Chronicle No. 42 · Lessons

Isadore Sharp's One-Page Rule

The founder of Four Seasons calls it the single most important decision he ever made: writing the Golden Rule down and handing it to his staff.

Isadore Sharp was the son of a Polish immigrant builder in Toronto. He founded Four Seasons in 1960 and opened his first property in 1961: a 125-room motor hotel in downtown Toronto, a long way from the idea of global luxury.

By the mid-1970s Sharp had decided he wanted the company to be the best hotel operator in the world. He has said that four decisions carried it there: managing rather than owning, building only medium-sized hotels of exceptional quality, making service the brand's competitive edge, and defining the culture around a single principle.

That principle was the Golden Rule, put into writing as a one-page credo and tested with groups of employees before it was issued. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Sharp's argument was that it needed no translation: it belongs to every major religion and every culture the company would ever operate in.

Crucially, he read it in both directions. The document set out what the company expected of its employees and what employees could expect of their managers. Front-line people were to be treated the way the company wanted guests treated, on the reasoning that no one delivers warmth they have never received.

Sharp has described the Four Seasons style of service simply as an exchange of mutual respect performed with an attitude of kindness. Nothing in that sentence requires marble or a budget.

The lesson for any operator: your culture must be short enough for a night porter to recall it at three in the morning, and honest enough to bind the people who wrote it.

“The Golden Rule – the simple idea that if you treat people well, the way you would like to be treated, they will do the same.”

Lesson: A culture that fits on one page can be taught, remembered and used; a thick manual cannot.