Jubilant Learners Speak Up! An Interview with Danny Meyer

What makes a person a Joyful and Jubilant Learner?

The answers are found in most of the successful people we know, and we're intent on drawing them out so we can celebrate and share them. Welcome to our JJL interview series,

Jubilant Learners Speak Up!

One of the things I believe, is that we learn best from other people. When we started this series, we here at JJL had the goal of bringing the voices of learning coaches to you. Some of the people who immediately came to mind for us may not think of themselves as learning coaches, but we certainly do!

As we talked about the series, I put together a “silent list” of those people I would truly love to have us interview one day; silent in that I hadn’t shared it with the rest of my JJL team —yet, and silent in that these were people I thought of as my learning coaches even though the one thing they had in common was that I didn’t know them personally —yet. They are people I would love to know better because they have coached me through their writing or speaking, and I am intent on meeting them one day so I can let them know how much I appreciate what they have already taught me.

The very first name on my list was Danny Meyer. I had received his book as a Christmas present from my husband who bought it for me based on the subtitle alone, “the transforming power of hospitality in business.” As I peeled away the gift-wrapping, he said, “It sounded like he’s as nuts as you are about hospitality and what businesses are capable of should they choose to be.”

That was when a man I hadn’t yet heard of became one of my heroes. I have since written about Danny’s book, Setting the Table several times, and we’ll add those links at the end of this article, but first, we are very honored to introduce Danny to you within the transforming power of his own words. Meet Danny Meyer, “America’s most innovative restaurateur.”

In October 1985, at age twenty-seven, Danny Meyer, with a good idea and scant experience, opened what would become one of New York City’s most revered restaurants—Union Square Café. Little more than twenty years later, Danny is the CEO of one of the world’s most dynamic restaurant organizations, which includes eleven unique dining establishments, each at the top of its game.

From Setting the Table (page 11); “Hospitality is the foundation of my business philosophy. Virtually nothing else is as important as how one is made to feel in any business transaction. Hospitality exists when you believe the other person is on your side. The converse is just as true. Hospitality is present when something happens for you. It is absent when something happens to you. Those two simple propositions  —for and to— express it all.”   ~ Danny Meyer

Rosa: First Danny, I must say thank you. Thank you for writing a book that I have come to think of as a must-read primer for any business person learning about hospitality, a value we must elevate and allow to inspire in so many of our professions. You have added to my own coaching arsenal magnificently; I want to help you sell millions of them! For those of our readers who have not yet read your book, would you first tell us what that “good idea” you had was back when you were twenty-seven?

Danny:  Like so many entrepreneurs, it wasn’t so much that I had a good idea, as it was that I had an “itch” I had no choice but to scratch.  That itch was to create the restaurant that I would most want to go to being a food lover and wanting to be treated well.

Rosa: In your book’s introduction, you write, “Along the way, I’ve learned powerful lessons and language that have allowed me to lead with intention rather than by intuition.” I tend to think of both intention and intuition as powerful; why not lead harnessing both?

Danny: I do lead with both.  But like many intuitive leaders, I am not naturally analytical.  The discipline it took for me to sit down and write Setting the Table forced me to give language and words to those ideas which had always been obvious to me, but maybe not as evident to others.  Telling stories and drawing conclusions has allowed me to do a much, much better job of teaching and not expecting my colleagues to be mind readers!

Rosa: As a workplace coach, I very much appreciated how your stories opened up possibilities for readers to step into. In capturing those ideas and conclusions you had expressed, you invited us to live our own stories of hospitality at work, leading us in a very inspirational way. Do you make a distinction between management and leadership?

Danny: Absolutely.  I think of management as a way to keep things on track; to make sure all is safe and sound and functioning well – an important facet of any successful business.  Leadership is the act of imagining where to go, providing people with an uplifting, yet realistic idea of what the journey might be like, setting priorities, embodying what success looks like, letting people know how they’re doing, and supporting peoples’ success all along the way, saying thank you a lot.

Rosa: Danny, you have used language phrasings within Setting the Table that I love, making your stories and concepts so easy for me to recall and think back on. Examples jump out with chapter names like “The 51 Percent Solution” and “Constant, Gentle Pressure,” and another that drew comments here within my book review for you this past March was about the new managers’ “gift of fire.” Would you tell us more about “charitable assumption” (found on page 206)?

Danny: I believe that most people truly want to do their best and to succeed.  Too often, especially in a highly competitive arena, colleagues (not unlike siblings!) are quick to assume someone else was acting out of ill-intent.  Encouraging colleagues to sustain a charitable assumption –looking for the best in people – dramatically increases the odds that a team will thrive together.

Rosa: When you say “a team will thrive together” and I think about restaurants, managers are the ones who instantly come to mind for me as needing to find their place in that team. My husband, son and I had dinner out just last night, and I noticed a manager walking the floor with that Pigpen-like cloud I see in far too many restaurants around far too many managers, where it seems they just don’t belong, or are redundant. They seem to be just pacing, checking up on everything, and not knowing how to intercept their staff processes, much less a dialogue with a customer; it’s painful for a guest to even watch! What do you teach your managers about their role in the dialogue of hospitality? What would you suggest to all those restaurant managers out there so they can immediately make a change on their next shift?

Danny: Nobody wants to be in the near proximity of a skunk, and certainly nobody wants to work with or for one!  For me it’s simple: a manager should be constantly looking for opportunities to do thoughtful things for someone.  His or her first priority is to provide support – both technical and emotional – to staff members; next he or she should look, listen, and feel for ways to do thoughtful things for guests.

Rosa: As someone who earned her own server’s stripes in different restaurants, there were so many parts of your book where I cheered for you as the champion of servers everywhere! It was so refreshing and encouraging to read that hospitality is extended to everyone for you. However you seem to believe that only certain people are meant to be ‘hospitalitarians,’ for you say, “A special type of personality thrives on providing hospitality, and it’s crucial to our success that we attract people who possess it. (page 146)” So similar to the question often asked about leadership, are hospitalitarians born or made in your view?

Danny: In the same way as we are each born with a certain IQ that doesn’t much change over the years , I believe that we are each born (and to some degree raised) with a certain HQ – or hospitality quotient.  That HQ determines the degree to which we naturally derive pleasure from providing pleasure.  I wrote about a number of emotional skills that are typically at a high level in people with a high HQ.  I don’t believe they can be taught, but I do believe managers can be taught to identify and hire people with these skills.

Rosa: Now that you have written it, is Setting the Table used as a textbook for your training programs? I certainly would be! It has been said that great leaders draw from their personal stories, and you are a wonderful story-teller, with the added bonus that your book shares the values of your company told within the history of your company. In addition to hospitality, what are the core values you speak of most with your staff?

Danny: Yes, we use Setting the Table as a learning tool for our staff, and we refer to it frequently as a way to describe what works, and also what doesn’t.  I really wrote it as a case study in what was working.  By understanding what we do when we’re really on our game, we can be far more purposeful about doing it with greater frequency and consistency.

If I were to distill my job down to just two tasks they would be to make sure we were always fully stocked with hospitalitarians, and to hold them accountable for the degree of hospitality – respect and trust – they accorded one another.  At that point, we’d be capable of accomplishing almost anything!

Rosa: Those two tasks do accomplish so much; I think you give would-be leaders terrific insight on where their focus should be. Going back for a moment to that HQ factor, you said you don’t believe some basic emotional skills can be taught, and you hire for them. Having selected the right people, what do you expect they will learn once they begin to work within your company? If you were to jot down a short list of learning expectations for your hospitalitarians, what kind of things would be on your list?

Danny: It’s a hard thing to trust that you can achieve more by mastering your emotions and putting others first – especially in a high pressure setting of a restaurant.  But I think people learn to trust that you get more when you first give more.  They learn that the best way to get a hug, is first to give one.  They master all kinds of technical skills specific to our business, and they gain like minded friends for life.

Rosa: Learning is often connected to the word your publisher used in your tagline: innovation. What kind of innovation do you believe needs to happen within your business, or in business as a whole?

Danny: It’s a tired cliché – but it’s true: unless a business is moving forward, it will atrophy and die.  Staff members need to be challenged with new opportunities to perform at their peaks.  And while guests do return in part to repeat experiences they’ve loved, they too expect you to constantly find new ways of doing things.

Rosa: Having accomplished what you have, and knowing how universal your lessons-learned are, do you have any desire to tackle another field, or will there always be another restaurant waiting for you to open it somewhere? Are there other professions you’d love to learn about?

Danny: I’ve been fortunate to be able to continuously grow within my chosen field, and I’ve had the privilege of using restaurants to further explore a lot of my own personal interests – like art, music, cooking, wine, antiques, travel, meeting people, community investment, philanthropy and even politics.  What more could I want?!

Rosa: There is another quote I pulled from your book Danny, choosing it for the scrolling marquee when my laptop is on power save; “The courage to grow demands the courage to let go.” You explained this well in chapter 13, however bring us up to date since that writing; what are you letting go of now to continue in your own personal growth?

Danny: Each day my job is to ask myself whether any task I am doing is truly my best and highest use.  I must also ask that of every other colleague on my team.  A byproduct of our growth as a company is that we’ve continuously surrounded ourselves with talented colleagues with high HQ’s – many of whom are far better at what they know how to than I ever would or could be.  This allows me to spend more time thinking of ways to push the envelopes of hospitality and excellence, rather than being the guy who’s pushing them!

Rosa: Danny the core mission we have here at Joyful Jubilant Learning is to share lessons-learned that everyone can personally apply to their own learning. What would you say are those lessons-learned that have had the most impact in your life?

Danny: That nothing else rises to the level of hospitality – making people know you are on their side – in terms of distinguishing one organization from another.  Not performance, not anything.  Long after people forget what you served them, they’ll remember how you made them feel.

Rosa: What’s next for you Danny, and how shall we all keep learning from you, and with you?

Danny: My Union Square Hospitality Group (www.ushgnyc.com) colleagues and I are in the process of improving all of our restaurants, and meanwhile building our catering company, Hudson Yards Catering.  We’re interested in seeing if we can add anything to the dialogue on dining while at sports stadiums.  And one of these days, we’d like to have the experience of replicating something we’ve already done – like Shake Shack, (www.shakeshack.com) Blue Smoke (www.bluesmoke.com), or Tabla (www.tablany.com).

Rosa: Mahalo nui loa Danny, thank you so much for being my guest on Jubilant Learners Speak Up!

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Read more about Danny Meyer’s Setting the Table here on Joyful Jubilant Learning within our recent A Love Affair with Books: As I had written there;

Judge for yourself. If you are in business, a manager and a leader, I’d recommend you consider Danny Meyer as one of the mentors you collect, for there is great advice generously given within the pages of his book. On bookshelves full of the newest business books written by academics, journalists and theorists, look for Meyer’s Setting the Table in the company of stories from the trenches. From those trenches have emerged his very successful world class team, and you can read how it happens.

There are more links at the end of that review offering more about how I continue to draw the parallels between Danny’s business model with Ho‘okipa, the Hawaiian value of hospitality and the excellence it inspires in business.

Who might be one of your learning coaches? I hope my talk with Danny encourages you to seek them out too.

~ Rosa Say

Comments

[Joanna Young]

Rosa, Danny

I just wanted to say thanks for such a comprehensive and interesting interview - and for pulling out more general lessons and learning points beyond the hospitality business.

Joanna

[Rosa Say]

That phrase, “hospitality business” is interesting, isn’t it; it has become a kind of nomenclature that causes people to immediately think of certain professions and industries, when in fact, the spirit of hospitality is something that truly needs to pervade nearly every type of business we can think of.

Joanna, you were one of those who helped us express this very articulately in my last ho‘okipa forum! I remember the list you shared with us there, when you wrote,

“I have deepened my understanding of ho'okipa to include:
• respect for the dignity of other people
• generosity
• a sustaining environment
• a warm and sincere greeting
• anticipation and fulfillment of the needs of a guest
• dialogue - the interaction between you and your guest
• keeping your guest company
• establishing a relationship
• looking for the connections between you”

Those high HQ hospitalitarians Danny speaks of may have a more “innate edge” in some ways, but these are basic skills we all can learn to better incorporate in our businesses.

[Phil Gerbyshak]

What a marvelous interview! Well done Rosa! I am definitely going to pick up a copy of this book, based on this interview alone. Sounds like Danny has got his head on straight and can definitely teach us all a thing or two about hospitality. It's nice he took the time to share it with you, for all of us. GREAT stuff!

[Joanna Young]

Rosa, I agree, absolutely! I learnd so much about the values behind hospitality and their wider application from writing that piece... and am penning something again on hospitality in writing on the back of this interview

I wonder if the words do act as a label for some people and therefore as a barrier - I wonder if some switch off and think 'that's not about what I do' (and miss all the learning)

I realise I must be preaching to the converted here as spreading the word is a large part of what you do (and do so well). But I hope you know what I mean.

Joanna

[Rosa Say]

Joanna that has certainly been true in my teaching of MWA, and it happens fairly often: A leader here in Hawai‘i will call me after they have read my book because they are excited, and they want “more of managing with aloha” at their company. They ask if I can present for their managers and/or staff, and then the BUT comes … “but we aren’t in the hospitality business exactly … how will you tailor this for our industry?”

The other common thing I hear is how much non-profits, educational, and government sector businesses consider themselves to be so very different from what they very dismissively refer to as my “private enterprise” background and experience, often launching into soapbox speeches to better educate me. Kind of strange when people initially call you for your expertise, and then put you in your place about what you cannot possibly know! Remaining within the spirit of ho‘okipa takes a lot of ha‘aha‘a too (humility)!