Some food for thought for restaurant goers, restaurant owners, and esteemed hospitality professionals.
A book I read recently resonated with me in a unique way. For the past few months I have been deeply contemplating what it means to find success in the restaurant business. What is the difference between good and great and how is greatness achieved. I am in this business because I believe in the power of people to change lives. That is to say my ability to positively impact the lives of our guests, the lives of our team members, and the lives of those within our community is what drives me day in and day out. My personal goal is to have a memorable and positive impact on as many people as I can reach in this short lifetime. Restaurants and hospitality are simply the vehicle I have chosen to reach you all.
While I am not yet convinced that I have all of the answers, or have completely figured out this question. If I do this right, I will have the privilege to spend a lifetime chasing this answer. The conclusion I have come to for now, and where I am now directing the energy of our business, is to address how our interactions make people feel. The hospitality business is founded upon the backs of all our guests. My thoughts on your experience do not matter—how we made YOU feel is what matters.
Perception…. The greatest of intentions can easily get lost in a sea of negative perception.
To some this might seem obvious, but I would argue it’s not. In fact, I know this first hand—as does every other restaurant owner. If it were, we would all be talking about it all the time. Things that are obvious are often communicated. 30% of restaurants fail inside the first year, and 80% fail inside of the first 5 years. If the answers were so obvious then 4/5 people who dive into the waters of hospitality wouldn’t be losing their life savings, setting their families back decades, and experiencing an intense and extreme emotional trauma few are equipped to handle. Complete devastation. 4/5 times this is where a restauranteur ends their noble journey. The point is—discourse is how we better ourselves. Discourse among other owners, discourse among our community.
We are community, not competitors. We are ALL on ONE team.
Inside an industry that is notoriously ego centric… at the end of the day, what I as the business owner think doesn’t really matter. How YOU, the guest, feels when you conclude your experience does. And everything we do should be in focus of this goal.
I heard a quote recently that resonated with me as a restaurant owner. It has profoundly changed the way I view hospitality. I share it here, with all of you, in hopes that it can impact your lives too.
I am paraphrasing slightly: “We can’t be in the business of making people happy and not care what those people think about what we do.” —Will Guidara
At this point, you might be thinking, where is he going with this? I will tell you.
Gordon Ramsey and Jon Taffer have popularized the hawkish, verbose, and often hard hitting eccentric style of criticism. The problem with this is that both Jon and Gordon say what they say from 1) a position of real experience, knowledge, and authority, and (2) from a place of love.
Back to what I said about communication. If it were obvious, it would be regularly talked about.
These men express their criticisms from a place of love. These men both passionately care about the people they are attempting to help. They also recognize the time constraints surrounding their missions (yes, it also makes for good television). Sometimes the only way to get through to people; deep in the throes of emotion—struggling to accept the reality of their impending failure; is to get tough, loud and in their face. 48 to 72 hours is an exceptionally short time to change someones entire way of existing.
Unique circumstances call for unique solutions. Ordinary circumstances oft call for ordinary solutions.
When feedback is provided in a bombastic way by those unqualified to give it in such a manner, or under circumstances in which it isn’t warranted, it is unproductive. When you act like this you are trying to inflict maximum pain upon the entity which you feel wronged you in some way. An evil intent when you think about it. Most just haven’t thought about it.. people are not inherently evil. Though, people are often uneducated on a subject.
This does not mean that all feedback should be banned from our discourse. In fact it should all be encouraged. For those that do not provide it in a productive way, we should aim to educate. People almost always take the time to provide feedback because they care, not out of spite, even if it may seem that way.
The charitable assumption. The charitable assumption is a principal I apply in my business. Simply, it is the difference between a glass half-full and a glass half-empty mentality. It means we assume that people inherently have good intentions, rather than jumping to the conclusion that they have ill intent.
I chose to believe in a world where people are inherently good, and they oft act with valiant intention. While restaurants will make mistakes, and they all have areas in which they can improve, they did not set out that day to ruin yours. Similarly, when a guest is dissatisfied with an experience, the restaurant should not immediately assume the guest wants a freebee, or “doesn’t get it”, or rationalize and justify why the guest is wrong. If you have been in this industry any amount of time, you know these reactions happen constantly.
How the guest feels at the conclusion of the experience is the only thing that matters… Remember… We can’t be “in the business of making people happy, if we do not care what they think about what we do.”
Listen. Make the charitable assumption. Come from your own place of love.
A fear of discourse is a fear of greatness. I for one want a great restaurant, because I want to positively impact as many lives as I can in my short life.
This is why I believe we should encourage discourse, good or bad, so long as it is constructive. Every restaurant owner should be in favor of this. Every restaurant goer should be in favor of this. This philosophy is completely congruent with the mission of supporting small business.
What is also true, is that we should all always aim to give 10x the positive praise as we do constructive feedback. This balance validates what you have to say when it isn’t necessarily what the other person wants to hear. It makes your voice infinitely more valid. It makes the entire communities’ voice more valid.
In order to better help restaurants in our community, I believe it is in all of our best interests to encourage both positive and constructive feedback. We should not limit this to only positive positions. This attitude hurts our restaurants and our community more than it helps.
I will leave you with one last quote: “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.” ― Will Guidara
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