Top highlights from Setting the Table
The excellence reflex is a natural reaction to fix something that isn't right, or to improve something that could be better. The excellence reflex is rooted in instinct and upbringing, and then constantly honed through awareness, caring and practice.The overarching concern to do the right thing well is something we can't train for. Either it's there or it isn't.
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Business, like life, is all about how you make people feel. Its that simple, and its that hard.
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Make new mistakes every day. Dont waste time repeating the old ones.
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In the end, whats most meaningful is creating positive, uplifting outcomes for human experiences and human relationships. Business, like life, is all about how you make people feel. Its that simple, and its that hard.
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My appreciation of the power of hospitality and my desire to harness it have been the greatest contributors to whatever success my restaurants and businesses have had. Ive learned how crucially important it is to put hospitality to work, first for the people who work for me and subsequently for all the other people and stakeholders who are in any way affected by our businessin descending order, our guests, community, suppliers, and investors. I call this way of setting priorities enlightened hospitality. It stands some more traditional business approaches on their head, but its the foundation of every business decision and every success weve had.
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Her recipe for the perfect waitress was, two parts Walter Cronkite to one part Mae West, carefully blended with a cup of Mikhail Baryshnikov and a liberal sprinkling of Mother Teresa.
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I have always felt that solo guests pay us the ultimate compliment by joining us for a meal. Their visit has no ulterior motive (it involves no business, romance, or socializing). These guests simply want to do something nice for themselves, chez nous. Why wouldnt we reward that?
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The only way a company can grow, stay true to its soul, and remain consistently successful is to attract, hire, and keep great people.
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For judges of character, there is no such thing as the color gray.
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If people cannot ever develop into one of our top three cooks, servers, managers, or matre ds, why would we hire them? How will they help us improve and become champions? Its pretty easy to spot an overwhelmingly strong candidate or even an underwhelmingly weak candidate. Its the whelming candidate you must avoid at all costs, because thats the one who can and will do your organization the most long-lasting harm. Overwhelmers earn you raves. Underwhelmers either leave on their own or are terminated. Whelmers, sadly, are like a stubborn stain you cant get out of the carpet. They infuse an organization and its staff with mediocrity; theyre comfortable, and so they never leave; and, frustratingly, they never do anything that rises to the level of getting them promoted or sinks to the level of getting them fired.
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Finally, I ask our managers to weigh one other critical factor as they handicap the prospect. Do they believe the candidate has the capacity to become one of the top three performers on our team in his or her job category? If people cannot ever develop into one of our top three cooks, servers, managers, or matre ds, why would we hire them? How will they help us improve and become champions? Its pretty easy to spot an overwhelmingly strong candidate or even an underwhelmingly weak candidate. Its the whelming candidate you must avoid at all costs, because thats the one who can and will do your organization the most long-lasting harm. Overwhelmers earn you raves. Underwhelmers either leave on their own or are terminated. Whelmers, sadly, are like a stubborn stain you cant get out of the carpet. They infuse an organization and its staff with mediocrity; theyre comfortable, and so they never leave; and, frustratingly, they never do anything that rises to the level of getting them promoted or sinks to the level of getting them fired. And
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Policies are nothing more than guidelines to be broken for the benefit of our guests. Were here to give the guests what they want, period.
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hospitality is the sum of all the thoughtful, caring, gracious things out staff does to make you feel we are on your side when you are dining with us.
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Business, like life, is all about how you make people feel. It
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Im a bottom-up manager who subscribes to the concept of servant leadership, as articulated by the late Robert Greenleaf. He believed that organizations are at their most effective when leaders encourage collaboration, trust, foresight, listening, and empowerment. In any hierarchy, its clear that the ultimate boss (in my case, me) holds the most power. But a wonderful thing happens when you flip the traditional organizational chart upside down so that it looks like a V with the boss on the bottom. My job is to serve and support the next layer above me so that the people on that layer can then serve and support the next layer above them, and so on.
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Every business needs a core strategy to be what I call always on the improve, for us it's constant, gentle pressure.
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Change works only when people believe it is happening for them, not to them.
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But the worst mistake is not to figure out some way to end up in a better place after having made a mistake. We call that 'writing a great last chapter.
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Why do we care for our stakeholders in this particular order? The interests of our own employees must be placed directly ahead of those of our guests because the only way we can consistently earn raves, win repeat business, and develop bonds of loyalty with our guests is first to ensure that our own team members feel jazzed about coming to work. Being jazzed is a combination of feeling motivated, enthusiastic, confident, proud, and at peace with the choice to work on our team.
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Nice gets nice.
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But the fact that something is free alone doesn't make it wise or compelling to proceed.
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Doing two things like a half-wit never equals doing one thing like a whole wit.
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THE FOUNDER OF ANY new business has an opportunity to initiate the first expression of that businesss point of view through a compendium of aesthetic and philosophical choices.
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Previous success in any field invites high expectations and scrutiny the next time around. People are less forgiving when a winner falters than they are when an up-and-comer stumbles. But a mark of a champion is to welcome scrutiny, persevere, perform beyond expectations, and provide an exceptional productfor which forgiveness is not necessary.
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To me, a 51 percenter has five core emotional skills. Ive learned that we need to hire employees with these skills if were to be champions at the team sport of hospitality. They are: Optimistic warmth (genuine kindness, thoughtfulness, and a sense that the glass is always at least half full) Intelligence (not just smarts but rather an insatiable curiosity to learn for the sake of learning) Work ethic (a natural tendency to do something as well as it can possibly be done) Empathy (an awareness of, care for, and connection to how others feel and how your actions make others feel) Self-awareness and integrity (an understanding of what makes you tick and a natural inclination to be accountable for doing the right thing with honesty and superb judgment)
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I have taken from the continued success of Union Square Caf is that willingness to overcome difficult cimcumstances is a crucial character trait in my employees, partners, and restaurants.
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I was developing what I would call an "athletic" approach to hospitality, sometimes playing offense, sometimes playing defense, but always wanting to find a way to win. ... The point is to keep the dialogue open while sending the message: I am your agent, not the gatekeeper!
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To go through the motions in a perfunctory or self-absorbed manner, no matter how expertly rendered, diminishes the beauty. It's about souland service without soul, no matter how elegant, is quickly forgotten by the guest.
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There us no point for me to work every day for the purpose of offering guests an average experience.
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A friend once told me a story about an athletic display by Governor Jeb Bush of Florida. My friend, who is a very successful businessmanand, I should note, a Democratopened an office in Florida with about forty employees. On the day the company was incorporated, out of the blue, he received a personal phone call from Governor Bush (whom he had never met) thanking him for doing business in Florida. Heres a special number, the governor said, that I want you to use if you ever need any roads moved or bridges built for your company. My friend remains a Democrat, but he left that transaction very impressed with Governor Bush.
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There us no point for me to work hard every day for the purpose of offering guests an average experience. 90
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In hospitality one size fits one!
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The ABCD strategyalways be collecting dots.
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People duck as a natural reflex when something is hurled at them. Similarly, the excellence reflex is a natural reaction to fix something that isnt right, or to improve something that could be better. The excellence reflex is rooted in instinct and upbringing, and then constantly honed through awareness, caring, and practice. The overarching concern to do the right thing well is something we cant train for. Either its there or it isnt. So we need to train how to hire for it.
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Communication is at the root of all business strengthsand weaknesses. When things go wrong and employees become upset, whether at a restaurant, a law firm, a hardware store, a university, or a major corporation, nine times out of ten the justifiable complaint is, We need to communicate more effectively. I admit that for many years, I didnt really know what this meant. I had no problem standing up in front of a group to give a talk. I thought I was a pretty good communicator, but then it dawned on me: communicating has as much to do with context as it does content. Thats called setting the table. Understanding who needs to know what, when people need to know it, and why, and then presenting that information in an entirely comprehensible way is a sine qua non of great leadership. Clear, timely communication is the key to applying constant, gentle pressure. To illustrate the point, I teach our managers about the lily pad theory. Imagine a pond filled with lily pads and a frog perched serenely atop each one. For the fun of it, a little boy tosses a small pebble into the water, which breaks the surface of the pond but causes just a tiny ripple. The frogs barely notice, and dont budge. Enjoying himself, the boy next tosses a larger stone into the center of the pond, sending stronger ripples that cause all of the lily pads to rock and tilt. Some frogs jump off their lily pads, while others cling to avoid falling off. But the ripples affect them all. Not content, the boy then hurls a huge rock, which creates a wave that knocks each and every frog into the water. Some frogs are frightened. All are angry (assuming that frogs get angry). If only the frogs had had some warning about the impending rock toss, each one could have timed its jump so that the wave would have had no serious impact. Grasping the lily pad theory and training yourself and your managers to implement it prevents many, if not all, communication problems.
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Nothing would ever matter more to me than how we expressed hospitality to one another.
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