When I was running my own company, I don’t think I would have appreciated some of the ideas suggested by the business leaders in this book. The challenges of day-to-day operations made it easy for me to isolate myself into the rigors of operations. After all, I was running multiple restaurants and trying to build a wine brand with all the challenges that you might imagine—from inconsistent product quality to employees drinking on the job. My comfort zone was being “in the weeds” with my team, and it was much easier to bury myself in the crisis of the moment than to step back and try to create a stronger organization for the long run. I didn’t invest enough energy in creating the right environment because I didn’t appreciate the value of the investment. My success happened in spite of—not because of—my actions.
My first real restaurant job was in London, at Kensington Place. The head chef, Rowley Leigh, led the kitchen with all the discipline and skill you would expect in a classic European environment. Don’t get me wrong; he was an exceptional chef and an even more exceptional person, but the kitchen was highly structured. Whatever Chef said was law, and his chef de cuisine followed his lead. In fact, the kitchen was so structured that the schedule was color-coded by job with names listed in order of seniority. There was no question about where you stood in the pecking order.
Thirty years later, I still remember my first week. Chef told the butcher to go help his wife, whose car had broken down at his house. Next thing I knew, the butcher had his coat on and was walking out the door. It was an intimidating environment, and I was scared to come to work every day. It was organized in classic top-down management style—the organizational style that contradicts everything this book and the leaders in it espouse. But, I have to admit, I learned more in that kitchen about food preparation, line cooking, and discipline than any other work experience in my career.
After my stint in London, I ended up at Union Square Cafe in 1992. It was the early days—even before Richard Coraine was on the scene—and I was exposed to a completely different approach to what a restaurant, or any business for that matter, could be. The sense of community and culture were clearly present in those days, and they opened my eyes to an environment that was different. I don’t think the USHG vision was as clearly formed at that time as it is today, but the seeds were there.
I tried to incorporate the values of Union Square Cafe in my own business life; yes, I stole a few ideas and took them back to Chicago as I began opening and operating restaurants. But, to be honest, they never really stuck. While the employees were loyal to me and the brand, we never built the kind of long-lasting culture that stood the test of time. Through all the ups and downs of my own career, however, I have increasingly come to understand the important lessons of hospitality, and I wonder how focusing on them might have strengthened my own businesses.
When I introduced the idea of empathy + action early in this book, I mentioned that it’s a well-established formula that has been embraced by restaurateurs and others in the industry since the days of the first taverns. But it is still far underused. I have worked for some of the industry’s icons and known many others, and I have seen how the lessons of hospitality are often overlooked. I’ve also learned that there is no roadmap for building a great hospitality organization.
With this book, I have attempted to provide a sort of road map—various recipes for hospitality success, if you will. I have come to appreciate that hospitality, in all its manifestations, is a tool that can be applied across the service economy, whether you operate a local hardware store, a large hospital, a chain of sporting goods stores, or something else. The key to success is to fully embrace many—if not all—of the tenets expressed by the leaders in this book.
So, what are these leaders’ lessons for us? Unsurprisingly, everything revolves around values. As I have articulated throughout this book, I think their essential message breaks down into five core values that are each important in their own right, but much more powerful when combined: accountability, authenticity, culture, community, and vision.
Accountability
The leaders in this book are accountable to themselves and their employees. This manifests itself in a variety of ways. Take Nick Sarillo, for example, of Nick’s Pizza & Pub. He has developed a business where not only is he accountable to employees, but they are accountable to one another. He has eliminated the need for any type of job evaluation because performance review is baked into the experiences of Nick’s employees’ from day one. Despite the fact that he only has three local operations, Nick has taken the time, expense, and brain space to develop a detailed game plan for each member of his team. It’s these details that make the Nick’s engine run so smoothly and ensure that its pizzas are produced quickly and consistently. His staff is engaged with its guests because each member knows how important quality service is to the bottom line. There are no secrets at Nick’s, and that is just the way he likes it.
At the end of the day, what does accountability really mean in the modern workplace? I suspect most leaders believe they are accountable—I certainly thought I was accountable when I ran my business for twenty years. But accountability as defined in this book is more than simply taking abstract responsibility for the actions and the direction of an organization.
True accountability requires selflessness and a willingness to leave your ego at the door. Leaders who are accountable accept the reality that they do not have all the answers. Rather than dictate policy, they create a culture where it’s not only safe but equally valued to be a part of the discussion. This is a long way from my London kitchen. Back then, if Chef told me to jump, the only question I asked was how high.
Today, that kind of approach is much less likely to yield long term results—even though it might be efficient in the short-term. As I reflect back on my work history in London, I am reminded that the line employees were never comfortable expressing ideas or concerns. To the contrary, we often just put our collective heads down and tried to stay out of trouble. Even though the kitchen was an amazing, almost magical place in many ways, it could have been even better if employees had felt welcome to contribute their ideas too. Rowley Leigh’s extraordinary talent was limited because the structure of the kitchen created an inauthentic environment—the exact opposite of a collaboration. I often wonder how much more fulfilling the experience would have been had circumstances been different—both for myself and the guests of the restaurant. Who knows how much more successful the restaurant could have been?
Authenticity
Coupled with accountability, authenticity builds the kind of bridge that yields loyalty—from employees and to your brand. Consider Jerrod Melman from Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises. Jerrod is young—a near-millennial in his own right—and he inherently understands the importance of authenticity. In his position—helping manage the largest independent restaurant company in the country, built from the ground up by his father—it would have been easy to simply check boxes and keep the ball rolling. But Jerrod and his siblings have embraced their father’s deep passion and genuine love of the restaurant business. As a result, people like Jerrod, who lead by example, are a model for the seventy-five hundred employees who are steeped in the company’s culture. There’s a good reason that the values of great food, great service, and genuine hospitality are part of the Lettuce experience within its venues across the country. Jerrod Melman isn’t pretending. He loves his work, and, like his father, his passion bleeds into every decision and employee, and, ultimately, into the guest experience.
Zappos offers another textbook example of authenticity. As Rob Siefker explained, the Zappos culture, with employee-created murals on the walls and self-decorated work stations throughout the building, is a living and breathing example of how words translate into authentic action. If the workplace didn’t represent the philosophy of the company’s leadership, it would be apparent when walking the halls of the Las Vegas office. Instead, visitors see physical manifestations of all the values Rob champions.
In my experience, well-intentioned people prefer authenticity over bullshit. It seems like a pretty obvious concept, but think about how many times you encounter an inauthentic customer service experience. One of my favorites is when I am leaving a restaurant and the host, barely looking up, shouts, “Have a good day. Thanks for coming.” It’s so formulaic and uninspiring that the effort generates a negative feeling in me. Great restaurants, on the other hand, make you feel so good about your visit, like when the host makes eye contact and genuinely asks, “How was your dinner?” or says, “Thank you so much for spending your evening with us.” The time and effort is virtually the same, yet the resulting guest experience is completely different. Given that we know that all customers, not just millennials, are looking for meaning and authenticity, it’s hard to minimize the importance and value of being in the moment with your customer.
Culture
When I first met with Mike McDerment, we took a tour of the FreshBooks headquarters and then had a long discussion about the evolution of his company. And then he started to get a little philosophical. I asked a question about how he could know whether his investments in corporate culture yielded better customer service and whether it was really worth the expense and constant effort. He sat back and responded that it was the FreshBooks culture that gave meaning and a sense of belonging to him and his employees. He said it drove the entire team to be passionate about the company and what it stood for, and, ultimately, fueled better performance internally and externally. Moreover, he was proud and excited that the organizational culture had evolved organically from his own experience and needs. In fact, he went so far as to postulate that the meaning his employees found in their work was akin to religion—providing a grounded place for creativity, community, and passion. The expressions of commitment may not be the same, but the sense of belonging certainly is.
I’ve read about the merits of developing a strong corporate culture, about sports teams that have “a good locker room,” and have heard stories from friends about how their company is a great place to work. Until I met the leaders in this book, however, “culture” remained an elusive term to me. Of course, it sounds important—but how does it manifest itself? My interviews changed my beliefs about culture. I now understand that culture is not something to be casually folded into a corporate mission statement. Instead, it’s a word that speaks to the identity of an organization and the ways it is unique. A strong, positive culture is a differentiating factor and, if genuine, creates opportunities for employees to grow and then pass on their feelings of belonging to the customers, who buy the products or services. Thus, a thoughtful, productive culture can have far-reaching benefits for a company’s bottom line.
However, a strong culture does not arrive fully formed overnight, and it cannot be manufactured like a product; it is a service in and of itself. It certainly cannot be inventoried and, if not nurtured, it will disappear. The leaders in this book have figured out that promoting a particular culture is just as—or more—important than anything else they do every day. In fact, I would argue that putting time, thought, and care into developing an extraordinary culture outweighs the benefits of any customer service training or product upgrade. It’s easy to talk about it; I know I did when I was an operator. However, like many goals in life, commitment to establishing and maintaining a great company culture is ineffective without concrete actions to develop and support it.
Community
Consider Steve Hindy of Brooklyn Brewery. He built a craft beer brand over thirty years ago from the ground up. In that time, no matter what challenges the company faced, he never strayed from his core values. When Steve thinks about community, the concept spreads out from the Brewery to the Brooklyn neighborhood where it all started. He understood that nurturing the community would ultimately nurture his brand. Steve could have tried to take a more expeditious path toward growing the Brewery, but he chose to “keep it real,” and, as a result, the Brooklyn Brewery community was born.
Imagine if the sales force hadn’t bought into this new craft beer idea in those early days. Do you think the brand would have survived and flourished without the passion Steve demonstrated from day one? And, even today, while the distribution and volume has exploded, Steve continues to hold true to the same principals. He also continues to engage with employees, host events that speak to the Brooklyn Brewery culture, and act as the brand’s ambassador in the community. Given the Brewery’s success, he could have chosen to step back from those efforts, but building community is in his DNA. The Brewery’s employees, Brooklyn, and any place where the beer is sold are the beneficiaries.
I know all of this is true because I have experienced it myself. As an adjunct professor at DePaul University, I have come to appreciate the teaching community within the school as well as its place within the city. I feel part of something bigger than my own department and carry my affiliation as a badge of honor—and I work hard at my job largely because of it. My emotional connection comes from the school’s values and the commitment of the dean and my colleagues. Community synthesizes the core values of an organization and manifests itself in the way employees talk about the place they work, the standing of the organization among local residents, and, ultimately, the value both employees and customers receive due to their loyalty to the community.
Vision
Perhaps there is no effort more important than understanding and articulating a clear vision for your company. I think about Paul Spiegelman of BerylHealth. Paul attributes much of his success in developing a vision for his company to his upbringing. This idea echoes the argument that Susan Salgado, the hospitality consultant, mentioned to me, which is that some people simply have hospitality in their DNA. For Paul, it was instilled by his parents, and he developed a company around the sense of care that they taught him. This interest in caring became the thing that differentiated BerylHealth from its competitors even though the services the company provided were more expensive.
Paul has stuck to his vision and built his mission and values around a core purpose. He chose to hire employees based on a shared set of values, not job skills. He embraced the opportunity to plot a course for his company beyond daily tasks, empowered his managers and employees to own the decision-making process, and by doing so created a collaborative organization. None of the results, personal or financial, would have been realized had Paul not outlined a clear vision for his employees and then created the tools for them to execute it.
I saw how that same emphasis on vision manifests itself at Zingerman’s when I ate breakfast with Ari Weinzweig in Ann Arbor. Zingerman’s began with a big idea and now embodies it every day through its mission and guiding principles. Adhering to a vision is part of everything—even performance reviews, when managers ask employees to envision where they’ll be in a year. This painstaking adherence to an overriding vision has permeated Zingerman’s culture and led to an outstanding level of customer service that is recognized far outside Ann Arbor. (And has also led to very healthy earnings.)
Again, I find myself thinking about the difference between words and actions. Corporate mission and vision are part of almost any company’s makeup—whether explicit in a larger organization or implicit in a corner hardware store. But, as we have seen over and over again through the examples in this book, what really matters is not how the vision sounds, but how it drives community, culture, authenticity, and accountability in a way that really differentiates one company from another. We all look for meaning in life, regardless of how we define it. For some of us, meaning might be spiritual. For others, meaning might come in the form of our relationships to friends and family. It can also come from our workplaces. Any organization that can provide a clear and meaningful vision and reinforce it consistently with concrete actions can truly transform the workplace experience for anyone who is a part of it.
In the End . . .
In many ways, the conclusions of each conversation I had circled back to the equation of hospitality spelled out at the beginning of the book. When I reflect on my conversation with Mark Hoplamazian of Hyatt Hotels, his idea about actively demonstrating care encapsulates a genuine understanding of human nature and what it means to create a meaningful workplace experience. Aren’t we all hoping for meaning in our work—that is, actual meaning, not just a sweet cliché uttered by top performers? It seems clear to me that incorporating hospitality, true hospitality, throughout an organization is one of the best tools to make employees and customers more satisfied. This satisfaction leads to loyalty across the board, and, ultimately, to increased profitability. It may not be obviously measured by a line item on a balance sheet but metrics like employee attrition and its cost can be tracked—just ask Paul Spiegelman.
Whether they define hospitality in the precise terms I did or not, all the corporate leaders in this book use empathy plus action to create a unique work environment that challenges their employees to be their best selves. Each leader has recognized that a traditional top-down management structure that forces employees into specific tasks, without providing a sense of the bigger cause, is increasingly less compatible with the modern workplace. That’s not to imply direction and structure are unimportant for managers and line employees. It would be a mistake to dismiss all of the fundamental aspects of organizational development.
Nonetheless, the modern workplace can and should be more meaningful to employees. And if your organization is not, the next generation, the millennials, will find a place that is. As we continue to leap into our increasingly interconnected world, there is an opportunity to create a better workplace environment. It’s clear that millennials are looking for a new way forward. While that path is being forged the transition may not always be smooth, but the end results are certainly worth it for employees, customers, and the company’s bottom line. As we have seen, it comes down to making a commitment to principles and then sticking to them. In the coming years, as the millennial population continues to increase its purchasing power (and leadership ranks), they will reward companies that align with their personal philosophy. There’s no doubt in my mind that this new generation of consumers, and the ones that follow, will still reward a great service experience with loyalty.
I’ve mentioned how, in retrospect, I might have run my business differently. One of the great benefits of writing a book like this is that you get to revisit past practices and reflect on how they could have been better. It’s not easy to recognize one’s own shortcomings and appreciate the mistakes for what they are. But, learning from past practice—whether in business or in life—can drive a good leader to be a better one. It’s not a cliché to acknowledge that the world is changing quickly. I wish I had been a bit wiser as a leader, but I have learned extraordinary lessons from the people featured in this book.
We can all benefit from learning about the experiences of others. In the end, it’s my hope that the stories told in these pages will inspire you to incorporate hospitality in new and unique ways throughout your organization. After all, we put a lot of effort into our work. Why not create experiences for those who work with us that are more engaging, more meaningful, and more inspiring? The result will be a more rewarding life for all of us.