Welcome back to another edition of our hashtag lunchbox live stream.

Turning the tables for those of who are new to this, we, we

stream live on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, every Thursday, 12 noon.

The show is about staff centric, operating solutions for the

hashtag new kitchen culture.

The show is sponsored by, uh, benchmark 60.

And we have Jim Taylor here with us and waiting in the wings.

We have a very special guest.

I refer to her as the hospitality leadership, a badass, but you

know, I think you'll probably.

Understand that, that's what it looks like too for you anyway.

Good morning, Jim.

How are you?

I'm excellent.

How are you?

I'm doing great.

And, uh, before we bring Allison on, I think that there's a little

something that we get to, uh, show and, and tell people you've been

out this past week on a mandated paternity leave, which you know yeah.

Benchmark 60 support for both the masculine and the feminine and

this gorgeous thing right here.

McKenna Taylor.

Look at her.

yeah's cute.

It's, she's gorgeous.

And there's an image of her with the, with the dog who apparently is having

difficulty, uh, reconciling the fact that he is no longer the baby of the family.

He is just jealous.

It's awesome.

We'll still take him out.

He's he's gonna be okay.

Sounds great.

Let's welcome Allison to the show.

Hi Alex.

Hello?

Yeah.

Hey, thanks for having me.

Alison Ann is a hospitality leadership skills coach and mentor, and her website

is the restaurant revolution, which immediately pissed me off because I

thought, damn, that's a good name.

Why didn't I think of that?

I was surprised it wasn't taken.

I know.

And in all transparency, One of the value ads that, uh, Allison brings

to all her clients is she's also a benchmark 60 solutions provider.

Uh, that's not necessarily gonna be our topic of conversation today.

But I can't think of, uh, any, any hospitality leader right now.

Who's not seriously considering trying to figure out a better way to not

only manage, but retain their staff.

Mm-hmm, create a point of attraction and that's one of the things that's so

great about benchmark 60 ally, before we get going, I was just curious,

you know, One of my observations has been that in my career, there wasn't

really any formalized type of school or class that I could take as a

hospitality professional for leadership.

And I think I'm probably not the only one who got confused early on.

Like, what's the difference between managing and leading?

Like what do you see as that fundamental difference and what are you doing in

support of assisting people to get those critical leadership skills that

they're gonna need for, you know, this next restaurant evolution that you have?

Hmm.

I mean, first I have to give you props Adam, because the fact that you.

Have the wherewithal to ask that question means that in my experience,

you were like way ahead of the curve.

why.

Thank you.

Why you're welcome.

I say this with a part, part of the reason I, I got into the

restaurant industry when I was 17.

Yeah.

I was just a total cliche.

I thought it was gonna be something fun for the summer and then I'd be out and

literally it'll be 20 years in January.

I just, I just can't.

I just can't stay away.

Restaurant industry people are my people.

And this industry is my industry.

And so please know that I say with, with great, great love, most industry people

don't even know that there's a difference between management and leadership.

Yeah.

So that's, that's a huge, that's like a.

Step zero because so many people get into a leadership role in the hospitality

industry, and they think that it's about making sure numbers are good and

telling people what to do and getting people to follow the rules, which is, you

know, they're great management tactics.

And in my experience, both as a human being who has worked in the

industry and in the work that I do as a, a coach and a consultant, People

people very rarely follow the rules because somebody said, these are the

rules and I need you to follow them.

true.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And there's a lot of surprise.

You're the manager, right?

Oh my God.

That surprise manager surprise.

You're the manager.

I, you know, that's, that was how it worked for me.

Somebody just came up to me one day with the keys and

said, you're good to close up.

Right.

Yeah.

You know, do.

Don't you can't can't make any sense.

You can't figure the money out, leave it on the desk and

I'll handle it in the morning.

Just make sure that the door gets locked.

Here's the code.

So why do, why do you think that restaurant, the restaurant

industry is, is like that?

Cause most other industries aren't like that people have more formal management

and leadership development training.

Why, why are response like that?

You know, I think that it's in part that like restaurants have always kind of

related to themselves of the wild west.

Like we're not, we're not like other industries.

You can't make me put on a suit and tie and sit at a deck you can't

make me, I won't, I have tattoos.

Right.

And I'm gonna make alcoholic beverages for a living.

And so you have a whole community full of these kind of like

slightly too greatly rebellious.

I'm not like other people, I don't fit into the cultural norm stories

running their lives, and then they all get together and they're

like, Hey, let's run a business.

What could possibly go wrong?

Right.

yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

And it's, it's interesting because.

Then there's so many of those people who I don't know about you, but when

it was my turn to get into positions of responsibility, it was literally,

I think the boxes I, I had to check were don't do anything stupid.

Don't piss anybody off, you know, maybe formally or informally don't

date, the staff, you know, don't show up later, miss your shift.

Basically just don't do anything stupid and you're gonna get some responsibility.

Oh, absolutely.

Show like the slightest commitment to your job.

And next thing you know, you're on the fast track to

being in charge of the place.

Yeah.

Without actually any sort of support or training in what it takes to run.

I mean, my last job before I fully went solo, let's say a place that did

5 million a year in revenue, which, you know, if you, I know Jim, the kind

of places that you worked that might sound like small potatoes, but this is.

It was a, just, it was just a bar, like a bar that a guy owned that some of us ran

and we did 5 million in a year in revenue.

I had 49 people whose livelihoods relied on my leadership skills of which I had

what I pulled out of my butt and was like, this seems like it might work.

Let's try this.

. So how did, how did you learn some of this stuff?

Sorry, Adam.

I, I know I was just gonna ask same question.

It's like, that's, that's such a great question.

So I, I, I do like a little, a little bit of how I got started

was just kind of self taught.

I, I just looked around at the industry and was like, this, this

doesn't seem like it's working.

Like the whole, you know, oh, people are afraid of the chef, so they'll do

what he says or like is scrambling.

There was even, even where I worked, there was so much scrambling all the time.

It was like, oh, we didn't think to prep were chicken wings at the

sports bar for super bowl weekend.

So I, I would see decisions like that being made and be like,

yeah, We gotta, we gotta think about how we're doing things here.

And so it's just in start with a lot of conversations with people.

And then I also just, I very naturally am drawn towards creating relationships with

people, having conversations with people, that kind of vulnerability that you don't

typically get in the restaurant industry.

I I'd say that's like a little bit of how I'm like a rebel in countercultures.

I'm like, oh, you say we don't talk about this thing.

Well, I.

Let's talk about money.

Let's talk about your childhood trauma.

Let's get a, I I've known you for 10 minutes.

Do you wanna give me an advice on my relationship life?

So, yeah, so it was just kind of like experiencing that.

I, I was someone who, who looked at the industry and said, like, I feel like maybe

we could do things a little differently.

And from there, it was actually just a series of fortunate events.

I was posting online, a lot of, kind of my thoughts on, on society and

culture and double standards that we had set up, the ways that people

were treated in the industry and an acquaintance of mine got in touch.

And she said, Hey, I think you'd really do well at what I do.

And she was a professional.

So she introduced me to her coach training program and I ended up going through a,

a transformational life and leadership, uh, coach training program where they can,

they say coaches lead and leaders coach.

And so it was all about not just building leadership skills, but also

doing the transformational inside work that I had to do in order to move myself

forward and kind of transform my own.

Internal thoughts and processes, and really grow as a human so

that I could grow as a leader.

So they trained me.

I'd continue on in their leadership development program to this day.

It's a fantastic company called accomplishment coaching, and

that's the states in Canada.

So that's really where I didn't learn in the restaurant industry.

I learned in a leadership development program and now take everything that I've.

Over to the restaurant industry guy, guys fits can change everything.

This is lifechanging ally.

You bring up a, a great point, especially in reflection of, okay.

So I.

I wanna go farther with my career.

I somehow Intuit that there are some skill sets that I don't have, and I need to find

somewhere where I can get some skills.

So I think at first my journey would be okay, what are the mechanics like?

How do I actually, how do I actually, you know, how do I

actually do a great coaching council?

How do I do a great review process?

Da da, da, da.

And you get all these mechanics down.

Completely missed the point that if I'm not doing my homework, how am I

supposed to show up and be completely present and, you know, not get triggered

in conversation, you know, all those critical, soft skills that, you know,

for lack of a better way to put it seem to have been like completely

overlooked by the industry a hundred.

Well, because soft, soft skills, we don't do soft in

this industry cuz hard industry.

it's hard industry.

We're bad asses.

We hustle.

We, we make it work.

We deal with so many kinds of people, but yeah, absolutely.

It's you can know everything there is to know about the mechanics of

running a restaurant and still be just, oh, I feel like I'm on CNN now.

Yeah.

Without knowing how to be a leader, how.

Be in relationship with people like I know people are, oh,

relationship, oh, we're not.

Relationship is not necessarily just like, who's the line

cook going home with tonight.

Everyone is constantly in relationship all the time.

And without knowing how to successfully be in relationship with people, you

are never going to be as successful a leader, as you would be, no matter

how good you are at doing the numbers, no matter how tight your ship is.

You can have the checklists to end all checklists.

And if you are not leading people to come along with you, then you're

just missing out on, on truly being an effective, effective leader.

Jim, I know that you worked for a long time for one of the most, you

know, forward thinking companies, uh, restaurant companies in Canada,

you were with them for a long time.

You came up through the system.

I think in conversation, you said that, you know, they were very

focused on staff development.

Yeah.

And can you kind of.

Give us the thumbnail sketch of like how they brought you along.

Because I think, I think that whole idea by like, just giving somebody the

keys or just because I'm the sous chef and now the chef is gone, you know,

I'm ex you know, they, they assume that I have the skillset to go do that.

And Allison's point was completely pertinent and that she actually

searched outside of the industry to learn to coach mm-hmm right.

And.

How did, what was your experience like coming up with that company in Canada?

Yeah, well, I think I was really lucky that that's the company

that I sort of just fell into.

Right.

I mean, I, I basically applied off the street to be a server there, a

waiter, but you know, in, in sort of early two thousands, the mid

and through the mid two thousands, that company did everything from.

Specific women in leadership development programs to we built an internal

university, actually like a university type curriculum program that every single

manager in the company went through.

And it was everything from emotional intelligence to, you know, how to

give and receive feedback, not just give feedback, but receive feedback.

The concept that they used was actually called feed forward.

So get to the point where you can actually give people constructive,

productive information.

Before it happens, right.

You know, help them, you know, see what's coming and, and some really,

you know, cool and unique scenarios where they blended speaking of

relationship, they blended the people that were involved in that coursework

together in a way that it actually built stronger culture in the company.

So what I mean by that is when I was still in fairly junior level

management, one of the scenarios that I ended up in was I had to give

seed forward to the vice president.

I was like 23 years old and I'm giving seed forward to the president

of this multimillion dollar multi-location company as practice.

And his job in that scenario was to practice received feedback, right?

So it was really an interesting way to go through it, but they did, you know,

peer, peer to peer mentorship, internal university, women in leadership, you

know, all these different programs that really helped develop people.

In that, in that organization.

And I mean, there's some really talented people in that company still.

So I was really lucky that way.

Allison, have you seen similar similar efforts on this side of the border by

companies who are that forward thinking?

I will say I have heard, excuse me.

I have heard about it.

Mm-hmm I have heard that there are places that are making those stride.

I think that that's the future of the industry, but I, I also think Jim,

like you said, like it luck these days to fall into a place like that.

Mm-hmm and no, there are a lot of places and not because they don't wanna be strong

businesses, not because they don't want great work cultures, but just because they

either don't have the, the background, the skill sets for the, the hours in the day.

To set something like that up.

So right now it is, I think it's luck if you fall into a place like that, we're

starting to realize how important that is.

But I, I, in my experience that is that's the future.

And currently we are not seeing that in many bars and restaurants.

Right.

I don't, I'm not asking you to paint with a broad brush.

Right.

But you know, as folks who are you.

Deep into the current state of the restaurant industry.

Are there specific skill that you see time?

And again, that would support someone's growth.

Yeah.

Like, like what are they missing?

yeah.

Well, and, um, I was actually thinking as, as you were talking, Jim, that

with this, like the, the feed right thing, I was just gonna say, right.

Like, so thanks for being with us.

Yeah.

Feed forward.

It's so brilliant.

And as you were telling that story, I was having the, the memory of like the

opposite of experience, where I came in as, you know, a 20, probably 24 year

old, who, who saw different ways that things could be going and had ideas.

And went to some of the more established staff, went to bosses

and got the, the response of like, who do you think you are?

Who do you, who?

I remember that.

Yeah.

I remember sitting, sitting in a staff meeting of a place where I,

I only worked there once a week.

So most of the places.

They had never even met me before.

And they were like, who even is this woman who's telling us that

there are better ways than we could be cleaning our check presenters.

Yeah.

So this is actually, it's a step it's kind of like step zero.

One of the first things that I work with people on is that that

response is just, it's a habit.

Mm.

It's it's that kind of like, I, I need to hold my ship together.

I, I know what I'm talking about and, and other people can't come

in here and tell me what to do.

That's all like a habitual mindset.

It's a lot of mindset training.

So the first, the first step I think is just noticing.

When you're given feedback, when you are giving feedback, like

what's my internal conversation.

What's going on?

Am I someone who says, oh, that's so great.

Thank you so much.

What a great idea.

Are you someone who says, who does this person think that they are?

Are you someone who, oh my gosh, like, I can't tell you how many

times, Hey, we need to talk to you.

Oh my gosh, I'm gonna get fired.

Like every time I could be their top employee and every time

I was like, oh, I screwed up.

I'm getting get fired.

Yep.

So that my internal reaction, which is bleeding out into who I

am as an employee bleeding out into who I am as a leader and how I'm

interacting with everyone on my staff.

So yeah, really step zero is just notice what your natural reactions to

things are and then think about, okay.

If I'm picturing like the ideal boss that I want to be the ideal employee

that I wanna be two, three years in the future, like how would that person react?

What kind of thought process would that person have?

Do you just, you start to interrupt the habitual responses in the moment.

Just practice.

Okay.

What, what does boss three years from now mean?

Say about this mm-hmm I'm sure you get so many, I mean, once you start talking

to people who are in those positions that wanna learn and want to improve, I'm sure

they're like all in immediately, right?

Yeah.

And they're, they're all.

What do you say to the company that says that they don't have time for this stuff?

I mean, right.

Anyone listening is like, okay, this is critically important.

And I remember, or, you know, not speaking specifically for myself,

but people are probably thinking, I remember going through some this

stuff, or I remember the challenge of.

Ceiling, like I'm gonna get fired just because I didn't put that dish in the

right place in the dish area, or I didn't buff the wine last, properly.

Right.

Someone's giving me seed that.

So what do you, what do you say to the company that says, I don't

know if we have time to do this.

I mean, the first thing that I say is I get it.

I get that's.

That's why I really value that I have 20 years of front of house experience

before I got into coaching and consulting.

Like, there are so many people that I talk to and like, oh, well, why don't you just.

Have a weekly meet.

Why don't you just, why don't you just get up earlier?

Why don't you just get to work earlier?

Oh, I'm already working 16 hours, six days a week.

You're right.

Why don't I just get to work earlier?

So the first thing is I get it.

Like we're all in a space where our time is insanely valuable and because of.

Nothing is ever, ever going to change unless we change it.

Like, I wish that I had some magical, like, ah, you feel like

you don't have time for that.

Here's my five time saving hacks , which is a great for a LinkedIn post.

Right.

But it is great click bait article at the end of the day.

The only thing that is going to change is what we change in the cultures of

our restaurants, which starts with.

How we use our time.

So if you are someone who doesn't feel like you have time, even starting

to carve out five minutes a day and set that boundary for yourself.

Like, this is my five minutes to use, to look at the future

of this restaurant or to use, to work on my leadership development.

Or even just like I take five minutes a day to have a, a conversation

with, with one staff member to really start to build that more personal

relationship, get to know who they are as a person, what they need.

It's the same kind of mindset shift that we were talking about

with, with the feed forward.

Is it interrupts that story of, I don't have time with just two

minutes here, five minutes there and you start to really build a

muscle around saying, you know what?

I don't have the time and I'm going to make the time anyway, because if I

don't then nothing is going to change.

So Allison, let me follow that really potent comment.

With another question, because it seems to me that as sensitive people who

really enjoy serving others, how do we create a boundary that's gonna protect

us and also protect our relationships by engaging in self care and self nurture.

That's all important.

I mean, can I just like, no, I'm too busy today.

I, no, I don't need to meditate.

I got.

At least right now, like, that's a good reminder.

Thank you.

Like, like, like what's the boundary that we have to hold as non-negotiable,

if we are gonna continue to grow and be present to our, in a way that

serves them and us, well, it's gonna be different for every person, but it.

It's such a great question.

It's such a great question.

And because you know, everybody's different, there might be that person

for whom five minutes of meditation is life changing, but oh, Shane like right.

Such a great point.

Thanks for participating.

Yeah, yeah.

Absolutely saying Shane's just chiming in saying, yeah.

Saying yes to developing empathetic leadership means saying no to something

else you're spending your time on.

Is there something you can delegate deprioritize in order to practice,

practice, active leadership and.

What a great way to put it active leadership, proactive leadership,

not reactive leadership.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, and to your point, Shane, so often I think we, we tell ourselves,

like, if I take time for building my leadership, CRE like self care,

I had a, a boss who God bless him.

He's a, an amazing human being.

If he didn't go to the gym, every.

He turned into a raging asshole.

Like you just could not work with him.

I, I spent more time fighting with him over little petty stuff than it.

Would've taken for him to just go to the gym, just go to the gym.

Right.

Um, get outta here, get your sleep at night.

And a lot of times we, we feel like if I say yes to developing my

leadership, taking time for self care, the whole restaurant's gonna fall.

I've got this to do list, you know, the, the, this is, this is the list of

the four things that are on fire today.

And if I don't handle them because I'm in charge, then

everything's gonna fall apart.

So by starting to, no matter what the time period is, no matter what your

self care looks like, whether it's going to the gym, getting enough, sleep me.

Getting your nails done.

Like for me, having my nails done is like a huge self-care it boosts

the quality of my life immensely.

And if you don't get that, I don't care.

That's my thing.

Not yours.

Sure.

By setting that boundary, setting that time, however long it is, whatever it

is, you actually start to realize that some of the things that you assumed

were going to just go to the dogs, they.

They, they handle themselves.

You can hand them off to someone else or, you know, you start

to notice like, oh, okay.

Well of the five things that I thought would go to the dogs, four

of them actually ended up being okay.

I, I just got to them later.

Oh, one of them actually did go to the dog.

Okay.

Good to know.

That's actually something I need to set up structures for.

I need to have some sort of a process in place to make sure that this gets

handled, but you can't even know those things until you're starting

to experiment with how you're using your time and your excellent Allison.

I wanna be conscious of our time and our commitment to our

listeners and to our viewers.

But I feel like this conversation could go.

Very long time.

So first off, I just want to say, is it okay if we ask you back again?

I would love that please.

Yeah.

And, and before we have to break, I'm curious to know, I I've put

in the chat several ways for folks to get in touch with you.

Do you wanna just kind of rattle off some contact information?

So if folks are intrigued by some of the stuff you're saying they

can follow up with you directly.

Absolutely.

I've loved that.

My one website is restaurant revolution.me.

M E you can reach me at Alison Ann dot coaching, gmail.com, a L I S O N a N N E.

Uh, coaching Gmail.

And you can find me on LinkedIn.

That's one of the best places to get in touch with me on LinkedIn,

all over the place all the time.

So please feel free.

Send me a DM on LinkedIn, Allison Ann restaurant revolution.

And before everybody leaves, cuz we got few minutes more and I want you to use

up every single bit of this actionable intelligence is what this show's about.

So can you.

Give our listeners and our viewers, uh, maybe three things that you

feel could make a huge difference that they can actually put in a use

in their operation this weekend.

I mean, I know it might, might be clunky because it's a little inpractice and

stuff, but if somebody really knows that that something can be better, what

are co like your top three top hits, I guess you would say top hit, love it.

Create time to talk to every single person on your staff.

At least once a.

Start with once a week, even if it's 30 seconds.

Hey, how are you doing?

Start to relate to your people as human beings first and your employees.

Second two is practice asking, what do you need right now?

Or what would help you right now?

You can try to predict what your people need all day.

Take a lot less time to just ask them.

right.

The third one is, you know, this is, this is a little esoteric for

some people, but it really can be a game changer is practice asking

yourself, who do I wanna be?

Who do I wanna be in this situation?

Focusing more on who you wanna be and how you wanna show up in the world

as a human and letting that change.

How you act is going to be more of a transforming once and for all

shift than having to decide all the time, what do, what do I wanna do?

What do I wanna do?

How do I wanna act?

What do I wanna do?

Just choose who do I wanna be?

How do I wanna show up in the world and let the decisions come from there?

That's really good.

I'll thank you for that.

Thank you.

Hold on a second, because that is awesome.

I wanna make sure everybody gets it.

Who do you wanna be?

How do I wanna show up in the world and ally, would you

say that that's a, uh, park?

Is that a parking lot conversation that you're having with yourself,

you know, in the car before you like walk into the building?

Or can you just take a moment and just reconnect to that as a

way of course correcting in the cor in the Mo midst of your day?

Yes.

I mean, both, it's it.

You can have it in the parking lot.

And I think that's great set the intention who do I wanna be

today, but then we're all humans.

We have reactions that take over and yeah, time and time again, in the

midst of the day, come back to it.

Like, wait a second.

Who do I wanna be?

Wait a second.

Who do I wanna be?

Yeah.

Which is so hard in the moment.

Right.

Because yeah, again, we're, we're sensitive and it's easy to get

triggered because most of us wear our hearts are on our sleeve.

Yeah.

Um, and this is not about toughening us up, right.

This.

Like in some ways actually a call to expand your heart.

Did you say?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

That's also humans advice for my situation as a new dad right now, too.

Who do I wanna be?

Thank you for that.

I spent some time on that one.

That's the shit.

And not just today, right?

Because the reality is, is we can become that person at any moment.

Right.

Mm-hmm cause if we can imagine it, then we know it's possible.

Yeah.

I think that's a great place to leave it.

Allison and restaurant revolution, hospitality management, badass and

moonlighting rock and roll singer.

We thank you very much for your time.

Adam, Jim.

Thank you so much for having me.

I love this.

Thanks so much.

Good day.

Thank you.

And just wanna remind folks that this, this show right after gets

converted, conveniently to a podcast.

Called turning the table.

It's on Spotify, iTunes.

It's everywhere you get your, you get your podcasts.

And I just wanna post the URL in here so that everybody gets it because it'll open

up to whichever podcast player you have.

And as also always, we want to thank Jim, um, and benchmark 60.

And finally, I don't think, uh, that we can let this moment pass without really

giving a huge shout out for the person who's done the most work this week.

Thank you.

Jen Taylor.

Yeah,

you got it.

Thank you very everybody.

We'll catch you on the next episode of turning the table.

Stand tall and frosty.

Everybody have a great week.

Thanks for joining us on this episode of turning the table with

me, Adam Lamb and Jim Taylor.

This episode was sponsored by benchmark.

We're on a mission to change the food and beverage industry by

focusing on staff, mental health and wellbeing by forecasting and actively

managing workload productivity.

Over 200 restaurants and food and beverage operations have discovered for themselves

how to increase staff retention and become a preferred employer in their

market by using our proprietary system.

If you'd like to have an operational culture that everybody wants to work

for, then check out benchmark 60 on the web at www dot benchmark 60 dot.

Thanks for taking the time to be with us and the courage to try new things for the

restaurant profession's oldest problems.

Turning the table is a production of realignment media.