The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 545: Will Guidara - The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect (Unreasonable Hospitality)

Episode Date: September 17, 2023

Text Hawk to 66866 to become part of "Mindful Monday." Join 10's of thousands of your fellow learning leaders and receive a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right... Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12   https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12 "Intention means every decision, from the most obviously significant to the seemingly mundane, matters." "My dad says "The best way to learn is to teach." He taught me to study for tests as if I were going in to deliver a presentation. At EMP, I made teaching part of our culture." "Public speaking is a leadership skill." Excellence is about small details — A couple of examples of that were lighting and music. "Maybe people don't notice every single individual detail, but in aggregate, they're powerful. In any great business, most of the details you closely attend to are ones that only a tiny, tiny percentage of people will notice." "Some of the best advice I ever got about starting in a new organization is; Don't cannonball. Ease into the pool." Magic: "Too many people approach creative brainstorming by taking what's practical into consideration way too early in the process. Start with what you want to achieve, instead of limiting yourself to what's realistic or sustainable." "Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect." – Penn and Teller "Often, the perfect moment to give someone more responsibility is before they're ready." The daily 30-minute meeting: "A daily 30-minute meeting is where a collection of individuals becomes a team." Find hidden treasures: Will's dad had his own platoon in Vietnam. It wasn't a great platoon. On it was a guy nicknamed Kentucky, Kentucky was lazy and wasn't in great shape. He wasn't that smart, but he was skilled directionally and had a great feel for being in the woods.  "A leader's responsibility is to identify the strengths of the people on their team, no matter how buried those strengths might be." "Business like life is all about how you make people feel. It's that simple and that hard." - Danny Meyer "In restaurants, our reason for being is to make people feel, seen, it's to make them feel welcome, it's to give them a sense of belonging. The food, the service, the design, they are simply ingredients in the recipe of human connection" "The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson. I still give The One Minute Manager to every person I promote. It's an amazing resource, in particular on how to give feedback. My biggest takeaways were: Criticize the behavior, not the person. Praise in public; criticize in private. Praise with emotion, criticize without emotion." "What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?" "What criticism offers you, then, is an invitation to have your perspective challenged—or at least to grow by truly considering it. You might stick with a choice you've been criticized for or end up somewhere completely different. The endgame isn't the point as much as the process: you grow when you engage with another perspective and decide to decide again." "The aggregation of marginal gains," or a small improvement in a lot of areas. In his words: "The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improve it by 1 percent, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together."

Jim Collins told me on episode number 216 that the single greatest determining factor in my long-term success or failure would be my who, who I chose to surround myself with. And that conversation has had a huge impact on how I've designed my business. And one of the most important elements that I provide is my learning leader circle. and I open up applications one time per year, and that time is now at learning leader circle.com is where you can apply. Now, this is the most inefficient element of my business because I personally read every application, and I personally choose who will go on to the next round, and then who will ultimately be one of the 12 people to be in my next Learning Leader Circle. And I only do it one time per year, and that time is now.

If you are intentional about surrounding yourself with others who will push you, challenge you, make you think differently, if you're willing to self-reflect and do some work, this could be for you. And you can apply at learningleaders circle.com. We meet once per month on Zoom and then we meet one time per year in person for our leadership retreat for members of my learning leader circle. So if you'd like to apply, go to learning leader circle. Welcome to The Learning Leader Show presented by Insight Global. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text Hawk to 6-6-866 to become part of Mindful Monday.

You, along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world, will receive a carefully curated email for me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right. You'll also receive details about how my book, The Persexuals, pursuit of excellence will help you become a more effective leader. Text, Hawk to 66866. Now on tonight's featured leader, Will Godera is the former co-owner of 11 Madison Park, which under his leadership received four stars from the New York Times, three Michelin stars, and in 2017 was named number one on the list of the world's 50 best restaurants.

He's also the author of the national bestselling book called Unreasonable Hospitality, which chronicles the lessons in service and leadership he has learned over the course of his career. During this conversation, we discuss how Miles Davis influenced Will's leadership philosophy, then the importance of living in the small details, why we should become great public speakers, and how journaling makes you a better leader, and so much. much more. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with the great Will Godera. Will, it is so great to see you again, man. Thanks for being here. Yeah, man. I'm excited to be connecting. I'm curious. I was reading about Miles Davis, and you write about him. How

did Miles Davis influence your language, your vision, and your culture? I think there's two ways to answer that and I'm going to give you both of them. Because the question is how did he influence the culture? But I think there's also merit in unpacking why we started pursuing him as an inspiration. And that was in the first review we got as we were evolving the restaurant in the very, very beginning. It was not that important review. It was in the New York Observer, which in the lexicon of food reviews is not one that anyone really thinks about or talks about. But I always crave feedback, and especially

in the beginning when I'm doing a turnaround of any sort, feedback is essential, right? You're changing so many things and you're putting so much of yourself into the work and you're living your entire life within the four walls of your business, whether those are literal or metaphorical. And the moment you have some feedback from the outside to help, well, give you some sense of whether your ideas are landing is a beautiful opportunity to learn. And that review was actually much better than we deserved at the time. We got two and a half or three and a half out of four stars. And that was when we were not even close to satisfy with the levels of excellence we were hitting.

But at the end of the review, the critic, Moira Hodgson, said, I just wish the restaurant had a bit more Miles Davis. And that came at a time where we were craving language to articulate what we were trying to accomplish. At that point, the restaurant was still owned by Danny Meyer, of the many, amazing lessons I learned from him was the power of using thoughtfully articulated language to communicate to not only yourself and your entire team, what you stand for, what your non-negotials are, and really just helping you make decisions. And it must have been a month or so after that review that we were trying to come up with the words and we're like, hold on, let's see if there's

something in that one line. And so we started reading everything we could about Miles and listening to his music again, I had not listened to his music for a while. I used to be super into jazz when I was growing up, but then work distracted me from everything. And as we learned about him, not about his music itself, but as we learned about the approach he took to making the music, we saw an amazing dose of inspiration that could guide us forward. And so we came up with a list of the 11 words most commonly used to define the approach he took. And on the list were light, fresh, collaborative, cool, forward-moving, endless reinvention. And we just felt a connection to those words and going forward, you used them as kind of our first mission statement of

sorts. And the three ones that really jump out, and now I'm actually going to answer the question you asked, were cool. Cool, I believe, in many ways to be an underused word in business. We were trying to reinvent fine dining and create a four-star experience that was for our generation, not our parents' generation. And in order to do that, it needs to feel cool, right? Like at the end of the day, we all are forever in some small way going to be our high school selves. And it needed to be cool. Another one, endless reinvention, the idea that as you change so much, so must the approach

you're taking to whatever product you're creating. and we would change constantly in the years to follow. Never for the sake of change, but for the fact that I was in my mid-20s when I took over that restaurant, and I don't think anything can really be awesome if it's not a genuine reflection of the people behind it. And as I grew and changed, the restaurant needed to as well. But the last word,

the one that truly changed the game for me and his central thesis in the book was collaborative. Or you look at Miles' bands that he played with over the years, and you learned about how they made music together. It was never Miles walking into the room and saying, hey, play exactly this. It was him saying, I want to do this. Let's figure out how to do it together.

And how he shined a light on the people that he made music with. You look at some of the great jazz musicians. They all started in Miles' bands. So between those three, and I could riff on any one of those ideas endlessly, but those were the three things that really stood out and helped guide us forward. I'm curious about feedback. So that story started with feedback from somebody who was outside of your restaurant, outside of your team. And I think there's this delicate balance between when we listen and when we don't. Now a published author, you're on the bestseller list every single week as we talked about prior to recording.

And so there is outside people that want to foist their ideas and thoughts on you. How do you decide what to listen to and what not? I think there's a distinction between what you decide to listen to and what you do with the information you receive when you choose to listen. If I had endless hours in the day, I would read every single thing that's ever been written about anything I've created. created. Because, listen, whether I'm running a restaurant or writing a book, yeah, in a restaurant, I'm trying to feed people in a book, I'm trying to teach people or entertain people in both. But at the end of the day, I'm just trying to make people happy in some way, shape, or form. And if that's the business you're in, the moment you stop caring about what people have to say,

I think, A, it goes against the very premise of what you're trying to accomplish. And also brings you one step closer to irrelevance. That said, you can never change what you're doing every time an individual doesn't like it. Perhaps even if a ton of individuals don't like it, because if you try to be everything to everyone, then you're nothing to no one and you have no chance of having a point of view. And so I think it's not dissimilar to the idea of collaboration. You bring a bunch of people together in a room. you hear every single idea, you let those ideas breathe. But at the end of the day, there needs to be

someone who decides what you're going to do. There needs to be a central filter through which ideas and feedback all flow through. Otherwise, it's going to feel disjointed and designed by committee, whether that's the people you surround yourself with or the people who speak into your life through criticism and feedback. It never works. They don't build statues of committees, right? But I do think that's tough. I think a lot of us struggle with that. Okay, this is a food critic or a reviewer, which you write about other reviewers from the New York Times and other places

and how you did care deeply about what those people thought and what they were going to say. I think Frank Bruney was his name, if I remember, if that's how you pronounce it right, that you guys thought about a lot. And he was there, I think, pretty quickly after you redid 11 Madison Park. That's the thing that I try to balance. And so I think leaders have to think about what do we listen to it and what we not. When you think of a guy like him or others, yeah, how have you best figured out who to let in and who to say, no, that's just noise?

I believe that it comes down to being open to the idea that your instincts might be wrong at times and also being confident enough in your ideas to stick with them, even if other people say they're bad. And those two things living in harmony becomes a really beautiful thing. Like in the book, I talk about a pretty scathing review. It wasn't actually a proper review. It was more of a warning shot from Pete Wells, who was the New York Times food critic after Frank Bruny. We had just done a big change. It was not often that he would do this. He came in and wrote an article saying it was terrible, basically.

But he didn't review us. It was like, hey, guys, I don't like what you're doing. Fix it. otherwise you're going to lose a star. And when we read it, there were certain things that he did not like that I just felt so passionately about I chose to continue doing them. And there were certain things that he didn't like that when I looked at those things with a non-egotistical perspective, I was like, you know what, he's right.

We went too far. And so I think in every review, and every piece of feedback and every criticism you need to decide where you can evolve and grow and what you can learn and you also need to decide what you believe in so strongly you're not going to change at all even if one or two individuals didn't connect with it yeah and hold them in your mind at the same time I think that's tough but it seems like you've done that really well another part I loved reading about was finding hidden treasures and let's bring up another very influential person in your life and we share this in

common and that's your dad. And he had his own platoon in Vietnam. You're right, it wasn't a great platoon, but there was a guy nicknamed Kentucky on this platoon and he was lazy, wasn't in great shape, wasn't even that smart. But your dad, this is a part of the one of the guys your dad was leading and he had to figure it out. Can you tell that story about Kentucky and your dad's platoon in Vietnam and what you've drawn from it? Yeah, so my dad is my biggest mentor and the person from whom I've learned more than anyone else in my entire life and career. And gosh, I love him so much. And I feel so blessed to have that relationship with him that I do.

Yeah, he was a lieutenant in Vietnam. He desperately wanted a platoon. He wasn't getting one. Finally, I think he was just annoying to whoever it was that sat above him in the hierarchy for long enough that the guy ultimately gave him a platoon and perhaps some form of punishment for being so persistent, he gave him not a great platoon. And then this guy, Kentucky, was a liability to the point that my dad put him in the middle of the pack. And when I say pack, just think about like a line of guys kind of walking through the jungle.

And so the ones in the middle could help the least, but also to the least damage. Until my dad actually recognized that the only way to make the platoon great was to get to know every single one of the guys in it and really understand their weaknesses so he could help them. and build those a bit, but more importantly, to figure out what their superpowers were such that he could seize on them. And if everyone knew one another's superpowers, they could all leverage them collectively to the benefit of the group. And this guy, Kentucky, who was perhaps the weakest one, my dad learned while he was from, guess what, Kentucky, from the deep woods of Kentucky. And the guy had this unbelievable sense of direction in the deep woods, the jungles of Vietnam, they were constantly getting lost.

And so my dad flipped it around and put him on point. The weakest guy, at least what he thought, who he thought was the weakest guy, ended up being one of the most impactful guys and they never got lost again. The reason why I was so inspired by that story when he told me, and he didn't just randomly tell me that story, he told it to me with a very specific lesson in mind, is that, especially in this day and age where so many people are short-staffed and we're struggling with recruiting and retention. It breaks my heart to think of how many times someone has not been succeeding and they've been fired for it when had their leader

just spent the time getting to know them, they might have learned that the person was just in the wrong role and they could have thrived in a different role. And it's almost like training at high altitude because, listen, in the military, when you're engaged in war and you look at your team. No one really wants to be there. You don't pick the people in your team. You can't fire them. And the consequences of a mistake are not bringing the wrong plate to the wrong table, their life or death. And so if you can take the same approach that he took to that team and apply it to your own team in your own business where whatever you're doing can be enhanced by simply putting the right people in the right role, it's a win. A, the business improved.

win. B, you're going to have an easier time finding and maintaining your team. But perhaps most importantly, you're putting people in positions where they can actually contribute and succeed. And I think that is not only a responsibility of a leader, but what a great opportunity is to give people the ability to really perform at their highest levels because competence builds confidence. Yeah.

It takes time and effort and being thoughtful and intentional. And I feel like that's when you find a team that isn't collaborating, isn't doing well. You look to the leader and they haven't spent the time getting to know their team. There are simple exercises, but you do, it starts from coming from a place of care. And it seems like that's one of the number one things. There's a lot. You write about your dad, which I love because I write about my dad and talk about them all the time too. But it's like one of the number one things is simply to care deeply for your people, get to know them and understand them and how that will benefit the business as much as anything else.

Yeah. And I'd add two things. The other beautiful thing that comes when you take the time to get to know the people that you work with is, listen, you're never going to really genuinely be able to lead someone if they don't trust you. And how can you actually trust someone if you don't know them or if you don't believe that they're going to invest the time to get to know you? And taking the time to get to know them, they're also going to have the time to get to know you. And then a real foundation of trust can be built. That's one thing. The second thing, and this is a caveat, getting to know someone looks different depending on the person you're getting to know. Right?

you need to read people and understand how far they're looking to let you in. Right? There's certain people that, like, don't want to share every intimate detail about their life with their boss, and that's okay. There's certain others that certainly do, and that's okay, too. With the people that seem closed off and aren't trying to talk to their boss about their dating life or whatever it is, that doesn't mean you can't take the time to get to know their passions and what drives them at work and what their why is and all of that stuff.

And in addition to putting them in the right rule, in addition to earning their trust, you're really just kind of showing them that, hey, I care enough about you to want to learn what makes you tick such that I can be in the best place to help you grow. Your dad also said, and I found this to be so true, and I love it, the best way to learn is to teach. You read, he taught me to study for test as if I were going to deliver a presentation. And so at 11 Madison Park, you're right, I made teaching part of our culture. I think this could, this should be a part of every leader's culture is making teaching because I found it to be, whether you're writing a book or getting up in front of a group of people and speaking, you want to be

clear, right? You want clear thoughts so that when you speak, it's clear. It's to the point. It's to the point that your team can understand, this is what we're doing, this is why we're doing, and this is how we're going to do it, and this is where we're going. And that takes a lot of time and effort and thought, again, to get clear. And that's why teaching is such a great tool for learning. How did you make this a part of your culture? And why is it so important that it is? So funny, I was doing an interview with my dad. I did this recorded interview with him because everyone is obsessed with my dad now appropriately because I talk about him so much of the book. And in the interview, he said, teach with the intention of learning and learn with the intention

of teaching. I was like, yeah, where was that when I was writing the book? That's a juicy little morsel. I love that one. The way we did it, practically. There's in our restaurant, because I just believe if you're aspiring to a certain level of excellence, teaching and training is very important. in most customer service organizations, the new person on the team trains for a week or two weeks,

or whatever the training program is, then they're just slotted in, and now they play forever, as opposed to, and I use the word play because I'm about to make a sports analogy, supposed to football, they practice, whatever, five days a week, they play one day a week. If you want to be the best, you need to practice, practice, train. And so we had tons of classes and training opportunities outside of service itself constantly. It was just an ongoing part of how we business. And one day I realized two things. One, there's like five managers, six managers in the team, and there's whatever 60 dining room employees on the team.

And the five or six people are teaching 60 people. Like those numbers just don't add up. Knowledge is like a bank account. unless everyone is constantly depositing money, you're going to run out of money pretty quickly. Five people can only possibly know so much. But also, giving everyone on the team the opportunity to pick something they were passionate about it, learn about it, and teach it to others, not only encouraged every individual to learn more, not only resulted in the entire group benefiting from all the things that every individual were learning.

it gave responsibility to people that were normally just on the other side of a monologue and turned it into a dialogue and the more responsibility you give people, the more responsible they become. And that built confidence. Confidence builds competence. I think it goes both ways. It's competence and competence. But I also just believe public speaking is a leadership skill. Obviously, you should lead through your actions, but words work. And the more or you can structure opportunities for your team to get comfortable speaking in front of groups, the better it is for their professional development. So true.

My dad told me when I was 22, 23, getting my first real job after playing football in college. He said, there might not be a more important skill for you to learn than to get up in front of a group, whether it's 5, 10, 1,000, and give a 2 minute, 5 minute, 10, 10. minute, 30 minute talk, where you can show that you can speak with conviction and with curiosity and with thoughtfulness and with preparation. All of that goes into it. It is such a valuable skill. And unfortunately, you will see so many people are bad at it because it's hard.

People are scared. It takes a lot of repetitions to get good. You're very good at this. I've seen you speak on stage, TED talks, TV interviews. obviously, but on the show before. How did you get so proficient at public speaking? Thank you. I appreciate the compliment. Practice, right? It's like anything, the more you do it, the better you get. You get better at it when you do it a lot. A, obviously, because practice makes perfect, but B, especially with public speaking, because the more you do it, the less nervous you are

and the more confident you become and confidence is such an important part of being a good public speaker. And then, listen, public speaking is not dissimilar to any other craft. You study other people that are good at it and you learn what you can from them. I took a public speaking class in college. My favorite thing I learned from that, I say this in the book and it's like this crazy aside as I'm writing the book, it's a fully, like, it's a total non-sequitur, but I just wanted to pay it forward was whenever you're trying to communicate a point, tell them what you are going going to tell them and then tell them and then tell them what you told them. I have a conference that I host in New York City called the Welcome Conference and

become the bigger hospitality, one of the bigger hospitality conferences in the world at this point. And every time I'm bringing on a speaker, I share that idea with them. Like, don't go up there and try to communicate every idea you've ever had. Pick the thing that you think will be most impactful and most beneficial to this group right now and hammer it home. Come up with the idea. Tell them, tell them, and then tell them. Surround it with some narrative and some storytelling to make it engaging. And speak about it with every ounce of the passion that you feel for it because passion is infectious. And if you are too shy to show your full passion for the idea, people are going to really struggle with connecting to it.

You've made it really cool to care. And in the book, your friend Brian Canlis, I don't know if I'm pronoun, announcing that right again. Brian, though, you said, was one of the guys that he really cared and he made it cool to care. And I think this is especially something as a dad growing kids. And sometimes I go speak with kids. It seems like, and I was one of these kids too, where I just want to look cool, right? You're a teenager, you're going to high school and college. And then it starts going happening as you get older too. People are worried about looking stupid or already about being embarrassed. So they want to look cool. Like, oh, I don't have to try that hard, right? Whatever. Yeah. And if I don't try that hard, then it's okay. if I failed because I didn't really give it all I had. But you, I feel like you could tell with every single answer on every podcast I've ever watched, you can tell you're actually thinking about it and you want it to be like the best possible answer it can be. None of them are just to be cool, right?

And that is, I think that's cool to care. I love it when I see like a high school kid playing really tough defense on a basketball court and he gets beat. But it's like, hey, it's okay because he gave everything versus the kid who doesn't really try or thinks he looks cool. That doesn't. So can you talk more about your friend Brian and why and how you made it cool to care? Yeah.

And with the high school kid also like the high school kid that befriends the person that is like ostracized by all the cool kids because he cares more about caring than he does about being cool, right? And at the end of the day, you look at any movie. That's the kid that ultimately prevails, right? Like, we know this intellectually, and yet at the same time, like, I actually think it's not about people have made it cool to not care, not for fear of looking like an idiot as much as they are scared of looking like a nerd or an overachiever or a goody two shoes. And you look at like the Fons or James Dean or a lot of these like characters, even I'm aging myself. by using those two references, but there's plenty of references in today's pop culture, too,

where the people that are celebrated are the ones that just don't care, right? Like, Brian, Brian's one of my closest friends, his restaurant in Seattle is one of the great restaurants in the world. In college, I didn't fully embody this idea of it being cool to care. I just wanted people to think I was cool, right? I was trying to do all the things that I thought other people thought were cool and wasn't being fully genuinely myself. And then Brian,

who was in all of my classes from day one, Brian wore purple converse and had a gecko and had a yo in a holster that he carried with him. Like all these things that were so definitively, objectively, uncool. And he was the coolest guy I knew because he was so sure of himself and didn't care what other people thought. he just wanted to be authentically, him, like his most fully realized self. And you know what? People started thinking purple converse were cool and that yo-yo's were cool.

I don't think he ever got people hooked on geckos. But I learned something very valuable from him, which is leaders, especially young leaders, who, when you look at a young leader on any high-performing, team. They've just graduated college or something, and now they're leading other people, many of whom are older, many of whom are the same age. And they just want to be liked, right? They want the people that they work with to think they're cool because they're finally starting their life and they're spending most of it at work. And they want to be cool, just like everyone has that tendency. And because of that, the impact of their leadership

suffers because they're not celebrating the right things. They're celebrating the things that the people who work for them think are cool. I think you need to remember two things. One, the people who work for you, they don't need another friend, they need a leader. You need to give them that and play that role. And two, your energy needs to impact the people around you, not the other way around.

And if the thing you're passionate about is not objectively cool, but you talk about it with unbridled passion, you can make it cool. within your culture. And that, in my view, is the first step towards success. I love the idea generation sessions that, I wonder if you still do these, but you wrote that before marriage and the birth of your daughter, you'd spend most nights in your apartment with a glass of wine and an open notebook.

What did you learn from those journaling sessions? And what advice would you give to others to do that in their own lives? When I did my TED talk that same day, again, in Paul Ketchlove from Australia, delivered a talk all about creating a practice of reflection, not dissimilar to deciding that you're going to go to the gym for 20 minutes every day, or you're going to eat a salad every day for lunch, or whatever things you deem important. You make space for them. You create a practice.

And he talked about the transfer. informational impact of doing that with reflection. And I agree. I'd never heard it articulated like that, and I loved it. My dad made me journal growing up. The reason he had me do it was because he had very high hopes for me and my career and was very confident I'd go out and do great things and wanted to make sure that as I grew through the ranks of my industry, that I held on to all of the perspectives I would

have at each level along the way. Because you'd always say perspective has an expiration date. And if you're not careful, the very things that you were frustrated about when you were a busboy in your leader, you will do those exact same things if you don't find a way to hold on to your perspective. And so journaling was a way to do that. That's one of the reasons to journal. But at the end of the night, every night, I would journal for that.

reason. I would journal after a meal at another person's restaurant to try to catch on to whatever inspiration I felt. What were they doing well that I wanted to steal? What were they not doing well? That I wanted to make sure we weren't also not doing well from the perspective of an empathetic leader. I would think back to my interactions over the course of the night and the restaurant and realize, man, Joe, when he did that thing wrong, I was so caught up in the heat of service. I overreacted. I delivered that message in a totally deflating way.

I need to say I'm sorry. And through journaling, reflecting on the night, I would then put on my to-do list for the next day. Go apologize to him. Never for the message I was delivering, but for the way in which I delivered it. I think journaling is everything. And I'd stopped doing it for a while

after the birth of my first daughter. And then I put out the book and I was talking about it a lot. And I was like, man, this is hypocritical. I can't let the business of my life distract me from something I know to be so important. And so now I travel a lot. So I journal on planes. Thoughtful and intentional. It's like the theme of your life.

I love it. Excellence is about small details. Okay. And this may be a nerdy thing to bring up, but I love reading about it. Okay. A couple examples in your restaurant, lighting and music. And I think that sets a vibe. And it's important. We talked about like the lights and how I've set up where I am now. I painted the walls like everything like I want to create a specific vibe to feel good. Like it looks and sounds a certain way that's important to me. And so I love reading about because lighting is tricky. There's windows and then the sun goes down at different times and the weather is different. And then. the music when you're writing about the fact that if there's a lot of people versus not that many people, the music's got to be different. Can you just walk me through like your overall thought process? Because I think this is an example that illustrates excellence is in the details and how,

while some people don't have to worry about music and lighting wherever they work, it's just the way you go about it shows how much you value this, the small details. So maybe share the music and lighting story and how you think about excellence is in the details. And by the way, anyone who's just listening to this and can't see Ryan set up, he's got this thing all the way dialed in. It just looks so good. And I'm looking at mine, by the way, talking about like journaling, you have to go to a restaurant and see what they do better than you.

I have some work to do. Yeah, lighting and music, which by the way, are two fundamentally important things in a restaurant experience. But in way too many operations, people put so much thought and attention to the most important, the one or two most important parts of the product and put so little thought and attention into the third, fourth, and fifth most important parts of the product. I've been to so many restaurants where the food is amazing and the service is amazing and the lighting and the music is just a disaster.

And I'm like, what are you doing? Like, you're doing all the hard work. Like, just take it over the line. Yep. Okay, music says very specific to restaurants. I believe that the role of music in most restaurants should be that when there's only a few people in the dining room at the beginning of service, you should not feel the compulsion to whisper. The music should be loud enough that you and I can talk at the very same level that we're talking now and not feel embarrassed or worried that someone can overhear our conversation. And then when the room is full of humanity, full of human experience, that the music should.

fade into that. Because at that point, the clinking of silverware and the buzz of chatter and all of that stuff with the music mixed in. Now, what does that mean? It means that you need to make sure someone understands exactly what that means and that their role is to constantly throughout the course of the evening adjust the volume accordingly. At most restaurants, there's not even at most, At many restaurants, there's just levels. At 6 p.m., it turns up to this. At 8 p.m., it turns up to this. But that's imperfect because every night works differently.

Lighting, not dissimilar. If you have big windows in your restaurant, especially during the summer, it's right outside at 5.30 when you open. And so the lights need to be a lot brighter in the room, otherwise it feels really dark and weird in the room. But then as the sun goes down, the lights need to start going down with it.

Otherwise, it becomes bright and glaring in the room. And so again, you need to pick a person on the team and make it their responsibility. And by the way, you always need to account for human error as best you can. Sometimes you can't completely solve for it. But I would have the people that tended to those things be in stationary parts of the restaurant, most often behind the podium at the front door. And there would just be signs that the guest couldn't see, but you could see if you're behind it that said lighting and music.

Just as a constant gentle nudge to not forget that this is a part of your responsibility for the evening. Just in the details. I think that's like one of the key learnings that so much from unreasonable hospitality is that there's so much of what we do. It's paying attention to that, valuing that, making sure there are team members who are in charge of that, empowering them and teaching them and talking it through. I think whether it's lighting or music or whatever it may be in people's businesses, those. attention to details, that's a huge difference in those who sustain excellence over time and those who don't. You know what?

You just said, sorry to jump up. Yeah, go ahead. You put someone in charge of lighting or music. They are not going to get it right every time. It's your responsibility to when the music is too loud or too quiet, the lights are too high or too low, not just go and fix it, but to go grab them, bring them back and show them why what they're doing is not correct, such that they can learn. I think way too often leaders just get frustrated by the fact that their team is not doing something exactly in the way they want them to, but they're not coaching them or training them to get it right over time.

Those are such great opportunities to get better and to improve and to learn. Instead of just taking the shortcut, which is just me as a leader fixing it, it's no, let's have a conversation. Let's talk this through. This happens in all businesses, taking a long game approach. usually works better, even if it's more painful in the short term. That instant gratification that most people need can be a problem. And so delayed gratification of let's coach, let's talk through this, that will make us better off in the longer term. For someone who's getting a new job, specifically a new role, you've written, don't,

some of the best advice I ever got about starting in a new organization, right? This is common for a lot of people. So this could apply to a lot. Don't cannonball, ease into the pool. So maybe someone gets promoted or they're taking over a business like you did. What's your methodology of not just cannonballing into the pool but easing into it? I think I understand and I've made the mistake myself. And so I intimately understand the idea that you start a new job and you want to as quickly as possible.

Show people. Look what I'm made of. Come on. Right. Guys, I'm smart. I have all these ideas. I have a ton of experience. I'm going to change everything.

Here we go. follow me, right? People, again, can't follow you until they trust you. Get in the pool, play with them a little bit, get them to trust you, and then get out and cannibal in. B, just because you have great ideas that have worked in the past, or just because you're smart and know a bunch of stuff, that doesn't mean that those ideas are going to work well where you now are.

You need to understand where you are well enough to then decide the extent. extent to which and how you want to change it. And finally, like the whole getting to know people, right? You kind of need to know your team before you start refocusing them. So getting to know your team, getting to know the operation, earning people's trust. And then, yeah, cannibal from like a diving board, right? But don't do it right away. That's more ego based of needing to say, look at me, look at,

the splash I'm making a right away to say like, wow, this new guy, he's tough or he makes it, he's decisive, right? All these comments is have more confidence and security in yourself that you don't need to do that. I heard from Simon Sinek, actually, he and I were hanging out not too long gone. He was talking about how it Cartier, if you're a new executive that's brought in from the outside, you're not allowed to talk at a meeting for six months. That's extreme.

And I get it. Like, hey, just listen for a while. And at Cartier, like, we've been doing this for a really long time. Spending a few months just listening before you think you have something to say is not an unreasonable ask. You give Ken Blanchard's book, The One Minute Manager, to every person you promote. I loved recording with Ken, one of my all-time favorites. He's such a treasure. Just an amazing human.

What is it about that book? to meet him. If you could introduce me to him, that would be amazing. For sure. I'll just, I'll connect you guys via email right if we're done. This guy's been a guiding light to me since I was like 19 years. I thought you'd have him speak at your conference. I've just never known. It's almost like yeah. It's almost like he's too big in my head to even imagine that I could ever reach out to him when someone said that little bit. He's the man. But what is it about that book that makes you gift it to all the people that you promote? I think it's like a gateway. drug to getting excited about culture. It's a small book. It's easy to read. The font size is super

big, right? Like, it's not an overwhelming ask. And I'm always very careful about that. I feel that in too many organizations, on day one, you're given like an encyclopedia Britannica worth of information and expected to learn it when no one learns that way. You need to serve up culture, inspiration, and education and palatable bites. You can't expect your team to learn differently than you do. And if you are someone that does learn that way, like just recognize that you are the exception, not the rule. But that book, especially for me, was just the way it distills down the ideas of praise and criticism, which I just think are so profoundly important and really the true definition of what makes a great leader.

And even in my book, I say, like, this is what I learned from the one minute manager. And some of this stuff might not even be in the book. attribute the stuff to it, right? Like, praise with emotion, criticize with that emotion, criticize the behavior, not the person, criticize in private, not in public. You can praise in public. Perhaps you shouldn't always praise in public. These very simple ideas that, gosh, every leader embraced them, it would be like a revolution. And yet they're not complicated. I like how he writes in an effort to communicate that, and I think that's about hospitality too, being great at leadership, being great at hospitality, it's not hard. It just requires trying harder.

And I think the distinction between those two things, I say that a lot because I think the distinction is so important. When something is hard, the person trying to accomplish it has an endless, list of excuses around why they weren't able to achieve it. When all it requires is that you try harder, there aren't very many good excuses to not do that. In the acknowledgement section of your book, which you call, I love this quote, I appreciate you section, you already mentioned him, Simon Sinek, and you said that you and Simon would spend countless days together across the table going page by page trying to make the book better. I've had Simon on a few times too.

Also love that guy. What are some of the things you learn from those sessions sitting across the table going page by page trying to make the book better? He's, I think he's the best editor on the planet. Like a lot of the reason why this book came out the way that it did was Simon. And Simon kind of led me through the process in the same way that I've led others through various things in my companies over the years. it was Simon's idea that I write the book. I was at this thing that he hosts called Massive in Colorado. He puts together 20 people and it's kind of like a salon think tank.

And he asked three of them to speak. And I spoke at his. And afterwards he walked up. He goes, you need to write a book about that. So that was where he started. And he helped dramatically me get started. And then he came back all the way at the end. And I sent it to him as I was done.

I was like, hey, can you read this? I'd love your thoughts. Three weeks later. Hey, any thoughts? Have you read it? No, not yet. Week and a half later. Hey, just checking in because I need to submit this thing pretty soon.

He goes, let's just hang out next week and read the book to me out loud. And I was like, oh, dude, so you're too lazy to read my book. And that's what you're telling me I need to do. And then he's like, no. He's like, I should have been more clear about this from the beginning. He's like, the moment you read a book out loud, you finally understand what's meant to be in there and what's not. By the end of that week, because we literally just sat across his dining room table, I read the entire book out loud to him. I think we cut 60 pages, two chapters completely removed from the book.

And he taught me to treat each chapter as an independent idea. obviously collectively, they should flow beautifully. But you put books down a lot and then you pick them back up. And a lot of the beginnings of the chapters in my book, when you read them in isolation, are kind of boring. And he really showed me the power of like grabbing people and bringing them in at the beginning of every chapter. He is amazing.

If anyone wants to write a book and is lucky enough to publish with Simon, yeah, you get his platform and all that stuff, but that's the real gift you get. Wow. 2007, you closed 11 Madison Park for a day and you held your first strategic planning meeting. Can you take us to that day and tell me what happened? Yeah. We did that because I hear all these companies talking about the bigger they get, the smaller they need to act.

We were small. We wanted to act big. And so we studied the big companies and learned what they did so that we could do the same thing. And they all had that kind of thing, that strategic planning meeting at some interval over the course of the year with people from throughout the organization. We were small so we can include absolutely every single person from our team, from the dishwashers all the way up through to us at the top. It's important that you include everyone. I think strategic planning can double as team. team building, if done in the right way.

Not to mention the fact that the retired naval captain, David Marque, he always says the people at the top have all the authority of the people in the front line have all the information. And every turn find opportunities to even that gap. This is what we would do. And we did it every single year. We would start. I would tell the entire team what our vision statement was for that year. The year to follow.

this is what we are focused on this year. And that always had to support the mission statement. But what was like the little mini mission statement for that year? And then I would tell them the three strategies, the three things we were going to focus on that year to help us achieve that year's vision statement. Or at least evolve it, get closer to it. then I'd break the team up into groups of eight, however many groups that was on an annual basis. And every group would be responsible for one specific part of the restaurant. And it could be sidework.

It could be training. It could be recruiting. It could be beverage programs. It could just whatever. like from the most mundane and specific to the most creative and open-ended. And that group would have the entire day to brainstorm a list of specific, actionable ideas within each one of those three strategies around their group's focus. We'd collect all those ideas and we'd have fun over the course of the day.

We'd collect all those ideas. And a month later, we'd sit down with the, team and be like, these are the ideas we're moving forward with. And then we'd connect specifically with some of the groups. If they had ideas they were really excited about that we just weren't going to do and explain to them why. The ideas that came out of those meetings, they're the ones that put us on the map. You write about magic.

Too many people approach creative brainstorming by taking what's practical into consideration way too early in the process. Start with what you. want to achieve instead of limiting yourself to what's realistic or sustainable. This feels like a big part of that day, right? That don't start by being practical or don't try to get practical too early. Let's start with the craziest of ideas and worry about being practical later. I think that's part of the genius of that day. It feels like to me that you come up with these crazy, wild magic-like ideas is because you create a container for your team to say, no, let's go.

bring it all in here and then we'll figure out being practical later. But for now, don't even think about that. I think that applies not just the restaurants. That could apply to any team or business, regardless of industry. Oh, yeah, 100%. I think that all these things, hopefully people listening, understand that these are not specific to restaurants. I say all the time to the people I work with,

don't ruin a story with the facts, which is another way of saying, like, there's plenty of times where, and it happens constantly. I find myself guilty of it once in a while as well. But I'll get into a meeting with my team and I'll be like, guys, okay, I had this amazing idea last night. Hear me out. I want to do this.

And someone's like, dude, we can't. Like, that's not. And I'm like, whoa. No. I don't need my ideas to be good ideas. I don't need to be right. But I do not tolerate someone's instinctual, their first reaction being talking, be to talk about the reasons why something is impossible.

Everything is possible. You may decide that the money, the resources, the time required to bring an idea to life don't make sense. But you can bring almost everything to life. I think some of the most successful companies out there are those that have created cultures where every idea is given space to breathe because with bad ideas, with ideas that seem crazy in the beginning, one of two things is often true. Actually, they might just be an amazing idea that. are so ahead of their time that people can't connect with them yet. Or B, there's a really great

idea right behind that bad idea if you knock it around for a while. One more, man. You're meeting with somebody who's a bit earlier in their career and they want to do good, leave a dent in the world, but they're not sure exactly what they want to do. What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you'd give to them? The one of the one, One thing I've told people for years, I think one of the things I see younger people doing, which breaks my heart, is they're struggling to find the thing they're passionate about and therefore don't throw themselves headfirst into anything. While you are finding the thing that you're passionate about, you can be passionate about

something. And so just go all in with something. Learn as much as you can about something. Figure out the thing that maybe you're not 100% sure. It's your thing forever, but you're pretty sure you'd enjoy doing it now. Give all of yourself to that thing. Learn as much as you can from it. And you'll realize, is this for me or is it not?

And even if it's not, you will have learned so much more from giving all of yourself to it than had you just sat around twiddling your thumbs, not being able to commit the whole, like, paralysis through analysis. and pick the person you want to work for, not the company you want to work for. Because I don't care how cool the company is if you're not working for the right individual who has wisdom to impart and is willing to take the time to impart it upon you. You're going to grow much less. So good. Thank you, man.

The book, which has lived on the bestseller list for now almost a year, which just doesn't happen. It's like you, like I said, and James Clear are just hanging out at the top. Jocco is in there every once in a while. But it's called Unreasonable Hospitality, the remarkable power of giving people more than they expect. It is so good. The stories are amazing. The practical application could work regardless of industry.

And I highly recommend the book Unreasonable Hospitality. Will, thanks so much for being here, man. I love to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man. Let's keep it going, man. And if I could just plug one thing real quick, this fall I'm going to start a newsletter just because I'm itching to start sharing some of the thoughts I've had. Let's go. So anyone can sign up for that.

Just go to unreasonable hospitality.com and throw in your email. And every couple weeks, they'll be getting some new thoughts that have been percolating in my brain. Love it. That'll be linked as well in show notes. And I will follow up this talk with an email intro for Ken Blanchardman. But thanks again for Dean. Thank you.

This was phenomenal. man, I loved it. Thank you, brother. It is the end of the podcast club. If you're a member of the end of the podcast club, send me a note. Ryan at learning leader.com. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Will Gadera. A few takeaways from my notes. Spend the time to get to know your people. If you're leading others, it is well worth it. Spend the time. Invest the time to get to know them. And this never ends, by the way. And when Will told the story of his dad leading his own platoon in Vietnam, one soldier nicknamed Kentucky, wasn't in great shape, he was kind of lazy, but Will's dad took the time to get to know him and learned he had great directional skills in an area where they always got lost in the forest of Vietnam.

It is worth getting to know your people. Think about what can I do to better understand them, to show them I care, to show them that I truly want to get to know them. Then the best way to teach, or I should say the best way to learn is to teach, quote, teach with the intention of learning, learn with the intent to teach. That's the quote, Will's dad told him. Think about any moment when you're teaching someone else, whether you're up on a stage, giving a speech, a guest lecture, or you're meeting one-on-one with a mentee. You want to be clear.

You want to be helpful. You want to make sure you're adding value to the people's lives that you're teaching. That takes a lot of work. That takes a lot of preparation. So putting yourself regularly in the position of teaching others is not only the right thing to do in order to help them, but it also is the best way to learn. Then we talked about idea creation. Quote, too many people approach creative brainstorming by taking what's practical into consideration way too early in the process. Start with what you want to achieve instead of limiting yourself to what's realistic or what's.

sustainable. You can be reasonable later. You don't need to be reasonable now. At the beginning, let's start with big, broad, anything as possible type ideas and then scale down later to be realistic. In order to have big stuff to happen, you've got to think big and you start big. And then later on you can work on being more reasonable or figuring out cost or all of the potential limitations. But when we're getting started, let's go big. Once again, I want to say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two. Hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Will Godera. I think he'll help you become a more effective leader. And because you continue to do that and you continue to go to Ryanhawk.net,

which launches you into iTunes, Apple Podcasts. And once you're there, you write a thoughtful review and you hopefully rate the show five stars. And by doing that, you are continually giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk you soon.