When I spoke with Patrizio Cipollini, he was General Manager of Four Seasons Hotel Firenze in Florence, Italy. The book records that he served in that role from the hotel’s opening in 2008 until his passing.
Cipollini speaks, above all, to how a leader treats the team, and he gave me a definition of respect that I have since heard echoed by many of the best operators in either field. Respecting the team, he said, means listening to them, including them in decisions, asking for their advice and insight, and rewarding them for going above and beyond. Each of those four verbs is a daily discipline rather than a posture.
“Respecting your team means listening to them, including them in decision-making, asking for their advice and insight, and rewarding them for going above and beyond.” Patrizio Cipollini, General Manager, Four Seasons Hotel Firenze
He extended that respect into a financial transparency some operators would find uncomfortable. The hotel shared its goals with all staff, shared the financial results of the hotel every year, and shared each department’s budget with the team responsible for delivering it. Showing the team the numbers is a decision to treat them as adults whose work matters in the way an owner’s work matters. The team that knows the property’s numbers runs the property as if the numbers were their own.
“We also share financial results of the hotel every year, while each department’s budget is shared with the team responsible for delivering it.” Patrizio Cipollini, General Manager, Four Seasons Hotel Firenze
Someone once told Cipollini that he had an innate capacity to extend paternal warmth to the entire team, and he told me that attitude had shaped his leadership throughout his career because it builds trust and loyalty. The substance of what he described is protection: a leader who treats the team’s well being as part of his own job. He was also proud of the many colleagues who grew up with him and moved on to senior positions at Four Seasons properties around the world. He called those departures bittersweet. In his telling, the leaver is a graduate rather than a defection.
In the book, Patrizio Cipollini appears in Chapter 4, First the Team, on respect, financial transparency, paternal warmth and the colleagues who moved on; in Chapter 8, The Human Touch, on shielding the team so they can keep meeting guests with openness; in Chapter 13, The Long Game, on the senior bench he spent years building in Florence; and in Chapter 14, The Future of Luxury and Craft, where his financial transparency is offered as a model for the properties the next generation will trust.