1: It was the team’s very first strategic planning meeting.

Everyone who worked at the New York City restaurant Eleven Madison Park was there. The team had been divided into ten groups.

The question General Manager Will Guidara had charged them with answering was: “What do we want to embody?”

As Will went from table to table, listening in, he noticed a certain tension.

“Some people were arguing passionately about … continue reading

1: A decade before their restaurant Eleven Madison Park (EMP) would be recognized as the world’s best restaurant, Will Guidara and Daniel Humm were young and hungry entrepreneurs.

The year was 2007.

“We wanted to be one of the best restaurants in New York,” Will writes in his book Unreasonable Hospitality. “We wanted to make our restaurant excellent without sacrificing warmth, contemporary without compromising standards.”

“But before we … continue reading

1: The thing about Laura?

“She never complains.” Will Guidara writes in his terrific book, Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect.

Will was about to assume the General Manager role at Eleven Madison Park (also known as EMP). This New York City fine-dining restaurant was part of legendary restaurateur Danny Meyer‘s Union Square Hospitality Group. 

One “should never waste an opportunity … continue reading

1: Skip was complaining to his boss, Fred Kofman, that he wasn’t getting the service he needed.

Earlier in his career, Fred Kofman had cofounded Axialent, a consulting firm. Skip was the manager of the Sydney-based Asia Pacific subsidiary.

“The firm’s operations center was located in Buenos Aires,” Fred explains in his book The Meaning Revolution, “where we ran administration, finance, marketing, executive assistance, and materials production. It was … continue reading

1: “Managers are thermometers, and leaders are thermostats,” Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra write in their book CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest.

Managers react to what happens.  They solve problems and deal with the here and now.  They measure things and report out results. 

“Leaders influence their environment,” Carolyn, Scott, and Vikram write.  ”  They alter people’s … continue reading

1: “In God we trust, all others bring data,” management scientist W. Edwards Deming once said.

“The best CEOs adhere to this mantra,” Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra write in their book CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest. 

“Our decision-making principles insist on evidence,” says former Intuit CEO Brad Smith.  “One of the mottos is, ‘Because of (blank), … continue reading

1: The team is known as the “Dream Team.” The original version.  

The 1992 US Men’s Olympic basketball squad had a roster for the ages, including Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Scottie Pippen, and Karl Malone.

“All were consummate professionals with a track record of not only being all-star players but also playing on all-star teams,” Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra… continue reading

1: “Eliciting people’s internal commitment to pursue a common goal is the job of every leader,” writes Fred Kofman in his terrific book The Meaning Revolution: The Power of Transcendent Leadership.

We seek “the internal commitment of our followers to pursue a common goal, giving the best of themselves because they want to, because they find it intrinsically valuable beyond external incentives.” 

So how do we do that? 

“By … continue reading

1: What we feel impacts what we see.  And hear.

“People who are scared take in a scene differently,” David Brooks writes in his book How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen.

“Our ears, for example, immediately adjust to focus on high and low frequencies—a scream or a growl—rather than midrange frequencies, which include normal human speech,” David notes.  “Anxiety narrows … continue reading

1: Splat.  

A multiyear Research & Development project for the Dutch firm DSM‘s picture frame glass business had failed.

Here’s where things got interesting. 

DSM’s CEO Feike Sijbesma “had set up a ‘Hall of Failures’ where the company organized funerals for failed projects,” Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra write in CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest.

“The … continue reading