Ted Teng, Former President & CEO, The Leading Hotels of the World, interviewed by Lan Elliott

Ted shares why leaving bosses who didn’t support him advanced his career, and he discusses ontology, a program of self-discovery, which helps him to better understand others and reduce drama in the workplace.  He also describes how to develop mentors and the importance of considering the quality of mentorship one is receiving.  Ted talks about why he considers imposter syndrome a positive attribute, and the reason public speaking is critical for any executive.

Transcript

Lan Elliott: 0:01

Hello and welcome to D E I Advisors. My name is Lan Elliott on behalf of D E I advisors and today I'm really pleased to have Ted Tang as our guest advisor. Welcome Ted.

Ted Teng: 0:14

Thanks, LAN, great to be here. You and your colleagues are doing great work and I'm honored to be here.

Lan Elliott: 0:22

We are thrilled to have you. Ted is the former president and c e o of the leading hotels of the world, as well as some other amazing roles that he's had. President and chief operating officer of Wyndham, president of Asia Pacific for Westin, and then for Starwood. So Ted, I'd love to jump right in and learn more about your career journey. If you could share maybe some of. The inflection points in your career, and if there were some skills or traits that you think were factors in your success, we'd love to hear that too.

Ted Teng: 0:58

Sure. There, there were many inflection points. I look at my life somewhat like a live. I think first and foremost is is failing at the Cornell Engineering College. I I started at Cornell. I was accepted as part of the CSEP program, the affirmative action at that time. And I was gonna be a civil engineer. My parents gave up everything in Shanghai and then Hong Kong, so we can have opportunities to attend college and I'm sure getting into in Ivy League University would be every, immigrant's dream and unfortunately That was the first inflection point. And very fortunately, I was accepted as a transfer student into the Hotel School. And at the time Mac Nonan interviewed me and I'll always be grateful for him to give me the opportunity. And then from there on Cornell Hotel School was a life transforming. Experience in one single generation. Every job change. I had top 10 job change in my career. It felt like I skipped a few steps. And then about mid career I came across a self-awareness, self-empowerment in a way of being, which I think really transformed me as a as a person. And then as far as factors contributing I think, a lot of people would agree hard work, smart work. I think being present to your environment and see the opportunities I think continuous learning and for me, I think I was very lucky to have. A few bosses who saw greater potential in me than I saw in myself at the time. And then I think lastly was having the courage to leave bosses who didn't quite fit that particular mold.

Lan Elliott: 2:56

That's really quite courageous and sometimes people stick it out because they're with a great company and maybe their boss isn't their biggest champion, but they stay anyways. So I commend you for picking up and saying, I'll have more opportunities somewhere else. I wanted to also ask you, you've worked in Asia and you've also worked in the us. Are there different skills or traits that you find are more important in other parts of the world than they are here in the us?

Ted Teng: 3:25

Every culture is somewhat different and even Asia and then my last 10 years of my career, I spent most of it in Europe. I would say anytime when we are outside of the culture that we know is to assume we don't know much. And that's when you start asking questions and learn. Most people are not offended by, simple mistakes and that, but what I've seen is that people who think they know more than they do and that's when they get in trouble. I. The cultural knowledge is critical in terms of particularly the hierarchical order of how we behave and when to speak up, when not to how to present ideas how to communicate important information through the channels and and be respectful that other cultures are. Just as relevant and important. I've seen too many American expats laugh at the culture that's different than theirs. And then that's the first sign of you're not gonna be very successful.

Lan Elliott: 4:38

Yeah, absolutely. And I think people appreciate you asking questions and being genuinely interested so that you can better integrate and understand and how to work with a new culture for you.

Ted Teng: 4:48

Agree.

Lan Elliott: 4:49

Ted, I wanted to go back to something you mentioned, which was the self-awareness that you gained midway through your career. Could you talk more about that, where that came from? How it came about? Sure. About 1998 or so a gentleman was introduced to me, Barry Al and we started on a journey. It was it's a program of self discovery. Being, becoming more aware of yourself. And from there is a self-empowerment program. It's a field of study called ontology and study of being it was put forth, I think originally by Warner Earhart and his, he established a company called Erhard Seminar Training, and then it took the form of Landmark Forum and then also more recently Steve Zaffron wrote the book the Three Laws of performance and I think pretty much they're all in the same type of teaching. It really examine how, what we tell ourselves as a story in order to take actions and create results. And once you figure out what makes you tick, Then you have a choice as to how you create a future. And it allowed me to understand others much more. It opened my eyes to behind every villain, there's a victim. So when you don't like what people are doing, you can see the person behind their behaviors. There's a saying, people who are hurt will hurt others, right? So for from there, it just allow me to appreciate the human being regardless of whether I agree with them or don't agree with them. And also, seeing when somebody's having a bad day, a bad time as to what's driving them, instead of just judging or criticizing. Yeah that all of that takes a lot of self-awareness and a lot of restraint in terms of not reacting to other people and wanting to go deeper and understand maybe what's the motivation behind other people.

Ted Teng: 6:59

Yeah. And one of the things that we can all do to reduce the drama is to not trigger other people. And, but. We have to know, what are the triggers. And by not triggering other people a lot more gets done. So true.

Lan Elliott: 7:22

Ted, I wanted to talk a little bit about learning from setbacks, because no one gets to where you've been and the roles you've had in the industry without having to overcome a few setbacks. Have you encountered either a career setback or something that didn't go the way you hoped, and out of that you learned something that helped you in the future?

Ted Teng: 7:44

The first setback was failing as a civil engineer, and I'm glad for it because it occurred early in my career. And I think the lesson there is that I need to be more flexible and be ready to pivot because things don't always turn out as we want them to or intend them to be but after that I really can't think of setbacks. In my career, I think of life as a big collection of choices we make. And, once we make them, we have to make the best of it. Because there, there is no ab testing if you would once you chosen the path, that's it. Maybe, I didn't wait until the setbacks to occur. As I mentioned, I left jobs. When I felt my boss was not supportive or see me as someone worthwhile. And I left three jobs because I didn't think highly of my bosses. And then I left one other one when my company was acquired. So I think perhaps I don't have many setbacks to share or relay because I. Avoid them before they occur. That's

Lan Elliott: 8:55

great foresight to be able to do that. And I have to say, the engineering school's loss was definitely the hospitality industry's gain. So I'm really happy that happened. Actually. It was lucky for the rest of us.

Ted Teng: 9:06

Thank you. Thank you. I feel very fortunate to found a home at the hotel school.

Lan Elliott: 9:15

You had mentioned having bosses that really supported you and also being able to leave bosses that you didn't feel were going to champion you. Can you share a little bit about mentors and or champions that you had that helped you, and how important is it to have those relationships in order to get ahead?

Ted Teng: 9:36

Every job I've gotten came from someone who knew me. I was fortunate to have, several bosses, as I said, who saw greater potential in me than I saw in myself. I think champions and advocates are critical to anyone's career. It's like a, it's like a big lift. Somebody pull you up, otherwise you gotta climb on your own. Maybe you'll get there. Maybe you won't. But I think. Finding mentors. How do you go about finding mentors is it's, for me, it is about looking at what can I do to support my bosses or others who may be able to mentor me. What can I do to make them more successful? It's not just about what can I get from them. I know a lot of people think about mentorship is, what can I get out of my mentor? But if you start contributing to their success, You'll find people are more willing to mentor you. It is definitely a two-way street. And the other thing about the quality of the mentorship shows up actually is when we screw up, right? If you're gonna try new things, you're gonna screw up. So that's gonna happen. So the question is the feedback you get from your bosses or your mentor, is it one that you are not good enough? Or is it one that says, Hey, you are better than that. Both is holding me accountable, but one says I'm not good enough, and the other one says I'm better than that. Yeah, the result was not good, but I am capable of more, and that's a big difference. I personally don't need a lot of rah chair leading to make me feel good. I need a coach who's gonna hold me accountable. And help make me be good. And I think that's a difference in terms of finding and keeping mentors Absolutely.

Lan Elliott: 11:32

So many great lessons in what you said. One first is to contribute to their success so that people want to look out for you and support you. That's a great first way to start to cultivate mentors and champions. And I also think picking people who are going to tell you how it is, maybe in a more constructive way than others, but make you wanna do better and to fulfill your potential

Ted Teng: 11:58

Absolutely. And it's, Constructive may be about what you did or the result you produce, but is the mentor willing to go further and speak to the person that you are? If you're not good enough, it's definitely speaking to the person and that's very discouraging and demoralizing. You are better than that, says you are better and it's, yeah, we can deal with. What you did and the result you caused, but it's speaking to that person and that's like the spark, that's like the feel that says, my boss thinks I'm better than that. I'm gonna prove him. And that's really important.

Lan Elliott: 12:41

Such a great way to be able to help lift people up in that way and to encourage them. Ted, I always think of you as a very positive person. You're always positive in my interactions with you, but do you ever have self-doubt? Were you just born being a positive person? How do you overcome self-doubt if you ever have it? Oh,

Ted Teng: 13:07

As a first gen student in college, not having family and friends in professional roles And then holding jobs way beyond what I thought was possible. I personally had the imposter syndrome for a long time. And there, there's a saying fake it till you make it. I'm not sure that's quite the good advice. I do think that self-doubt is actually good. To be a good leader and part of it is you can reframe self-doubt as someone who is more diligent in terms of wanting to check and make sure everything is right. I personally turn that into a a positive attribute to make sure I don't act too impulsively. It's important to ask, how do I know I'm right? And when I was a younger high school, college age I was a photographer and I learned that and object looks different from different angles, different light and distance and with self doubt it's like looking at an issue from all different angles. And. You ask yourself question, what about this? What about that? That's not necessarily bad. It, it is to me. It is a more diligent way to, to approach things. And a lot of times, you want to take the time it depends on the impact of the decision that you are about to make. And I'll bring other people into the conversation, people I trust and, not just people who are likely to agree with me. And sometimes I'll even take a. Opposite viewpoint, just to see what people will say. And I think getting many different perspectives improves the odds of success. So you don't see me in situation of, questioning this and questioning that. I am generally optimistic about the future. I feel yes, we'll have setbacks but overall we're heading into a better world.

Lan Elliott: 15:06

I particularly love the analogy that you gave with photography, and that is to look at things from different perspectives and using your relationships with others to gain different perspectives, not necessarily all that are the same as yours, purposely maybe picking some people who will have an opposite point of view. I think that's really a great way to be able to test things and make sure you're headed in the right direction.

Ted Teng: 15:31

I like to talk to the forever Optimist'cause they'll tell me all the opportunities and I love to talk to the forever pessimists'cause they'll tell me, why things won't work. And when I can synthesize all of that together it's a much fuller perspective then if I just, look at it on my own.

Lan Elliott: 15:49

Absolutely. I'm very powerful as well to be able to look at things from lots of perspectives. I turn to public speaking because one of my most favorite award acceptance speeches that I have ever heard was the one that you gave at the Cornell Icons dinner a few years ago. I. And it was really the first time I had heard you speak and you were funny, and you were humble, and you were open about the times when you weren't perfect. You talked about your college career didn't always start out so great, but it really left a big impression on me and it made me want to get to know you and I'm really glad I've had the opportunity to do that since then. But how important do you think the skill of public speaking is? How do you go about doing it in such a wonderful way, the way that you do it?

Ted Teng: 16:45

Thank you. Thank you, Lynn. That was definitely a highlight moment for me in my career and to be on the same program with Izzy Sharp of Four Seasons was truly an honor and a privilege. We, it's public speaking. How do we get better at anything we do. We do more of it. I was the kid who hit in the back of the class in order to avoid speaking in front of the class. I was terrified of it. Partly is because I didn't have a good command of the English language and just hate it when others would laugh at me. But public speaking is absolutely critical for any executive as we all have to enroll other people into our ideas. For them to take action and bring about results. It's not just about, the work that we do. And, knowing that I started speaking on topics, I knew, don't try to talk about things that I don't know. That makes me even scarier. And I prepared for it for a long time. I had a rule that. I need to pre one hour of preparation for every one minute of speaking. So imagine that. That's a 60 to one. So I spent early on a lot of preparation. I rehearse, I try to talk, I try not to read. And I can't give a speech that. Someone else writes it for me. I write all my own presentations.'cause then it's in my language, it's in my voice. It's me. I watch my own video. Nowadays with technology early on we, we didn't have that quite as easily. And one of my biggest fears has always been, I'm gonna forget something. And, Then I realized one day the audience doesn't know that what I forgot I often ask myself, what are they listening for so that I can speak into their listening and I think that's something it's about not just want to stay. What I want to say is say what they are anticipating that I will say, or. Say something they're not anticipating in order to get their attention. And I, and then I ask myself, how am I relating to them as the audience, who am I being at that particular moment? And these are all coming from that self-awareness, self-discovery program is Who am I that they are it's very powerful. It's very powerful because I'm relating to them and that changes my voice and my words as to what is it that I, how I want to deliver, what I wanna say.

Lan Elliott: 19:21

Thank you for that. I will say I didn't remember who else was speaking at that dinner. I only remembered your speech, and so it was Izzy show. What you did was obvious. All I know Izzy Sharp is incredible and an amazing icon in our industry, but in terms of memorable speeches and just being so approachable, I loved your speech and it really it really made an impression on me and we all hear a lot of acceptance speeches and they're wonderful, but yours just really stood out, so I appreciate your sharing. How you do it. I

Ted Teng: 19:55

tell you in careers, fitting in and standing out are constant juggling right? As to, how do you fit into the group and how do you stand out from the group. It's a constant struggle.

Lan Elliott: 20:13

It's true. You do need to do both, so

Ted Teng: 20:18

yes.

Lan Elliott: 20:20

A big part of your job has been building high performing teams. I'm curious, you've done this all over the world, in Europe, in Asia, in the United States. How do you approach building a team, either when you're starting from scratch and building a team or when you inherit an existing team and need to mold it into the strategy that you know to. Promote the strategy that you're looking for.

Ted Teng: 20:46

Yeah I most of my career I have inherited a team rather than starting from scratch. I've never had a startup, but, unlike the television show, where the, you are fired as, firing someone doesn't build a team. It's hiring the right person. I don't know. I don't know. There is a straightforward, prescriptive way of building a team, a great high performing team. I think of it as a daily, daily operation. It is something you go to work. You look at what's happening because we're. We're all complex individuals with different backgrounds, beliefs, and all that. You can bring a great team together of people of skills, but, skills is one thing. How they behave and how they behave with person A may be different than person B. And when person A and B are both present, it is such a complex. So many permutations. I, I don't, I, first of all, I don't look and say there's a point that I will reach. Now I have a great team, and then we go forward. I look at it as every day work in progress because the person who showed up yesterday or cheerful may not show up as the same person today and somebody else may come in. So the. It is so many different combinations. You as a leader, I as a leader, has have to show up and how do I bring people together to work together? Not maybe, is this person performing at a hundred percent, but if I can get person A to about 85% and person B is at 90% and person C, if I can take the person from 65 to 70. And it's so many things that can happen. I don't think the job is ever done and you keep working at it. There's certainly situations when someone really is not working. And you have given it a lot of opportunities. And you have to, as the saying go, if you can't get the people to change the people. I've had many situations where, Two individual, great, smart, intelligent, hardworking, high performing individuals who couldn't get along. And I have to bring them in and have a heart to heart in terms of what I think of both of them. But yet, how do they come together to work together? It's I personally don't think there is A prescriptive way. I think if there is a prescription, it is to work at it every day. How how to bring people to, to perform even better. And I think it starts with leaders caring about the people he or she leads. Some, sometimes it's like a portfolio management, right? You have a portfolio. This, these are performing well and that, that may not be, but that's, there's sometimes there's not a lot of interaction between the assets in the portfolio. And then there's other times it feels like playing poker. Sometimes you, there's a hand that you are dealt and depending on how other people are playing and you play that hand. I think it's fascinating. I think it's never done. But I love it.

Lan Elliott: 24:13

You've made a wonderful career out of doing it, so thank

Ted Teng: 24:17

you. I sometimes I'm I produce better results than others. I, one of my own criticism of myself is I I overestimate my abilities to bring people around.

Lan Elliott: 24:31

It's part of your optimism. I

Ted Teng: 24:32

love that. Dude. I am optimistic. I'm gonna try. I'm gonna love you and even if you don't love me back,

Lan Elliott: 24:41

Ted, I wanna talk about D E I initiatives because in the early two thousands when you were the president and chief operating officer at Wyndham, I. Wyndham received a D minus from the NAACP's Annual Diversity report. Yes. And I read that you and Fred Kleisner, who was Wyndham's, c e o at the time, decided to make diversity a part of Wyndham's mainstream business strategy. Not just an initiative, but a true part of the strategy. One of the things that you discussed at that time was that there are three levels of diversity that companies are engaged in. Can you share what those

Ted Teng: 25:22

are? Sure. There is a lot of to unpack here, and I can spend hours on this. I've been dealing with d e I for a long time. All in the best interests of the organizations. I was leading in Asia Pacific it was about expats versus local managers. At Wyndham, it was. They were doing well on gender diversity, but not on racial diversity at leading hotels. It was about global diversity. So the three levels of commitments as I see, to, to diversity. The first level is it's defensive. It's about not looking bad, it's just trying to avoid getting bad press and it's about. It's a fear of losing current customers. There's no real commitment to diversity. There's no, no real interest to it. And it's about talking a good talk and with posted statements and when, and then when they're, when the crisis is over, it goes away. It goes back to businesses normal. Unfortunately, I see probably most companies acting this way. And then the second level of commitment to diversity is that I. Green is everybody's color. It's about gaining market shares in underserved markets. And, unfortunately they don't always last very long because somebody will say, oh, these, the margins are not as good in these markets. And then usually, companies pulled out of these markets and it's not, again, it's not a commitment to diversity, it's a commitment to economic gains. Then the third level of commitment is when a company organization truly sees diversity as a strategic advantage. It's not a separate agenda item. It's built into everything we do. And we seek diversity of thoughts and perspective. Because that's an advantage. And just like photography, do we wanna see the whole object or just one side? And why wouldn't we want to avail ourselves to all the assets that's available to us, all the people that's available. And, a diverse, a well diverse organization can handle changes, growth, adversity with much, much greater nimble nimbleness. Not like the saying, great minds actually don't think alike. So that's, that was a big part of what we did. And I give credit to Fred without his support, without his leadership, we wouldn't have accomplished much of that. And diversity is very much people's commitment because things don't always last when the champions are not there. Yeah.

Lan Elliott: 28:06

And we see this a lot now with a lot of chief diversity officers leaving companies, and there was a big push a few years ago towards diversity, but it does feel like there's been a pullback and perhaps some companies are going back to the way things were before. Not a, not an opportunity for lasting change.

Ted Teng: 28:26

It's an opportunity committed to.

Lan Elliott: 28:30

Yeah. I think as you said, that level one commitment is very different than level two or level three. Yep. Ted, as I suspected, we are running short on time. I've got two more questions for you, so hopefully we can do them quickly because I still wanna hear your answers to them. Okay. The first one is, what advice would you give to your younger self, Ted?

Ted Teng: 28:58

I've always I've heard this question at other situations. Some people have done a spectacular job in, in answering this. I've always struggled with this question because the path that I was on 22 years ago is it's gone. It's no longer there. And, a 22 year old today is on a. Completely different terrain. But in the interest of being a good guest, I would say play the long game and aim higher, much higher. I think for me, really as a 22 year old fairly new immigrant just didn't know what the opportunities are. And so I shot for, I. You know what I knew and it wasn't until I come closer before I can see a much greater horizon beyond.

Lan Elliott: 29:49

I think that's such great advice. I think so many of us get into the industry and you think this is my goal'cause that's as far as you can see. But as you get closer to that goal, you start to see other horizons ahead. So I love that advice. And one last negative advice if I could and Ted, as d e i advisor's mission is around empowering personal success. What advice would you have for someone looking to advance their career? Maybe something you haven't already shared.

Ted Teng: 30:22

Sure. Maybe two things. One is put much greater emphasis on finding the right boss. Not just finding the right job or the right company, because finding the right boss makes a huge difference in your career, especially early on. And and the second advice I would say is, we're an industry of knowing. Everything is about what do I know? What do I know? From the general managers to the concierge? To, when you attend a department head meeting, it's all about what do I know? Knowing comes from the past and discovery starts with three little words, I don't know. And be comfortable with. I don't know.'cause right after that, here comes the discovery.

Lan Elliott: 31:15

It leads to all sorts of great things, following your curiosity to find the answer, right? Absolutely. Ted, thank you very much. So appreciate you being on and sharing your insights and what you've learned in your wonderful career. So thank you very much, Ted.

Ted Teng: 31:35

Thanks for having me This.

Lan Elliott: 31:39

Absolutely. And for our audience, if you've enjoyed this interview with Ted, we hope you'll go to our website, dei advisors.org to find other interviews with industry leaders. Thank you.