Heart Led Hospitality
Anthony Lodos of Footers Catering, also behind Make It Better Every Day, on building a hospitality culture people actually want to work in - and the core values he uses to make the hard calls.
Featuring 
Format Recorded webinarTopics Operator Insights, Restaurants
Format Recorded webinarTopics Operator Insights, RestaurantsAbout this session
Culture in hospitality gets talked about constantly and defined almost never. Anthony Lodos runs Footers Catering on a set of values specific enough to settle an argument: FAB TIGERS - fun, awesomeness, balance, teamwork, innovation, growth, ethics, respect, and service.
In this session he walks through how that framework actually gets used - as the barometer when someone's behavior is out of line, as the filter when hiring, and as the reason a kitchen that used to be a grind became somewhere people want to be. He is candid about the years of effort it took, and the light-bulb moment when he realized the place had stopped being fun.
Key takeaways
- The three-part test for good work: doing what you love, doing it well, and doing it with people you love, trust, and respect.
- FAB TIGERS as a working set of core values - and using them as the barometer when behavior is off.
- Why "work doesn't have to suck" is a hiring standard, not a slogan.
- How culture change actually starts: a few people pushing the rock before anyone else joins.
- The light-bulb moment of noticing the business had stopped being fun - and what he did about it.
- Making values visible: annual core-value awards and the trophies that go with them.
- Building a foundation that supports sustainable growth instead of chasing growth first.
- Why being clear about fit is kinder than tolerating someone who is out of line.
Transcript
Full transcript
auto-generated from the recording · click to expand0:03San Antonio, Texas, Los Angeles, Washington, dc Good to see everybody. Thanks for making time. I guess we'll go ahead and get this thing started. What do you say, Anthony? You ready? I'm ready. All right. Let's rock and roll. Well, thanks everybody for joining. For those of you that I don't know, Jason Gunn, galley Marketing, glad to have you. And I'm joined here by my good friend, Mr. Anthony Lodos from Footers Catering.
0:28Also the brainchild behind Mybe make it better every day. So I'm sure we'll hear a lot about that. But thanks for making time to share some of your thoughts and wisdom and experiences with the world. So Anthony, let's start from the beginning. Footers Catering, sounds like it was a family business, something that you grew up in, right? That's right, that's right. Jason.
0:52Thanks for having me appreciate it. This is always fun to do these sorts of things. yeah, my dad started footer skating in 1981. I was actually at the back of a restaurant he had and his old dream was to bring restaurant quality food and service to cater to events. And so I literally grew up in the business scraping plates at, 10 years old.
1:12And learning the behind the scenes. And I, we were talking before, and it's not a secret that I grew up saying I never wanted to be part of the business. I there was a element of, I kind of resented it. It was my dad just spent, he poured everything into it. He loves, he still has a restaurant today.
1:30Like, he just loves this business, loves hospitality. and so my sister and I would joke, like, if you wanna see dad, you gotta go to work. Mm-Hmm. and going to work. my dad was notorious for just, yeah, outstanding customer service, but he also would run over his employees pretty quickly in terms of his nickname was a tornado.
1:51So there was no shortage of yelling and screaming and pots and pan throwing, going around and fist fights and just stuff that that doesn't necessarily pop up as a great place to work. So I always associated that with catering, and I was like, Nope, that's, that's not for me. as I grew up in the, in the business. So I grew up I always tell people I started out as a hydro ceramic engineer which is a complicated term for a dishwasher.
2:17And, I grew up working for a guy who was kind of like that, that TV chef that, is very boisterous in the kitchen and you learn all the most colorful words throughout the course of an evening. So what what, it was catering outta the back of a restaurant. So was he operating a restaurant and trying to do catering at the same time?
2:41That's just, that's asking for pain. Yeah. Yeah. he was successful with it. and at the time, there weren't a lot of other people doing doing full service catering. And so I think he's, he really saw an opportunity to jump into that market and built a decent sized size business. But yeah, to your point, it's, it's kind of been sad to me to see that's been the accepted thing in our industry as a whole for too many years.
3:08That the just poor treatment of the employees and the expectation that like, I can find somebody else tomorrow and churn and burn and turnover's. Okay. I just think that it doesn't have to be that way. and so, yeah, that's that's been our whole philosophy of footers of what we've tried to create. And a lot behind my too. We wanna help other companies do this and show 'em that path of like, look, you don't have to be a jerk to get results and to build a great company.
3:34You can actually lead a little bit differently, lead with your heart, and create an incredible environment where people thrive and then all of a sudden business thrives as well. Yeah, it makes sense. I guess I didn't realize until later, how odd it was for me to feel attracted to that type of environment. it's almost like a badge of honor if you can survive, those cultural challenges.
3:59But, as I went to culinary school and then I saw like the rest of the world, it was like, oh, you don't necessarily have to be that way. So it was always very exciting for me to learn more about what you guys are doing, because it seems like that's your whole charge. You are squarely focused on the culture of it and building out, that type of community that's gonna make people per, like, it'll make people perform better, you know?
4:26Yeah. They'll, they want to work and do more. Exactly. Exactly. And, I know there's a lot of it rooted in sports, and I'm a big sports guy, so I have no shortage of analogies, but they talk about like, coaches and that the pump up speech and the motivation and the yelling at players and getting the most out of 'em.
4:45And I think the big difference is like, when you're playing athletics, like there's an element of adrenaline that you have to have to go and perform. And not to say that it's all driven by yelling, but there is an element of like, you're, you're kind of going to battle there when you think about some of the contact sports and some of the things that like, you really gotta get geared up for.
5:05Like, we don't necessarily need that in the workplace, right? Like, you don't need to like, get fired up to run through a wall. Like at work, we need to, we need to be in a spot where we can utilize our talents and our strengths to our best abilities. And so so I think that there's a little bit of crossover that too many people have made that crossover.
5:25Like, well, it works in athletics, we, it should work in the workplace. And I don't necessarily think that's, that's the right application for it. but I think it's kind of funny to think back on that. Well, for me, it was always treated like more of a battle. We, and that's what we would call it in the middle of the night. tickets are screaming out of the printer, like, oh, it's the battle.
5:46You know? And you look at traditional even just culinary jargon when you go to school, it was literally called the brigade system, a very militaristic type thing. but your approach is different. You've come up with these like core tenants that you were describing to me very loosely. I want to hear more about that. And, maybe how you arrived at these core tenants and how you doubled down, right?
6:11Like, as a caterer, as a guy in the, in the food service business, it's, it takes all of your energy just to run the business, and then you've stepped back and said, no, I'm gonna put more energy towards this other part of it, because one begets the other. So I kind of want to hear how you got there too, For sure. well, I think first off, the culture conversation, we kinda have to clarify that a little bit.
6:34I think for too long. It's you're familiar on the tech side of things, and it's become all about ping pong tables and beer fridges and all the perks and benefits. And while that's a fun piece and a and a part of culture, I don't think it should be what what culture is centered around. And so what we really think about in culture is do you have people in your organization?
6:53Are they doing what they are really great at? Are they utilizing their natural strengths? What the gifts they have in this world, are you putting 'em in a position where they get to utilize those strengths? And then are they doing it for a company where they feel like they, their work matters? Where there's some meaning? And this isn't about everybody having to be a, brain surgeon or a rocket scientist.
7:13I think everybody's work can matter. It's just a shift in the perspective of helping people understand why their work matters. How does your work, the work you're doing, maybe help somebody else do the work they're doing? Or how does the work you're doing contribute to somebody else's satisfaction, somebody else's enjoyment, somebody else's fulfillment? And once we start understanding why our work matters, it all of a sudden transforms how we view it.
7:36And then the third part is, are you doing it, doing that work with people that you love, trust and respect, love, trust, and respect. And when you're doing, when we can focus on those three tenets of people doing jobs that they're great at doing it for a company where they understand their role and the purpose and doing it with people, they really care about that is at the core to me, of what great culture is all about, and what companies should be aspiring to focus on.
8:02And so, as we look to at what we've done at footers initially it was just, let's just have fun. Let's just create a great place to work. We spend a lot of time here, we just want to enjoy it. And there wasn't this science behind like, oh, take this step or do this, or do this. and along the way, what happened is, as we developed the reputation for what we had done and created this really special thing we looked back at what made us successful, and we could point to four things along the way, the four core principles.
8:31And we call 'em our convictions at my, and we realized that those were things that weren't inherent to our specific place, our time, the people that we had, those were things that we could do with with, we could help other companies do those same things. and so our four convictions are lead love, my and vibe. The first is lead value people for more than the job they do.
8:54And that is simply about thinking about, too many times, in hospitality for sure, people are number one expense. You look on the, on any p and l, you can find labor. And that usually is the highest expense of most organizations in the hospitality industry. But nowhere on that p and l or balance sheet do we see, them as assets.
9:20And so from a number standpoint, especially as companies grow, they stop looking at people as people, and they start looking at it as a dollar figure of what are they contributing, how much, oh, we could cut this, we could cut this here. And when we start to flip that a little bit and think about who works for us, who are the people in our organizations and get to know them personally, I think it transforms how they feel about the work they're doing and who they work for.
9:41So leads number one. Number two is love is open yourself to be authentic, genuine, and vulnerable. And this to us is are you creating an environment where people are comfortable with basically not necessarily having all the answers. for too long, leadership has been about go to the leader, they have the answers, they know everything, they're the ones, and all of a sudden it creates this almost imposter syndrome.
10:05We feel, we feel like we have to live up to that. And that's just not possible. And I think the best leaders are the most authentic ones that are very willing to outline, here's what I know, here's what I don't know. And they're willing to ask the questions of the group without the fear of looking like an idiot. and so that when that starts at the top, all of a sudden everybody participates on that.
10:27And you have a level of teamwork that's different from a traditional organization where everybody is trying to prove themselves and step on each other to get to where they wanna go. The third one is my, there's always more to learn and room to improve. And this, mybe is the acronym for Make It Better Every Day. We are big believers that happens to be the middle part of the mission statement at footers.
10:45We're big believers that you're never gonna arrive at a, at a, at a destination. Like, there's always gonna be more to do. There's always gonna be more that we can learn, more that we can grow. And so we have to be intentional about it and think about that along a maybe, path that happens over time as opposed to just, we gotta get to b it.
11:08It's what are we learning along the way, and what decisions are we making that may just make us choose to say like, maybe we need to go to C or maybe we need to go to D. Maybe B isn't the right path anymore. But along the way, when we stop thinking about the fact that we've arrived and we start thinking about what's next for us I think it's a, it is a special mindset that team members start to have of this idea of growth that we can always get better.
11:31And we usually, we don't get complacent when that happens. And then the final one is vibe. Work doesn't have to suck. Surround yourself with a kick as team. And we're big on being intentional about who you led on your team, who you invite to be part of it, who you hire, who you allow to stay on your team. I think that's a big piece.
11:48I have a whole thing I talk about with with some quadrants on this culture matrix of how many toxic people do you let stay because they're performing highly at their job. It's a tough situation for people to live in, but the longer they stay, the more it erodes the fabric of the great pieces that are being built in your organization.
12:08And I think everybody in an organization has a responsibility to protect the culture that's being built and what it's intentional to be. And I have a example of, I'll, I'll wrap us this up with we have people say all the time, Anthony, I don't, I don't have hiring or firing responsibility in my company. Like, why am I responsible for who's on the team?
12:33And I say, look, you make a choice every day you come to work, you say, I wanna work here. And if you're not saying something about it, that when there's somebody that isn't a good cultural fit or is causing problems, you are, you become part of the problem. You have to make sure that somebody else is aware of the problems that are happening in your organization.
12:50And then step two is, if nothing's being done, then it's your choice to stay there. And every day you're stay there, you stay there. You're basically saying, I'm okay with that. and so we had a somebody in our prep kitchen and she is a phenomenal employee of ours, great cultural fit, loves being in footers, and she had the courage to come to my wife, April, we own the business together.
13:12And she was willing to say, this person in the kitchen is causing a lot of problems for me, and it makes me hate my job. And we had heard some rumbling before, but just the fact that you've got somebody that's willing to speak up at a high level about something that's going on within the company, I think speaks volumes about the transparency that can be created.
13:30And this, this isn't about tattling or Nick, you talked about the tapping the fingers on the, it's not about that. It's about people that are really not working up to the standard that other people are working at or, being a distraction to people that are really trying to do a great job.
13:51So those are our four convictions. I know, I can keep, I can just, you can tee me off and I can just go. So, yeah, I love it. Cut Me off at any time, Jason. No, you're good. I love it. so it's an interesting position to take because I think as a leader, you do open yourself up to be vulnerable and say, Hey, I don't have all of the answers.
14:13But you also have to come with a bit of confidence in some of the decisions that you are making, or else you kind of open yourself up to this decision by committee. And then, everybody kind of has those things. So how do you find yourself striking a balance there? Well, I am, I'm guilty of being a very collaborative leader. So I will ask for too many opinions.
14:33I will solicit too much advice from other people. And that's part of not only how I how I process, but how I innovate too. I wanna get a lot of input from a lot of people. what helps me most is having somebody like April and having people that compliment you on that accountability. And so April is a, I am notoriously slow to make a decision, and I'm, I'm perfectly fine to admit that my team knows that.
14:57Like, I will overthink it, I will ponder it, I'll consider this, I'll go ask somebody else. And so I have to have her to be able to call me out and say, Hey, wait, when I need to make a decision, like, kick me in the butt and say, let's go no more, no more thinking. You gotta, you gotta make your decision. and even beyond April, but opening up that to our executive team too, of where they're willing to call me out on that as well.
15:21And so, to answer your question about the confidence, yeah, I think you have to have confidence in what you're, the decision you're making. But I think you also have to have the confidence to say when it wasn't the right decision. when we try to make everything perfect and everything right, we fall into a big trap. And so to make a decision to be confident about it, and then it blows up in your face, and then to backtrack and say, okay, here's what I learned.
15:46Here's why I made the decision in the, in the first place. Here's what I didn't see coming, and here's why I'm changing it. It shows a lot of growth for your team when you can come with that. And a lot of leaders miss this because they just make a new decision and they don't talk about the why. And so it leaves people wondering of like, well, what happened?
16:05What, why did they choose to do that? Why didn't they go with the original plan? I think there's a lot more power in being transparent about that process and saying, Hey, look, I was wrong, and here's what I missed, and here's what I've learned. And I don't think it erodes your credibility. I think it actually enhances it because you are being transparent about what happened along the way.
16:24Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I like that. What about when it comes to some of these cultural mismatches, whether it's in the kitchen or in the office or something just having been in leadership positions, I know that there's a, there's kind of two ways to look at it. you catch some noise and you're like, okay, but you got a high performer and you've got maybe somebody who's being a little sensitive and you've got, these other considerations.
16:49So you can address it directly, or you can kind of let it simmer and see if it pops up. Do you have, some sort of barometer that you use to be like, okay, this is a legit concern, or have you set some sort of rules of engagement with the team to say, look, you're more than welcome to come complain to me. Or like, I'll always say to people like, Hey, I'm not saying I'm married to this idea, or I've got the best solution, but if you're gonna come to me, I need you to bring the solution with you.
17:14You know what I'm saying? So like, do you have some of those charters set with your teams? For sure, a hundred percent. For us, it comes down to our values. a lot of companies have values, I think very few companies intentionally live by those values. And so I really applaud the companies that do a great job with that. And we have a acronym, it's called fab.
17:35We love our acronyms, fab Tigers. And so it's fun, awesomeness, balance, teamwork, innovation, growth, ethics, respect and service. And we talk about those constantly. And so when those issues come up, our big barometer is this in violation with one of the core values? In the case that I was explaining earlier the gentleman we had was not being respectful. So it violated our core value of respect.
17:59He was not being a team player, he was very selfish in how he would go about his work. He would not go out, he would not help anyone else. He would just be solo focused on what he was doing. That's not part of what our core values are. And the third thing was what we call awesomeness and awesomeness. For us, it actually started out as excellence was the core value, and we kind of were kicking it around and it, for after a few months, we went back and we're like, excellence is boring.
18:21Like, that's not, that's not really what we wanted to to ex to capture with that word. and so for us, awesomeness is that, when do you stop and say like, wow, that's amazing. That's impressive. And we want people that are committed to providing a result that people stop and say like, wow, that's really cool. That's something that I'd take note of.
18:42And people that are willing to do a little bit extra are the ones that are going to create those moments of awesomeness. And this gentleman like totally was like looking to do the bare minimum, and that was it, nothing. And so when we could look at that and say, these are the areas where he is in direct conflict with what our core values are, it made the decision very easy, and it all of a sudden wasn't just a petty complaint of somebody doesn't like that person.
19:08So that's our big thing is how do we push that the actions and the behaviors. That's another thing we talk about is we have to attack the behaviors and not the person. And because a lot of times we get caught up in attacking the person and who the person is, and maybe we don't like that person. And so we start attacking them.
19:27Well, let's, let's look at what are the actions and behaviors that they're eliciting, and why are those a problem? Because people can change those behaviors. People don't necessarily change who they are, but they can change their behaviors and how they respond. And when you give 'em that opportunity, then the ball's in their court, are they going to get in line with what the values are and what the activities and actions that that correspond with those values.
19:50Are they going to make sure they're, they're exuding them or are they going to resort to, just to how they've always been. and at that point, and it's, it's what we call CDE career development elsewhere, like time to go. I really should have written all of these things down while you're going. So I'll probably make you repeat them slowly before we leave so that I can share the world.
20:13But I'll give It to you. I'm definitely adopting that for sure. so, but We have, we have some other friends that say like, we, like they're, they're in the restaurant. They have a restaurant group, and they talk about like, we promote them to guest. Yep, for sure. We would love to see you on the other side of the wall. Mm-Hmm. no, I love that.
20:36So you've taken this kind of different approach to culture and you mentioned core values, and when I hear those two words next to each other, I kind of have these flashbacks to my big corporate life where the culture was pasted on the wall and it was delivered to you, and then you signed off on it and you get it right, like you're cultured now. I found that very abrasive and tough because then you've got this conflict between your stated culture.
21:06And what I've always said is there's the culture exists on day one of the company, right? And I was kind of hit upside the head by Tony Shea at Zappos when he built his culture book. It was based off of emails that he collected from the team, right? What does culture mean to you? So at the end of that diatribe, my question was, how do you indoctrinate people to this culture?
21:29And, is there resistance to that? Do you find yourselves trying to get people to play and you gotta give 'em room to grow into it? Or is it more of like, Hey, this is who we are, this is how we roll, like, love it or leave it, that kind of thing. Yeah. Great. Great question. And I couldn't agree more. There's too many examples of companies where it's, the mission statements, well craft customers at the top it million less, yeah, the best, blah.
21:56And it's in a really nice frame in beautiful font on the wall, and no one even knows what it's and same thing with values, they talk about the values and I, it's, it's a little cliche, but, Enron had values and integrity was one of them, like not really looking by it. Yeah, For sure. And so it comes back to, are you're right, every organization has a culture and whether it's a culture that is by default of just what you let it go, or whether it's a culture by design is a choice among the leaders within that organization.
22:29And so if you are trying to change the culture within your company, yes, you will get pushback. And the analogy I use on this is if there's 10 people in a company, I'm just gonna simplify it for for this example. And our goal, our culture goal is to push this rock, this big boulder up the hill, right? And there's three of us that really excited about it.
22:52So Jason, you and me and one other person, we're, we're gonna change the culture of this organization. We're gonna push this rock, and we start pushing well, four people are just standing there doing nothing. And then three people actually have put a rope around the row, the boulder and are trying to pull it backwards and not let us go. I is essentially what starts to happen in a lot of companies.
23:11So we're not gonna make much progress, right? 'cause we just don't have the consensus. And what happens over time is you get either those three people give up because it's too hard. And the people that are resisting win, and sometimes they collect more people than of those four that are sitting there and they say, what are, why aren't you standing there? Help us? They're where they're going, that's not gonna work.
23:30That's a terrible idea. Isn't it great how we have it now we have a great, this is a great place to work. Like they don't want, don't move my cheese, I don't wanna move. And so they join and make it even harder for us, right? Or the reverse happens where we go to those people and say, Hey, here's what we're, we're trying to create. Here's why it's important to us.
23:46Here's what we think the benefits will be, and here's how it'll impact you. Will you help us? And so all of a sudden, maybe there's two more, and now there's five of us that are pushing this boulder up the hill. And those three that are trying to hold us back are getting a little bit uncomfortable now because there's fewer and fewer people around, and then maybe we get the other two that are standing around, they start helping us.
24:03So now we get seven people moving and we're starting to drag these people through the mud as they're trying to pull us back. And so then one of them says, Hey, this, no, I'm done. Like, I'm outta here. They leave the company, right? And you're stuck with two more that really will show themselves very clearly of like, either you're gonna get on board and push this rock up the hill with us, or you are going to basically have to leave.
24:25And so when I think about that analogy, that is the evolution that I see with a lot of companies that are trying to change their culture. That you have this small group that is trying to move it in that direction. You've gotta get the consensus that the middle, that's working in that same direction. And you have to get rid of the detractors that are holding you back.
24:42Because those are the people that are gonna push back and say, this is dumb core values. What do we need core values for? This is, why are, yeah. Whatever they're saying, that's, that's not gonna work. And they're, they're the naysayers on the whole thing. They're trying to put the wet blanket on. And really what comes into play here that is critical is what are the top leaders doing?
25:01What are the owners, the senior, the executive team, what are they doing during this? Because everybody is watching them. And if they start helping push that boulder, all of a sudden it's very clear, this is what's important to our organization. But too many times what they do is they say, yeah, we support this. And then they delegate it to HR and they say, hr, you fix that problem.
25:19And then they go about just doing their business. And everybody's looking like, okay, they said that's important, but they're just back to sales, or they're still in the kitchen, or they're still doing this and they're not really doing anything that's along this line, so I don't need to do it either. And that's where a lot of these efforts fall short in other organizations is they just that the leadership is not a hundred percent invested in truly making this go.
25:41And so on the whole, for us, where we've gotten as a team, it's, it's the reverse of that to what you said, where when you come to be part of footers, it's very clear, here's the values, here's the, like my team members will quiz each other. Like when there's a new hire, they're like, Hey, do you know the core values? What are the core values? Like they'll, they'll quiz new hires, like just not people from hr, not managers, people just within our company will push our new hires to make sure they know what the core values are and what's expected, and keep that in line and really protect this special culture that we've built.
26:12But that's taken a tremendous amount of effort and energy and time to get to where we are. And so we are fortunate to be in that spot where, yeah, it's pretty clear if you don't fit within our organization and you're not aligning with those core values. but it, like I said, it's taken us a long time to get here and most organizations have a, have an uphill battle to face when they're trying to make that shift.
26:35So how long did it kind of take for you guys to get the boulder up the hill and share with us a little bit more around the kind of the results of that? So you've Yeah. Been noted in the business journal and have some cool accolades. I think there was a, an actual number related to turnover that you guys are kind of sharing.
26:57So I want to hear more about that and, what was that journey like? Because I imagine, pushing that thing up the hill and dragging some people through the mud can be pretty frustrating if not demoralizing after year one, year two, year three, right? Like, how much resolve, do you, do you have to keep packed in there to keep going?
27:18Well, a lot. We definitely had it, it really started with the transition. when April and I bought the business from my dad, I was working in the business previously, she was not. but there was a handful of people, when I look at like Sam and Colbert and Lindsay who are still with us today, Ronnie and Sam, two of our event chefs like tho that's the core of the group that is still with us today.
27:44Almost 20 years later that since we purchased the business not quite that long. We're probably close to 15, we're almost to 15 years. but 15 years later, we've still got those people that helped us with that transition. But during that time, there were a lot of people that didn't make it. There were a lot of people that opted out.
28:01There were a lot of people we had to let go. 'cause we saw them just pushing so hard against what we were doing. we had to we had to fire our executive chef within six months because he was, he was stealing from the stealing from like out the back door, just walking out with product. Like, it was like, oh my gosh, Hey.
28:23It was a flagrant just, and he was resentful. He was resentful for us buying the business. He was resentful for everything we were trying to do. And it was one of those trying to pull us back from everything we were doing. and so there was, just you talk about being left with, here we new business, we gotta get rid of our executive chef.
28:42We gotta like just get rid of a couple people that weren't good fits that were causing a lot more problems than they were worth. and there were some low points in that dip along the way. But I think we all had this vision of like, this has to change for us all to be here. And the people that were committed were a hundred percent in on this is, this is the path we wanna go.
29:03And so when I, when I look at that trajectory, like, where we are now, you fast forward, like it's, it's we were, I think it's four times the size of of the business can, when it comes to revenue, when it comes to just employee count with physical size. We've moved twice to new buildings. and now we're in our 40,000 square foot facility that has an event venue.
29:28Never in my wildest dreams, if you'd asked me when we bought the company, like if you were to fast forward and showed me the picture of where we are, be like, this is what it's gonna be, I'd be like, you're full of it. Like, no way. Like that's crazy. We're not, we're not gonna get there. And we never really, were chasing that. We wanted to grow, we wanted to expand and provide opportunities for our team, but we were never sitting out to say like, oh, we gotta hit 20% growth every single year.
29:48It was like, no, let's be, let's be focused on building a great foundation that can support a level of growth that then will be sustainable for us. That'll will be a spot where we enjoy coming to work. We're not burning our people out. We're actually creating something that can scale over time. And we're not trying to build something that overnight, hits a jackpot and we're, we're, all of a sudden huge company.
30:13It's, it's taken those 15 years to really transform it. when we look at turnover, I spoke to the fact that we've got, five people that have been here since we bought the company almost 15 years ago. That's pretty remarkable. And we have we do things along the way to think about that, but our, I think our, the biggest notoriety we get is our five year culinary learning journeys.
30:36And so when you have been a manager on our team for five years, you get a culinary learning adventure, and April and I go with you get to bring a significant other. And the first one was a cruise to Alaska that was sponsored by Food and Wine Magazine. And so it was up through the inside passage and gave some fishing and like, it was, it just, amazing, really cool trip great chef demos behind the scenes tour, like it really cool experience.
31:01And Ryan, the significant other of Lindsay who was on the team, he turns to April and I, he goes, this is an every five year trip, right? Like we looked at each other with like, what if you're here in five years, sure we'll do it again. Like absolutely. Yeah. And so actually in three weeks we're taking Lindsey and Colbert on their 15 year trip to to Italy that's a culinary learning journey.
31:29So you fast forward and look at something like that where they've, they've both been with us for 15 years, and along the way we've celebrated a lot of five year anniversaries, 10 year anniversaries on some really cool trips that, we've done the Turks and Caicos Caribbean Food and Wine Festival last year. We did The Bahamas Arts and culinary festival with three of our team members who hit their five year mark.
31:51And so when we look at that retention that we've had over the course of time, it's, it dr our turnover has dramatically decreased. and the other thing that I'm gonna highlight on this that I think is relevant, not just at a manager level, is what we call, and I think there's a lot of other companies that have some similarities to this, but we, Jason, our director of ops always says like, once you're part of the footers family, you don't really leave the footers family.
32:16And so yeah, for sure, you have these people that come and work our events for us, right? Our servers, our bartenders, our captains, even our event chefs. And they come and they work and they maybe work for a couple years, to get through school or they're doing something else in the, part-time job. And then they go on to have a career maybe in banking or insurance or something else that they aspire to do.
32:40And they will come back and help us on really busy days because they love it. They, it's like a reunion of sorts that like, when we have those, four to six really crazy busy days, we can call up these footers alumni, if you will, to come back and help us out. And it creates this really cool community of people that come back and know what to do.
33:00And they don't have to be full-time employees of ours, but they know the drill and they can come back and they're happy to do it. And so creating the culture that we've created has had ancillary benefits beyond just people that stay year in and year out. but people that will come back and help us for an extended period of time.
33:18It's very validating to hear, because for you to commit that type of energy and money to go on a trip and, go on these long journeys with people, you kind of have to like the people that you're around, you know? So I've always had this philosophy, it's not formal in any way, but when I'm looking at hiring people or, bringing people onto the team, I always think to myself, would I invite you to my house for a barbecue?
33:45Yep. Would I invite you to my house for a birthday party? Right? Like, what circle of friend are you gonna be? And I think there's room for all of that stuff, and you kind of can assess early on, like, I probably wouldn't invite that person to my house at all. Jason, you're, you're spot on. The, that's, it's a huge piece. And what I kind of started with on that, those three tenets of great culture, it's, are you working with people that you love, trust, and respect?
34:12You don't notice, I didn't say like, do you love the people you work with when you love the people you work with? And this is not about hiring all the same type of people. It's about hiring people that are all committed to a similar goal. You can have a very diverse work group and still have people that love, trust, and respect one another. And so it's something we're very mindful of, and I couldn't agree with you more.
34:34Why do you wanna work with somebody that you wouldn't invite over to your house? Like that is a great barometer of like, we're, we're gonna spend a lot of time together, so yeah, like we should probably be able to get along. And I should probably have the other thing too is when you're in that boat, people all the time that you, Gallup has done a ton of studies on relationships and importance of having close friends at work that they've also done studies to show that organizations do a terrible job of fostering those relationships at work.
35:05And so we've been very intentional about our whole journey of like, how do we continue to make sure relationships are being built? And there's people all the time that are like, oh, an incident, don't you worry about people getting too close or too close of friends or people dating at work. And it's like, yeah, you know what? You're going to have some of that happen here and there, but is that a risk you're willing to take?
35:24And for us, the answer is a hundred percent yes, because the benefits that we see on the flip side are tenfold. You've got people that are more willing to help each other because they, if I like you, like, I'm not gonna throw you under the bus, Jason, I'm gonna probably cover for you and try to figure out how to help you when you're in a bind and you need help, or you maybe made a mistake and I can help fix it, like, I'm probably gonna do that if you are, screwing up and it's costing the company as a, as a good friend, I know personally like I'm gonna call my good friends out when they're, they're struggling and when they like, I know they can be better, good friends don't give each other a pass.
36:01Good friends are honest with somebody and saying, Hey, you gotta step up here. You gotta be better in this situation. They're not necessarily likely to just say, oh, it's okay, don't worry about it. Because they know you can be better and they wanna help you along the way. and so we've just found that the benefits of having close friends at work and having people that truly get along and enjoy working with each other far exceed any of the consequences that you run into of maybe people, maybe parts of the organization get cliquey or maybe you got people that are dating and that goes awry.
36:32Like those things start to happen. You gotta deal with it, but at the end of the day, it, none of the drawbacks there outweigh the benefits that come with it for us. Alright, I'm sold. I'm in What position are you looking for? It sounds like he's got marketing nailed down with Colleen. I know she's out in the audience there. but when you, the CEO or something, I'm totally here for it For sure. All right.
36:55I like it. What's as we kind of wrap things up here, and I'll invite the audience if you guys wanna shoot a couple of questions in the chat and we've definitely got some time, but I do want to kind of wrap it up, make sure everybody gets back to their day within the hour as promised. what are a couple of learnings that you had over the course of that journey where you just like had to absolutely reverse course, or maybe there was something that was making its way into the cultural conversation.
37:23You were like, you know what, that doesn't feel good, but you had to make some sort of trade off. Like what it sounds like over that 15 year journey, you've had to make some decisions. Yeah, I think the first thing that first thing I think about is when we started this whole initiative to focus on culture and we said, okay, culture, we need to have a great culture.
37:44And we did all this work and we created a great culture. We got to the spot where, we had bought the company, we're moving in the right direction, and then we just went back to catering and we just, said we got that, we figured it out, it was done. And, about three months later we looked around and we're like, what happened to our culture?
38:00Like, this isn't as fun as it was. Like we're, we had something going like, what happened? Where are we at? And it was a, it was a light bulb moment, alright, this is not something that you just project, it's culture is not, we worked on it, we're done, and now we move on. Culture is something you have to work on every single month, every single week, every single day.
38:20If you're not thinking about being intentional about something related to culture, then it's going to go into that, what we talked about, that culture by default of just, it's going to happen and it's gonna take whatever direction the wind blows it and the people in your organization and so want to take it. And so when we think about it's, okay, what are we doing?
38:38Like even, we, today, this month we have every month we highlight a different core value. And so we talked about like, what does this core value mean? What are the behaviors that are in line with that core value? What are the behaviors that are outta line? What are some examples of that core value? How do like, we really try to highlight it to keep it top of mind.
38:54And so today at lunch, I was doing a whole leadership lesson on innovation 'cause that's the core value we're working on. And innovation was what we said, Hey, here's what we're gonna talk about. and I did this whole thing on why kids are typically more creative and innovative than adults and why we lose some of that. And how at footers we've tried to be really intentional about continuing to foster that kid-like spirit that we have of creating fun and and just say that ingenuity of them being able to create a game out of anything.
39:25And so I think the number one lesson that I've learned is you have to focus on it all the time. It has to be top of mind. You have to bring it up. And you can't be afraid to say things more than once. that as soon as people think you're a broken record or like, oh, I've heard this before, like, you've done your job.
39:41Like, that to me is the, is the spot you have to get to with the things like values and mission. otherwise it's in one ear, out the other and we're onto to whatever my job requires me to do. So I think that's probably the biggest thing. The other thing, I can't, I can't overstate how critical having the right people are and the people that don't align with your culture.
40:05We have let too many of them stay in the name of they're really good at their job or we couldn't do it without them. Or, I don't know if we could find somebody that would replace them that would be as good as they are. And every time we've gotten rid of somebody that was not a good cultural fit and we had been making excuses for, we've replaced 'em with somebody better.
40:25And that has been another thing that I think at different points has held us back from having even more progress is allowing those people to stay in our organization for too long. so I think those are the, probably the two of the biggest things that I've learned over the course of our time. I applaud that because, I've been around organizations and on teams where you have somebody that isn't fitting culturally.
40:49They might be good at what they do, they might not be good at what they do, but in the spirit of everybody has a place, 'cause you want to be that welcoming. You kind of let them roll on. You are doing that person a disservice at some point, right? Like at some point you are actively, promoting their continued failure because they're not getting, they're not getting put into the environment that they need to be in to grow.
41:14Right. so if you wait six months or a year after you've identified the problem, it's kind of like you're actually hurting this person by what you think is helping them or helping the team, you Know? Right. Exactly. Well I loved all of this. Hit me with the core values. Again, Fab Tigers. It's a lot of, it's a lot of core values. If there's companies out there that are trying to develop their core values, I don't recommend going for nine i, but we are all in on Tigers.
41:49There is, we have a annual core value awards where we give out tiger trophies. We have our fabric tigers den here, where there's the tiger faces on the wall. We talk about tigers all the time. There's I mean it's, we're, we're, we're pot committed on tigers, but our core values are fun, awesomeness, balance, teamwork, innovation, growth, ethics, respect and service are nine core values at footers.
42:14And most of my team will be able to pass that quiz if you if you challenge them on what does Fab Tiger stand for? I'm gonna study it 'cause I'm feeling nervous if you quiz me right now, but I promise I'll get there before you hire me. There you go. That's, that's, we, it's funny, we, so I'll, I'll I'll caveat on this.
42:35Did you, if we don't have any questions, I'll, I'll caveat real quick on this because I think it's an important point. core values are how the organization operates, right? And so one of the exercises we do when somebody comes in for an interview, we hand 'em this deck of cards and it has, it's 52 cards, it has 52 values on it. And we say, pick out the five that you most live your life by.
42:56And they go through the deck and they narrow it down and they pick out the five. And then they, then we basically conduct a whole interview on like, tell me, tell me why you pick those things. And a lot of people think you have to find people that pick core values that align with the core values of the company. And I don't necessarily agree with that.
43:12I think you have to just utilize those, what they pick as their core values to understand who they are as a person. Because we can, we can live by, what our true core values are, and then we can also play in the confines of what the company core values are. And sometimes those things have interrelated measures. So let's say somebody picks family, right? Like, okay, great family, why'd you pick family?
43:36Well, I look at my friends as my family group 'cause I would protect them like my family and I have my internal, my nuclear family, my significant other, my kids. Like I protect them, I wanna protect them. That's what's important to me. And they start talking about protection, right? Like that's what family means to them. Well, at work, how are they gonna protect the company?
43:55How are they gonna protect the people that they work with? Like family, that's what we're looking for is how those things will apply and play within our confines. But going through those five, you learn so much about somebody to the point where you said, this is somebody I'd have over to my house for dinner. Like, I would love to hang out with you more because like, I get to know who you are as a person and what's important to you.
44:15And there's no right or wrong answer with these values. We've had a incredible variety of people that have been hired that pick different values, but it's just about who you are and us getting to know you as a person. Yeah, that's amazing. it's, it's funny to think about those stated cultural values that you'll put on the wall and then you've, you're trying, companies try and make these straight lines, but, look at any of the studies or any of the leadership books out there, love languages and Enneagrams and all this stuff.
44:44Like we're we're tribal people and you need different personalities and different cultural values to, prop up what is ultimately the success of the tribe. and that's the way that I've always looked at team building and business building and stuff. It's about building that tribe For sure. That the diverse set of skill sets that you have. Do you have people that could do different things?
45:05Do you have people that play different roles as well? and that could be who's the challenger, who's gonna question what's going on, who's the person that's gonna be the peacemaker and keeping, the harmony among the group, who's gonna be the person that's that's going to get people excited about where we're going. All those roles can be played at different positions.
45:25It, whether you're a kitchen, whether you're sales, like, it doesn't have to be the same role that's played in each of those spots. but as the makeup of the team, you wanna be mindful of how they work together and couldn't agree more. Okay. So before we go, tell me about the Mybe Summit, and if I wanted to get educated on this approach is there a workshop?
45:48Is there a form I can fill out? Can I invite you to dinner at my house for a session? Let's go. Let's do it. Learn more. Awesome. Thank you, Jason. Yeah, so we through Mybe mybe is our sister company and the acronym, like I said, make it better every day. What we focus on is education for the hospitality industry, and it's all around heart leadership and being intentional about the culture that you're, you're creating.
46:13And it's something that we're, we're really excited about in terms of the impact we've been able to have on the companies that we work with. So we've got a monthly program, but our annual big gathering is our, my summit that our second annual one will be in January 21st through 23rd here in Denver. You get a chance to see what we do in action at footers, but also connect with heart leaders from across the country, all in the hospitality industry.
46:36So registration is open for that. and you can find that@themy.com. You also, if you liked what you heard today and want a weekly dose of inspiration from me, I write a weekly leadership message. It's called the, my Message comes out on Wednesday. And you'll have an opportunity to sign up for that. if you wanna deliver it to your in inbox.
46:58I get mine. I love it. For sure. Rachel out in the crowd had a question, and I think it's a good one that I was thinking about and I kind of got distracted. How do you have conversations with somebody that's not aligning with the culture? You gave us a bit of a story around a cultural misalignment, but we didn't really dig into the actual conversation that you had.
47:19'cause I feel like that's probably one of the most uncomfortable things that we have to do, for sure, Rachel. Yeah. Great question. Good to hear. And thank you for being here. I, so it starts with, they have to, they, you have to give them the benefit, the doubt that they don't know that they're not a cultural fit. That they're, they're causing problems within the organization.
47:40And so if we come from that standpoint that like, okay, they are not coming to work trying to do a crappy job. They are coming to work trying to do their best, and they are falling short because of whatever reasons. It might be psychological, it might be ego, it might be variety things. They don't like somebody on the team that maybe their personal life is in shambles, whatever reason, they're not performing at the, at the level, and they're not aligning with the core values that has to be addressed.
48:03And it has to be discussed with them. And back to my point of when you attack the behaviors and not the person, it changes the conversation. So instead of talking about like your, you're, you always do you you're this or you're that. And relating to that, it's okay when you come in 15 minutes late for your shift, that causes a problem.
48:26And it's not in line with our value of respect. It doesn't respect the rest of the team. It doesn't respect the boss. It doesn't, you know who your direct report is, and we start looking at what are the behaviors that they're doing that are causing the problems. And when we address that, again, you have an opportunity for them to change those behaviors. Like, do you want to change this behavior that you're doing?
48:45Because most of it comes down to that, whether it's harassing other employees. Like when you say these things to other people, that causes problems. these are the things that we're talking about. Not you're, you're a jerk, or people think you're an a*****e, right? Like, that doesn't go anywhere. But when we can say, like, when you call people this name, like it doesn't, it doesn't land well, it doesn't work.
49:08You can't do that. And so having those, that focus on back to those values of where their behaviors are not in line makes it very clear that here's, here's what you have to change if you want to continue to be part of our team here. And if you don't, we understand it's time for you to probably have career development elsewhere. And in California, I know that is much more difficult to do.
49:29So I empathize with that, Rachel, that it's not as easy as I make it sound there, but there's steps that you can take. And there's also elements of even just asking them, like, do you wanna be part of the co company? Because if so, here's what I need you to do. And them actually acknowledging, yes, I wanna do this. I wanna make these changes.
49:48And then you can come back to those conversations if it's not happening. But I think that's the biggest thing that we wanna focus on. Yeah. And it's not like to your point, if somebody doesn't realize that they're doing those things and what the net effects are on the surface, it might seem obvious, like, Hey, you're late. This is disrespecting somebody's time.
50:11But, if they're not brought to attention on that, most often I've found people react positively. Yeah. Not like they might feel some shame or whatever, right? But they go back home, they think about it and they're like, oh, well, I really do wanna be here and I should probably shore up my shoddy behavior. or the other way, I'm not gonna take it from this knucklehead that wants me to be on time all of the time.
50:35Forget it, I'm outta here. You know? Yeah. So what if I'm 20 minutes late every day? Yeah, Right. Exactly. I got here, I, and this is, I think the landscape is changing. the past year, I know a lot of companies, it was like, can you fog a mirror? Like, do you have a pulse? Like, great, come on. Like, we could use your help.
50:56Like, well, I'll find something for you to do, like uniform. Do you have clothes? Great. Like, we'll figure the rest out. Like Yeah, exactly. we lowered the bar a lot to try to just, service the business that was coming in. And I think we're coming to a spot where we're able to get back to high expectations. Here's what it takes, here's what we expect.
51:16And holding people to those expectations, I think is a very fair thing. There's a one more point that I'll, I'll, I'll touch on here. 'cause a lot of people are like, well, how do we, when somebody's lazy, how do you, how do you, how do you, how do you attack that behavior? You, the reverse of this or the opposite is to think about what do your best people do?
51:35Like what are the actions that your best people do? And what are the people that are really living by the core values? What are the actions that they're doing and the behaviors that they're exuding? And use those and then lay them over the people that you're struggling with. And you start to see like, okay, it's sometimes it's not what you're doing, it's what you're not doing.
51:53And we can then point to the fact of like, okay, here's what it takes to be a great team member at Footer Catering. I need you to do this, and this. And you, right now you're not doing any of those things. And so that's another way to look at it as well, when there's not something that somebody's doing technically wrong, but just something that, when you wanna see more out of them.
52:12Yeah. And that can be challenging too, because everybody gets motivated, in different ways. So got your work cut out for you. But I will argue to your earlier comment that, the landscape is changing largely because of guys like you, man. even as short a time ago as I was getting into the kitchens, it was the land of the misfits and the mis koreans, right?
52:33Like, you kind of go in there and I feel like that's shifted so much that, now the culture in the kitchen is a lot more positive. It's a lot more engaging. You've got people that have a completely different goal in life to be a part of food service, and now they can find places like yours where they're comfortable and they don't have to get away from the thing that they love.
52:57Because traditionally food service is grindy man. It can be. And emotions run high, and it's, frustrating and you know you're Well, and there's high pressure too. we're, we're creating live performances, right? Like that, like, especially in catering, but restaurants too. Like it's, you got one shot to do it. And hopefully you nail it. it's not a, oh, let me do your wedding over again, you know?
53:24Yeah, exactly. You don't really get to do a, do-over in those scenarios. Yeah. Nice. Well with five minutes to spare, I will let you go. And I also noticed that our friend John Waved. Hello John, how you doing? Good to see you. Thanks for joining today And yeah, thanks for sharing all the good stuff. We'll get this recording up on the YouTubes and everybody can share with their friends and family.
53:52And maybe we'll check in with you again at the beginning of the year, going into the Mime Summit and kind of see what's on the docket. That'd be, that'd be awesome, Jason. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me today. really appreciate it. And thank you everyone for tuning in. We'd again, love to see you at the Mob Summit, or if they have other questions, you can just reach me atAnthony@footerscatering.com as well.
54:16Excellent. And thank for everybody who made time to hang out with us today and thank you, sir. I've enjoyed the conversation. It's been fun.