The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 297 - Unreasonable Hospitality

Transcript:

Pete: Hey, Jen.

Jen: Hello, Peter.

Pete: If I was to say you are unreasonable, would you take that as a compliment?

Jen: Depends on the day, Pete.

Pete: I feel like it's commonly not thought of as a compliment.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: To be unreasonable is to be negatively associated with something. However, I just re-listened to one of my favorite books of the last couple of years, which is Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara.

Jen: So good.

Pete: And the way that he talks about being unreasonable is nothing but positive, and it's re-sparked a bunch of different thoughts. I realized we never talked about it, and so I want to talk to you about: How do we practice unreasonable hospitality?

Jen: I loved that book. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: So listener, obviously, I'll put the link to this book in the Box O' Goodies. However, I'll also add the TLDR, which is this like twelve to thirteen minute TED talk of Will Guidara talking about one particular story that kind of summarizes the entire book. Okay, so I guess some context. Will Guidara was the general manager of this very fancy restaurant in New York, called 11 Madison Park. I mean, I don't know it as an Australian, but I feel like I know it now, based on this book. And basically, he tells a series of incredible stories that make up one giant story about how he and his team turned around this business to make it eventually the number one restaurant in the world.

Jen: Right.

Pete: And the premise of all of the things he did (which again, is the title of the book) was to focus on being unreasonable and creating the conditions for unreasonable hospitality. And I feel like this rhymes with sparking joy. It rhymes with a few other things we've talked about before, around good finding. But also, just what an awesome posture as a business owner to take, to start to look for, very deliberately look for, where are the places that you can delight your guests, unreasonably so? Like, unreasonable in the sense that you would never expect this to happen, this positive awesome experience to happen, and yet it did. So that's, I guess, a little bit of context. Is that a fair summation?

Jen: Yes, it is. Can I share two little side notes, Pete? Pete?

Pete: Of course, of course.

Jen: I have twice eaten at 11 Madison Park.

Pete: Oh my gosh. I was going to ask you if you had. Because the way that he describes it, I'm like, "My god, I want to try this place."

Jen: So, the first time I ate at 11 Madison Park was in the summer of 2001.

Pete: Woah, that's a while ago.

Jen: And the second time...so they were named the number one restaurant in the world in 2017, and I ate there in 2018.

Pete: Wow.

Jen: And it was a very different experience.

Pete: Was it unreasonable? Was it crazy? Was it ridiculous?

Jen: It was unreasonable. It was incredible. From the moment I entered to the moment I left, I felt like I was a princess. But it was unpretentious, that's the thing.

Pete: Right.

Jen: I felt so taken care of and so special, but none of it was stuffy.

Pete: Right. Yeah. That makes so much sense, based on so many premises of the book, where he talks about how the servers should be able to have conversations and that it shouldn't be a pretentious experience. It should be like you're in the middle of and amongst a conversation with friends.

Jen: Yes. They even, at the beginning of the meal, handed us this box, and they asked us if we'd like to put our phones in the box.

Pete: Oh, that's good. I love it.

Jen: So we put the phones in the box, and the phones were gone. They just really encouraged us to be present and enjoy everything that was happening. It was amazing.

Pete: Yeah. I mean, there's so many examples from the book of what unreasonable hospitality looks like. The one in the TED talk...I don't want to share, because it would ruin the TED talk. I think you should just watch it. But like, there was one example that I just think of which I thought was so genius, was the way that they changed their approach to greeting people at the door. Which was, basically, they had a bunch of reservations with people's names on them. And so, they would Google the people and inevitably find a photo of these people. And then, as you walk through the door, they'd be like, "Hey Jen, welcome to 11 Madison Park." And you would be like, "How the hell did you know my name? I didn't say that my name is Jen." And like, you would immediately feel like, "Woah. This is different. This is crazy. They know my name."

Jen: Yep.

Pete: In a delightful way. So I'm thinking about that, and I'm thinking about all these other examples. And I start to ask myself, "How might I, or how might we take inspiration from this idea of delighting people in a way that is totally unreasonable?" And it's reminded me of so many things. So firstly, this idea that Seth Godin has talked about to you and I, which is like a mental model for service-based industries, is, "It's expensive, and you get more than you paid for."

Jen: Right.

Pete: And I always have just loved that as like a way to think about pricing. It could be expensive, and you can still give them more than they pay for. It also reminded me of this other concept that we've talked about (again, we can get into each one of these), this idea of like doing things that don't scale, which Brian Chesky, who founded Airbnb, has talked about in many different capacities. And so, I'm just like...I don't know. I feel reinvigorated around this idea of delight, and sparking joy, and doing things that don't scale, and creating the conditions for like little magical moments that sometimes we just forget when we're like in the day-to-day of working with our people or our clients.

Jen: Yeah. I read the book, I think it might have been last year, and I found myself seeing the world through unreasonably hospitable glasses. Like, "How could I make this a little more delightful? How could I make this experience different or better at the studio? Or when I'm doing a workshop or if I'm delivering a keynote, like what are the little magical moments that you can create for people?" Because it really does change that person's experience.

Pete: Totally.

Jen: So when someone new comes to my studio, I now really try to say their name before they introduce themselves to me, which is something I took from that book. Which is, it's so nice to be noticed, and it's so nice to be known and seen, and that is something they do really well at my gym, Mark Fisher Fitness, that the second you walk in, they greet you by your name.

Pete: Hmm. There you go, shout out. I remember many, many, many years ago, there was a new executive joining this company that I was going to be reporting to. And there was like ten of us in this team, this project team, and the executive came into the office to meet us all like a month before they were due to start. And as we walked into the room, he was like, "Oh, you must be Pete," and shook my hand. And I remember thinking like, "How did you know that? That's kind of impressive." And already, I had this like warm association with this person, just purely based on that. I mean, it's kind of wild that it's unreasonable now to to know somebody's name, but it kind of is. It kind of is, in the world that we live in.

Jen: Yeah, that's true. Something else I really remember from the book is this hand signal thing they had going on between servers.

Pete: Oh my gosh.

Jen: Actually, between the entire staff, where they would put their hands behind their backs and then signal to other people who were in the room what was going on at that table. And then, something would magically appear at that table. And the way he describes the experience of coming up with the signals, kind of like in baseball when the catcher is signaling to the pitcher, that everybody who was working there was really bought in on this idea and they loved it, and they had so much fun, and it started to almost become a game like, "Who can answer the call fastest?" And this idea of the teamwork that it takes to really create an entirely unreasonably hospitable environment.

Pete: Yeah. I mean, I think that...II mean, the book is about a restaurant, but it's a masterclass in leadership.

Jen: Yes.

Pete: Like the story of empowering one of the team members who was really passionate about beer, to reinvent the beer menu. Because at most restaurants, the wine sommelier is also responsible for putting together the beer list and maybe even the coffee list. And his point was, "Yeah, but they're not even interested or passionate about beer or coffee, and their specialist area is wine. And yet, I have this young person on my team who, in his spare time, goes and looks for underground breweries and craft beers. So instead of me, the general manager, thinking I know anything about beer, why not empower someone like that to create this beer menu that he was passionate about doing?" Which he ended up doing, and ended up being like this incredible experience for him. So, there's like all these little examples. The hand signaling is another one where he enrolls the team in the vision he's trying to create, the experience he's trying to create.

Jen: Yes.

Pete: And then, empowers them to bring about just amazing different things to feed into that vision or that experience. Which, I just, it's such a brilliant masterclass in leadership, the whole book.

Jen: I just heard you use a bunch of "E" words, so I feel like I just want to say them out loud,

Pete: Please. What did I say? I don't even know what I said.

Jen: Envision. Enroll. Empower. Experience.

Pete: I guess I would add, "empathize" with the guests. I mean, all of this feels like it's at a place of meeting the guest where they're at.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: Which is empathy too, right? It's just, yeah, all of those things. Huh. "E" words, got to love them. So I mentioned the Brian Chesky, "Do things that don't scale." I just feel like this rhymes with everything that Will Guidara was talking about. Which was, in the very early days of Airbnb, they had this idea of like, "What does a five-star experience look like?" And then, they tried to blow it up as a thought experiment. "What is a six-star experience? What's a seven-star experience? What does an eight, nine, ten," I think they got to like, "eleven-star experience look like? And how do you do these things or create these experiences that do not scale at all?" Which is kind of the opposite of what most start-ups do, to bring about unreasonable delight. And so, in the very early days...I'll share a link to this podcast where Brian Chesky talks about this. But there's a few examples, like they, the founders, would go to the listings and take professional-grade photos of the listings for the people, and meet them, and shake their hand, and go, "Thank you so much for hosting your place on Airbnb. We're going to use these photos, and they're professional." And obviously, you can't do that at scale when you've got millions of places on Airbnb now. But in the early days, that sort of thing enabled them to create like a community of people who felt so bought in and seen and enrolled with the vision that Airbnb was trying to create, because they did things that were unreasonable. They did things that didn't scale.

Jen: The thing that's coming to mind for me right now is that, you know, a place like 11 Madison Park is a pretty...I mean, let's just say it, it's a pretty darn elite and expensive restaurant.

Pete: Right. He acknowledges that in the book, yeah.

Jen: I mean, I was invited there as a guest to a dinner, so I did not pay for said dinner. But Pete, this was not a cheap meal.

Pete: Right.

Jen: So, that is what it is. But I also see that you could use this idea, and I've certainly experienced this in other places, where it's not about becoming the most elite or the most expensive or the fanciest or even the best in the world. It's about being the best in the thing that you do, as opposed to being awarded something.

Pete: Right. Yes.

Jen: Which, for those of you who decide to read the book, the award was very much the objective at first, "We want to win number one restaurant in the world, and we're going to do our approach to making that happen."

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: So, that was the motivator. But I recently went...and I can't remember if I've talked about this on an episode. I recently went with my family to this restaurant in Staten Island, Pete, where you and I went once.

Pete: Oh, I remember that well. That's an episode for another day.

Jen: But we went to this restaurant in Staten Island called Enoteca Maria, and it is a place that has different grandmothers of various ethnicities. They rotate in the kitchen, and they cook their own ethnic cuisine, so the menu is different every single night. And Maria, the original Nona there, is there every single night. So I took the family there, and she gave us the most unreasonable experience, in that she talked to us about everything on the menu. She came and watched us eat it. She asked us about ourselves. And Pete, she gave us hugs.

Pete: Aww.

Jen: Because she was trying to give us the experience of the best grandma dinner that you could possibly have. And it was just, it was so special. And after we left there, Cate, my daughter, who...she really does like a fancy meal. She really loves food. But she was like, "This is my favorite restaurant."

Pete: Wow.

Jen: Because she felt like she was loved.

Pete: Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

Jen: Nona Maria loved my family. She loved on us so hard. It was amazing.

Pete: This is amazing. Okay, so now the challenge for me has become, and I guess for people listening, is, "How might we create these delightful, remarkable, unreasonable experiences in the work that we do?"

Jen: Right.

Pete: And I feel like there are so many different ways one might do that. It doesn't need to be that you literally have to hug and cook dinner for every single person, if you're not a chef or a restaurant owner. But like, I'm trying to think myself, and I know you have done a version of this as well, of like, "How might we be more generous, more delightful, more unreasonable, more remarkable?" Something that's remarkable is something worth remarking at. And, you know, like the story you just shared, it's something that is so delightful or memorable that you tell someone about it. Which, I feel like in the world of you need to record a video for Instagram or TikTok or whatever the hell reel platform you're using, it's like counter to that is, "Can I do something unreasonable and remarkable and delightful that people talk about?" At least, that's what I left the book thinking. And I've been thinking about it every single day since. Like I'm sending an email, and I might think to myself, "What would an unreasonable version of this look like? What would a delightful version of this look like? Everyone receives emails all day, every day. How do you make this different, delightful, interesting, remarkable?"

Jen: I feel like you could do an unreasonable fill-in-the-blank situation, and just keep replacing it as per the scenario. Like, I'm thinking about my classes right now. So, "What does unreasonable support look like? What does unreasonable creativity look like? What does unreasonable honesty look like? What does unreasonable love look like?"

Pete: Right, right. I love that.

Jen: I'm into it.

Pete: I mean, one example I've been experimenting with is, I have this pre-recorded leadership development program that is live, at the moment, in a company with five thousand people that are going to be taking it. And at the end of the last video in this course, I actually give my email address and I say, "If you've made it to this final video, I want you to email me your commitment as a leader in this organization, and I will respond to you with some coaching questions about said commitment." Now, I think it's unreasonable in the sense that I could end up with five thousand emails. I don't think I will, but one could, and that would be a very unreasonable thing to have given yourself, to task yourself with. And it's unreasonable in the sense that it's not really what people expect when they're doing a pre-recorded course, because the nature of a pre-recorded course is meant to scale. Getting five thousand emails doesn't necessarily scale. But for me, it's a really small, maybe slightly different, little bit more remarkable, little bit more delightful, unreasonable thing to do. So, I'm like on the lookout for these kinds of things. And I just, I feel like we all need some more unreasonability in our lives.

Jen: Yes, we do all need some more unreasonability in our lives.

Pete: Is that a word? Did I make that word up. I feel like it works.

Jen: If you did, I accept it. And that is The Long and The Short Of It.