I’ve made it my mission to help the people who work for me see what’s important about what they do. Even at MoMA, we didn’t see our guests as a bunch of customers looking for lunch; we saw them as museumgoers—people on an adventure, realizing their dream of being inspired at one of the greatest modern art museums on earth. That simple shift had an automatic and profound impact on how our team acted, and on the hospitality our guests received.

I speak to people across industries and in different fields. When I encounter someone who thinks their work doesn’t matter, it’s usually because they haven’t dug deep enough to recognize the importance of the role they play. When I spoke at a real estate conference, it was easy for me to tell when someone was operating with passion and purpose. Many told me they sold houses; the great ones understood they were selling homes. This applies to every industry I can think of. You can be in the financial services business, or in the business of providing people with a plan so they can provide a future for their families.

Ebel’s routine of five annual field visits speaks to how important it is to do this deep and broad discovery work not only in the early days but also throughout your tenure. The time has proven so valuable that many leaders incorporate various listening and observing practices into their ongoing agendas. Chris Nassetta said, “I am talking to customers and our team at all levels all over the world all the time to make sure that I’m learning and understanding what’s going on inside our business.

Some of Ferguson’s personal drive came from having “a problem-solving mindset, so chomping down on a really intriguing problem is for me what the job’s all about.” This was a constant theme in our research and interviews with the highest-performing CEOs. Ferguson, using the analogy of being the architect of a building, was also energized by the challenge of championing his own strategy. “It was very exciting because it is a vision, and I will take all the time necessary to go from rough sketch to blueprint, to bringing in the team, the subcontractors, to actually seeing the building. There’s nothing like it, it’s so very rewarding.” Ferguson also shared that he is comfortable with a “gradually making progress mindset.” “The key to my success,” he shared, “is my ability to keep at it every day.” Sustaining his energy through the long haul of these years also was an appreciation for small wins. “There are small wins even in big marathons. You chunk up these big, long, journeys into steps. Sometimes it’s just a board meeting in which you finally got someone to agree.”

Creating awareness of small wins, and celebrating them, was also key to sustaining his team’s energy after initially exciting them with the vision. “First, they needed the belief that the goal was worth the journey. Why does it matter? Then it was celebrating the small victories. So getting the document ready, finishing the analysis, getting the vote, all those steps.” For the company as a whole, “there were some metrics that we could share about in every town hall, having to do with asset flows, client wins, and our win-loss ratio.

Flush off of that achievement, Hoplamazian turned his attention to a feature of Hyatt that was the reason he’d decided to make his big leap. In his months as interim CEO, working closely for the first time with the Hyatt executive team, he realized that “there was something so special about the culture of Hyatt. I couldn’t quite put it into words, but nobody was showing up just to punch a clock.” He felt deeply that he’d had “a true emotional experience of joining the Hyatt family.” Now he decided to delve into the power behind that strength of connection he felt as fuel for growing the company.

When it comes to investing in leadership development, PE firms have thus far focused on providing executives of portfolio companies a richness of opportunity for networking and peer-to-peer exchanges with other leaders in their portfolio companies and their vast network of advisers. They’ve worked to create rich ecosystems to facilitate these kinds of opportunities. “We spend a lot of time nurturing our talent network,” Courtney della Cava shared. These networks provide entrée to hundreds of other C-suite leaders, board directors, and company stakeholders who can provide input, from customers to suppliers and regulators. “We actively cultivate communities among our various executive cohorts,” she explained. This may be done, for example, by hosting regular gatherings where leaders can confer about issues and build relationships. The firm may also take the lead in making introductions across the ecosystem. A CEO of a mid-cap health-care company might, for example, be introduced to her counterpart at a fast-growth tech company who has invaluable expertise in cybersecurity or AI implementation.