Intentionality isn’t a luxury or a business requirement - it’s a requirement.
Intention means that every decision matters, from the most obviously significant to the seemingly mundane. To do something with intentionality means to do it thoughtfully, with clear purpose and an eye on the desired result.
Prioritize the people who work in your organization over everything else.
Hire great people. Treat them well. Invest in their personal and professional growth. And they will take care of the customers.
Think about this when starting out your career. It’s easier to learn the right way to do things at the high end than it is to break bad habits. You can always take it down a notch later, but it’s much harder to go the other way. This is true in basketball as well. Always tougher to get a team to play tough and physical and pressure the ball later in the season if you started out being soft and passive at the beginning.
There’s great power in being the underdog. Wear your outsider status like a badge of honor.
Dining room managers would trail people in the kitchen when they first started with the organization. The idea was for them to get an idea of what actually goes on and gain a healthy respect. They performed mundane, physical, dirty duties like deveining shrimp for three hours and getting up to their elbows in shrimp guts.
Two things happen when the best leaders walk into a room. The people who work for them straighten up a little, making sure everything’s perfect. And they smile, too.
Simple gifts have the power to blow people’s minds. Systemizing it has power. And the more normal it becomes for you to give these simple little gifts, the more extraordinary it can be for the people receiving it.
All it takes for something extraordinary to happen is one person with enthusiasm.
Let your energy impact the people you’re talking to, as opposed to the other way around.
When somebody believes in what they’re saying, after a while - so will you.
Never forget how much your trust means to people.
Developing a sense of ownership in the people who work for you will go a long way.
Language can build culture by making essential concepts easy to understand and teach. Develop phrases around common experiences, potential pitfalls, and favorable outcomes. Repeat them over and over. Use them in text messages, emails, meetings, etc.
CONSTANT, GENTLE PRESSURE. Everyone in your organization should always be improving a little bit at a time.
BE THE SWAN. This phrase reminded them that all guests should see was a gracefully curved neck and meticulous white feathers sailing across the pond’s surface - not the webbed feet, churning furiously below, driving the glide.
MAKE THE CHARITABLE ASSUMPTION. Assume the best of people, even when (or perhaps especially when) they aren’t behaving particularly well. Instead of immediately expressing disappointment with an employee who has shown up late and launching into a lecture on how they’ve let the team down, ask first, “You’re late - is everything okay?” When somebody is being difficult, it’s human nature to decide they no longer deserve your best service. Take a minute to consider things you may not have considered. Maybe the person is being dismissive because their spouse asked for a divorce. Maybe they just found out a loved one is seriously ill. Perhaps this is a person who actually needs more love and more hospitality than anybody else in the room. When you start focusing on extending the charitable assumption to the people around you, you will start giving it to yourself a bit more as well.
There are certain concepts you should introduce people to on their very first day in your organization. Think about them ahead of time. The importance of these meetings is that they send an immediate signal: There’s a certain way we do things here, and it’s bigger than teaching you how you move through the dining room or how to prepare a dish. Make sure everybody introduces themselves with a line or two. These introductions are also a message. The fact that the head of the company is willing to use at least half the meeting to take time to hear from everyone individually will make a big impression.
One thing to have in your organization: The idea that taking care of one another will take precedence over everything.
After those introductions, walk people through the phrases and the roles they play in the culture. Show them right away that these words matter. DON’T FOCUS ON THE WHAT - FOCUS ON THE WHY.
A “cult” is what people who work for companies that haven’t invested enough in their cultures tend to call the companies that have.
When your bosses walk in, you should want to hustle a little harder - not because you are scared, but because we want them to see we are on top of our part of the process.