EntreLeadership - #351: Do You Have the Humility to Serve? with Patric Yumul

Episode Date: December 2, 2019

After working in the restaurant industry for nearly 30 years, Mina Group president Patric Yumul knows that outstanding service starts and ends with one thing: humility. But the first step, he says, toward that noble quality is realizing that your customers—no matter what industry you’re in—have a choice. And your job is to serve them with such excellence that they choose you over and over (and over) again. Tune in as Patric explains how he and his team strive to achieve that every single day.   entreleadership.com/podcast Bourbon Steak website Mina Group website Download: 5 Habits That Kill Team Unity Review this episode for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card   Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever been to a restaurant where the reviews were solid, the food was good, and the service was absolutely terrible? It's horrible. It's the worst type of experience. It's the type of thing that you will never go back to. But as a business owner, it's also a powerful reminder. It's a reminder that you can have the best product in the world, but it doesn't matter if you and your team don't serve the customer well. From the Ramsey Network, this is the Entree Leadership Podcast, where we help business leaders, grow themselves, their teams, and their profits. I'm your host Alex Judd, and today's conversation is an in-depth look into exceptional knock-your socks off service from someone who leads it at one of the largest privately-owned restaurant groups in the world.

Patrick Yumel is the president of the Mina group, and he has worked with world-renowned chef Michael Mina to create remarkable customer experiences at locations around the globe. But his journey to this customer-centric leadership role started in the most unlikely of places. A place that doesn't even exist anymore. A place called Blockbuster. For me, always at an early age,

it was instilled that there was not going to be a life of leisure. I had to work. It was work, play sports, and go to school. And so, you know, even before I was 16, I summered with my relatives in Southern California, and I worked on rooftops trying to make money so I could buy a car when I turned 16. and I was able to buy a 1984 Jeep CJ7, and I repainted it myself, and I took a lot of pride in that.

And so when I, you know, drove it back home that summer into Las Vegas, I needed to get a job. So I got a job of Blockbuster Video. I was a customer service representative there. Blockbuster, throwback. Right. Absolutely. And I got to actually open a Blockbuster from the start. And so that was an interesting experience.

Then my father's friend owned a corner store in Delhi up. in Las Vegas, and they needed a bus boy delivery boy. And so I started working in restaurants then. I started to learn a little bit about food and a lot about service and a lot about, you know, customers. And at that age at 16, were you passionate about it or was it just a, was it just a job? It was a job. And it was flexibility. And I, you know, it was kind of a cool job at that. And I was, you know, it could, you know, drive my Jeep around to go deliver food to people and come back. And I got to, you know, help make some of the food and clean up the tables. And it was just a job. But then when I turned 18, I graduated, so to speak, into a full service restaurant. It was called Lombardies at the time.

They changed their name to Berlin. But, you know, having played sports my whole life and now being 18 and not being in any type of, you know, with any teams, I really loved that atmosphere. It was what really kind of, that's what first brought me in is because on any given night, we had seven, to eight different busboys that were working together on a team trying to help the servers out. And our goal was to accomplish the night and have a great service. And to be able to take, you know, we would have different competitions as far as who was the best busser that night. And who would be able to, you know, help their servers the most or carry the biggest trays and break down things. And so every night, it really felt like it was almost like top gun.

So is that where you really started to identify? Okay, I love, I love this. I really enjoy this. Yes. But it was from a team perspective. I loved being part of a team and being able to rely on each other and really engage in a workplace environment that changed on a daily basis. And then what happened was about six months into the job, the head busboy left to go to another restaurant. And, you know, 18 and a half, almost 19, they made me the head bus boy.

You're in charge now. I was in charge of 27 other busboys. Were they all younger than you, same age? No, actually, most were older than me. What prepared you or what made you able to take on that leadership role? Why did they look at you? I think because from a skills perspective and an execution perspective, I was the best. I was a great bus boy.

And I was really good at training and teaching people. I was starting to build interpersonal skills with other team members and being able to work with the service staff. And I garnered a lot of respect from the other team members. members because I was one well liked with the overall group in the overall team of the restaurant, but also I was able to accomplish a lot. And so I was able to earn my peers respect, but also earn the respect of those that were in charge. It's wild to think about because today this would never happen. But I was in charge of 27 other busboys. I wrote their schedule. I made the floor plans and assigned them to their stations. I was part of their interview process, their training

process. Oh my God. You were the chief everything. Right. It was crazy, but that really prepared me for leadership. And what was also tough about that was I had a lot of friends that I had gotten jobs as busboys there. And then all of a sudden, I had to be kind of their boss, so to speak. So you are continuing to be their friend, but also you're their leader now. Right. I'm their leader. And so how did you tackle that? You're forced at a very young age to start making mature decisions and understanding how to compartmentalize friendship and business. And obviously, you've got to be very sensitive to what the perceptions are of other people and make sure that

you're being very fair and rather judicious in your decision making. So it's crazy. I've got the benefit now of knowing where you are today and I know how this story ends or at least where it is right now. But if we were to go and talk to 18 year old Patrick at that time, what would you have said was your dream or did you feel like you were being prepared for something or did you have this grand ambition of where you were going? Or where was your mindset at that time? You know, at that time, it was really about having our crew be the best they could be. So the manager that was in charge of specifically of our department, he had an old football

coach mentality. He was very, in fact, he looked up to Vince Lombardi a lot. And so we always kind of looked at him as he was like a mini Lombardi. But we just wanted to, we wanted to be the Green Bay Packers. We wanted to win and we wanted to win every day. day and to build the discipline and the practices that would go into that. And so really, honestly, it was just about having an amazing time and being the best that we could be. In fact, the natural progression in any restaurant is you start as a busser or what we call them server

assistance and then you go to a food runner. And then from food runner, you go to food server. In Vegas, you had to be 21 to be a food server. But a lot of us as we were starting to, a lot of the team members were starting to get over 21. They didn't want to become food servers for Food Runner is because they liked being part of that team. Okay, that's powerful. They wanted to stay where they were. They were denying promotion, essentially, to stay with the people and the team that they're working with.

For a while, it was like that. And then all this, you know, then naturally, you know, one person goes into food serving out of that core group and you're like, oh, they're making so much more money and they're having fun and they're doing, they're learning all these different things. And so we all started graduating into, you know, eventually into that food. serve a role. But what then happened from that is we all fell in love with food and wine. And I actually, I lived with four other guys and we all, we all worked together. This was in Vegas. In Vegas. And we're 21, 22 years old. And instead of going out and, you know, hitting the clubs hard and,

you know, we would always do that every once in a while. But instead of doing that stuff, we would have wine tastings at home. And our one person would cook and we would try to pair wines with what the other person was cooking because we came, became so. in love with cuisine and with learning about wine and food and beverage and pairing and and tasting and we really really geeked out on it and so it was this kind of rather serendipitous opportunity for me to you know go okay i went from the busboy world where it was you know team and this the spirit of camaraderie then being propelled into this other role where it was about it was learning about food and about really what makes a restaurant tick so you

you're just this whole time, you're adding tools to your tool. It seems like so often when you talk to people that are really successful over the course of a career, it seems so often they think of the different stages of their career as tools in the tool belt. Right. And they were just learning the whole time. It sounds like that's your story. Oh, absolutely.

I always look backwards and I'm so grateful for every opportunity and everything that happened because, you know, whether it's the leaders that were in my life at that time, you know, I had the one leader, like I said, it was, you know, coach, you know, Vince Lombardi type of guy. There was another leader that was a poker player, very shrewd, very calculated, but really understood, you know, business and how to leverage the most side of things through business. And then I also had another leader that was really systematically a genius and could understand how to create organizational structures that would, you know, almost like kind of the Belichick type of. mentality. And so I was able to learn from all these gentlemen and all these different leaders and then add that to my toolbox. And then on top of it, go through these different experiences, whether is the busing experience, the serving experience. And then ultimately, when I was 22, 23,

I got offered an opportunity to become a manager. And so I moved from Las Vegas to D.C. We had two restaurants out there. And I was, I lived out there for a couple of years and, you know, got to test a lot of theories and it was a great time and that was my first management position with the company. And that's with Mina groups. No, it wasn't with Mina yet. I was still with that company, Lombardis, Bertolini's. What was the biggest lesson you think you learned at that stage being a manager? You know, so that's when I started to learn about being a leader and how to, you know, again, I'm 22, 23 years old and there's people that have worked at that restaurant for a while, very young. There's a lot of people that are much more tenured that have been.

been in their position. And so that's where I learned, how am I going to have impact and how am I going to be able to influence these team members that probably either are wiser or more proficient or, you know, have more experience than me? Where am I going to be able to add massive value to them? And so I really found an opportunity to one study more about food, more about beverage, more about wine. And so I took a teaching mentality. I'm going to teach to gain trust. And I'm going to bring new information and help make them better at their jobs by sharing this information, getting them excited about it, and then helping them execute that within their day-to-day in order to get their trust. And by getting their trust, then I got them to subscribe to me as a leader.

And then, so I went out and I created that platform for myself within that environment. And then then I had a group of people that believed in me. So then I was able to come, you know, at a very young age, start testing different things and they would be eager to do so. And there wasn't pushback. It was, you know, we believe in you. You've got a lot of great ideas. We're going to follow you. Can you zoom in? We kind of parked at you being 22, being the manager role. Give us the high level view of how did you get to where you are today? And then we'll dive into your role today and what you do day in and day out. So the group I was working for, they're going to close a restaurant in Orange County. And whenever you're closing a restaurant or you're selling a restaurant, you're always worried

that there's going to be theft or something's going to happen. And they wanted to be able to wind it down, mitigate any type of liability they had, mitigate any loss and have some entrusted that could be there that would show realtors the space and not let it out to the team. And so they came to me. The leaders came to me and said, you know, we've got a restaurant. We're going to close it. It's not doing so good.

Here's something that could be fun. Why don't you go play GM? Be the general manager of the restaurant. I was 25. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, you can do whatever. You know, you don't have to follow all the corporate mandates on different things. You can be a little creative.

Do what you want, you know, do what you want to do. But the full expectation was this thing is failing and we're going to shut it down. Right. But have fun with it. And we trust that you're not going to, you know, screw anything up. you know, just make sure that, you know, we're protected and, you know, help us through this process. But it'll be a good, you know, kind of canvas for you to test out your leadership skills. And so I said, sure.

And I took over the restaurant. And after, you know, about a years of time, they decided not to sell it, not to close it anymore because I turned it around. No way. At 25, you turned a failing restaurant around to where they said we're going to keep it over. Right. Yeah. And so I turned it around. around. It stopped losing money. They were bringing other GMs out to the restaurant to see what

we were doing because I turned the beverage program over and changed the wine program. And we made all these different changes to what kind of the standards are with the bylaws of the company were. So they brought other people out to see what we were doing so they could take it back to their restaurants. And one of the mentors that I had earlier was working for Michael, Mina. at the time. Which Michael at the time was a very famous chef internationally, correct? Correct. And he said, hey, I want to introduce you to Michael.

And I think he's going to open a restaurant in Hawaii. And, you know, he's looking for a general manager. And I think it could be a good opportunity for you. And so I met Michael. And that was, you know, almost 19 years ago. Wow. And so we started working together. And I started off as a general manager.

And then that was when he was at Aqua. When he left Aqua, he brought myself and a few other people along to form Mina Group. And we formed Mina Group about 17 years ago. You know, initially we started off with the goal of really emulating the Four Seasons model, which, you know, four seasons, best in class hotel operators, they're hotel managers. And so we wanted to create a restaurant management company that would create restaurants and work with hospitality partners such as hotels and be able to, operate relevant restaurants within a hotel infrastructure. And that was, you know, 17 years ago,

we opened five and now we're at 44 restaurants across the world. 44. 44. And for the people that are listening, you need to go to the Meena Group website and find out where their closest restaurant is to you because these are not your just running the meal burger joint. These are some of the nicest restaurants in the country and it's even around the world now. We're sitting at the top of the tallest hotel in Nashville now. This is the, I mean, it is the crown jewel of Nashville, this restaurant bourbon steak that we're in. There's so many questions I have.

I know I just heard you. We sat in on your leadership team meeting. And one of the things you discussed there was the idea of earned respect. And it sounds like a lot of what you're talking about right now is that leaders need to earn trust from the teams that they work with. We've got business owners, business leaders of companies of all sizes right now that are in a space where they need to earn trust and earn respect. and it sounds like what you're saying is daily. So what are the action items you would give them to say, these are the small things you need to focus on

and make sure you are doing that every single day? You know, I think about this a lot. And I think there's a number of different action items. I believe, one, that you have to be vulnerable. And, you know, Brini Brown talks about vulnerability a lot, but you have to be able to say, you know, one, it's okay for you to make a mistake, and it's okay that I make a mistake,

and I'm going to own up to it. and I'm not perfect and, you know, and it's okay to, you know, obviously you have to maintain a modicum of respect and professionalism, but you also need to say, you need to show your team members that you're vulnerable, that you make mistakes, that here's how the sausage is made, and it's okay that, you know, it doesn't go perfect every time, but as long as we learn from these things and as long as we grow from these things, that's what really, really matters. Was that hard for you to learn that? Yes.

And I'll tell you why it was hard because being a young leader and having, you know, other mentors constantly analyze and have you under a telescope, you always had to wear almost a certain hat. And so I was always 22, 23, 24, I was always being kind of not judge, but I was always given feedback of, you know, how I dressed. And, you know, and not just at work, but it was, you know, oh, you know, so-and-so said they saw you at a grocery store and you were wearing, you know, cut off shorts and a baseball cap backwards. And you know that these people need to look up to you. And so you need to make sure.

So people are always watching. They were always watching. And they're always giving feedback. And so I was always very conscious of how I was portrayed. And so it was, yeah, it was a tough lesson to learn that there is a balance between how you represent yourself, what your perception is, and being vulnerable. I'm going to probably go off on a different tangent on that right now because, you know, one of the things we talk about this within our leadership group is I always call it the Santa Claus effect.

And so me as a leader, I need to understand that the team members that work for me in a group are looking up, you know, expect something out of me. They look to me for, whether it's for inspiration, for an example, as a role model. There's besides my day-to-day job or whatever I need to do from, you know, inspirational or, you know, accountability perspective, I have to fulfill this expectation that the team members have on me. And I would say that's team members place on any leader. There's a certain level of expectation to set an example and people are looking up to you to meet that example. Exactly. And just like with little kids and Santa Claus, right? And so, you know, little children believe in Santa Claus. You know, so as Santa Claus, it's your job to make sure you represent Santa Claus as best as it can be.

You can't be, you know, drunk, crazy Santa Claus with your beard hanging off. You've got to have your Santa Claus uniform on beautifully. You've got to be jolly. Your cheeks need to be rosy because that's somebody's dream, that you're embodying. And so you need to live up to that. And so us as leaders, we've got to live up to what our followers or what our team members and the people that are on a daily basis being custodians of our vision. We've got to live up to what their expectation of us is.

And it's, can't ever take that for granted. For me, you know, obviously there's having that, but then also being able to balance it with, with honesty and integrity and vulnerability. And, you know, I'm always obsessing over that. And I want to make sure, you know, in order to build trust, you've got to, one, people have got to, you know, hold you in high regard, but they also need to know that you're real and they're, you know, they can relate to you and they can communicate with you and they can, they can also be vulnerable with you.

And then they need to know that they can count on you. And that if you say you're going to do something, you're going to do it. And if you say you're going to support them, you're going to support them, they need to feel safe. Just like, you know, Simon Seneca talks about it as well. You know, they need to feel safe. And we were here talking with the team earlier for them to be able to feel safe that they can say it's okay to fail or they can, you know, feel safe. And showing behind the curtains on some of the mistakes that they make in front of me is great because they know that their job is not a stake. And so when you don't have that fear, it allows so much free.

expression and free creativity for them to really excel in their position. If you're running a business, one of the things that you need to know is that unity amongst your team will never happen accidentally. It will always happen intentionally. It will happen because you as a leader made a decision to create unity. And if you're going to do that, there's some things that you're going to have to fight. We call these things the enemies of unity. And our team created a free resource that details these five enemies and also lays out some concrete actions that you as a leader can take to make sure that they do not exist in your organization. So if you want to get this free resource, text the word enemies to 33444. Again,

to start taking action against the enemies of unity, text the word enemies to 33444. Are you at the stage of business where for you as an owner and certainly for your team, you are just overloaded with tasks and activities, and you're recognizing that you're at the stage where you need to start bringing system and process into your organization. Well, from a coaching perspective, the first step that we recommend you take is start automating any tasks that are repeated. And specifically, whenever it comes to automating customer communication, the service we recommend is called Keep. We've worked with them for years to grow our business and serve our customers well, and we've seen small business owners win by leveraging the power of this service.

And so if you're at this stage where you need to start working smarter and not just harder, Keep is offering a free trial to our podcast listeners. So if you want to take advantage of that free trial with Keep, text the word work smart to 33444. Again, that's the word work smart, no spaces to 33444, and work with Keep to start. Start automating your customer communication. It is a monster feat to launch, run, and sustain one five-star restaurant. And you are now president of an organization that is leading 44, and you're constantly launching new ones. Is that correct?

Correct. So how do you scale that level of excellence? How do you take the model that is successful at one and say, we're now going to to do this around the country and around the world? I mean, the only way for anybody to scale is through people. In my opinion, we've got a team of the most wildly talented hospitality professionals in the world that are all passionate about being, you know, custodians of our legacy. Are they all passionate about what we believe in? And they have what I like to call the champion spirit, which means that they're passionate about being great and everything they do. It doesn't mean that

they're going to be great and everything they do, but it means if it's worth the them doing. It's worth them doing as best as possible. It's kind of like that Zen Buddhist saying, how you do anything is how you do everything. And our team really, you know, they keep score. And it's not about their, you know, they're not really looking at their competitors. They're keeping score against themselves and how well they're performing on a daily basis, on a minute by minute basis. You know, we have another saying, it's one guest, one table, one service one day, you know, and it's thinking about how we can focus on the guests. the table. Once you've got the guest nailed and you're in good sync in harmony with that

experience, then it's the table's experience. And now you've got the table. Now you've got the whole restaurant and the service. And it's one day at a time, one week at a time. So we have that mentality where the only thing that matters is now. When we're in service, we're not thinking about all the other things for tomorrow. It's what matters is what's in front of us right now. And we're going to execute it as best as possible. And then, you know, coupled that, with another thing we have is what is called Kaizen, which is the Japanese term for continual improvement. Caizen.

Right. And, you know, it was something that Japanese auto manufacturing used. It was, you know, daily improvements. They used that mentality to assert American auto manufacturing back in the 60s 70s. But for us, it's, you know, every single day we're going to find a way to improve, whether it's, you know, improve a system, improve our mental outlook and improve the way we communicate, improve how we take reservations, how we clear a table, just one little thing at a time, we're going to figure out a way to improve on a daily basis. And we talked earlier, just,

you know, you're a runner and triathlete, you know just as well as anybody that the moment you stop trying to improve as an athlete is the, you can't just stay the same. There is no stagnancy. You're either moving forward or backward, but you never stay in the same. Right, because the moment you hit stagnancy is the moment the atrophy sets in. and deterioration happens. And that occurs in a team too. Absolutely. The moment that people sit on their heels and they feel comfortable and they feel fat and happy

and they don't think that they have to improve is the moment that they start regressing. Wow. So your entire business model rises or falls on your ability to recruit, hire, and develop great people. What are you looking for in the hiring process? And now you go and launch a restaurant, what are the qualities and the skills that you're looking for to make sure that someone belongs as a part of the Mina Group team? Obviously, there's always some aptitudinal requirements, whether it's someone being a manager, they've got to have some leadership experience. Or if it's a cook, they've got to know how to cook and they have to have knife skills. But it's really more attitude than aptitude.

And for us, you know, one, people have to love to give more than they get. the people that work and that are successful in the hospitality business are the people that love giving gifts, right? You know, and they feel uncomfortable getting gifts. You know, they can't wait for it to be your birthday or for it to be Christmas or whatever it is so they can think about what they're going to get you and they're so excited about what they got you and they're obsessed over it and they can't wait to see the look on your face. These are the people that thrive within our environment, right? Because that's what hospitality is. Hospitality is giving. It's, people that, you know, go to a party and they end up wearing a lampshade on their head because

they're the people that walk into a room and everybody's glad that they're there. And so those aren't, you can't really measure that. You can only get that from really understanding emotionally who people are. For us, it's, there's a certain humility that's necessary because, you know, what we do, we serve and you've got to be humble in that. You can't have arrogance with serving. But with that said, it's something that's extremely noble. You know, we may, you know, we may, mentioned earlier, when people come out to eat and when they go to your restaurants, that's the highlight of their day, or it's the highlight of their week, or the highlight of their month. And we get to live in people's highlights. We get to live in their highlight rule. And there's

something that's really beautiful about that. Everything that we prepare and everything that we study and all the details that go into operating a restaurant is to be able to give somebody an amazing experience and what they are saying is the best part of my day today. And, and And I can get really kind of poetic about that. But it's pretty beautiful. Well, and you even talked before how it's kind of romantic that people chose your restaurant. Right. But when you were saying that to your team earlier, I was just thinking to myself, well, yeah, when someone goes to a doctor's office, they chose you.

When someone flies Southwest Airlines, what do they say? They say, we know you have many to choose from, but you chose us, right? there's something about being the business that is driven to set yourself apart as the one that people choose, but then also the one that people choose again. And that's something that you and your team, that was a repetitive theme throughout the meeting that we sat in on is we're looking for that repeat customer. Can you speak to that some? Absolutely. And that's part of the humility aspect to it. You can never take it for granted that exactly what you said, people are choosing you, right? And they're making the decision to come

to you. And then you can't take for granted that they're going to choose you again. And so obviously, you're honored that they chose you, but then how do you get them to come back? And the return visit for us is the upsell. You know, our team has to be obsessed about figuring out and putting their antennas up on how are we going to connect with these guests. How are we going to befriend them in order to get them to come back again, whether it's this specific restaurant or our other restaurants. And how do we, I mean, your leaders here told us that this restaurant the goal in the first year was $8 million. And can you share with us what they're projected for right now?

They're projecting $13 million. So it's like it's working. Right. People are not just choosing you. They're choosing you again. Right. What are the action items you have empowered your team to take to make sure that that customer has such an unbelievable experience that they're coming back?

One, we try to engineer it as best as possible throughout the experience. And so we have a lot of different moments where we're trying to add value to the experience, whether it's, you know, here at bourbon steak, everybody's greeted with a trio of duck fat fries, you know, that have their own different seasoning and different sauces. Duck fat fries. Right. Oh, my gosh. And so that's how every table is greeted.

So everybody has these beautiful, warm French fries that can dip in different sauces. And it kind of instantly makes people feel at home. It makes them feel comfortable. And it's a little nostalgia at the table. And so that's one value proposition. And then we try to just continue throughout the course of the experience, make sure that we're firing off on all the cylinders that we've designed for this restaurant experience from service, from culinary, from beverage, in order to make sure that we're delivering on just the basics of checking the boxes for the experience. And then what we want to push it over the top is all that stuff was great. But what was even better was the interaction we had with the team.

They were so friendly. They were so genuine. They were so honest and sincere. They were so informative. They really felt like they connected with our team members. And that's what, that's really where the magic sauce is. That's what gets people to come back again and again. And so we empower our team to do whatever it takes to make sure that we've exceeded expectations.

You know, one of the things that we talk about is if something, is fine or okay, then we missed the mark. If the feedback is, oh, how is that steak, oh, it was fine or how is that cocktail, oh, is okay, then that's not in the fine or okay business. We are in the blow your mind business. We are in the world of wow business. And so that's how it needs to be. It needs to be toe curling. It needs to be, you know, it needs to be eye rolling where, you know, people are like, wow, this was amazing. And so our team is sensitive to that. when they're not hearing that feedback, then we've got to figure out how do we recover from that and how do we recover from it right away?

I was so impressed. One of your leaders made the statement. We're at the top of this hotel in Nashville. It's panoramic views of the entire city and the surrounding hill country. It is remarkable. And she said, it is a good day for us whenever someone gets to the top floor. And the third thing they comment on is the view. because they had so many other things with regard to the restaurant and the staff to compliment.

And then finally they noticed the view. And that sums up what you're talking about. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And again, it's about getting people that have the right attitude, right? In helping them, you know, grow the aptitude, grow the acumen of their position, but they've got to have the right attitude first. And it's those that, it's that people that just love to give and they love to serve and they love to see the look on people's face when they pour their heart into something for them.

them. So I work as a business coach and we get to travel around the country and work with small businesses and leadership teams and connect with them in events. And so we've worked with a lot of leadership teams. And I will tell you, sitting in here today for about an hour with your team, the leadership team here at this restaurant, it was one of the most remarkable displays of both competence and confidence, but also passion and trust that I have ever seen. in a team. I mean, it was remarkable. So I know you have to hire people with a great attitude, but even if you hire people with a great attitude, what we experienced in this room doesn't just happen. So how do you create the environment where you can hire the right people, but then that

happens. Right. So it's funny, we've got this Venn diagram of what the secret sauce is. And so obviously, you hit the nail on the head. Are you going to share your secret sauce with it? Right. Right. You hire the right people. I mean, it's simple. I don't think I made this up. It's just, but you hire the right people, you train and develop them, and then you hold them accountable and help them execute. And so you can't miss any one of those things. So let's say you hire the right people, but you never train them and you never develop them. You never teach them what the standards are.

You never teach them how you expect the job to be done. So you hire somebody that's great. Everybody subscribed and said that they were great, but you don't give them the playbook. You don't give them anything. and then you just kind of zap them every time they mess up. Well, guess what? They're not going to be there for that long. They're going to leave, right?

This isn't fun. You didn't tell me what you expect. You didn't tell me how you want things done. And you're just going to zap me every time I mess up. I'm either, A, going to stop being the right person or B, I'm going to stop being your right person. Right. So then if you think about, okay, well, let's say I hired the right person and I trained

them, but I never give them feedback. I never tell them how they're doing. Good or bad. Well, that's not very fun. I think Kenneth Blancher talks about going bowling if you cover the pins. If you never saw the pins, how fun is bowling, right? It's not fun. Real cool.

You stop bowling. Right. So if we've got the right people, we train and develop them, but we never give them feedback. We never hold them accountable. We never help them execute. They don't know how they're doing. Well, they're going to become disenchanted. So that's also an issue.

So let's just say you're great at training and developing and you're great at holding accountable, but you don't hire the right people. All you're going to be doing is holding and training and develop and holding, you're never going to make any progress. They're never going to run with it. Right. They're never going to run with it. So you've got to obsess over getting the right people on your team. And for each team, it's different, right? For each industry, it's different. You know, for us, we've got a very specific team member we're looking for. That doesn't necessarily work in a different industry, whether it could be the Army Corps of Engineers. That, you know, giving more than you get.

probably doesn't work. But for us, that's what works for us as far as the right person. And then we obsess over training and developing. We never stop training. We never stop developing. We never stop learning. We're always growing. We're always, you know, and there's, whether it's learning about food, learning about service, learning about the history, the lore, the tales, learning about how to be better leaders, how to understand more about the guests, right? We've got, you know, right now, we live in an age where a flip of a wrist or a thumb, you can get almost anything you want delivered to you. And so we've got to figure out how, you know, what's that psyche like and how do we innovate within the four walls of our restaurant to give those type of experiences? You know,

the first time you called on an Uber and it showed up and you dazzled your friends, how do we do that within the context of our restaurant? And so we're constantly learning and constantly growing and constantly training for these things. And then we execute and we hold ourselves accountable. We hold the team members accountable. They hold themselves accountable and they get feedback, good and bad. That's the only way for, and it's just a cycle that never stops. Patrick Lencioni, he talks about the sophistication bias. And he says that sometimes we don't pursue a solution or pursue a plan for the business because we tell ourselves there's no way it's that simple. But what you are telling us is that Venn diagram, hiring the right people, training and

and holding the account. That is truly your model for how you do it at every restaurant. Yes. 100%. Obviously, there's systems and things. So if you break down training and development, right, you've got to be organized in your training and development. And y'all are ruthlessly intentional too. Right. Absolutely. I've never used that term. But yeah, you have to be ruthlessly intentional and persistent. With training and development, there's layers and layers of systems that we've tested and perfected and implemented throughout the course of,

of two decades into the restaurants that help elicit excellence within the guest experience. And so it's obsessing over those. So we have what's called the Book of Law that has every single thing that could be done in a restaurant, whether it's how to take a reservation, how to seat a guest, if food gets sent back, how to, you know, what the to go station should look like in a restaurant. And every little thing's there. And about every 18 months, we go through it again. And with all of our leaders and get feedback and make sure we're still.

still north in all of the SOPs, and then we just make sure that everybody's still moving along and performing according to it. So it is simple, but there's, you know, there's a lot of complexity to the simplicity of it that needs to support it, you know, because you've got to have, you have to have the structure, you have to have the systems that go hand in hand with the leadership. Otherwise, you know, we always talk about, you know, you can't have management without having inspirational leadership. It doesn't keep people engaged, doesn't keep people moving forward. But you also can't have inspirational leadership without a strong foundation of management.

That's so good, though, because so many people deride the term manager today. And in reality, managers are very necessary, but managers need to support leaders and leaders need to support managers. Exactly. You think about Braveheart and William Wallace, right, going in, you know, here he is. He's got all the motivation, all the inspiration. and we need freedom, we've got to have freedom, right? We need it, you know, we can't be under the tyrannery of the king anymore.

But if they don't have the management to have the weapons or the provisions and the supplies or are the plan to execute if they show up at the wrong town, right? Well, then all the inspiration, all the motivation, that's all out the window. And at the same time, they might have all the provisions, they might have all the tools, all the horses, all the food, the right maps, the right towns, the right strategy. but if they don't have the inspiration or the reason why or the vision or the leadership, what are they fighting for? You have to have the balance of both.

One of your team members told us the story. She said it was her most memorable day at the restaurant where she got a call in the morning and y'all only open for dinner service, but she got a call at 9 a.m. And the GM here at the restaurant said, I need you here now. and she said the roof of the hotel was leaking and it was flooding inside the restaurant. And then she told us the story of how subsequently everyone on the team showed up in shorts and t-shirts and was cleaning up the place. And they were still cleaning and re-roofing the place at 3.30, but they opened for dinner at 5. And she said, because we know there were 200 people that night that had a reservation.

that this was their anniversary or this was their engagement or they were celebrating a birthday and she said, we were not going to tell those people no. I got chills on my arms hearing that story. I've got chills on my arms now telling that story. We hear all the time people say, I just want people to care. I just want people to care about this thing as much as I do. How do you empower people to care at that deep of a level where they are so passionate that they're going to go above and beyond and then laugh about the adversity that they're, experience together as a team and celebrate and rejoice in what they accomplished. You know, I think you've got to give them reasons to care. You've got to give them something to care about. And that comes from a vision. You know, for us, our vision is, you know, well, one, we've got a unified vision that in a common denominator that everybody that is part of our

team, they all came here because they want to be part of something special, whether it's throughout the interview process, the application process, whatever it is. When they are going through that. They said, you know what, I want to work there because I like what they got. The perception of what that company is is something that I need in my life, whether it's, I want to work at a better restaurant or a better place, or I just like their mentality, or I like their ethos, or I like the company culture. They've got something special, and I want to, I want some of that. And so they've already opted in, and it's up to us as leaders. It's up to, it's up to myself. It's up to all of our leadership team to deliver that on a daily basis. We have to give

them something you care about. So we have to, one, we've got to have the vision for the individual restaurant, the vision for the company, and make sure that it's a compelling vision that they want to be part of. And, you know, for us, one, obviously when we open a restaurant, it's we want to be a great restaurant. We want to be irrelevant within the community. We want to be a place that isn't just known as the best steakhouse, but, you know, one of the top restaurants in that market. And that's great. But really what drives us is we want to be a place. where we can connect, where we can be able to storytell. And that's what, for us, that's what it is.

We're sharing our story through food and through service. And we're connecting with our community. We're connecting with our team members. We want to be a place where people feel better when they leave when they arrived. And that's not just for the guests. That's for our team. We want our team to look forward to coming to work, to click their heels on their way in, and to know that this employment experience made them better for something,

whether it was for their next restaurant job, or if it's because they're here in Nashville, you know, they want to be a country music singer, right? But the skills and the techniques and the things that happen during their work experience here will make them better, you know. So, yeah, I'm saying if Taylor Swift worked here, she would eventually go on and even be a better version of Taylor Swift. But for us, that's what, you know, obviously we love learning about food. We love learning about the history, cuisine, and of culture and how that all kind of, evolves from food and from what happens at the table. And we love sharing that with our team and we love sharing that with our guests. And, you know, when I talked about having a group of just wildly

talented hospitality professionals, the reason why we're able to have that group is because we have so many opportunities to do that where we have different, you know, here in Nashville, we have bourbon steak. And in San Francisco, we have our Japanese isakaya, which is Pabu. In Los Angeles, we have our coastal Italian restaurant, which is Kalmari. And as we go and we explore those cultures and those cuisines, our team gets to go along and explore that. And, you know, they get to learn about Japanese hospitality and they get to learn about these ingredients and their traditions of cooking.

And then they get to learn about how to make pasta and how to make pizza and all the different ingredients that we source from, whether it's Sicily or Sardinia. Then they get to learn how to operate a steakhouse on the 34th floor of, you know, the JW Marriott. And so they get exposed to all these different things. And it keeps them engaged and it keeps them learning. And it keeps them just pumped because they're connected to all of these tails. And so that's for us, that's our big why is we just love, we love to learn about, you know, cuisine and culture. And we love to share it with our team and our guests. I love that. One of the things that we stand for as an organization and certainly if people listen

this podcast, we know they believe in is work that. matters. And so we know people that are listening to this right now are driven in some capacity to do that themselves, but also because they're leaders to create that for others. So what would be the one word of encouragement you would give to people to say, this is how you create work that matters for other people? I think you have to one, you have to understand with what you're doing where that's adding value to somebody's life. And for us, we get to, one, we get to nourish people, right? So people come in. You have to eat. We have to eat. We get to provide them with food. We got to nourish them, right? You might as well do it with duck fat

french fries. Exactly. Duck fat french fries, butter poach steak, you know, and a great Manhattan. But we get to nourish people. We got to nourish them with the nutrients that they need to sustain life. But then we also get to nourish them with with community and with connection and with this kind of convivial spirit of exchanging dialogue and energy and being able to break bread. And that's a different type of nourishment, right? That's nourishment for the soul. That's what we provide. And it's an honor to do so.

And we can add value to people's lives. And if we can obsess over those things, over how we're restoring, and that's where the word restaurant comes from. It comes from the word restore. How are we restoring our guests on a daily basis? And how are we restoring our team on a daily basis? And how can we add value to that restoration process, then that's where you can find real meaning.

So I think as a company, you have to figure out. what's your value proposition, where you're adding value, are you adding massive value, you know, through your service or through the good that you're providing. And then it's, you know, getting your team to, one, to believe that that value is necessary and to become romantic about it. Okay. Final question. If someone finds themselves at Bourbon Steak on the 34th floor here in Nashville, Tennessee of the JW Marriott, what should they order? Oh, well, there's an unbelievable believable cowboy rib eye on the menu that, uh, that's, that's, that's delicious. That I don't know why we have it. We have it at a couple of restaurants, but it's, it's, it's better here. Um, I think we talked about that,

that, uh, that short rib, that, uh, that's short rib, the pastromy cure short rib. So we should have the rib eye and the short rib. Is that what you're saying? I would. Okay. I'm down. Yeah. And then for seafood lovers, lobster pot pie, we take a two and a half pound main lobster and we give it the chicken pop-pie treatment, except the sauce is a truffled cream sauce that's fortified with a little brandy. So it's really spectacular. Good night. Very good. I need to go get that right now.

You do. Well, hey, I am so beyond impressed. And our whole team is impressed by the attention to detail, by the intentionality. But I think, honestly, the thing that stands out most about getting to spend the afternoon with you is the way that you and your team. team value people. So thank you for what you do and the difference that it makes in the communities that you serve every day. Oh, thank you very much. There is so much gold in Patrick's perspective and his way of looking at business and leadership. But I'll tell you, in spending half the day with

their leadership team and observing their kitchen and then in recording that interview, the biggest thing that stood out to me and to the rest of our team was the fact that every individual from the hostess to the busboy, to the chef, to Patrick himself, cared. And I think that's one action that all of us can take, regardless of where we stand on the org chart, to make things just a little bit better for the people we serve. Just make a decision to care. Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Entree Leadership Podcast. If you did, please give us a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe.

For a chance to win our $25 Amazon gift card, you can review this episode by clicking the link that's in the show notes. And be sure to follow us on social media at Entree Leadership. This episode was produced by Tim Hull, and it was edited and mixed by Will Rutter. I'm Alex Judd, and on behalf of the entire Entree Leadership team, thanks for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon. If you enjoy this podcast, you should check out other great podcasts from the Ramsey Network, like The Rachel Cruz Show. Hey, guys, it's Rachel Cruz, and I'm so excited to tell you about my podcast.

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