How To Be a World Class Operator - Ole & Steen, Wagamama, SoHo House, Caravan Managing Director

0:00I remember someone in the industry went, how do I know who's the manager? And I went, is it ticking over? Who's checking? Who's talking to guests? Who's touching tables? Who's looking at ticket times? And they were like, that girl there. I went, that's the manager. And what they're actually doing is not managing. I've got a uniform. I've got a position of power so I can lord it over you. And I walk around the clipboard and I'm not really bothered about my team. I'm not really about the guests. Early doors, you've got to be a super team player. even if you're leading you've got to be on the pitch

0:41Graham thank you for doing this mate yeah super excited as I said to you when we were when I came in here one I massively huge respect for this brand Olinstein but also I liked your career running up to today so you know sort of Wagamama, the chippies, which we're going to talk about because I love good fucking fish and chips. Caravan, Laura and Chris have been on this poddy. Jess is a really good mate of mine. And then obviously, you know, Nick Jones at Soa House. So I think it's a really nice mix of different cultures, you know, Kiwi, Danish, British, potentially Japanese, which I love. And so there's that part, but then I'm also really excited to explore the operator part.

1:27As I said to you, I've had so many founders on this podcast but there's definitely a tension between founder and operator that can even be a wonderful jazz-like dance or it can be a sort of uh you know malevolent kind of just head-bashing arguments all the time um so thanks fain i'm excited absolute pleasure let's let's start with chippies and looking through it through an operational lens and eye because i think this will give us fertile territory to how we sort of get on to the other parts um so what it talk me through like what are some of the uh operational headaches of running successful fish and chips restaurants you're dealing with um yeah you're dealing with two natural products so unlike burger pizza or whatever you're dealing with fish that won't go yeah i'll be exactly this every single time so you can buy weight you can buy size to a certain degree but you can't flex that in your prices unless you you know uber call and doing it all by weight and the same with potatoes you know doing the business for i think i probably did it nearly six years one year was you know absolute shite harvest and you know luckily we had such a good relationship with our potato merchant that we were getting it but our yield from a you know a 40 kilo bag would be half of what you used to do.

3:09You can't suddenly go, ah, hey customers, I'm doubling the price of chips because they'll tell you where to go. So you've got that fluctuation. And I think the reason that I was kind of lucky is really good relationships with our suppliers that would fix the price for the year. So we could go, okay, we haven't got that fluctuation. We know what we're dealing with. And then really getting close to them. so I went all the way to Norway, Ausland, went on the vessel, didn't go out to sea because they're out for ages but went on the vessel, met the captain so I could come back, tell the team, tell the customers, oh yeah this is us.

3:53We used to go out with the farmer, David, he used to take me up around the fens, we'd go to the pub at lunchtime, sometimes we'd leave, sometimes we didn't but you know he where was this sorry this was in this was this was um deep blue and then when I had my own business catch yeah yeah so sorry no where were you going to the pub like what was Cambridge so we were up we were up kind of up past the fence so kind of almost borderline of Leicestershire Lincolnshire Cambridge um and you know he he walked the fields pretty much every day and he could tell me exactly what was happening um you know would get the royal tour and he'd be like they're your potatoes these are the potatoes for you know the kind of the chinese chippies and these are pig food and those are and he was like oh i can't say i'm like what what he said no i can't say i can't say where was it it was for a well-known crisp company that aren't real crisps that base and lester that the the um you know you flip it until you can't stop thing in the tube um and i'm like that he said yeah there's no what you think there's real like loads of potato in that product wow scary but true so really really lucky in terms of all of the other challenges and i think that there's no there's lots of mum and pop operations so you know It's kind of in the family, so you're not as hard on yourself as you probably should be.

5:26Just for context, to deep blue for listeners, how many sites was that? It was a chain. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I joined and we had two. I left and we were in the mid-30s. Yeah. We would literally go to a town, find the run-down fish and chip shop where people were in their 60s going, we've had enough. Buy the shop, rebrand it, redo it. quality products quality people quality service and suddenly you know you bought a shop that was doing two grand a week and you're doing 20 yeah that was the model um how would you what was because i think chippies are so it's because as i was saying to you my mate's got his massive property business done really well but he he was thinking about going into opening a chippy because he's like mate the fucking margins are absurd if you if you can get it right yeah what are you doing differently because this will be this applies to any business you go in you say right how i get like improving the decor and improving like how do you get it something from 2k a week or a month whatever is doing a week to 20k that's 10xing something yeah yeah what was the deep you're looking at that mix of who uses you so when you uh as in like the shopper yeah the consumer the consumer and you're looking so if if the town had a waitrose we'd kind of go right tick we know that and you know it's that do you do you go with the the demographic or do you do you know the kind of psychographic that you're all kind of into and we kind of did that piece of work and and it just was we got a couple of you know brands that we could go they've done their homework and then did that usually you'd put hard-working people in there and give them a really nice little slice of the pie um and that made all the difference you've got a character behind the the range frying that can see you damn i don't mean i've got a massive one and we'll just you know that little bit of theater it just makes such a difference from your usual you know yeah yeah yeah what are you having mate yeah yeah yeah about 10 minutes and i yeah i lived in uh At the time, I lived in Banstead in Surrey.

7:37Oh, mate, yeah, that's like, this is where my mate lives. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, so I know that thing very well, yeah. So, our local chip shop. You've been to La Raj, the curry house, just out of interest. Fucking banging, isn't it? Yeah, really good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he always manages to sell you a little fart sauce on the side. Yeah, yeah. No matter what you're having. It's the best curry, it's the most underrated curry in the world. Super good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry. My local chippy, super expensive. I mean, super affluent area. and every Friday I'd go there and be like, it's two products you need to get at the same time.

8:09And you queue for 20 minutes and it'd be like, oh, just waiting for the chips, mate. How difficult can this be? And the guy had one shop, absolutely minted, got to that success syndrome of, I don't need to keep trying harder, I've got these people. And I just thought, this is just something, if you can execute it really well. the packaging you know we spent a lot of time and working out this this was a deep blue yeah deep blue yeah um um i did catch after i left it we'll get on to that yeah um but yeah i mean packaging and just just raising everything and also just doing fish and chips you know so i oh you should do burgers you should do pizza you should do kebabs and i get the single operator gets kind of blindfolded and and just sees why do you think people do that because that's one thing if you're a challenger brand that's absolutely killing it in d2c but you're struggling to crack retail then you've got to listen to this maybe you've got an ocado listing maybe you've got a whole foods listing maybe you're absolutely killing it in selfridges maybe you're absolutely killing it in your farm shop and your indies but my friends making the leap crossing el chasm Crossing El Rubicon to grocery retail is not easy.

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11:14Because they'll be told, you know, you'd be really good if you did this. And then at some point a salesman will come in and go, oh, if you did this, look at that. And what they don't realise is that their sales of fish and chips, say, were 10 grand a week. And then they suddenly add kebabs. Yes. And they're going, oh, I'm doing 12 grand a week. But what happens over a little period of time is that that two just creeps in and then they'll sink back down to the 10. But they've lost a big chunk, 20 % of their core. And then they go, ah, remember when I did kebabs? We got a big lift. I'm going to do burgers.

11:53And then they get another big lift. And because they're taking... It's a constant cycle of trying to like... Totally. And they're taking their eye off what is the absolute one thing, the key thing you've got to get right. because the difference between a great bit of fish and a bad bit of fish is 30 seconds literally in in in the range yeah it's 30 seconds and then suddenly you got a pizza oven and and you've doubled your overheads of electricity you're going i need more staff i've got to get different packages in you know you're getting a harder time from the eho because you have all these different chopping boards and you just get in the weeds i've instead of going two supplies one for chips one for fish I've now got the kebab guy ah the kebab guy comes on a Tuesday morning I've got to get up early for him and you just lose total focus you just kind of this goes on on this pursuit of of trivial pursuit oh I've got to get one of every pie no just stick with your one pie and smash it and that's what I did with catch I added things like salmon catch catch was talk me through catch catch I just took fish and chips and elevated it to another level.

13:04And you had your own physical stores? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whereabouts? Kent. Yeah. I looked, because of Deep Blue, because of Deep Blue and... Is Deep Blue the one in Cobham? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's not anymore, is it? I don't think so. Yeah, yeah. So that's my... I know this GP well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So they bought Harry Ramsden, so they've got that. They've got International. Doing a phenomenal job. Yeah. But I thought there was an opportunity to just elevate it even more. yes um you know people didn't always want chips so there was other options what were the other options just just salads different ways of doing potatoes uh elevated the packaging even more um got different types of fish so you know like not rock salmon but proper fillets of salmon um would grill stuff so not everything was just through the range so had grills so you could come in and go just want a dover soul dude just want a dover soul i've got everything at home sorted I'm going to walk in put it on me and the missus bottle of wine Dover salt so I did that which was good fun working on your own is not good fun where were you sorry they were down in Kent yeah so I was travelling to Kent every day from Banstead from Banstead which was great fun and sitting on the motorway and then you know obviously you had the problems with the channel tunnel there's a backup and like two and a half years was just like nah and what because I think you learn a lot from people's mistakes and i'm huge like what were some of those biggest mistakes you made uh with catch because i think every category can be premiumized i've had there's a brilliant business called willie's pies yep um who again like you know pie and mash shops have kind of you know kind of dwindled you could say yeah um then there's a there was a massive room for someone to come and premiumize pies elevate prize he worked at saint john he worked at brat oh wow um so he's got like the chef background they go to hg water to get their ingredients three pies fucking does it well into wicado and i think i one of the categories i think there's which is ripe for innovation is is fish and chips you've got pop art is it poppies which is the old school one in East London, I think.

15:25Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then... Yeah, they've got a couple. They've got one in Soho as well, I think. Yeah, and they've got one in... Where were we the other day? Shoreditch, just by Trimble Brewery. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it was when we were recording that podcast last week. Yeah, anyway, round that. Yeah, that's it, yeah. Trimble Brewery. So they're sort of the best in class. But then... So I think Fish and Chips, there's room there. But I'd love to know what happened, what went wrong, what the one to three things uh location it was just you know wearing down and you kind of do a 12-hour day and you're like i gotta drive home i gotta be up at six gotta drive back um and you kind of get into that moany cul-de-sac of you know oh oh um i think also just always being in big companies of going right i need to do some marketing that'll be me oh i need to do like the accounts and you know do all the ni payments etc that'll be me oh i need to do a risk assessment because one of the one of the girls is pregnant so who's going to do that oh that'll be me and you suddenly just got to become everything you know like a like an octopus and i think that bit of admin admin admin hate admin really really detest it you know left school worked in offices worked in the city I'm just like no way I need to meet different people every day I need to have something you know different landscape every day um so they were the two real big things opened second site in Canterbury um and just didn't do my homework was probably a little bit what didn't you do about a little bit arrogant um I just just made this assumption that Canterbury was super posh um and i and i went there when tourists were there i'm like man ace footfall this is brilliant this is brilliant um and it took a really long while to do the deal um and then and i just didn't i mean it was it was good but it was just nowhere near as good as i wanted it to be um and you know literally after the first month you know you know when you open a business that kind of 12 to 18 week period that's where you're going to be that is where you're going to open and that's where you know your turn will be um and we were probably we were probably about 5k a week off where I wanted that to be and then suddenly to lift that you know for every grand that you're off you got to spend 10 grand in marketing minimum um And yeah, just didn't pick the right site.

18:12So, you know, I know when you roll stuff out, you get one in 15 wrong. That's not quite right. But for your second one, and I just, I guess I probably fell a little out of love of it. Had some people that wanted to invest and then kind of looked at some other sites that were better. And then did the maths and thought, I'm going to work my nuts off for the next five years. and just kind of still be earning this level, working for five times harder. And yeah, just started chatting to my silent partner and was like, yeah, no problem. We're good. I'll take it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think there's, knowing when to quit is a hard, because it's like, there's one of those things, I've said this a lot on the podcast, don't quit is both right and wrong so it's like don't quit if you're doing something that could actually work like keep fucking going but like I'm about 5 foot 2 mate if I'm saying I want to be an NBA player and be a basketball player I probably should quit that if you look at the actual the likelihood of it being a success but I think the whole idea of never quit man all this hustle entrepreneurship just keep going well actually if it's not working put the ego aside and say right It's time to quit and just move on.

19:36And it's funny, in other situations, other jobs, our chairman's just like, you are so resilient. I can't believe how resilient you are. And at that time, I think it was just that bit, that passion and that love had just started to creep away. So that normal bit of being super resilient and whatever chip you've got on your shoulder, pardon the pun, that just keeps you going. I just kind of lost that. Yeah, just fell out of love. So one thing we're talking about is the founder-operator tension. Yes. So what you detailed there of the octopus and having to literally do everything's on you, that's almost like you've come from the operator background and then working with the founder, being the founder, you realize it's kind of a very different game as a business scales you need operators and you need founders founders have the magic operators create the scaffolding that actually builds business um let's talk about nick jones so house you work with him for x number of two and a half years and a half years i love i think so a house one of those businesses that have scaled but kept their panache and the twinkle in their eye and the uniqueness of it and they've gone across like multiple different brands as well like molly's uh motel all that stuff talk to me about founder operator attention like from an operator's perspective what's the best way to work with the founder's magic but then build the scaffolding around it to create um i think you've got to come in um the the big one is that you're both starting with empty bank accounts of trust so so you've got to kind of you know in the in the first three six months there are going to be situations that are going to test you both and i think it's that first few steps and how you react how the trust is between you how the honesty is you know if if you're you know bullshitting and i've you know seen you know what it's like people to bullshit nick you you get caught out really badly and at the end of the day it's it's a little bit like you know when you have a kid and you take it to school you hand it over to the teacher and you're not really sure what's going on you know you've got a rough idea but it's just like that's that's just my everything that i'm handing to you and they're like yeah bye see you off you go um and for for a founder to kind of relinquish control there's got to be that trust and there's got to be that you know do you really get what i see and i think with with certainly working with nick just standing back and just watching him is what you've got to do you gotta so when you sat back and watched him what did you observe Why is he such a force?

22:40Phenomenal. I mean, seriously, the guy is a titan. Every single person, he knows their name. Honestly, I've got nicknames for all my friends because I haven't got a clue what their names are. My name bucket is, you know, there. Pretty much everyone's either mate or handsome because, you know, oh, that's right, your name's David, whatever. But he knows everyone's name. He makes, he's just so charming. and he makes everyone feel special. I mean, you can just see. He walk in, light up a room, identify people. Oh, how you doing? You've been with us now 10 years. Amazing. Do you remember when we did this?

23:18Do you remember when we did that? And people literally grow afoot after he's left the room. Yeah. His attention to detail is above and beyond. So we, at Molly's, for example, we did a mock-up bedroom. and he's there going, right, where's the chair? Right, that is three millimetres too low because I want to work on my laptop. And where's the plug? I don't want my lead going over here, so the plug socket's going to go there. He's got this whole thing about showers. So when you say outside of a house, the shower taps are nowhere near the shower head. Why is that? Because if the water's at the wrong temperature, you're either burning or freezing your arse off.

24:01Wow, yes. And you can adjust it there. so you can just go boom boom boom boom boom boom there and it's just that any other little beautiful details like that the way he'd operate just everything you know he'd be like no wrong mayonnaise I know we've got a GP but it's the wrong mayonnaise this is the mayonnaise that you need when we were doing the drive through drive through Molly's we had the motel and the diner and was like we're going to do a drive through okay let's just try and keep up with him um we were looking at all the design and you know he goes what do you think what do you think and I said well you know I've been to In-N-Out I've been to Mackie D's and they all have at least two windows we've got one and we ended up going to the farmhouse overnight in the big barn and mapping out with tape the whole drive-through so the Monday morning and he pitches up you know and at the time you're thinking really i've got to pretend i'm in a range rover going through the the drive-through but honestly the amount of screw-ups we avoided with the flow deliveries and we're suddenly going but the delivery is going to mix with our customers and that's going to be a complete nightmare so so we created a whole little road for deliveries and that whole flow you're actually at so a farmhouse with masking tape masking tape on the floor this was Nick's idea yeah he's like I don't like these plans I want to you know almost like the Joey from Friends I want to be in it yeah yeah yeah no it's wonderful and it was literally where are the cups okay the cups there where are the napkins they're there the till's there okay where's the ice and it was just literally when that ice goes where's my backup ice well you go and you know the designers go well you go to the ice machine he's like I'm serving people I can't be doing that yeah and it was just every single detail you can think of.

25:59Amazing, yeah. And what, and then from the other side, from the operator's side of the kind of the dichotomy or the interrelated relationship of the two, how do you take that, the shower head is the founder's genius, the shower head, sorry, shower taps to head separation is the founder's genius, but then the scaffolding to do this at scale, to actually build a business,

26:27to have that vision and let it run through management processes and systems. Talk to me how you did that or how that happened at Sohouse. Standards, just standard standards. The other amazing thing about Nick is he will remember everything. He sees everything and he's constantly in the houses. And he's got this whole thing, I'm going to surprise them, but they're like, just to let you know, Nick's on the way to you. And he just, you know, the team that he assembled, you've got Martin, who's got Dover Street now, the restaurant on Dover Street. Phenomenal. What was your role there, sorry? So I was the MD of the kind of external bit, Dirty Burgers, Pizza East, Ollie's.

27:18So that was like a little separate, this is to the public facing not the houses right um you know nick i remember he wasn't happy with food in general in the houses so to run the uk he picked tom collins who was the exec chef it's like this is my statement of intent tom collins the entire business so i think tom's now like the ceo right um or or you know like looking after i'm pretty sure he is yeah and again attention to detail great guy you know and and nick would you know he phoned me up at half seven on a sunday morning the beans are fucked stop nick you all right yeah the baked beans i'm at molly's the beans are fucked right right okay so they're watering them down it's like okay give me 10 minutes hold on one second speak to the exec chef yeah we had them in the bain marie but they were just going all a bit slodgy.

28:14So what we do, the bain marines at a certain temperature, then we put them in the ramekin, then we put the ramekin on the plancher, and that warms them up. I'm like, so the juice is going to the top, beans are floating down to the bottom, it looks like we've watered them down. Yes, chef. Right, let's fix that, and let's fix it in 30 seconds. Call Nick back, this is what's happened. And he's like, right, I've got you. So you've just, and the problem... This is what I'm trying to get to. This is the darling example of how, from your perspective, mate, the operator deals with the founder's chaos.

28:46Totally. You've met Richard today. I'm basically that. I'll be like, why the fuck is that? I had this the other day. Why is that shot? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, it's not me being malicious or rude. I'm just like, I'm saying, I'm like panicking. I'm like, why the fuck is like, why is the shot? The shot was slightly off. I called him straight away. I'm like, and he's very good at like appeasing that. But from your side, there'll be a lot of people listening to this or even founders who just need to just get in their box a bit. so what's your approach you take the sting out of things yeah you've got to take the sting out of things how do you do that don't argue I've always said throughout my career whether it's a chef or a founder arguing with a chef is like wrestling a pig in mud after 10 minutes you realise that the pig's fucking enjoying it just don't even bother just go right take it on the chin don't try and make excuses or bullshit and and then when everything's calmed down you've got to understand how important it is and and the process to fix that because founders have got so much going on their head that you just you can't just go sit down and tell me everything you've just got to get it bit by bit and understand what are the real levers you know it's like okay their uniform wasn't absolutely spot on i could see that let that go but I'll pick that up and you then start to share the same language of going you know it'd be like you know how's how's your coffee it's not quite spot on no mine's not spot on either glad you saw that and you just start sharing the same language you build that trust up you've got to see the business through their eyes and then just keep having those honest dialects of going really how important is this you know or some business that I've been in you know oh my mate's coming in for another freebie it's like dude we spent three hours going through a p &l and you're pissing away another 300 quid for your mate who i reckon is only your mate because you're giving freebies every month yeah yeah yeah oh yeah i never thought about that and you and you just you just create and build that and build that and build that and yeah i mean boring real shit like processes of this is how we do baked beans which you know is a big deal yeah yeah and then you what I find interesting you said you hated admin but you liked processes like what's the difference because I think processes can get quite you can get bogged down in the semantics and minutiae oh totally totally and that's and that's the other bit I think Nick's got this real passion for middle managers that just don't get stuff done just he just loses it and I get it it's just like because Because people kind of see this guy who's got great ideas.

31:33They try and match his ambition. So they will do the over-promise, under-deliver. Time and time again, you know, just loses his shit of middle managers. Oh, so wait. So you think the art of great middle management is to under-promise and over-deliver? Totally. Yes. Totally. What is reality? What can you do? And, you know, if you think you can do it, surprise them. Surprise them. oh you know that thing that we said would take a month we've only gone and aced it in a week oh well done i'm playing the game i've built up your trust account a little bit more wow and then and then you then get to that point it's like come on you can do this by five o 'clock can't you yeah yes yeah i can um keep let's keep pulling on this thread because this is brilliant mate what are the other ways of success because i know i'll be i'll be brutally honest like I think you can change your mind on things.

32:26And I have changed my mind. Probably when I started the podcast, I was very, because I'd had a few run-ins with middle managers and we'll get on to that. People who come in, the executive, you know, senior executive fallacy, they come in and try and, that's an art, which we'll talk about. They ruffle the feathers, everyone fucked off, everyone left the business. So I've seen examples where middle managers do my nutting, quite literally. So I was quite ardently against them. But then as I've had more of these conversations with bigger operators, I've realised, oh, if you want to actually build, get this to a scalable business that is X number of sites, X number of customers, X number of employees, you need middle managers because they're the scaffolding that gets the ship moving, whatever you want to call it.

33:11I think the art of just basically over, sorry, under-promised over-deliverers are brilliant. What are other ways to be a successful middle manager? I think when you're joining a company that's got some, Sour House is a great example, that people have been there 10 years, and you know that their opinion of you is going to be really, really important. But you've also got to manage them. You've also got to put your line in the sand. This is how I like to operate. This is how I see things. These are my standards. This is the behaviours that I'm looking for. and we got all of the managers together of everything I was looking after and Nick had obviously asked half of them that he trusted you know this new guy in what do you think and he said to all of the room he said this is Graham he's one of us so I think that connection with you know and real connection not blow smoke up people's ass just so you know you can get whatever um that real connection and that real honesty with everyone around you just just just goes and goes and goes because you do make mistakes and you do you know some stuff and and being i think also early doors you've got to be a super team player even if you're leading you've got to be on the pitch so when we open molly's and sorry so this is this is for this specific example this as a manager going, as you were a manager going into the business?

34:46Yeah, I joined. And yeah, talk about on the pitch, off the pitch. I think that was... Yeah, yeah. Laura and Chris too. Because we opened Molly's and, you know, we had some good expectations. And, you know, one day we were in the ship. I was like, right. Why were you in the ship? Just so busy. Just unbelievably busy. And it was just like, okay, we're rolling and it's still going. Everything's, you know, as it should be but you know there was no oh after lunch it would die off it was like we just got another wave um and you know i rolled my sleeves up i'm sorry okay i remember the table numbers from the layout i'm just gonna run food and you know obviously that got back to nick who lived five miles away he said oh you're running food the other day i'm like we do what it takes okay and that's another kind of little brownie point.

35:40But I think you've got to demonstrate that you're there for the greater good, for the team, for the founder and for the business. You're not there for you. And I think those people that make that mistake of, I'm here, I'm going to do a great job, I've got this big truck of ego coming with me, because I'm da-da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da. Before they've understood the business, before they've understand the dynamics, the business, understand what the problems are because if you are brought in to a business with a founder or a big corporation it's not because they go oh sorry cv we should get rid of who we got who's doing a brilliant job and we should get this person in it's because something's not right so that part of solving the problem and fixing it how you fix it what the priorities are just goes all the way um what were the uh you said you've got this empty bank account of trust between the founder and the operator at the beginning which i think is a beautiful way of putting it you said in that six months at some point there's going to be a clash um that's business yeah there's just no rich and i clash all the time like yeah um what are some of the clashes you had with nick I think probably just you know the the speed of getting things done um you know I think there was probably some some higher decisions that weren't quite cool enough for Soho house um just just you know some kind of managers that were you know probably you know instead of kind of gucci were probably a bit fred perry um that just you know weren't you know so how's just beautiful people all over the place um and you know i i think that was probably probably it just you know some sometimes around pace and just a couple of personnel things um and what you know i saw him i saw him at mountain and and well the restaurant yeah yeah i was sitting sitting down oh we were right by the open kitchen yeah the poor dude making the crab omelet he did six i was like he's gonna be taken off that and literally on number seven that went in the bin he was taking off the beauty of an open kitchen um and i was sitting with a couple of guys oh there's nick jones i said yeah yeah i said um just just watch literally came over how you doing graham how's it going how's things right what you up to oh yeah you're right how did it work out caravan you know 30 seconds you know literally i sat a bit taller before he left must call me must call me you know i'm not going to call him unless you know i need a favor or something but just you know that being able you know some three four years on yeah to be you know that and he does it all the time yeah all the time i think management is the art of having uh like i think the management um discourse traditionally was like the scientific management principles like basically which was born out of the industrial revolution I actually think there's an art to management and I think it boils down to getting very good at having difficult conversations Tim Ferriss has got a quote I love which is you are the sum of the most difficult conversations you have how do you approach difficult conversations and what's the most difficult conversation you've had as a manager

39:23the most difficult conversation I've had is probably personally um i did a an amazing um coaching and leadership course with wagabama a guy up in scotland jim mcneesh jim mcneesh what did he do he he's like management super coach right unbelievable i was like you know who do you coach you impress me you know i'm like you know this guy's full of shit he's like uh the archbishop of canterbury i'm like all right okay now you've got my attention yeah yeah yeah our trust accounts just gone out um and there was two two things he said one that's really relevant to this a problem only exists in the absence of the right conversation oh yeah and i just went stop just say that again genius let's say say that again so problem only exists in the absence of a right conversation and then we went on to whole you know framing a conversation rather than me pitching up and going you know Dan let's meet up I want to have a chat I'm going Dan just let you know you know got some you know big money worries and can we talk at the pub because you know I want to see if you can help me out in any way you're coming no surprises to go right I've checked my bank account I've checked my savings tell you what I can lend you a grand that's all I can do but I need it back by this so it's giving pre-context absolutely totally why surprise anyone and then so say you're doing a management meeting here you're saying listen mate like look yeah because I'd probably be like that I wouldn't even say can we have a call I'm just you know what I mean yeah no totally that's interesting and if you frame it they come prepared yeah they're there you know the minute that you kind of go at someone what are they going to do they're not going to listen to you they're going to get defensive you're going to have your natural you know fight or flight reaction whereas you've kind of framed it it's like okay just to let you know yeah i was a dick and i did this and i'm really really sorry so but but why didn't you tell me you know why is this why am i hearing it from that and you and you just solve so much and being that pure honesty of you know I didn't realise this was that important to you, forgive me is there anything else keep going, is there anything else that I do that pisses you off well yeah okay cool right okay how do you think you piss people off as a manager see I'm not a fan of management, I think of management as you know a caravan all the staff turn up in their own clopper wear what they want you know yeah and i remember uh someone in the industry went how do i know who's the manager and i went is it ticking over like yeah is it ticking over as in as is it a good shift yeah is it good shift yeah yeah i said just look around who's coaching who's checking who's talking to guests who's touching tables who's looking at ticket times and they were like that girl there I went that's the manager you know and what they're actually doing is not managing you know a manager for me is I've got a uniform I've got a position of power so I can lord it over you and I walk around the clipboard and And I'm not really bothered about my team.

42:57I'm not really about the guests and that whole thing. I think you touched on it with Osh about these people that want to progress so they get paid more but work less. Yeah, basically, it's the folly of middle managers. Yeah. And sorry, I agree. There's a nuance here. When I say manager, I don't. There's the archaic old school, which is that, you know, sort of, have you done your have you cleaned the fucking bogs yeah what's your time sheet basically totally yeah I won't go say that word but and what I'm but I'm still saying even with this this new wave of management and you know Osh Osh was talking about Sujan who's been with him for on the podcast yeah yeah yeah the manager yeah Sujan who's been with him for I think 10 years Donkeys at the Guinea I think yeah at the Guinea yeah I then did a pod about a couple of weeks ago with Ashley who does the food I'm actually having lunch with Osh tomorrow at the Devonshire but he I'm busy sorry yeah yeah no worries but so then Sujan was there and he'd listened to the podcast so the Oshman went live on the Monday I recorded with Ash on the Tuesday so Sujan was there and he's got this sort of so I agree with you it's like you don't want to be the dickhead in a with a clipboard but you still want that sort of gravitas and it's like what I'm trying to get to is how do you get that?

44:30If you're walking around in just chilled clobber then people will think do you know what I mean? Yeah and I think that that's your engagement with the team, engagement with the customer, you know you've got I think the other thing from that Jim McNeish thing he took the word responsibility and then he just broke it up and went you have an ability to respond so any situation and he said the more you become a leader the more you know if something really like you just said you're fucking hell rich you've got an ability you know you've got an ability to go hold on a minute do I want to lose my shit here what do I want what outcome Steve Covey's 7 Habits the end in mind what outcome do I want well I want to improve the situation so it's that ability to respond he got it from i'm told you i was crapping names there was there was a physician or a doctor in uh auschwitz who you know got put into the concentration camp first night people all around like losing victor frankel that's it yeah yeah man's search for meaning yeah yeah and he just you know then then had that epiphany yeah and then you know the next morning realized that when you say good morning to someone it's built in human instinct so it's say to the guards morning oh morning yeah is that is that the in-between stimulus and response is your ability to choose your correct and that's your freedom totally yeah that's it that was it and he just took that little bit yeah in terms of management he's got you've got an ability to respond and think about all of these things and framing it with honesty and difficult conversations it's like you know if you let it go four times they'll think that it's the right behavior so you've got to catch it at the beginning.

46:15What about like over, not over promising, but because I think it works the other way around. For middle management, it's like under promise over deliver. Yeah. But I think founders can sort of just, they're just, founders are lovable, like puppies. And they're like, right, we can do this. Myself included, like, yeah, yeah, we'll get that sorted. And then before you know it, then it's like, and you know, I had this meeting yesterday with, um, just potential agency who may come on board. And they were like, mate, you've got so many fucking ideas. Like, they're like, just just chill out yeah i'm like so i'm trying to work out how you sort of you just got to go through what the priorities are yeah and i think you know founders love all of their sites you know caravan you know exmouth market was the original and you know special place you know i i was running food and waiting tables on the 10th anniversary um that was just you know the the people that were there you know fergus and margo and stuff like that just just she's she's uh the cousin of lauren yeah yeah yeah um and and phenomenal um and you know king's cross you know the big step and and they'll be like you know every store is really important and then you get a p &l down and go the reason i'm spending 70 of my time here is because if we want to get to this level of sales or this level of EBITDA, this is the bad boy to do it.

47:42And there was stuff where totally against what you would as a founder. It's like we give them an overview of sales and a P &L. I'd get the managers in every month. I want you to go through your P &L with your peers. We've got a scorecard. Here you do it. Boom, boom, boom. This is your MPS. You're pissing customers off. How would you gauge that? it's a net promoter score right just yeah yeah just tell that just to detail what that is for listeners just so so you you would either have mystery diners i mean back in the day you kind of had a mystery diner and you'd look at google or facebook or something but now you've got companies that can just pull that in and just tell you this is your score you know with people that connect to the wi-fi here when they leave it's like would you recommend all instinct to a friend yes or no it's that blunt um and you can just go through a scorecard of you know what are what are the really important things and one of you know my scorecards always start even now people like people like yeah and they look through and you go look at your people turnover you're having the same conversation five times a year just just chef just hold on to a senior sue will you just hold on let's just talk through before you fire another senior sue let's just go through it all it's like really i hadn't realized oh well he was a prick and how was that it's like let's just and and just putting that structure in of what it is and you know you quickly i was in a business i'm not named names i was in a business and we had one part of the business that was a different cuisine to the rest.

49:27And the food just wasn't good enough. You know, just wasn't good enough. And after six weeks, I was like, with the founder, I know what the issue is. What's the issue? Your exec chef. He's great. I said, no, he's not. He's not. He's great at this cuisine, but this cuisine, nowhere near. Nowhere near. So we sat down and had a meeting. and the exec chef after, you know, it was a framed conversation. The exec chef is basically, it's a level up from the head chef, right? So it's almost more like, it's like the chef manager, right? Totally. That's what it is. And lots of menu development. It's not actually in the kitchen.

50:05Not as much. You're doing a lot of the buying, right? Exactly, you're doing all of that. And we sat down and the exec chef said, I know I'm only 50 % of where I should be. And I just held the silence. And I went, that's brilliant. And I just looked happy. And he's like, oh, I thought you'd be upset. I went, no, because if you're only doing 50 % of your job, you're telling me that I should be halving your salary. Oh, I'm losing his shit. I'm like, dude, if you're only doing 50%, what, what, what, what? And literally the founder was like, just so close to that guy. So close. So how do you balance, because I'm a people pleaser, how do you balance being almost not giving a fuck of saying that?

50:56Because I would feel very uncomfortable saying that to someone. Literally, sitting there, what is the end goal? What do we want to do? Well, I need to pay the bank, and I need to pay that investor, and we've got a payroll of 300 people. Yeah. Okay, so in order of priority, yeah, and the reason I got you in is my wife's sick and tired of me doing 60 hours a week, so I need you to, you know, if the phone goes at the weekend, it's your phone. Right, we've got that, we've got that. And then they're the kind of crimpons, so when you do have that falling out, and you do fall, you're like, dude, remember, we're falling out because of your mate, that you're comping 300 quid a month, we're falling out because of that.

51:38I'm not talking about the founder, I'm talking about from like, from when you're like, trying to have difficult conversations with people you look after. Like, I don't know, I'm not very good at doing that. Like, it just fills me with anxiety. Like, what's the art of basically saying, because I would basically just be like, oh, don't worry, it's fine, it's all good. But it's not. Yeah, yeah, so this is what I'm asking you for. But it's not. Yeah, so how do you, how do you, how do you think we're doing? How do you think we're getting on? You know, it's. Yeah. A date, you know? Oh my God, she...

52:13You know, how do you think it's going? Yeah! Do you not have friends? I was thinking you were doing something else then, mate. Do you not have friends that comment on you eating with your mouth open? Yeah, yeah, all the time, but they've grown to love me for it. And I think that as long as you come from a place that isn't about trying to assert power, that isn't aggressive, and you come from a really honest place of fairness. Because I think that if you've got people in a job, like an exec chef, if they're not doing a good enough job, then that's not fair to their team. It's also not fair to the founder because they're taking a 70 grand salary when they don't deserve it.

53:01And more importantly, it's not fair to that individual they're just deluding themselves and i and i don't think that you go in and like i make your shit do this this this and this in a week or your toast it's just about having that conversation of going where are your skill gaps okay i get i get that's a skill gap but i really need to fill that gap around that cuisine yeah what's the solution well you know the head chef yeah you know you know their their dad's italian right so maybe i should just step back and let them get the fuck on with it that's a good idea why don't you do that because then then the other brands will know that the the they've got the autonomy and then suddenly i'm like ego that's what you're worried about isn't it ego yeah ego i'm worried about ego okay so let's just put that out let's be really clear the reason that we're elevating the head chef is they're better at something so so you know what dude being a senior person and admitting a vulnerability is honesty it's a strength yeah so what are some of your vulnerabilities over the years from the managerial perspective or leadership perspective i should say I'm super high trust and high support and, you know, that can bite you.