You Can’t Lead with Your Feet on the Desk: Building Relationships, Breaking Down Barriers, and Delivering Profits

Personal relationships are the real bedrock of long-term success in any business and any industry. But in today’s global economy, forging bonds across cultural divides requires a heightened level of sensitivity. In You Can’t Lead with Your Feet on the Desk, the leader of Marriott International Lodging, Ed Fuller, delivers real-world advice on how to connect with, manage, and do business with people in any culture, including employees, suppliers, and customers who often have roots in other cultures. Fuller, who grew Marriott’s international business from sixteen hotels in six countries to 400 properties in seventy countries, explains how to navigate cultural nuances and language differences, unfamiliar geography, and frustrating bureaucracy. Building trust, shared values, and commitment to a business partnership is harder in cross-cultural situations, but it can and must be done if you want to be successful in today’s world.

No matter the country or community, relationships are the currency of every culture. Fuller explains how to build these relationships, how to discover the other person’s interests and needs--and why you have to get your feet off the desk, cross the cultural borders, and go meet them in the context in which they’re most comfortable. Fuller prepares you for this journey with guiding principles for avoiding missteps and for creating lasting connections crucial to every business leader:

• Build relationships through mutual respect
• Earn trust quickly by delivering during a crisis
• Understand how verbal and nonverbal cues can make or break a deal
• Lead from the front and be willing to give yourself the tough jobs
• Learn the local customs and history in order to create positive relationships

Your skills at forming and maintaining close ties with associates and partners give you the competitive advantage. So, ditch the desk, and learn how to overcome differences in today’s multicultural business environment.

＂This is a must-read! Every American needs to know how to work with others in this multicultural society. The diversity of the American business community has expanded over the past decades. As a leader you need to know how to manage and interact in our multi-cultural business environment. Ed Fuller has given you the guideposts, the pitfalls have been identified, and the opportunities are yours. This is an essential read for all leaders and one that I highly recommend.＂
--JAMES STAMAS Founding Dean, School of Hospitality Administration, Boston University

ED FULLER, President and Managing Director of the International Lodging Division of Marriott International, Inc., has flown more than 10 million miles, solidifying business relationships around the world. Over the past two decades, he has grown Marriott’s international lodging portfolio from sixteen hotels in six countries to 400 properties in seventy countries with revenues in excess of ＄7 billion.