Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60018618-unreasonable-hospitality

I really enjoyed this book. I cried over the stories about his Mom, and I love the way he described a lifetime of valuable conversations with his Dad. The way Will Guidara talks about prioritizing the people you work with over everything else makes me feel inspired and motivated—I can confidently say that the type of leadership he describes is the type of leader I want to work with. Good leaders prioritize the people they work with and I agree you can see it when they interact with those people.

Chapter 1 – Welcome to the Hospitality Economy

I now believe the best interview technique is no technique at all. You simply have enough of a conversation that you get to know the person a little bit. Do they seem curious and passionate about what we’re trying to build? Do they have integrity? Are they someone I can respect? Is this someone I can imagine myself and my team happily spend a lot of time with? (12:02)

Chapter 2 – Making Magic in a World That Could Use More of It

People will forget what you do, they’ll forget what you said, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel. (21:14)

Chapter 3 – Extraordinary Power of Intention

Enlightened hospitality which upended traditional hierarchies by prioritizing the people who worked there over everything else including the guests and investors. Danny’s big idea was to hire great people, treat them well, and invest deeply into their personal and professional growth and they would take care of the customers—which is exactly what they did. (48:13)

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 harder to go the other way. (49:36)

Chapter 4 – Lessons in Enlightened Hospitality

Two things happen when the best leaders walks into a room—the people who work for them straighten up a little bit, making sure everything’s perfect, and they smile too. (52:08)

Enthusiasm is contagious. (54:34)

Make the charitable assumption. A reminder to assume the best in people even when, especially when, they weren’t behaving especially well. Ask first, is everything okay? Maybe this person needs more love and more hospitality than anyone else in the room. (58:38)

This central concept of enlightened hospitality, the idea that taking care of one another would take precedence over everything, was real. He didn’t focus on the what, he focused on the why. Just being in the room felt like joining a movement or accepting a mission—a vibrant and exciting community more important than yourself. (1:00:46)

Cult is short for culture. (1:01:59)

Chapter 5 – Restaurant-Smart vs. Corporate-Smart

Manage 95% of your business down to the penny and the other 5% foolishly. (1:31:59)

Wherever we could we worked to minimize expensive turnover and the dreaded overtime. But then, a few times a year, I would spend a truly obnoxious amount of money on an experience for the team. (1:33:55)

Whether that meant closing the restaurant for the day so we could host a team building retreat or hiring a DJ and a couple cases of Dom Pérignon for the over the top staff parties we were famous for. I could afford these indulgences because I’d been so disciplined the rest of the year. (1:34:08)

Chapter 7 – Setting Expectations

The team needed to feel seen and appreciated. They needed expectations to be clearly laid out and explained. They needed disciplined to be consistent. (2:00:36)

We needed system so everybody would know what they were supposed to be doing and how they were supposed to be doing it. It was my hope that it would make feel safer and inspire them to come along on our mission. (2:01:33)

A leader’s responsibility is to identify the strengths of the people on their team no matter how buried those strengths might be. (2:08:15)

Keep emotions out of criticism. (2:10:46)

Every manager lives with the fantasy that their team can read their mind. In reality, you have to make your expectations clear. Your team can’t be excellent unless you hold them accountable to the standards you set. Make those corrections in private. (2:15:17)

It’s a leader’s job to give their team feedback all the time. , but every person on the team should be hearing more about what they did well then what they could do better or they’re going to feel deflated and unmotivated. (2:16:13)

Consistency is one of the most important and underrated aspects of being a leader. A person can’t feel safe at work if they’re apprehensive about what version of their manager. They’re going to encounter on any given day. (2:16:48)

You’re going to mess up. When you do, apologize, not for the feedback itself but the way you delivered it. (2:17:12)

Chapter 9 – Working with Purpose, on Purpose

The place needed a little more Miles Davis. (2:53:13)

Don’t try to be all things to all people. If you try to be all things to all people, it’s proof that you don’t have a point of view. (2:54:15)

If you want to make an impact, you need to have a point of view. (2:55:01)

The end game isn’t the point as much as the process. You grow when you engage with another perspective and decide to decide again. (2:55:28)

Language is how you give intention to your intuition and how you share your vision with others. Language is how. you create a culture. (2:58:28)

Cool, endless reinvention, inspired, forward-moving, fresh, collaborative, spontaneous, vibrant, adventurous, light, innovative. (2:59:18)

We wanted to hire people who were curious about things they didn’t know and generous with what they did. We wanted people who passionate about the mission—as fired up as we were about what we were trying to accomplish. (3:06:28)

If they’re living in constant fear of being caught in a mistake you’re not going to get their most realized, relaxed selves interacting with your guests. (3:07:27)

Chapter 10 – Creating a Culture of Collaboration

Tap into their passions then give them the keys. (3:18:51)

Find the win-win-win. (3:29:27)

It’s always been my belief that “it might not work” is a terrible reason not to try an idea, especially one that has the potential upside of making the people who work for you more engaged with your mission. (3:36:15)

My Dad says the best way to learn is to teach, and he taught me to study for tests as if I were going in to deliver a presentation. I found that if I studied the material is if I was going to have to turn around and teach it, I learned it much more thoroughly than I would have otherwise. (3:36:31)