GAIN Momentum - Lessons from Leaders in Hospitality, Travel, Food Service, & Technology

​GAIN Momentum episode #60: Discussing the Book "Unreasonable Hospitality" for Hotels | with Neil Foster
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Adam Mogelonsky: Welcome to the GAIN Momentum podcast, focusing on timeless lessons from senior leaders in hospitality, travel, technology, and food service. We have a special episode today as part of our book series, and today we are reviewing Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara. And this is a very foundational book, even though it's only been published about three years ago.
Uh, but it is very seminal, very foundational for hospitality because of the nuances that it drills down to in terms of what it takes to be the best, what it takes to really be perfect, and what it takes to go beyond the pale of what's required. Neil, uh, as always, great to have you on here for a book discussion.
It, it is a bit of a book review, but really we're focusing on the lessons that hoteliers can take away from this and apply to their own operations to really, really become a true, true hospitality culture and a hospitality organization. So to start off with, we're going to start by defining the two words of the title.
And we're going to go in order. So the word unreasonable, unreasonable, what does that mean to you, Neil? And what do you take away from how, how, uh, the author describes it?
Neil Foster: Well, um, first of all, great to see you again, Adam. Thoroughly enjoy these book series that we've been doing. And this one I feel is probably the most relevant yet that we're covering. And so unreasonable hospitality is a bit of a double entendre because on first reception, It seems adverse. It seems like it sort of hits you in the face and you think, well, hospitality should be embracing.
It it should be all things warm and nice. Uh, when someone uses the term unreasonable, it's normally in the context of, something negative or something, uh, that one can't reason with. But the double entendre comes where you consider that hospitality is about feeling. It's about emotion.
It's about all the quantities that are difficult to, to measure, most of which are subjective. Uh, hospitality is, is a degree of warmth that you, you might feel going to your, your grandmother's house or a close friend. Unreasonable is something that you can't reason with and, well, if you can't If you can't sort of reason with feeling, then it would follow that unreasonable hospitality is, uh, is really the feeling element that is quite separate from the thinking or the logical side of most businesses.
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, as, as background here. Will Guidara was the front of house director for 11 Madison park, which from now on, we can refer to that or as EMP as an acronym. And a lot of the unreasonableness that he inscribed was really about the difference between. a checklist for service, and then going beyond what's required and always looking to be obsessed with doing better.
And it's very reasonable to develop your standards and stick to your standards. And it's unreasonable to continually try to go beyond those standards and look for those things that are. On the surface, irrational or unnecessary. So that's really where I see unreasonable coming in is it implies the obsessiveness of incessantly pushing boundaries.
And another aspect to this unreasonable quality is this whole idea of the 95 5 rule that the book. instills and Neil, could you start off by describing what what is meant by this and what you think of it?
Neil Foster: Uh, certainly. So, um, you have. I guess the the premise of it was to have sort of a 5 percent slush fund for fun, or to basically break it out so that you have basically will will go with our talks about corporate smart versus restaurant smart and argues that the two mindsets are. Uh, what he actually calls sort of conflicting goals, that you have perfectionism, uh, and sort of, um, precise attention to detail, which would follow, uh, very well within the confines of the corporate side.
But then he talks about sort of the hospitality or the warm side of the experience, which would probably fall within the restaurant side of things where there's more subjectivity. So, well, basically talks. So the 95 5, uh, references also the, the budget where 95 percent of the budget is managed, uh, through sort of the, corporate smart, uh, perspective.
And then the 5 percent is for all of the delight. Uh, all of the amazing things that hospitality can do for the, guest experience. Is that also your sense of, uh, the 95. 5, that, that breakdown or is there another perspective to add?
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, I think, uh, the 95 percent is the corporate meticulousness to be very structured and to match or exceed expectations in a very, uh, diligent and. very, uh, left brain sort of way, a very analytical way, whether that's, you know, training and, and quality control, and then, uh, developing your, your brand standards and your, Bible and all that stuff.
But the 5 percent is the team empowerment to take ownership of their own work and that, and then to sort of intuitively feel where they can go beyond what's just expected and explore forward. New ways to advance the actual culture. So, um, another example here that you can look at is at certain Ritz Carlton properties, uh, and Ritz Carlton reserve, their sort of newer ultra luxury resort brand, they have a 2,000 discretionary spend for any error recovery, such a situation.
So team members are empowered to resolve. Error recovery situations right on the spot up to $2,000. And that's sort of the, the 95-5 where the 95% is saying, okay, what's the, what's the feasible limit we can put on this without running into the red? And then also, how can we eliminate these errors from ever occurring in the first place?
So we don't need to spend $2,000. And the 5% is saying, well, how are you gonna spend that $2,000 or up? Up to that amount in order to make the guest feel happy and feel respected and feel like they are at this very, very special resort. So that's sort of how I define. The 95, five, and there are some little examples there that we'll get our mentions and one of them is the coat check.
Neil, do you remember that example from the book?
Neil Foster: It's really incredible. So you're, you're referring to towards the end, sort of this, uh, synchronicity of, of all of the different activities. So yeah. Yeah. I guess one piece was that the, the reception or the reservationist is the person that the guest would actually also be greeted by at the restaurant.
And there would be a synchronicity to the whole experience to minimize the friction. That also included a full bottle of cognac that was delivered with the bill at the end of the meal. Um, which implied also a degree of trust. And I think what you're describing with the Ritz Carlton service guarantee, uh, speaks to a level of trust that.
The underlying belief is that most of your guests are going to be honest and that they're not going to invoke the service guarantee unreasonably, uh, but that you account for, basically, uh, any, any sort of imperfections. Uh, and that there's sort of some, some trust implied. Starwood Hotels actually also had, uh, years ago, they had a service guarantee.
If you're not satisfied, we're not satisfied. And empowered all of the line people, uh, also to be able to make a, decision on the spot. Whether it was, uh, bonus points or, uh, a credit for the restaurant. And I guess one of the challenges is that the devil is in the details in structuring these programs.
Um, and I think sometimes, perhaps it, it happened with, in the Starwood implementation, that there were still some line people that didn't feel fully empowered, that they still felt that they had to ask their, their management for approval. or if they gave out too much. That there, there may be a little bit of a fear of, a little unhealthy pushback.
So either you're open armed about it, uh, or you're not. And I guess this is where the 95 five, it sounds easy, uh, but it's actually much harder in practice to figure out that true nature of collaboration and trust, uh, and sort of working above sort of the precise. Uh, sense of how business operation ideally works.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. I mean, um, there's an important psychological principle here, which is the peak end rule. And it's actually by, the the famed psychologist, uh, Daniel Kahneman, who described this. And basically, people remember from an experience, when all is said and done, they'll remember the peak of that experience, and they'll remember the end.
More than any other point within that experience. And the reason why code check comes back to this is a lot like the front desk experience where you don't want to end on a transactional note. So if you have a guest who drops their code off, takes a ticket, they have this incredible meal, 12 courses, 15 courses, best fine wines, whatever.
And then the end of that experience is them going back to the code check with their ticket. And then exchanging that, and that's the end point. It is very reasonable to say, well, that's fine. You know, it's, it's transactional. We, we just want to make sure their codes are secured. And then we're, we're still saying thank you to them as they're, as they're leaving the code check.
The unreasonableness comes in by saying we can do better. We can make that transactional mini experience invisible. By remembering people's coats and then having a, a signaling relay system that's silent between all of our staff members. So that way, right. As they're finishing up that little bit of cognac at the table, their coats are already just there, just there for them.
Right. And it's, it It still has a lot of systems underneath it, but the core impetus for investigating how to do that, how to make that invisible. Was all that 5%. And, you know, you mentioned that bottle of Cognac and that is something when you, when you travel and you see different expressions of hospitality from around the world.
That's something that's very common in Greek and Balkan culture, where you don't just drop off the bill, which is transactional, you're leaving people saying, Hey, fess up, give me money. You drop it off with a bottle of rakia and you say, here, finish the bottle, get get drunk, you know, it's. Have fun. That's, that's what it's all about.
And so we see this repeated throughout time, these ways to, either mask the transactional or to make it invisible. And we want to see this more where I want to see this more is the front desk, where we have a check in process, where, what are we doing a check in? Where. we're taking a credit card for incidentals.
So even though it's something we have to do, you're essentially saying, Oh, we don't trust you enough, right? there should be a way through technology to, to get that, uh, that fiscal card authorization, instead of it just being card not present. Similarly the checkout process is saying, well, Great.
We've noticed that, uh, you don't have any minibar charges. Would you like us to print out your receipt or are we okay? Emailing that. Right? So it's transactional at, at either end and we don't want to end the hotel experience on that. So the other example before moving on is, is what Will Guidara talks about for coffee service.
So we have the alcohol masking of the cognac or the rakia in Greece as they do, but then they also have the coffee service where people are having coffee at the end and they have this great prefix meal. And their beverages are incredible, whether it's the, uh, the beer sommelier, the chicharron or the wine sommelier, but then the coffee didn't match the quality.
That was something that he noticed. So they really wanted to focus on that, the end of the peak end rule to make the coffee just as great as the rest of that 95%.
Neil Foster: That's a really great point and I guess coming back to unreasonable that whenever you're going against the status quo, someone's probably going to call you unreasonable. So to that exact point, what he argued was that most fine dining restaurants have a wine director. And if you ask that wine director to figure out coffee, they're going to look at you like you're crazy.
Wine is my, is my wheelhouse. So that's out of my lane. So I think the genius in what he did was he identified not only, uh, that there was a need to have a good coffee and he called it sort of that, that last inch. Uh, so imagine you have an incredible experience and at the very last Uh, part of the experience that that someone drops the ball, to your point a little bit earlier, if guests remember the beginning or the end of the experience, imagine 99 percent of that experience is incredible.
That last 1 percent is terrible. That 1 percent is maybe the cup of coffee. So he introduced not only a coffee expert, he had a director of coffee, a director of tea, a director of beers. And he really pushed hard, uh, to try and figure out how these folks can be the absolute best in their domain. Um, using that 5 percent that you mentioned earlier in terms of collaboration, I think what Will Guadara does as sort of a, uh, a protege of, of, uh, Simon Sinek is he basically helps to unpack the why.
Uh, and so by having teams that understand the why of the experience, it's so much easier to be able to then figure out process and, um, clear process and then the jazz or the improvisation such that that team is still able to work effectively towards that. Why?
Adam Mogelonsky: It's a framework. And just for reference to all of our listeners here about what can be done for coffee in terms of up leveling it and looking at single origin, look up a place called shot London shot in all caps where they've gone out of their way to source some of the most unique coffees in the world.
And some of these coffees per shot per cup, they're charging 250 pounds. That's how unique the coffee is they're doing. So people who are thinking they've done enough with their coffee service, brother, you have not at a luxury level. So. We're going to move on here. We've defined the first word, or hopefully we have.
Now let's define the second word, hospitality. And a lot of times, hospitality is defined in contrast to another word, lodging. So Neil, could you offer some contrast between those two words and what you believe to be the true definition of the word hospitality?
Neil Foster: Absolutely. So it's so interesting, the nuance between the words and perhaps most of us haven't the foggiest clue what the difference is fundamentally. And I think to some degree, the industry has not really, uh, done that. We haven't as an industry done ourselves enough favors to help in sort of distinguishing between the two.
One thing that will good are mentions in in the book is he says that people that are In the hospitality industry that are successful, uh, are typically very caring people, very sort of emotionally attached people. and perhaps by contrast, not always super disciplined. Not always sort of, um, measured and regimented, and I guess looking at sort of the two sides that you have the passion on the one side, and then you have the logic on the other side, that hospitality is really sort of that passion, that feeling, the things that you remember.
one thing that I just want to very briefly share here is that I had a, an incredible experience at the restaurant, Daniel. Uh, Daniel Balud's restaurant in New York for my dad's 60th birthday, our family flew from Toronto to New York. It was, uh, an exceptional trip, something that, uh, no one does every day, uh, or at least not, not normal people, but, sort of. I guess connecting with, with the, the essence of Michelin and the Michelin Star system that Michelin was a tire company, and what Mic Michelin's, rating system did was it helped diners figure out what's worthwhile to travel to in terms of restaurants. So, the, uh, traveling from Toronto to New York, actually it is a pretty distant extreme from, uh, traveling from the suburbs to, to downtown to a restaurant to, to have an experience.
Now, that experience, uh, was, every small detail was attended to in a way that, that wreaked hospitality. So we, we get there and the menus are personalized, has my father's name on them, was a, a sense of what he liked, and I guess, to be honest with you, I can't remember exactly what we ate.
I know that I've got a copy of that menu somewhere. I haven't seen it recently. But what I can say is that my dad will always remember that experience. All of us will always remember that experience. And as I'm relating it back to you, that experience was 18 years ago, and I remember it. Clear as day. So,
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, not clear as day because you don't remember what you ate.
Neil Foster: I, I remember, I remember the feelings as clear as day.
So if I remember the specifics, that would have been sort of that 95%. That would have been the logical brain to say, well, you know, I had a steak. It was medium. Well, I think there were some potatoes. I would be precise in my answer, but what I can say is that my answer is all about heart. Uh, the objective was fulfilled.
My dad's 60th birthday was an experience for him to remember for the rest of his life. And so, um, I think this is really the hospitality, that feeling that, uh, that those of us in the industry really sort of, that those of us that are interested in, delivering true hospitality aspire to in an unreasonable fashion.
And so, lodging is basically, when you look at sort of the hotel industry, hospitality is Basically, that Daniel Bouloud experience as it, as it applies to lodging and a restaurant or an eatery serves food, high end restaurant, uh, delivers hospitality and high end food. And Will Goddard talks about that also when he talks about a symbiotic relationship between the chef Danny and his relationship to, the dining room and providing that experience.
So it's sort of the yin and the yang. Uh, that come together. So hospitality, you've got the rooms and you've got the experience on top of that. Uh, lodging is just simply, the accommodations.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, I think that's a perfect way to, to describe it, sort of the left brain, right brain and going back to your mention of the Michelin guide, one element of that was it was trust. You know, we're driving around in France and then across Europe, who can we trust to deliver us a great meal with great hospitality and potentially some, some heads and beds lodging within there.
So when you went down for your father's 60th birthday to New York, you were trusting the team at Daniel with one of the most important moments in your life and your father's life and your family's life. It was trust. And they delivered upon that, and they anticipated needs, they were a great host, they delivered that feeling to you that you will cherish for a lifetime, and you still do, because it was 18 years ago.
So that's the way I see it, is the feeling versus, versus the um, I guess the operations of the physical nature of putting people into a room and giving them a bed, with clean bits in there.
I was going to say, you know, the, you mentioned another term there, which is relationships and relationships.
Are that emotional center of hospitality. So the lodging is the, is the FFNE and the hospitality is the teams, which are all built on relationships. And Will Gadara does a great job in the book of describing how these take time to form and they require meaningful conversations. And he's also talking of course, about how you invest in your team.
They become the leaders and then. In order for them to become leaders, you have to know when to delegate, I think is a very, a very important lesson in terms of that relationship building and nurturing a culture where everyone can support one another to deliver that feeling of hospitality.
Neil Foster: Very well said. And, um, just Tacking on to that a little bit, uh, it was Richard Feynman that came up with, a framework on how to understand something, and, uh, well, Gwadara touches on that, so what Richard Feynman said was that the only way that you can truly demonstrate mastery of a subject is in your ability to, to teach somebody that subject. And so, uh, the interesting thing about teaching is that it's an iterative process. And if you're looking at collaboration, and I think this is also mentioned in the book, is that the collaboration involved, uh, public speaking, that all of his people got up and They presented something and there was some feedback, uh, both by way of, information and, uh, the, the feedback in terms of the positive reinforcement, and the feedback sort of helped in two ways.
First, it enriched the knowledge, of the person presenting by having sort of this crowd source of, of information, but it also helped that person to form their confidence because they're up in front of their peers in a culture that's, uh, fundamentally reinforcing. And so this really a double whammy in terms of finding a way of overcoming the limitations of unreasonable that if you are able to truly, harness the abilities of the best performers on your teams, uh, then.
The knowledge is something that's intrinsically shared within the group and the positive reinforcements also share. I just want to add one other thing on that exact point is that he mentions that, hire slow, fire fast. Uh, and he actually sort of caveated that by saying that he actually really likes to hire lots of great people together because to him, it's a cohort Not unlike a cohort of students that are in college that are all sharing this first experience together, and they're not only able to demonstrate.
Uh, the the great things that they have to contribute, but they're all sort of their students and masters at the same time. They're hired for their knowledge and mastery, but they're all students of a new environment. And that combination is really incredible in terms of being being able to bolster the skills that they come in with and to find sort of that mutually trusting environment that no one, that there's sort of almost a support group amongst really smart, capable, interesting and curious people.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, it's such an incredible thing to think about in terms of sort of your freshman class and then your sophomore class when you're hiring. So they have that, that relationship going in. One other aspect to hospitality that's made in the book is the whole idea of the universality of hospitality, how right now you, you and I were both in the hotel industry, but hospitality really is more transcendent in terms of the feeling nature of it and what we're trying to go after.
And Gadara does a great job of illustrating this. In terms of how hospitality is applicable to other industries where they have some form of service culture that needs some idea of art form connected to it. And because of this, I do believe that hospitality will see a resurgence as a place for apprenticeships, not necessarily a career path, but.
A place for apprenticeships to really learn service and to learn what it means to be a host and to learn, to treat the customer right, and to develop that relationship. But that may be a little bit hard to see with the constant labor challenges that are, that the hotel industry at least is plagued with at the moment.
And Neil, I wanted to pass it over to you in terms of whether you see any potential in this idea of apprenticeships and hospitality and what hotels or food service companies could do to enable these, these apprenticeships and to help foster career paths. To help alleviate the labor shortages that we're suffering.
Neil Foster: What an excellent point. this is truly an interesting time to be in hospitality that, uh, that having a later labor shortage in a business that should be about fun and about giving great experiences to guests. it's sort of a contradiction, especially where, um, well, Guadarra talks about how giving is as wonderful to the person, uh, giving it's as wonderful to the person giving as it is to the person receiving if it's done in the right ways. So I think what's missing, if we go back to the 95 5 rule, uh, the 95% is about process. It's about systems, it's about discipline. It's about all of the things that that make for a well-oiled corporate machine.
And if there is a failure in, effective, um, apprenticeship or effective onboarding of, of new associates and even welcoming them into the fold, it's quite possible that too much jazz without, uh, sort of that, the substance of, uh, of structure, might not work so well. So from a different perspective, if you have a very clear.
Method of disseminating standards and expectations so that you get the tough stuff out of the way and everybody understands basically what the base expectations are. from that point, it's about fun. It's about working together and enjoying the experience of working together and being the absolute masters of your craft.
So when, when you spoke earlier about some of the, the fun and interesting things that, uh, that they were doing at, uh, 11 Madison Park, none of those nice to have things would be good, would be received well without the basic stuff. So imagine, um, you know, they bring the check with a bottle of cognac, but they didn't serve you your meal.
They forgot to serve you your meal or, you know, something was completely wrong. Um, that without having, having sort of that, consistency, it, it makes things hard. So I, I see the opportunity really being, with the big brands, uh, to find a bit more sort of clarity around, around standardization, uh, for independent hotels to give that some thought.
And there are some systems that are out there that help to sort of organize processes and make it easier for your employees, for your associates to communicate with each other. So, I think when you have sort of this, uh, going back to sort of education in, in a traditional sense, uh, when you're learning, often there's a, um, a self learning component, and then there's a collaborative component, uh, which I guess the apprenticeship is about, collective learning as a layer on top of.
Uh, mastery, mastery of the craft. I wonder, though, I don't know that that hospitality positions the opportunities as really exciting ones along those lines that really sort of give, um, that that sense that, hey, you're, you're entering a special domain when you're working with us. Um, we pay well, we give great experiences.
Uh, but more importantly, we've got your back. And so if the pandemic any sort of glimpse into what's what the reality of the industry is, and with all due respect, it wasn't an easy time for anyone. But there were layoffs, and there was sort of a broach of that social contract for those who stuck with it and figured, well, not be making what we feel that we should be, but we're going to stick with it.
We're going to remain loyal. So I think this is so twofold here. You have systems and processes, and then you have a trust element, uh, hiring the right leadership that can really ensure that, uh, that there is this social cohesion, uh, finding the right team players that work well together. And, uh, really making them feel truly that, that you have their back.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, you mentioned, uh, the pandemic in terms of the layoffs and some companies went that route, the other, some other ones went with a haircut across the board saying we're going to keep everyone on, but everyone's going to have to take, two months where they aren't collecting salary. And, uh, I, I, I do believe, uh, my memory's a little bit fuzzy cause I haven't re read the book, but I do believe, um, Gidara mentions that in terms of how EMP navigated the GFC, uh, there's some acronyms for you, GFC, great, uh, financial, um, crisis or the, uh, the recession that was, uh, 2008, 2009, and it saw a big drop off in terms of, People shelling out hundreds of dollars for luxury dining experiences on the regular.
so there's, there's a few more points here to, to touch up on before we get into our next big point. you know, there's this, this whole idea of how EMP really innovated on the cultural standpoint and developing those, those cohesions. it is just so critical to look at your teams and to think about how you're going to really drive the relationships home and empowering your teams.
So you mentioned that too much improvisation will lead to just all the service stuff going, going bad. And, but then you still need to have all that service. In place in order to meet the brand consistencies, but then too much of it. And you don't allow any room for the team members to develop true relationships with your customers.
So it's a little bit of a push pull
Neil Foster: This is. the law of the universe, order and chaos.
Everything sort of boils down to that, order and chaos, and sort of finding that sweet spot.
Adam Mogelonsky: yeah, well, I would say the sweet spot is you have to learn the rules before you can break them. So the 95 precedes the 5%. You have to have the brand standards down and the service has to be flawless. Before you can improvise. Um, here's an example. there's a new luxury hotel that opened up in Manhattan called the Manor Hotel and their rooms don't have televisions in them.
And you think my own travels, I don't use the television in the hotel room. I don't care. I'm not visiting a destination to watch Netflix. That's not how I unwind. I'll unwind by picking up the phone and calling someone or reading a book. So the most I've ever used the television for in my guest room, whether it's a five star hotel or a three star heads and beds lodging place, is to hang a t shirt on and then oftentimes when I pull that t-shirt down, it has a piece of dust on it because a lot of, housekeepers don't have the prop recipe to clean the top end.
Of the behind of the, of the TV's So that's actually a really good litmus test to see how often the teams are doing that deep clean. So hotels, think about that 95-5 breaking the rules. Do your hotel rooms need to have a television in them? What purpose does that serve? If it's just there to try to tell people about what's happening in the hotel, can't that be done with a, a tablet?
With a great UI beside the bed. Can't that be done with a great app that you're trying to get people on? Why do you need to have an interactive TV? And that's not besmirching a lot of the interactive TV companies that do a great job with setting up stuff for those TVs in order to sell, in order to talk about what, what's on, tap for downstairs in the public spaces and the amenities, But just thinking about that, you know, we, we have these, these standards, Industry standards, but we have to ask, why does that need to pertain to your hotel or your new brand if you're starting something, so it's very interesting to look at that and you could drill down and go, well, why do you have an in room phone?
That's a little bit of a crazier one. And the reason is nowadays is. You have the in room phone because it delivers psychological security, not be as anyone's going to use it, but simply seeing it there is security knowing that they have it there in case their cell phone breaks and they need to immediately dial down to the front desk or 911, et cetera.
So it's very cool. Let's move on to our third key topic here. We've defined unreasonably defined hospitality. Third is this really critical lesson and one that. I've made the mistake of four in the past, and this is why, uh, I really want to focus on it, which is celebrate publicly, criticize privately Neil, could you describe how Guidara talks about this in the book and what you've experienced firsthand that relates to this lesson?
Neil Foster: Oh, sure, so this is management 101. But the interesting thing, I think, is, again, going back to the culture of hospitality, that if you have people that are passionate, that wear their heart on their sleeve, that sometimes it's hard to sort of regulate. And what he says by this, and it also sort of pulls a page from Simon Sinek's book, Start With Why, is that when you're sort of building team cohesion and you're trying to sort of figure out how to build trust in an organization, you want to make sure that that the negative sentiment doesn't damage fragile relationships.
So, I think he mentioned a situation, uh, in, in the kitchen and kitchens are notorious for bad behavior, I think, in, in the industry. Anthony Bourdain, who's also, I would say he's one of the greats, like Will Guidara in terms of understanding the essence of hospitality. He talks about some of the cultures that are hard to change.
Um, actually, Wilwood R talks a little bit about sort of these languages, uh, that, that are inherent to the cultures or the subcultures within hospitality. So in the kitchen, there's sort of a certain way that things, that things are done. but I think in terms of building that, in terms of building motivation, um, and building trust with your people.
that if there's an issue, it's important to be direct with them in a private place so that you're not embarrassing them already. It's not always easy to be, uh, direct about the things that don't make you happy if you're upset about something, but criticizing privately, uh, shows restraint, it shows discipline, uh, and discretion, and it allows you to have.
A very, candid discussion on how to change things for future, uh, publicly public celebrations. Adam, if you're like me, I love to celebrate, love good feelings. And the thing about the human nature is that feelings are contagious. Bad feelings are contagious. So if somebody is, uh, if somebody is, is, is criticized heavily by their manager, in an open forum, they'll probably be silence.
Uh, everyone will have their head heads down, not just the person that's being yelled at, um, in a celebrate in sort of, uh, in an environment where, uh, there are good feelings. Everybody feels good. And the person who's done well feels extra good because not only do they feel that they've done something right with their manager, they're also the reason that everybody else on the team feels good.
And that's a very powerful subconscious, uh, subconscious tool, I think, in both ways. So it's great that he's, uh, articulated this and definitely an important piece in getting that last 5 percent in your 95. 5.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, there's an important, uh, lesson that's tangential to this, which is cultivating great ideas. And that 5 percent is all based on great ideas. And you can't really cultivate it if you're criticizing publicly or shutting down ideas, because the second you, somebody brings forth an idea, whether it's right or wrong, it's coming from a point of passion.
if you shut them down publicly, they're going to be afraid to raise their voice in the future. And then you don't know a future idea that is actually great, that is actually going to help you get that 5 percent they might not be willing to voice themselves publicly. So from a standpoint of development of culture is really navigating the nuances of celebrating.
And criticizing publicly, privately is so important for developing your, your leaders in the wings, uh, who are going to have these great ideas and whether the, the good, the, the ideas are good or bad right now, you would want to say in, in private saying, okay, great. I really love the enthusiasm, but here's.
Why this may not work and you break it down, you explain it so that way, at least they know that you considered it and that you value their input and took the time to, to appreciate their input. So I think that's, it's a great trend, tangential lesson, just to this whole idea of celebrating publicly and related to that, going back to this whole idea of EMP during the GFC.
Is Ghadara made a point to celebrate even when times were dark. And I think that's very important as well as it's all too easy to celebrate when times are easy, but celebrating when times are bad from a team cohesion standpoint really shows that, that you're going to build the team and get people to stick, stick with it.
So did Neil, did you, pick out anything from the book related to that?
Neil Foster: I absolutely did. But I want to share one experience we talked in the beginning you'd asked about, or we talked a little about a little bit about hospitality outside of the hospitality industry. And perhaps one of the greatest examples of celebrating during a time of adversity involves one of the greatest leaders of all time, Ernest Shackleton, affectionately known as the boss. Now, here's his ship. It's stuck in ice in Antarctica in 1916. There's Very little chance that any reasonable person would think that any of this group would survive to safety. No cell phones, certainly no iridium, iridium phones or, Starlink to communicate with the outside world. And here you have the ultimate in trust.
This is a leader who has a bit of an asynchronicity of information with his people. And his people don't know that they're all going to die. Or if they do, they're going to see as a signal from, from their leader, whether it's a bad situation or not. And I remember reading that, on Christmas Eve, uh, the boss pulls out a Christmas pudding that he must have had with him through the whole journey.
And. He could have produced it at any point or, you know, discreetly enjoyed it by himself or found other ways of using this, but he knew that for his men to know that there's any hope of survival, that the mood, the positive sentiment among his men and that absolute trust must be upheld. And so there are a lot of other examples.
Within this story. So I urge all of you to read Shackleton story. Um, his ship, the endurance was recently found and there'll be a documentary coming up, coming out about that. So there might be a resurgence in industry in interest of his life. Uh, but basically here you have, uh, something that happens in the worst possible time and an element of unreasonable hospitality, you could say that, Brought sheer delight, uh, that would have brought sheer delight onto the faces of, of the men that were almost certainly destined for, for doom.
I think he talks about embracing, embracing adversity. And so in the book, he talks about how that, um, the global financial crisis was a terrible thing that, uh, that people were now thinking more about their discretionary income and probably eating more at Shake Shack's. Uh, than they were continuing, uh, considering, uh, E.
M. P. Uh, but what he talked about was the the playfulness during that time being able to offer that two course meal, uh, with the dessert cart that he can move around and, uh, get people excited. So when you think of the spin off effect, it's not only his people that are finding a little bit of an uplift during a time where other restaurants are laying off or shuttering their doors.
But also for the guests that are coming in, that they have another reason to feel good in a time where in their corporate jobs in high finance, when they're having to deal with all the nuances of the financial crisis, that they can actually escape all of that for a moment or two and enjoy a nice lunch at, at EMP.
So, I want to talk maybe a little bit later about an incredible. Tribute that a restaurant made to a, a guest, a longstanding guest. And so, perhaps the ultimate in sort of rewarding loyalty.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. Yeah. Well, we can move into our final key phase of this conversation, which is this whole idea of soft innovations and the word innovation, generally speaking, it implies technology, but it also implies this punctuated evolution or these great big leaps you make to innovate. And what Ghadara really emphasizes is that innovation.
It can be anything, and it can be something small or soft, and it can be incremental. And it really requires you to look at the nuances and to get the feedback to look for where, where any sorts of new ways of delivering an experience can occur. So one of the ways that he described this is through this whole idea of meaningful gifts.
And what, what they describe in the book is that they were, EMP was handing out desserts as a gift. It didn't make sense because the guests were just finishing a 10 to 12 course meal and having dessert. So the context was off because you're handing them out dessert and they're not able to enjoy it immediately afterwards.
So it's like, okay, I'm getting another dessert. I just had dessert. So instead what they did is they started handing out branded granola for the next morning. And it sort of fits with this whole idea of a peak end rule. Where the end point is them leaving the restaurant, or maybe the end point is continuing the relationship and understanding the context of how those memories are cemented over time.
In this case, the granola the next morning. So from the standpoint of soft innovations, what else did you glean from the book, Neil, and if you can offer any other examples that you've seen in the industry right now,
Neil Foster: The granola was a great example. And I thought, you know, if, if you consider that sometimes you're not remembered in the morning, that that granola was a way of bridging two days a way of sort of getting through the night and continuing that relationship. And so, it also showed courage where, um, I think he talks about these, uh, uh, really high end, uh, bonbons that are, uh, normally provided by, the high end restaurants as a, as a parting gift.
And that granola with pistachios and coconut doesn't seem to operate at that same level unless you consider the emotional side to it, that the morning comes and we're still with you and we'd like to see you again. We're here with you for the long term, not just today. Um, so there, there were several, several great examples of that.
And, uh, probably the most interesting thing about how he structured his organization was what, with what he called dream weavers. So again, if you consider sort of emotions and feelings and, the importance of. Of the, the left side of the right side of the brain to hospitality, uh, that when you think of Santa Claus, you think about all of these different images in your mind of, you know, I guess an alternate reality that doesn't always, that doesn't make sense unless you're considering it from a different perspective.
So what the Dreamweaver would do is to try and sort of understand all of these different things that could truly delight guests. connected with this, you had the Maitre'D that would Do a Google search for every guest that was arriving so that you would know what they look like. And rather than waiting for them to check in and to announce who they are, uh, that they could be greeted by name.
Uh, so both, uh, reducing the friction as well as sort of coming up with an innovation to make the operation flow more smoothly. there was an example of a family that had pretty much been everywhere. They'd done everything. They came in for a high end meal. And, but from a small comment that was made, they inferred that a hot dog from a ballpark would be a really interesting thing for the family to try.
Uh, so the book covers that whole experience a little bit more, but the delight from like a 2 hot dog served in the right way, uh, was something that was really interesting and certainly unconventional for, for a high end restaurant. And so thinking differently, I think comes down to being an absolute stickler for the details.
So the perfectionism that makes a company successful is not immediately compatible with hospitality at, at its grandest form. But in finding the connecting point between the two, so being obsessive about the details and injecting those details into the hospitality experience creates an unbelievable synergy.
I just wanted to go back very briefly to my experience with Daniel. If my dad's name was misspelt on that menu, it would have created a huge problem. We'd flown We basically flown to another city for a meal and that detail, which would have been the single most important detail of the whole experience basically signals that they don't at all understand the significance of the event, nor do they understand the person who is looking to feel the best and there's there's no worse feeling than I think maybe part of me might think that it's a trivial mistake, but But I think there's no greater show of respect than to be able to address somebody by name and to take the extra time to understand the pronunciation and the spelling of that person's name if you're serious about hospitality.
Adam Mogelonsky: yeah, I mean, it is, the proof is in the pudding, Story is in the specifics, as I say, so to end off our conversation here, uh, on another point about soft innovation is that it does always come back to storytelling and. This is what hotels and what hospitality is all about is it, it is storytelling.
So what story are you trying to tell and how are you creating memorable moments, uh, through theming delivering on the unexpected, but still having a strong brand standards and strong, uh, service delivery and, delivering upon your promise and going above and beyond and playing upon emotions. So I guess a question is, while the heart of the hotel is its operations, what is the soul of your hotel?
So the heart and soul, and then upon that is what narrative do you want to tell? And how does this reflect through every operation or facet of the business? And I think EMP really demonstrates that through the 95 to five rule. And I guess to offer one more example of what they're done, what they've done that ties into everything we're trying to do with technology and, and making the transactional invisible is, as you said, doing that background research that the maitre d was doing and that freed them up so they didn't even need a host station, like a little, um, pedestal or, uh, desk at the front to, to get people in, uh, the, the host or hostess station.
They didn't need that because that was a physical barrier. That was a transactional physical barrier. And instead the maitre d did, did the research and then so that way they, they knew their face at a time of day and, they didn't need an iPad or anything. They just, they already knew. And they knew roughly when they were coming to.
And, um, I think if, if you could offer one, one more closing example is to discuss. The hand signals and the language that the team built to silently deliver the service very quickly. And then also how they turned the aisles of the restaurant into one way streets to really speed things up. So that's it's service delivery, but also an innovation in a very soft way.
I'm wondering, Neil, could you, to close out, could you describe those two innovations that, uh, that they completed at EMP?
Neil Foster: So yeah, certainly, and that's a great example, Adam, by the way, of one of the Keysoft innovations is that they basically invented a language. So, uh, EMP is this beautiful, gorgeous hall, high ceilings. It's a big space. and I guess what, what Will Guidara discovered fairly, uh, fairly quickly was that to be able to figure out timing for such a big space was hard.
And you were saying earlier that the memorable pieces of the experience are the beginning and the end. And so in the beginning, having to wait for the glass of water, for the menus and these sorts of things involved, uh, a lot logistically for that big hall. So the mother of invention is necessity. Uh, as someone wise once said, and so out of necessity, they had to figure out if they were going to figure that third star review, uh, was to improve the service cycle.
So, because they had a close knit team, because the fundamentals that the foundation was set, in all the right ways, it made it so much easier for the team to adopt the language. The why, of course, was To save everybody time and to figure that experience, uh, to make that experience the best that it possibly could be.
So, um, in order to do that, they had to, uh, go to the 95 side of the fence and to figure out some really clear operating definitions on how that hall would operate. So they had a one way system of, travel, they had sort of that, uh, that traffic intersection, the right of way yielding, all this sort of thing, you know, in the same way that if you jump in your car, imagine there were no traffic rules, that you didn't have to drive on the right side of the street.
You could just drive however you want. There would be accidents and chaos and everything else. So the jazz. Uh, being the chaos, the order being sort of the systems and processes that those systems and processes enabled the jazz to work within some parameters that kept everybody safe. So to add to that, uh, so, um.
What they did was they had hand signals like a, uh, like a, a pitcher would have, uh, with a catcher, to figure out whether it's gonna be bottled, uh, sparkling still, or tap water. Uh, they'd send some sort of, uh, a discrete hand gesture. And most importantly, the, the best gesture of all, the best signal of all, uh, was the eye contact with the lapel touch.
which was a gesture that that reflected the need for help on DSO because the culture is strong and because there was a real sense of of sort of empathy and understanding how everything was working that these team members were constantly trying to read the room that it was easy for team members for associates to help each other in that way.
So I really like that example, and thanks for bringing that up. I think other restaurants, it says in the book that other restaurants emulated, uh, that way of communicating. And really, when you look at different cultures around the world, different cultures have different languages. And you and I had a little bit of preamble before this discussion, but there are some things that are encapsulated in the cadence of the language, sometimes indicate how that culture works.
it's sort of the DNA that the DNA has all of the instructions within it. And perhaps that language, the language is able to help one determine the, the pace of the culture, what might be meaningful, what might not be meaningful. And in some cultures around the world where there's Uh, a, um, an economy of words and a speed of communication, perhaps transaction, speed of transactions is more important.
So in a chaotic environment, uh, as any great society or culture would evolve, they develop their own language that helped them become more efficient and successful.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. And that's a great point to end off here is, you know, the, the whole idea, the, the reason why they were able to develop that language is because they were unreasonable about looking for it. And they had the fundamentals down the 95 percent to allow them to explore that 5%, which resulted in the signaling and the, uh, the one way aisles within their restaurant to really speed up and make that signaling work.
And then, of course, they had a culture which was built upon valuing the teams, uh, taking a haircut across the board instead of laying off, hiring in packs, as you said, and then celebrating publicly, criticizing privately. So it all works together. And, I would highly advise people to read the book.
It is very inspirational for everything we do in hospitality. And there's lots more lessons in there beyond what we've described in this, , Power Hour. So Neil, thanks so much for, uh, for coming on board. and, uh, you know, we'll have, keep going with this book series because there's so many great books to inform everything we do in hospitality.
Neil Foster: may I come back to one one thing that I said that I wanted to elaborate on a little bit earlier. So, uh, Simon Sinek talks about this. You take care of your people. They will take care of the guests and will good are made that crystal clear as he discussed on unreasonable hospitality. Now, I just want to share one example of a stellar relationship between.
Guests and the restaurant, uh, that the guest was served within. So this shows the ultimate in, uh, rewarding loyalty. Harold Cross was a frequent patron of the wayfaring tree at the Richmond Inn, which is now the Sheraton Vancouver Airport Hotel. And, Harold Cross died, uh, four years ago at the age of 98.
After Well, prior to, after I think 20 or 25 years of patronage, the restaurant renamed itself to Harold's, and they had dishes named after him, and he showed up every single day of his life, for lunch at this hotel. He interacted with other guests, he expressed all of the things that any, anyone in hospitality would understand.
So, a very rare example of how good hospitality and good human intention attracts. More good hospitality and human intention in the unlikeliest of places, uh, and the idea that this restaurant would rename itself to the name of their most loyal guests who embody all the values that they held to be near and dear, to me is just a truly incredible story.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, and, you're talking about service culture and the virtual circle that it creates. They're the virtuous circle. Uh, there we go. So at that point, Neil, thank you so much. It's been a great hour and a fantastic book to discuss.
Thanks.
Neil Foster: Thank you.