NO Boundaries NO Limits -- NO Kidding.

Executives at the growth-driven Starwood hotel group talk about leading a mega-organization on the move. If you're curious about what drives such rapid-fire expansion, and whether it's a mindset that would serve your association well, read on.

"The global leadership position in the hospitality industry is ours for the taking," asserts Barry Sternlicht, chairman and CEO of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, in "No Boundaries, No Limits," the company's last annual report. Conversations with some of the members of his top management team confirm that he's truly convinced--and committed to making this happen. The actions taken by Sternlicht during the past few years with White Plains, New York-based Starwood prove that he's on a no-speed-limits drive to continual growth of the organization. Comments from key players in this process offer insights for interested leaders of all types of organizations.

Currently Starwood has 700 hotels in 76 countries. You can find a facility anywhere from the United States to the United Arab Emirates to Australia. Companies in the Starwood group presently include St. Regis Luxury Collection, Westin, Sheraton, Four Points, W Hotels, and Caesars. The bulk of these acquisitions began in 1995, the year Starwood considered itself reborn into a company that Sternlicht calls "synonymous with growth."

But today's status is tomorrow's old news, as Starwood continues to acquire companies and renovate properties at a breathtaking pace. Under development are hotels all over the planet--Poland, Portugal, and Japan, to name just a few spots.

While no end is in sight to Starwood's expansion, the company has examined every point along the way, says Christie Hicks, vice president of global sales organization. She says that Sternlicht's vision for Starwood "has a target point. It's not an end point, but rather a focus, and our focus is on long-term growth."

Addressing growth and change

Merging a variety of hotel firms, each with a distinctive product and way of operating, raises a host of issues. Here's a glimpse at some of the major ones of interest to association leaders and a look at how Starwood has been addressing the challenges.

You do things what way in your country? When you have hotel companies making promises all over the world, how do you make sure they're met consistently without washing away appealing cultural distinctions?

"We obviously want to have some brand standards that are consistent whether you are in London, New York, Sao Paulo, or Tokyo," acknowledges Bob Moore, senior vice president of global sales. "Having said that, however, under no circumstances are we trying to put every hotel into the same box. We have no interest in being a cookie-cutter operation. We implement our standards with the appropriateness of the particular culture associated with the hotel's location. This way, the standards are met, and then when you add the local culture and flair and uniqueness, you get the best of both worlds."

To achieve this goal, Starwood employs a regional strategy. The corporation is organized by geographic divisions: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East, and South America. Says Moore, "We have divisional teams with responsibility for making sure that we do it right every day with every customer in all brands in every part of the world."

Customers don't want to lose the personal touch. As Starwood continues acquiring hotels and centralizing operations, will the corporation grow so large that it loses the personal touch that customers once presumably enjoyed from individual companies?

Not to worry, assures Jean Spaulding, although she understands the fear. Says Spaulding, Starwood's vice president of sales organizational development, "Our intent is to be able to show customers that we bring great value to their needs by enabling them to make one call and choose from a wide range of products and services with a real price-value relationship associated with them. I have not heard a lot of complaints."

Complaints that Spaulding has heard have been from customers not knowing how to reach a particular person they worked with before the merger, or not knowing who is the right person to call. But for the most part, Spaulding comments, "customers think, 'That's one less person I need to deal with.'"

It's the appeal of one-stop shopping. Says Spaulding, "Association meeting planners are very busy people, and that whole ability to call one phone number and be able to have the person they reach represent different brands is [usually] a positive thing."

Everyone needs some educating. Keeping the positive aspects of the mergers in the forefront requires significant education efforts on Starwood's part. The corporation must make sure that its customers know what products are available to them and how to access them most easily, and that effort must be complemented by education of the sales force.

Hicks elaborates: "We have a responsibility to educate our customers on who we are and what we bring to the table. That is where we will focus our sales strategy as we continue our growth strategy, because the two have to go hand in hand. We are in the process of creating some product information that will be available to sales-people and customers alike. When you are growing as fast as we're growing, you have got to keep people abreast of the opportunities, because they are coming fast and furious."

Spaulding points out that, to meet cross-selling goals in particular, Starwood is working hard to make sure that all salespeople understand the differences among all brands. "We're working on that at the corporate level," she says, "so that everybody understands that this is what a Sheraton is and why, this is what a Westin is and why, and so forth."

That's critical to the success of a new sales incentive program called Team HOT that encourages and motivates salespeople at all Starwood facilities to cross sell. If a salesperson at a particular hotel can't meet the needs of a customer, that customer is to be referred to whatever Starwood hotel is likely to meet the needs. The intent, explains Spaulding, "is to make sure that the sale happens on Starwood property, and to reward staff for making that happen."

Employees have different takes on technology.

The Team HOT program is only one reason why employees must sing off the same technological song sheet. The program is Internet-based to allow information sharing among all employees and facilitate the generation of customer leads. Actually, notes Spaulding, the need for an Internet-savvy staff to make Team HOT work was key in driving other corporate technology decisions.

Merging companies meant merging differing systems, including, of course, communication systems. Says Spaulding, "In the Sheraton world, everybody was on e-mail. In the Westin culture, communication was through a global voice mail system. One of the early things for Starwood to decide when it acquired these companies was whether we should concentrate on e-mail or voice mail. For a while we ran both systems simultaneously. Now we pretty much have migrated to e-mail."

Beyond a technological bond, employees need a human connection.

Put a bunch of former rivals into one room and pronounce them co-workers, and you'll likely have a bit of team building to do. Spaulding is focused on this as she spends a lot of time bringing employees together to talk. "Right now I'm doing a lot of investigative work," she says, "a lot of listening to what people have to say about cultures they came from and the culture they'd like to be a part of."

"You can't communicate enough," she continues, "and you can never discount what somebody wants to tell you. Whether you are merging an organization or working with a committee of people from different organizations, you have to give everyone the opportunity to voice what they feel. Then work with what you hear--as long as it works with where you want to go. When lots of people have lots of great opinions and have lots of great experiences and they don't get to be heard, it's hard for them to buy into where you are going."

Speed's the thing. Throughout Starwood discussions runs the theme of speed--growing fast, learning quickly, keeping up with ongoing change. This theme seems to distinguish Starwood, but perhaps it won't for long, as other organizations decide that picking up their pace is key to success.

As Spaulding puts it, "Living in the past or sticking your feet in cement as the organization tries to change is a death wish. Whether you're leading a for-profit or a nonprofit organization, you've got to be willing to change every minute of every day."

Gerry Romano, CAE, is senior editor and features manager of ASSOCIATION MANAGEMENT.

Starwood

SNAPSHOT

* Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide mission and stategies. Starwood's mission is to be the preeminent international hotel and leisure company, positioned as a global leader in the full service, upscale, and luxury hotel sectors. The company's growth strategy focuses on the acquisition and development of strategy is to acquire or develop full service, upscale hotels at prices below replacement cost in major urban markets.

* Current size: 700 hotels in 76 countries, 130,000 staff

* Web site: www.starwoodhotels.com

* Chairman and CEO: Barry Sternlicht

Key Challenges TO LEADERS

What are some of the key challenges to top leaders at growth-driven organizations? Here's what Starwood executives had to say.

* "I think it's being able to communicate as fast as you want to move. It's hard to keep up communicating to everybody what's going on every day. A lot of times thanks to the media the customers find out about changes before our own people do."

--lean spaulding vice president of sales organizational development.

* "I have to remember to stay focussed on the priorities at hand because with an organization of this size. It is easy to get distracted. Plus we've got to make sure that we use people so that the company gets the most out of them and they get the most out of the company."

--Christie Hicks, vice president of global sales organization.

* "Making time for volunteer leadership roles is very important. I have gained tremendously as a volunteer in organizations like ASAE, and I am going to be encouraging members of our organization to play similar roles, just as Ted Darnall has done with the ASAE Foundation" Darnall president of Starwood's North America hotel operations, is chair of the foundation's 1999-2000. Partners for the Future capital campaign.

--Bob Moore, senior vice president of global sales.