Short description
After fifteen years of rising to the pinnacle of the hospitality industry, Chip Conley's company was suddenly undercapitalized and overexposed in the post-dot.com, post-9/11 economy. For relief and inspiration, Conley, the CEO and founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, turned to psychologist Abraham Maslow's iconic Hierarchy of Needs. This book explores how Conley's company the second largest boutique hotelier in the world overcame the storm that hit the travel industry by applying Maslow's theory to what Conley identifies as the key Relationship Truths in business with Employees, Customers and Investors.Part memoir, part theory, and part application, the book tells of Joie de Vivre's remarkable transformation while providing real world examples from other companies and showing how readers can bring about similar changes in their work and personal lives. Conley explains how to understand the motivations of employees, customers, bosses, and investors, and use that understanding to foster better relationships and build an enduring and profitable corporate culture.
Review
Despite using the word "mojo" in the subtitle and citing inspiration he received from 1960s counterculture icon Timothy Leary, this guide to better management isn't for hippies. Yes, Conley started the California boutique hotel chain Joie de Vivre Hospitality with the Phoenix Hotel, once a haven for faded rock stars. And yes, he quotes liberally from "rebel" CEOs who surf. But Conley's book is packed with thoughtful, instructional stories and advice for entrepreneurs as well as Fortune 500 managers, gleaned from his own experience as well as other business books. At the center of this confessional how-to is psychologist Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a pyramid that ranks human needs from base to self-actualizing. Used as the basis for employee, customer and stakeholder satisfaction, Conley contends, it can transform a business and its people. Though Stephen Covey and Peter Drucker have looked to Maslow before, Conley describes how using the pyramid saved his company from bankruptcy when the dot-com bubble burst. Conley is most successful when he expresses his ideas in numbered lists rather than the wordy passages that slow down the beginning. On the whole, though, his advice is inspiring and accessible. (Sept.) - Publishers Weekly, July 23, 2007
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