So, Do you need help connecting fully with your staff? Does it feel like nothing you do inspires your crew? Do you need help finding ways to motivate your staff? If so, this show's for you a little bit. We're gonna be bringing on Edwin Kumar and Chris McFadden of Ultra Team develop. And the McFadden group as they join us today to talk about their new program, restaurant Leadership 1 0 1, a training program for chefs in front of the house managers.
And if you've ever suffered from a imposter syndrome and didn't know where to build your leadership, street cred. This is your show, not like you and I have anything like that in common, Jim. The imposter syndrome. Been through that a few times for sure. Yeah, we were talking about that just yesterday. We were talking about that yesterday. Yeah. Yeah. It happens yesterday, I think in one way or another for a lot of people. My name is Adam Lamb and I'm here with my co-host Jim Taylor.
And we're dedicated bringing you solutions to the hospitality industry's most persistent challenges. We ask that you share the show with someone you care about who can find this information useful, and please leave a review. It really does help others find these solutions. And I'd like to for the very first time welcome our new sponsor and this show. Is made possible by Evocalize., Is a sophisticated, yet simple local marketing automation for multi-location brands and technology platform.
That drives results and saves time for teams and users. What does that mean? It means they're an all-in-one press and play marketing platform which is revolutionized a bunch of different industries and now they're entering the food and industry space. And Jim, I don't know about you ma'am, but I'm tickled to death that they decided to partner with. Oh, absolutely. And I think that some of the stuff that we've been talking with them about at Evoke eyes, there's so much that.
Genuinely, I just, I think it's gonna help operators because they they were talking with me the other day about some of the stuff related to specific product or Correct. Specific types of menu where it's, yep. We're, we've got 16 bags of kale that are gonna bad if we don't sell them in the next few days. And they can really target some really cool stuff. So anyway, I think there's good opportunity. To help the industry and just provide a, another good solution. I couldn't agree more.
I was talking to Justin yesterday about that AI component that they're layering on top of it and they're partnering with POS companies and other GPOs so that smaller smaller operations can have access to this same technology. But to Jim's point, yeah, if you plug in a. A trigger for kale and all of a sudden across this, across four or five restaurants, now of a sudden you've got an excess of kale. It will automatically produce a promotion and an ad for, Hey, we got kale smoothies on.
That's crazy. And it can also do all kinds of localized data for weather. And man I think AI is just one of the coolest things, and I'm not scared about it at all. You keep hearing about this AI's coming for your job. AI's coming for the job well, It's gonna be an interesting adjunct to our human capabilities as well. I don't think it'll ever take over. But gosh, won't it be fun to play with that stuff? Oh yeah, for sure. All right, we're gonna bring on Christopher McFadden and Edwin Kumar.
Afternoon. Jens. Hey guys. Cool. And we're gonna do a little check in because of course, at this point in the show, we'd like to make sure to ask the question. How are you really? This is for our, from our friends at chow Code dot. And the idea is that a temperature is associated with certain emotional aspects. And Edwin, I'd like to ask how are you, babe? Rare, medium, rare. Medium. Medium. Yeah. I'm feeling medium rare.
I would be more on the rare side, but it's snowed out here in Vancouver I'm feeling medium America's motorcycle season. Not quite here yet. And you must be coming off the high of finishing your first cohort in RL 1 0 1, right? Restaurant leadership 1 0 1. So that's gotta be a great feeling. Yep. Mr. McFadden, I love the medium rare world. Yeah. Little bit about that. Jim and I were talking about some of these emotions are actually contraindicated.
How could you be glad and grumpy at the same time? But I guess we're all a complex balance of all those emotions, right? Yeah. Mr. Taylor. I agree. Yeah, I'm, I think I'm medium rare today. I feel like I say the same thing every week, but I think it's a good check-in still a reminder. Yeah. I'm thankful today and relaxed and hopeful that this is a good conversation. Yeah. Item we can think we can slam dunk. That this's gonna be a great conversation. I agree.
Yeah I'm rare for sure, and I'm gonna lean to the rare side because I'm really excited. I'm also really curious to learn about this restaurant leadership program that, that you guys put together. And I'm also encouraged by some of the things that Jim and I, some of the conversations that we've had some of the things that are happening out in the industry. And it's a, I think it's a great time to be part of such a wonderful industry like the hospitality industry. Okay. Couldn't agree.
So why don't we start by asking restaurant leadership 1 0 1. What the hell is it? Yeah. Who wants to take the mic here? Yeah. Who wants that presentation? This is good. It all, it really all started with Ed and I meeting almost this time last year where we had sat down to a half an hour coffee and it turned into a five and a half hour meeting. Things that we had felt were missing in content in restaurants and that it was always about, here's the handbook, this is how you do your job.
But nothing ever reverting back to how do we take care of you? How do we build you as a leader and develop your your personal skills. So we decided to run with it. The emotional intelligence world and soft skills world was something that we knew we. To really focus on noticing that it hasn't happened in the hospitality sector as instrumentally yet as it does in other sectors. So we we hit the ground running on March 12th last year.
And in case anybody hasn't actually said this to you guys thank you very much. Because we recognize that leadership is probably low on the ladder of importance that most hospitality programs and culinary programs actually spend time on. So I think it's an excellent opportunity for those of us in the industry who actually want. Own our careers to be able to have this asset to go out. Okay I know enough to know that I don't know this, and where do I go to get that?
And as Shane's saying, see, you already got thumbs up from Shane. He's great. Op great training program. Highly recommend. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you. Awesome. Yeah, and just bounce off of what what Chris was talking about. It's we both went through, and I'm sure you guys can relate to this as well, Jim and Adam, where it's trial by fire. Like you learn when you run into the obstacle. Correct.
And the way that defines you when you run into that obstacle is a little bit arbitrary actually, because it just depends on how you have to best behave in that situation. As opposed to being armed with the idea of, okay, how do I actually navigate this? Hey, we have a new menu rollout or whatever else. How do I address the fears around this? That's not logistical. That's human based interaction. What do you mean we're changing sections? What do you mean we're changing POS systems?
How do you address that as a leader towards the heart of the people that you're speaking with, as opposed to necessarily being like this is just how you do it now. And that's effectively a lot of what we're talking about in the program is how to connect on a human level. With your internal client, which is your employee and your other staff members and your other leaders on that team.
I am curious to know, when you sat down for that half an hour coffee, what was the first sort of aha or first problem that you connected on that you're like, we need to do something about this. Was there one well One common like really pissed me off type thing or what was it? It's it, okay so it's funny because I actually I contacted I, I sent a message to Chris. I said, Hey man, this is gonna sound super pitch. But just roll with it. And and so we end up, yeah, we end up connecting.
And it was interesting because we actually, it took us about two and a half hours before we got into the dirt of the negative experiences. It was more around us thinking about what would we like to have seen and what did we provide later in our careers as we became more mature. That we could have implemented earlier that had it only been exposed to us.
And so it really wasn't until I'd say two and a half to three hours into into a beautiful simple omelet that that which was dead cold by that point. Where we kinda talked about, Hey, yeah, you know what, like these are some of the major issues that we encount. Yeah. And how do we help people navigate them so that they don't have to have those hyper traumatic experiences. So at the two and a half hour mark, you looked at each other and said, did we just become best friends, kind of thing?
Yes. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah, it was, the brom was formed. 10%. Did you guys not know each other before that coffee? Oh yeah. No. We knew each other for years. We mentioned few years, probably 2015 or something like that is when I met you at Chumba? Yeah, it was some, somewhere around there, but we knew each other in passing through other Those are all, and so if I can ask okay, so you're in this me, you're in this meeting.
You're talking about things like you wish someone would've told you about it sooner, and now it's an opportunity to pay that forward. What were like the big blocks that, that started first, like what were the things that you felt were necessary to cover in this program? In no particular order of importance, I think the most difficult thing was opening up a blank Microsoft Word document. Ooh. That's the starting point of what, what enveloped into an eight week set of modules.
And then the number one thing was soft skills were the key factor that was the number one set of words that we had used with each other. What we need to focus on. And then how do we develop the type of program to look into the idea of what soft skills are from the beginning. And then developing it along the way to be able to focus a lot more into empathetic world.
Empathy comes up six or seven times in the class, each modules getting into establishing goals and values and change management that you need. And the connection really that. That memorable moment when you realize that you're taking care of guests in the restaurant. But that always seems to be the focus in realizing that we're in a people business we should be taking care of ourselves and our people, number one. And that's where the development came in a, in quite a few stages.
And so we finally got to. You know what is the most important thing for people to say, huh, I didn't think about that in the restaurant, or, this is how I've always just done it, and I got promoted because I was a great bartender and I just became a bar manager. But nobody gave me the Hey, let's talk about what we need to do to develop your problem solving skills or your communication skills within. Becoming more adaptable to what the transition looks like.
And instead it was just, here's an inventory program and go. So we wanted to make sure that we were touching on the understanding of hard skills and what has to be done in a restaurant, but let's focus on redeveloping you as the person you are first. Yeah. There's so much there, right? Sorry, Adam, just No, go right ahead, sir. I don't know. Adam, you and I have talked about this so many times that, that let's develop certain skills.
When I was going through that, The way it was worded to me was, don't do that again. Sorry. Learning some skills. Do that again. Cause it worked fantastic. There wasn't skill around it. The GM is Hey Adam, when you get a second, can you come in the office for a second? Oh, what I did revealing the last 48 hours of my mind, like, how did I screw this up again?
Yeah. You're start getting planning I think it's amazing that you guys are starting to not starting to, you have there's, you've formal. And quickly you've found a pretty good niche in the market, I think, right? There's restaurants Canada's behind you guys on some of this stuff, and you're gonna be presenting at the show in Toronto, aren't you? I'll be a part of the panel with you for a more resilient leader. Great. Edwin, maybe you can answer this question.
I get that some of the some really important things to think about are values and. And there's an internal par partially into that. There's also an external part of that how you're showing up in the workplace. So I get that you could probably teach that, but how do you actually teach empathy? Yeah there's different elements on how we approach this in the course. It's figuring out how do you actually define.
Empathy and when is it useful and when like when do you use it tactic tactically, and when do you use it? Just from a a core part of who you are. And I I think one of the biggest elements in there is that people sometimes have associations with just certain words where maybe empathy represents a weakness in someone. Maybe empathy represents someone being overly vulnerable. But empathy is really just about core understanding. And it. Necessitate.
In fact, it doesn't even require agreement at all. You don't have to con agree or condone with anything to be empathetic to the other person. It just means you have a deep level of understanding. And so then we actually utilize a lot of experiential conversation, dialogue within the course itself. And then we test against it. We create like these little mini scenarios and say, okay, great. Let's do breakout rooms. Let's figure this out. And then we workshop it.
And then afterwards we debrief those workshops. And so then the reality of, okay, academically I understand it, but then experientially I can actually start to realize where my capacity is within those two things becomes really quite as the self-awareness comes up, and I get that empathy is not necessarily, doesn't necessarily. Oversharing or scenarios like that.
And you can understand where a person's coming from intellectually and also emotionally, but it's not like you want to carry them in order to to make sure that they get what they need in the moment, correct? Yeah. Correct. And in fact, it's actually the opposite.
It, it has a lot to do with empowering the other person to figure it out on their own with you as a. Not as the person that's actually getting the driver's seat, which is a very specific style of pay setting, which gets in the way actually, because we actually promote that a lot in the restaurant space where the busier person gets promoted because they're the busier person. But you can't do that exter internally. It's not sustainable.
As you get into running larger and larger teams or more and more units or. How do you do that? It, and so becoming an effective leader is tricky because as you move out of specialization how do the backfill of soft skills start to carry a lot of the weight of your experience, right?
Yeah. Interesting. So who is, I mean there's, you've mentioned and we've all in this conversation so far, we've talked about the bar manager, the gm, the, now you're talking about moving up through levels of organization. Who's the, who's it for, who's the best fit for something like this? Yeah, so really we're talking about it was interesting cuz we had a breadth of people in our first cohort, in our first.
And effectively what it was, we had some junior people and some people with a lot of experience. Yeah. And what was great was is that in fact some of the younger ones had a, had already integrated some of the things that the older ones didn't, but then the older ones had experienced that the other ones hadn't quite gone through yet.
And anyone that's starting to move through or is interested in moving through leadership in the restaurant ideally is where it's at and if you've got blind spots, they'll get revealed in the course. And not only get revealed, but give you the opportunity to work through it and figure it out and really think internally about what does this mean.
There was actually a really important part, Chris I think this probably stood out for you as well where we a couple of different ideas or internal stories were brought up within the class and we just straight out challenged. It was like, is that actually working for you? Nice. And on both sides. It was a pretty, pretty big moment. I think it was neat. If you wanna talk about three or something like that. Yeah. Catching people off guard with those questions. They're like what?
And not an example. Yeah. So for example there, there was one particular scenario where someone said, it's always about saying yes, and then someone else had said I think it has to come down to pragmatic execution. And the thing is that like we, we wanna know okay, if you're the yes manager and you're doing that for the client, does that negatively impact the. But if you're doing that for the staff, does that negatively impact the client?
So these all or nothing kind of statements can sometimes can sometimes become things where you're like, are you sure? And the, are you sure in a safe environment is a great place to explore that. Christopher I have a question in mind for you, but I just wanted to pitch to Edwin. You've done your first cohort, everybody's got their diploma and survived emotionally.
And was there anything that came up in this beta test that perhaps you hadn't given enough time or space for that now you wanna make adjustments for? Or did it yeah, I think there was two specific ones. One was the aspect of change manage. And how consistently that's happening in restaurant spaces, whether it's a new feature, a different way of serving wine updates, the seasonal food, all sorts of stuff like that. And what's the impact of that on new staff?
And then with the high churn rate, how are you continuously training people? That was one thing that kind of came up where we could probably spend a bit more time on. The other one was goal setting. Where how do you set up high levels of engagement with your team, where you can set 'em up with 90 day and six month based goals to increase engagement. So you're supporting their growth and how is that thematically leaning into your brand.
Those were two very specific aspects that we found the students really liked but also, That might be a whole separate like thing that we may have, right? Excavate And Shane's chiming in said we had challenges and disagreements all with the context of further understanding, but very productive deep dives. And I just wanna say hazah man, that you used the opportunity to actually challenge and to create a safe space for somebody to actually go there where maybe they.
Operating under false assumption all this time and challenge them to actually take a dip a different perspective. Yeah. And just before you throw that over to Chris I think that's, it's an important distinction here that they can do that in this course because I'm not doing their employee review. They're not worried about getting fired. Or saying the wrong thing or revealing a weakness or an idea that they can beta, that they can test.
That's how do you do that with someone where maybe the relationship with your direct manager is not quite so safe? Yeah. Because it's becomes entangled at that point. Yeah. So what happens in the cohort stays in the cohort. Yeah, very much very much and it was neat to watch the thinking that went into there were some students that just paused for three or four minutes in. And a being caught off guard by what was being talked about and that it was actually being talked about.
And then to think out their response in a different way because they didn't expect it to be asked in this kind of tone. And it was amazing to watch. Students just go, huh, Yeah. Like that Yeah. Moment. That's a rich, that's a rich moment. Christopher, I know that you wanted to talk about a particular subject that we chatted right before the show, but I also wanted to make mention to our listeners and viewers that.
As usual, once this hash hashtag lunchbox live stream ends, we're gonna go into another studio and we're gonna do our lightning round where all four of us are gonna give three, three steps or three things that you can actually try out in your organization this weekend and test it yourself. See what works, see what doesn't work. And Edwin, I think that point that you made about like being outside of the chain of command.
And in a safe space, like there have been some organizations I walked into and the fir, one of the first things I heard was they don't trust HR for whatever reason. Or they don't trust upper management for whatever reason for whatever history. And I don't think I gave it enough thought that, like how wonderful that must be to be outside of that space and that management structure to be able to really be in a state of discovery. That's a great gift. Yeah. It, it changes the dynamic a lot.
It's one of the benefits between all of us being in the coaching space, especially specific to restaurant hospitality that I think is not quite yet realized. Where we're that ability of having that third party credible voice, but then also having that ability to have the solace of knowing that you can actually. In, in that environment and not feel inhibited or guarded, is such a huge win.
Yeah. Be because the ability to make the mistake is where you're gonna learn and without fear of repercussion or you know that it's coming around back at you. I think that's priceless and good on you because again, like hearing you say that it's landing in my heart going oh yeah.
If that, if I was actually in that space it'd be different if I was in the ballroom at the hotel being led by some facilitator who came in and there's management holding up the wall in the back on, okay, let's see who fucks up now. And Christopher I'm curious because you mentioned This idea about staying ahead of the burnout factor, and is this in relationship to restaurant leadership 1 0 1 as a, as like u utilizing this course and program as a way to stave off that burnout?
Yeah, I think one big thing that Ed and I had started realizing, and actually the two of us being a part of the alumni, if you will, of restaurant tourism. But people just started leaving the. We just, we were watching some pretty serious names in this industry, start to just go somewhere else or do something else.
And that, that was a huge trigger for us to, I think one of those kind of pivotal moments at that two and a half hour mark of our first conversation of what if we could have helped keep people in this business? Okay. And not that necessarily. I might jumped. Jumped off ship for a lot of reasons. But writing this course was a huge aspect for both of us to be able to look internally and as we were writing it and go, oh, bad man, that, that would've been, my wife actually made the joke.
She goes, you're gonna, you're gonna take this course as well, right? And I said, yes. So I edits on the flight back and forth from V. I was like, okay, I did the course. She goes, yeah. Yeah. Maybe a few more moments of it. But the Could we have seen Vancouver restaurants had more success and the whole before Covid, during covid, after Covid moments of how it shifted our industry that was a capturing factor for us to go. Could we have saved people from the burnout factor.
And that this course and knowing this course was a part. Trying to help help save that. Jim. I'm reflecting on the fact that I don't think a day goes by when we don't talk about the training gap, right? As we've defined it, which was this weird thing about maybe being promoted to a junior manager, pre Covid v and then the entire operation. Spins on a dime, you're just keeping your head above water. And then they come out of that and everybody think, okay, it's cool.
We can go back in the pool now and be in, run over. And yet these managers haven't had an opportunity to Yeah. Gain these critical, soft skills. Gimme your thoughts on that. Yeah. You and I have talked about that multiple times, that development and training gap where I get promoted into management and the typical progression through the company might. 2, 3, 4 years of management before you're conditioned enough to be a GM or whatever it might be, or a chef.
And what the pandemic did was people still have 2, 3, 4 years of management experience, but they were packing takeout. They weren't doing the same things that they were doing. And now things go back to normal and they still go I've got four years of experience and I'm ready to be a gm. And they're promoted into running. 7, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, 15 million a year business. And they don't have that yet. There's, I think this what you guys are doing. It, to me, it plugs straight into that.
That, for lack of a better term, that gap. And just to what you guys were talking about a minute ago, I think it's very cool that you were able to speaking about empathy and just how real you've been about this process is that you actually looked at what your former self needed. In order to be more successful.
Yeah. And just to roll off of off what you just said as well, there, there's another element there that ties in and that is the idea of resilience with the idea of being overwhelmed and burnout factor. And ironically, the greater you can flex the empathy muscle, the higher the level of resilience over. It's more about when you're pushing back against the understanding of what someone else is experiencing, that actually your resilience gets compressed.
And so one actually grows with the other which, which is not often talked about, I don't think. But yeah, that's a core, core factor. And before I get into our last question, I just wanted to shout out in doing research, This particular episode, of course, I came across a Gary V Post, right where he starts off soft soft skills are like em like empathy and kindness are often viewed as nice to have when in reality they should be seen as a must.
In fact, they're actually the hardest skills in business and he goes on. But the last line really threw me for a loop, and I know how much a Gary v Jim, you're inspired by him. But the last line of the post is being kind and having empathy is not just the right thing to do, it's actually roi. And I'll put a link to that post in the show notes.
But if we can do a quick rip whip round and and come back to the original question of the show was how do you inspire, connect, and manage your staff with empathy. So if we can just get a minute or two from each one. Edwin, you wanna start off with that? Yeah, sure. So effectively it's about showing up and being connected at its core.
This is getting out of your own head and trying to listen without fact finding, try to listen without solution based without jumping the solution right out of the gate. If you have the ability to first hear what someone else is going through, absolutely within two, three minutes, maybe 10 minutes into a conversation, you're gonna have the ability to fact find what the issue was and go to solution. But going there right out of the gate is not.
The ideal cuz all someone is feeling is that they're a cog in this big thing. And that you're solving the problem that they're experiencing, not meeting them where they're at. That would be one of the biggest elements. So if you removed fact-finding and you removed trying to find the solution, what question would you ask your staff? Yeah. If you didn't have those two things on your immediate agenda. Perfect. I love it. Christopher. I'm not trying to get us to answer that right now.
I'm open into answering. Go through the course. You have to go through the chorus. That's excellent too. Mr. McFadden. I think one big thing and this is a I'm pretty transparent in this world and very honest about things. I had gone through a lot and as I took a break, I realized that if I was going to come back into my restaurant and be the leader that people were expecting me to be, then I needed to start off my conversations with making amends.
And I realized falling on my own sword was the most, most satisfying thing that I needed to do for everybody else. For myself, of course, but and then I started after chicken, three weeks off. Let me sit down with all of my team to find out what they need from me. And that was the door that I opened. With really knowing that I can't be the leader that I want to be unless I'm the leader that my team wants and hoped me to be.
So I was I started with apologies to my team if I'd ever let them down. And then let's talk one to one to dive deeper into what what we can do to be stronger. And allowing me the opportunity to open my eyes much more clear in in listening to what my Team for. You're also modeling clearly to them what transparency and vulnerability looks like. And if you're willing to do that, does that mean that I'd be more willing to show up to you in a similar fashion, right?
Yes. Yeah. Love that Mr. Taylor. I don't know if this is gonna answer the question, but the thought that keeps just going through my mind was just, there's been a few discussions about resiliency and I've, I've said this to a, I think Adam, we might have talked about this before. I've always just had this thing in my gut that I the restaurant industry has its own definition of the word resiliency, and to me it's just shut up and work hard.
And that, I think what you guys are doing is going to bring a lot of light to the fact that being resilient isn't about just shut up, take it work harder, work longer work any of those things. It's it's really about helping people understand what empathy and being solution based and learning and development and all that stuff is about. I'll do whatever I can to support you guys. I think what you're doing is really good. That's excellent. Thank you.
I have Christopher, when you're talking about making amends and falling on your sword I got really good at doing that. And yet there was a point where there was some staff members saying okay, you're sorry. Now what? You keep saying you're sorry, but nothing ever changes. So for me, I think is I would've a really really.
Transparent conversation with my direct report and let them know that this is the emotional tact that I want take with my crew so that I can, so that I can feel supported in showing up for them. That, and almost to Gary v's. Point it's ROI positive. If we can save one person from going out the damn back door that's 4,000 bucks right there. Because I've tried to do that without having my direct report okay with it. And it just blew up in my face.
So this thing of being able to manage up and manage down, and again showing up as being not unreasonable, but that we're at the space now where things have to change or we will all be out of business. Yeah. Thank you so much guys, for all your input. Congratulations on restaurant leadership one-on-one. All the links will be in the show notes. I'm gonna do a recap of this particular episode in post tomorrow morning, which we'll have the link for the bonus content.
And Al as always I just wanna say thank you very much to e vocalized for making this episode possible. And the links will be in the show notes as well. And believe it or not, at Turning the table podcast.com. On the sponsor page, there's a video there that you can access. Again, the sh the links will be in the show notes so that you can actually see what kind of impact this possibly might have, this technology might have on your business. Christopher, Edwin, Mr. Taylor. Love you guys so much.
Thanks for making this a really kick ass show. Thanks. Thanks for Shane and all the other listeners and viewers. As always, we'll be back next week on Turning the Table Thursday, 12 o'clock Eastern time and yeah, I feel blessed. This was a great conversation. Thanks. Thanks so much guys. Thank you very much folks. See you then. Thank you.