or five hundred people. And yes, I've worked in many countries and I think it was, it was so impacting to realize over a career what you can actually do if you're just. If you're that. And I'm leading into this because you're asking me what. And I'm going to tell you. My speech, which went for four minutes, made a joke about the fact I asked them when I joined in 1984 who the US President was. It was Ronald Reagan, by the way. That's scary. That's scary. So for me, I said to them, you know, this is 1400 of our biggest leaders across APAC. There were five core things that I wanted them to tickle it. That's all they remembered from what I said that night. Right. One was that they really care for their teams and let their teams actually shine through. It's easy that we're so desperate that we want, we want the kudos. But actually, if your teams are succeeding, any leader knows that it's because of good leadership to continue to show the highest levels of passion. Hopefully you can hear that in my voice. Right. So It's. It's now 42 years, by the way, in a month or two. So that they show the highest levels of passion. I think that anybody of any generation, that's what's going to drive them to see that your boss, she or he loves their job, still is. Is trying to. To make small improvements. Integrity with a capital I. That could be anything. It's about how we hire. It's about having no. A fairness in the workplace, having no favoritism. Right. Which is one of our great evils, to show really genuine and authentic interest in the people and their lives and their stories and their dreams. And you brought that up. That is probably the hardest, but it's the most impactful. And my last one, which was the one that brought the tears to the room and you know what? Good on it. And I said, you know what? I just want you to be kind. I just need you to be kind. Right. And I said, you know, be remembered for somebody. Be remembered for somebody that was just kind, really kind. And that years later, that's why they remember you anyway, no dry eye in the house, yada, yada, yada. And I had lots of. And including my boss to come and say, you know, you could have said many things. But if you're talking to a room of mostly aspiring leaders, it comes down to that. I haven't mentioned numbers. I haven't mentioned stats, tricks, percentages, growth, cagr. I haven't mentioned any of those things because if you can do those five things, it will. You know, you're reminding me, Paul. I'm getting emotional myself because I spent 25 years doing disciplined mindfulness practice and up to that point, and every time you do mindfulness practices, you can truly choose two kinds of mindfulness practices. One is precise awareness practice. It's really refining the mind so you can really understand and see exactly what's going on in you. And then the other set of practices is all about love and kindness and it's called Metta. It's a Metta practice, Love. And every time we would do the meta practices on these retreats and learnings, I would kind of just ignore and carry on with the more precision practices. I thought, that's kindest businesses, whatever. And then I had this teacher from Hawaii, Stephen Smith, and I was telling him, I don't really do those kind of practices when you tell us. And he looked at me and he said, michael, how do you feel when you're in a company of someone's being genuinely kind to you? Like genuinely not nasi passy, not fake, genuinely kind. And so struck, because what came out of my mouth was, I feel like I've come home. And that was the moment that I understood kindness in myself of how significant a thing it is. And I realized I want to be home for those around me. I want to be a home that they can come to. I want to be home with myself as well. And it's such a beautiful reminder that you've shared, because in a sense, what you're doing as a hotel group is you're making home. But the best part of home, right, for those guests that are coming into this environment. I've personally experienced that at Hilton. I'll never forget because I had two different clients. One was staying with you guys at Hilton, at a Hilton, and I won't say which country it was. And then I ended up having to stay in another hotel nearby. Very much same price point, very much same sort of standard. But I remember being so struck at the difference of the experience between the two hotels. And the one felt like home and the other felt like commercial environment. And what a difference that made. And I thinking, gosh, Hilton's got this kind of magic thing that's indescribable. And then I remembered you and I was like, yeah, the one feels more like Paul and the other feels more like I ended up meeting that hotel general manager, actually. And it Felt like him. It's amazing the impact of leadership on a whole hotel group, right down to the guest experience, isn't it? It's extraordinary and as you say, scary. So three years ago, we changed our metrics, right? How we measure guest experience. Right. So we went to a new company and we made a step change. And we said to all of our general managers and to their key leadership teams, what your customers say about you anonymously is going to be, we're going to use that as a metric to measure the success of your hotel. We had always seen it as sort of everything you've just done coming home, the doubletree chocolate cookie, the warm and fuzzy thing that you, that, you know, some places your children get a hug from the start because it's culturally okay that you do it. There's. And we said, that's not going to be good enough. It's going to become a commercial metric. The score that your customers give you is as much about their room rate and their occupancy and how much they spent in the restaurant, how much they spent in the bar, how much they spent in the spa. And that has been a step change for us, right, that everybody looks at it. It's not just a nice metric to have. It is a metric that is inextricably linked to how satisfied and delighted your guests are, drives their loyalty. And when you've gone from blue to silver to gold to diamond to platinum, your. Your spending goes up exponentially. And it's not by two or three times. By the time you are gold and by the time you're diamond and platinum, you are potentially spending on average 10 to 15 times more than you would as a blue member coming in for the first time. And it has been a step change forecast that we, that we just viewed that we would be more successful on the balance sheet by being loved more. Yeah, authentically. I think that that's. And can I just add quickly, Michael, you know, people do say to me, well, it's okay because you're such an extrovert and you know, you can do this. I'm not. Well, here we are, news alert. I am. You know me well enough because you and I have discussed this. You coached me for a couple of years, right. I am no extrovert. I'm not an introvert. But, you know, I did some work with Anne Herman and she made it quite clear to me, you know, Paul, you are an ambivert. You know, I am. And I, and I, for the first time, I, I felt comfortable that I am able to modify my behavior for what I need to be. If I'm on stage like you're going to be, I can modify that. I can become everything that somebody wants me to be. But I'll be then quite happy to have the hour to myself to go to the gym or collect my thoughts or just recharge where the extrovert's happy to be in the bar straight away. And you know, already, already having, already having a social experience which I'm exhausted from. Right. But that I, you know, take. So I think that that's, I think people need to convince themselves that you're not an introvert. And you may not be an extrovert, but you can be, you can be really good at this because it's what people need to see. You cannot, yeah, you, you can't be it. And, and you know, and the rehearsing, funny, you and I were talking about it before we come back online. Right. Rehearsing, timing in front of a mirror. You know, we did it when we were in grade five. It hasn't changed. It hasn't changed. Yeah, it, it's, it's critical. Paul, I'm conscious of your time and I'm so grateful for your time and I'm wanting just to bring us to a close. Is it firstly just. Is there anything you feel like you, you really else you want to mention around this journey to great place to work or, or, or, and, or I'm a, if I'm a brand new leader or I'm a mid level leader. What's your advice to me as a leader? I mean, just look at the wider group around you. Right. We are, we are trained, we are weaned into working towards what people up the ladder think of us and what we need to do. Right. And interesting enough, I think in Australia we are the least reverent. That's with our Kiwi colleagues as well. You know, you wrote a book about it with Posner and Kouzis. Right. I mean I remember you and I, that must be at least a decade ago and how right it was. I actually sent it, I had a German boss, I sent it to him to say, you know, you think leadership's hard, try and be a leader down in this part of the world. There is no harder place in the world because it's, it's irreverent, it's un, it's unforgivable. You need to be many things, but you won't be, but you won't be, but you won't be rewarded for it necessarily. I think understanding that the uniquely, you know, not equally pieces that people should identify some key people who are around them and to drive those relationships. Right. I have a daughter who's gone into the military, Right. And she's an officer now and she's only 23. But she's worked out very quickly. There are. Of all the people who report into her, there are five people that matter because they're the ones that are below her, but they're the ones that are going to drive it. And she's learned that so quickly that she has to find a way for these people to respect her, you know, and it's. And it will come in time. Is she the first in there in the morning? Is she's the last out there in the afternoon? Is she the one helping with logistics, making sure there's enough parts and all the things that you need in a military setting to go well? So, you know, it's not rocket science, but I'd really. That's what I would say the largest group of people to make yourself quite vulnerable. I think that's one of the great traits of most Australian leaders, is that we're not caught up in our ego. We're not caught up in. We're quite happy for the team to have a laugh at our expense. It's a wonderful Australian trait and particularly successful in Asia. Right. Where we have, you know, so many tens of thousands of Australians have senior jobs up there. Right. But I don't think we use that enough. Right. It's not about being the buttock, the joke, but it's about humanizing your leadership and that a good laugh and some humor is immensely valuable. And it may take you some time to do that naturally, but by putting yourself as the butt of a joke, people are going to laugh. Thank you, Paul. So, Paul, I'm just very grateful. I mean, this has been a masterclass for me in particularly the six leadership practices. We have seven green. One is self awareness. And we don't see. We see that as the support to the other six. And we always talk about that. Engage the heart is such a significant practice because it helps people feel seen. And for some people, it can even heal childhood wounding for them because they didn't get enough seeing in their families. And then they can join an organization and they can feel seen and understood and noticed. And that their efforts matter is just profound. It knits us back together, it puts our heart back together at some level. And you can just see how beautifully that flows to the guest experience as well. For Hilton and your leadership is so clear on that. So I want to thank you for reminding me the power, like to say, cheesily, the power of love. From the first conversations you and I ever had. I said that to you and you smiled and we were sitting with my colleague Richard Todd at the time and I said, and you'd said, but if that's what you want to have in your pitch, if that's your pitch about your leadership, there's nothing wrong with it. You just have to. You have to be able to back it up. There can be a bad connotation to love, There can be a cheesy connotation, but there's not. You know, I would want people to say they have to love me, but they have to love working here. And if they love working here, you know, job done. Yeah. And then the guest experience is another experience of love. Well, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much, Paul. I really appreciate you and your work. And congrats again on winning the great place to work and also all the incredible expansions and new hotels you're opening up at world record speeds. No surprise. Onwards and upwards. Thank you, Paul. Pleasure, mate. Thank you. The secret life of great leaders is brought to you by Triple Goal, where good coaches become great and leaders grow their impact where it matters most. Discover more@triplegoal.com make sure to search for the secret life of great leaders in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or anywhere else podcasts are found. Click subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. On behalf of the team here at Triple Goal, thanks for listening.