In a static environment, it might be enough to know our systems and execute them every time.  

In a dynamic environment (think guest service), we need to understand our systems and the intention behind them, execute them nearly every time, and occasionally bend them in a way that still showcases the spirit of those systems. 

The Professionals Paradox: Once you get to a certain level, playing it by the book holds you back. 

There are a couple obvious problems here:

1. Mediocre performers often think they’re much better than they actually are. (see the Dunning–Kruger effect)
2. It’s easy to fall into the routine of bending the rules more often than you should. 

So what to do?

Barry-Wehmiller CEO Bob Chapman provides one of my favorite nuggets: “Machines, systems, and processes exist to serve people, not the other way around.”

If I were forced to make a list I'd say to bend the rules you must at minimum:

• Know the rules

• Understand the Why behind the rules

• Do it in a way that makes the guest feel completely taken care of

• Do it in a way that doesn’t disrupt other people's workflow

• Understand that bending the rules never means skimping on quality

• Understand the difference between cutting corners and creative problem solving

If it’s unclear how you might bend the rules while doing all of the above, play it by the book for now.

A six-point cultural business plan framework.

For Your Organization

• This is what we do.

• This is why we do it.

• This is how we do it.

For Your Team

• This is how you can contribute. 

• This is the impact of your contribution.

• This is how you can grow while contributing.

Get clear on these things and you’re on your way.

We were sitting around the roastery reading industry trade publications when one of our roasters asked: “When are we gonna be in that magazine?”

My answer: “When you write something worth sharing.”

I rifled off six or seven ideas for articles that this person was more than qualified to write.

Of course, that was the easy part. Brainstorming might be part of the creative process, but ultimately to be creative you have to create.

So go ahead, write that article. Yes, I’m talking to you.

Two Kinds Of Value

In his 2002 Dartmouth Commencement Address, Fred Rogers taps into the idea that we are all incredibly special, and the things that make us so go beyond what we can see or touch.

How does that specialness manifest?

It isn’t celebrity or fortune. It manifests as love. Not necessarily love given or received, but the worthiness of all of us to be loved.

As he puts it: “You don’t ever have to do anything sensational for people to love you.”

This speaks to one kind of value: our intrinsic value as human beings.

But there’s another kind of value. The value that others assign to us not because of who we are at our core, but because of the work we do.

Think of your favorite musician or artist. You probably don’t know them personally and they probably don’t know you, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that what they create has a very real impact on your life.

They have shown up in service to you and you assign them value because of that.

It’s a trap to conflate the two types of value. We must make the distinction between the value of our service and the value of ourself.

People won’t automatically spend their precious time and energy engaging with the work you do—you have to earn that opportunity.

On the flip side, if you’ve just had a project go down in flames, that doesn’t make you a failure.

Your Work

While I understand the sentiment of self-help quotes like “You are not your work.”, I think it’s problematic to completely dissociate ourselves from our work.

Case in point: You are not your friends, but the company you keep has a huge impact on your life. Best to choose your friends wisely.

When I say work I’m not talking about a specific job, but about the attitude, energy, and intention we carry into any given project. The job we have isn’t directly in our control, how we approach our work is.

You can have what most people consider to be a menial job (I don’t think there is such a thing), and still do great work.

The connective power of our work is what gives it meaning beyond ourselves. If we have no personal connection to our work, it seems absurd to expect other people to connect with it.

So while I hope you find value in being you and having the people around you love you just as you are, I’d also love to see you engage deeply with your work and create something inspired.

One of the things I’ve been working on the last couple of years is letting go of this overly-apologetic coaching style I developed somewhere along the way.

I can trace this to two things:
1. An unnecessary overcorrection of my natural, incredibly direct style.
2. An insecurity that what I’m bringing to the table might not be the best idea.

Feeling compelled to soften the feedback blow by being apologetic with our asks betrays us.

It reinforces the idea that feedback is a punishment for doing something wrong and not the opportunity for growth that it is, and it erases the chance for us to share our passion with others.

Approaching someone with your head down, wearing a frown, and leading with “I’m sorry, I know this is annoying and totally extra but…” isn’t the way to inspire.

Holding your head high with a confident smile, and leading with “Let me show you something.” is a better strategy.

I see these same apologetic disclaimers pop up in creative work as well.

"If I had more time it would have been better."
"It’s my first try so..."
"I wish it looked like..."
"It’s not as fancy as..."
"We don’t have a ton of investors so..."
"It didn’t come out exactly how I wanted."

Telling us how your work has fallen short of your expectations isn’t helping us connect more deeply with it. It doesn’t make your work more compelling or help us feel sympathy for your creative challenges.

We don’t need your work to be perfect. We need it to be inspired and have a point of view.

We need it to change us in some way—to take us somewhere we didn't even know we could go and that’s unlikely to happen if our delivery is self-sabotaging.

As a creator, you’ll still see the flaws, learn from your experience, and know that next time will be better—but this is where you are right now, and it pays to own it.

Create something and share it with no excuses. Because if you don’t back your work, who will?

Things I’ve learned about solving problems while running a business:

One person can come up with a workable, even amazing solution.

A small team can generally come up with a better solution than an individual contributor, provided the group members are skilled.

A large team will generally come up with a worse solution than an individual contributor.

Some opinions carry more weight than others.

To have your opinion count, you must have expertise in the area in question. Not everyone gets to weigh in on every issue.

Fresh eyes can be good at certain points, but fresh eyes too often can bog a project down.

Not everyone will be perfectly happy with every solution, and that’s OK.

Fostering growth means letting people take swings before they're ready. Pick their projects thoughtfully—the goal is to empower, not overwhelm.

My problem-solving prescription:

Make decisions with the smallest viable team of experts who have the perspective needed to effectively put the decision into action.

Once a course of action is decided on, take the time to share the Why behind the What. This creates a learning moment, connects the decision to the values of your organization, and expands the capability of your team over time.

One of the perks of sitting at the bar is the theater—watching the bartender build something for you in real time.

Last night I ordered a quite expensive Manhattan only to find it was pre-mixed. The bartender shook a few dashes of bitters into my glass, poured in my Manhattan from an unmarked glass bottle, plopped in a cherry and called it a day.

No seeing the bottles of spirits, no mixing glass, no stirring, no straining, no theater. 

I felt a bit robbed. 

I took a sip.
Delicious.
But anticlimactic. 

While the drink was worth what I paid for it, the experience was not. 

It’s the square–rectangle relationship.

While all great experiences require a high degree of quality, quality alone doesn’t guarantee a great experience.

Note: Sitting at the bar I watched the bartender build dozens of drinks from scratch but none of them were for me, so while entertaining, the action didn’t quite connect. It's like watching a cooking show and seeing the chef finish prepping a cake, pop it in the oven, then immediately pull a different finished cake out of the other oven. You definitely baked a cake, but you didn't bake it for me. 

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that making something better for you is the same thing as making something better.

Before you create a new system or destroy an existing one, take a beat, identify who else this change will affect, and seek out perspective from those people.

Then ask:

Is this change net positive?
Is this change worth the effort?

There’s always an infinite list of things that could be marginally better, and most of these things are worth ignoring. The goal isn’t to simply do work, but to do work that will move the needle in a meaningful way.

Workplaces are ecosystems. Your actions affect your team, your organization, and your guests.

Focus on the things that will create the biggest positive change for the most people, and leave the rest alone.

This isn’t to say that details don’t matter, they do, but I’ve found when you attack the big things, the details have a way of sorting themselves out.

How to make meaningful progress:

Get really good at ignoring all the things you’re supposed to be doing and focus on the things that need to get done.

At any given time there are more things that could be improved on than things you can possibly do. Action is required for progress but restraint is just as important.

You can do anything, but you can’t do everything.

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Things feel different from the other side of the counter.

Go stand in line at the coffee shop you work at, call the customer service line of your company, or put on a disguise and sit in the reception area of your office.

You'll likely see something you don’t like, and that’s good, now you can fix it.

Some of my favorite experiences revolve around seemingly ordinary things done in extraordinary ways.

A confidence-inspiring haircut. The coffee shop that feels like it was built just for you. A dining experience that blows your mind and brings you closer to the people around you.

The people that create these experiences are more than just a Barber, a Barista, or a Chef. These people are artists and leaders.

These people have decided their job title has nothing to do with the level of pride they take in their work or the attention to detail it commands.

These people choose to go above and beyond because that’s the kind of person they want to be and because they understand how their work impacts the lives of the people they serve.

These people respect their craft.
These people respect their guests.
These people respect themselves.

Will you choose to be one of these people?

I wanted to make skate videos in high school.

At the time, there was no widely available or affordable video editing software (I didn’t have a computer anyway), so I improvised.

I connected my Hi8 camera to a VCR with AV cables.

I used the record button on the VCR to record clips onto the tape in the order I wanted them.

This was tricky to do because the Record button had a lag—I’d push it, then about a second and a half later it actually started recording, so I had to build in that buffer time, and if I messed up, I had to start all over from the beginning.

I had no way to generate titles, so I wrote them on a piece of paper, filmed them, and edited them in with the above method.

That was phase one. I now had a collection of rough sections - one for each of my friends.

To add music and make the master tape, I borrowed another VCR from a friend.

I connected the first VCR (containing the rough sections) to the second VCR. I bought a cheap audio Y cable from Radio Shack and I ran the skating sounds from the first VCR into one input, and audio from a tape player in the other.

I repeated the recording process above, timing the starting and stopping of the music into the mix. Again, if I messed up at any point, I had to start all over from the beginning.

When it was all said and done I had a skate video of my friends, complete with titles, music, and a credits section. It didn't look like a professionally done video, but that wasn't the point.

I invited everyone in the video to the “premiere” (pizza and soda at my dad's shop).

It’s one of my favorite memories.

It’s easy to see this as a “back in my day” rant, but it’s not. It’s a story about commitment and creativity. Despite how much of a pain in the ass making the video was, it never occurred to me that not doing it was an option.

I’ve used this method with various projects—doing things that most people would see as more trouble than they’re worth. But they were worth it to me, so I found a way to bring my ideas to life.

Most of these projects didn’t require brute force, they required making a commitment and being happy to work within whatever limitations existed.

Commitment takes excuses off the table. When there’s no option for excuses you’re forced to get creative.

What could you create if you decided you had to?

As convenient as it would be to learn something and then do it, it’s far more effective (and fun) to learn by doing.

It pays to be thoughtful but at a certain point, you need to take action to make any measurable improvement.

I’ve been working on leadership coursework lately so let's use that as an example.

The Overthinking Trap:
"If I take two months to create this class, it will be a game-changer."

Reality:
It’s more effective to take a week to create the class, put it into action, then apply what you learn from the experience to version 2.0. Repeat.

Yes, you’ll be exposed, nervous, and might feel like a fraud on your first go around. That’s OK.

In two months' time, whatever version you’re on will be miles better than what you would’ve created if you'd bought into the overthinking trap.

Ultimate Reality:
You’re going to suck your first time. No amount of preparation can save you from this. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll get better.

Sometimes I get tagged on Instagram posts that say “Mention your favorite barista and see if they comment back.”

While it’s flattering to have someone mention me (it feels nice when your work is noticed), the whole situation seems fraught.

I’m empathetic to both parties.

Sometimes it feels like you need to post something, anything, to let people know you’re still alive and worth following.

Sometimes it feels fun to randomly tag someone whose work you admire and see if something happens.

If we’re playing the game just to kill time, fine. (There are better ways to kill time but hey…)

The problem comes when we mistake clicks for connection.

Spamming your followers for engagement sends the message that you don’t value them, and responding to spam is selling yourself short.

I’ve been on both sides. I’ve hijacked attention (it doesn’t feel good), and I’ve bought into the hijack (it doesn’t feel good).

The Way Forward

When I look back on all of the things I’ve done that stick, they all share one trait:

They were all created in service of others.

Are there things on social media created in service of others? Yes.
Can you build genuine connections on social media? Yes.
Do I post ridiculous selfies sometimes? Absolutely.

It makes me smile when someone reaches out and tells me that my work inspired them to take action. I love hearing it! (Please keep telling me.)

As with anything, intention matters. Are we showing up to share thoughtful ideas, or just run up the numbers?

Share your work. Imbibe inspiration. Connect with others. But know the difference between trash and treasure.

Mostly, don’t sell yourself short.

Three elements of connection are necessary for engagement in the workplace:

• Connection to self

• Connection to the organization

• Connection to a bigger purpose

This leads to three questions we should ask and answer (as employees and business owners).

• How am I growing?

• What is my contribution to the organization?

• How is my work helping to build a better world?

Processes and procedures aren't nearly enough—understanding how our work connects provides the foundation and gives meaning to our work.

Level 1: No Feedback

• Ignores the individual and the action.

• No one learns. The employee, leader, and organization all lose.

• Message sent: “I don’t care about you or your work.”

Level 2: “What” Level Feedback

• Focuses on the action, ignores the individual.

• A managing moment rather than a teaching moment.

• Non-scalable. Fixed to a particular situation.

• Message sent: “I care about your work but not you.”

Level 3: “Why” Level Feedback

• Empowers the individual while addressing the action.

• Explaining the Why behind the What creates a learning moment.

• Scalable. Concepts can be applied to a wide variety of situations.

• Message sent: “I care about you and your work.”

More on feedback here: A Quick-Start Guide To Feedback.

Questions I get asked often:

• How many locations do you have?

• How many employees do you have?

• What was your revenue last year?

Questions people rarely ask me:

• What does your work mean to you?

• How does it feel to show up every day?

• What are your metrics of success?

The further I go on this journey the clearer it becomes that the joy I get from work has more to do with the answers to the second set of questions than the first.

(It's also much more difficult to grow something that lacks a sense of purpose. Believe me, I've tried.)

Giving feedback was one of the most challenging things for me when stepping into leadership. At that point I was already late to the game—feedback isn’t just for leadership roles, it’s essential for healthy peer-to-peer relationships.

Giving feedback is nuanced, and no matter how much you know there’s no substitute for practice and paying attention. That being said, here are some tips to get you started on the right foot. It’s not an exhaustive list, but it’s something I wish someone would’ve shared with me decades ago.

Giving Feedback:

Give it sooner rather than later.
There’s an expiration date. The further you get from the event that triggered the feedback, the less effective the feedback will be.

Give it in person.
In this new hybrid work world, you might need to Zoom or FaceTime. Make it happen. No excuses for not looking someone in the eye while delivering feedback. (Don’t even think about giving critical feedback in an email.)

Give it often.
Regular feedback conversations build trust and connection. The longer people go without feedback, the more they’re left to wonder if anyone cares about the job they're doing, good or bad. You do care, so show them.

Be specific.
No generic “You’re doing a great job!” or “You need to do better.” Feedback exists to affirm or change behavior, when we’re vague we strip feedback of its power.

It’s not only for things that need improvement!
Feedback is for reinforcing positive behavior as well as addressing what needs improvement. If your team only hears from you when they make mistakes, how empowered do you think they'll feel?

Explain the Why behind the What.
Connect feedback to your values and/or the guest experience. This helps people see how what they do every day impacts the entire organization and beyond. Everyone’s work matters. Feedback is a useful tool for illustrating this.

Check Your Intention
Use feedback to help someone grow, not to make them feel small. This is an opportunity to help someone learn (which is different than showing off how much you know).

Just because you feel uncomfortable while giving feedback doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong.
New things are hard. Making your best effort despite the uncomfortable feelings is way more effective than doing nothing.

Giving feedback is ultimately an opportunity for alignment and growth. It helps to see it as the generous act of helping which it is, and not an act of hurting which it sometimes feels like.

I used to feel like people would hate work if I consistently gave them feedback, turns out the inverse is true.