Here are my notes on Will Guidara’s Unreasonable Hospitality.

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Service is an art in its own right. You can provide exceptional service.
- Service is an opportunity to provide respite from people’s suffering — magic window, breath of fresh air, self-care (!), providing care for others, “restoration” (literally — French “restauration” (hospitality) as “recovery”).
- Service is the last link in a long chain — in which people put in a lot of work. Don’t botch it. Don’t botch the final meter. (× Excellence is attention to detail).
- B&W vs color — efficiency vs personality.
- Double in on guests’s positive (or negative) life experiences. Getting sleds and a cab to Central Park to a dining family seeing snow for the first time.
- Wow moments. “How did you do that?” — surprise delight (returning the right coat at the coat check without tags — × steganography). Anticipating needs. (× The Power of Moments)
  - Transcended hospitality – delight industry. Appointed Dreamweavers – to come up with delightful surprises to guests on the spot (improvisational hospitality). Systemizing spontaneity, delight, surprised. Giving people a story to tell – “legendary”.
- Build a relationship ahead of arrival. (× The Art of Gathering – prepare people, not things; the gathering starts the moment you send out the invite) – “Welcome, we spoke on the phone to confirm your reservation, we’re happy to have you here.”
  - Know your guests – ahead of arrival (× The 2-Hour Cocktail Party). Do research. (Call for confirmation to know the occasion.) Advance user research. (× The Mom Test)
- Hospitality is a dialogue, not a monologue. Getting to know the guests and their lives and projects, and what would delight them. (× How to Know a Person)
Different people have different needs — service means different things to different people. Some people just want to be left alone.
Prime behaviour by exemplifying it. Talking about your food dislikes to guests lets them open up about their own food dislikes. Find out about someone by sharing about yourself. (The dance of “vulnerability” — vulnerability debt (vulnerability gift economy); and one has to start.)
- Lead by example. You cannot elicit vulnerability if you’re not vulnerable yourself (relationships). (× Daring Greatly)
- “Low and slow” Deliver cake such that all other tables can see it. Advertising it. (× Nudge)
Don’t correct guests (even if they’re wrong). Just apologize and make a note on them (“orders steak medium rare, but prefers it cooked medium”). “Their perception is our reality.”
Group of nerds. When multiple OCD people team up, great things emerge. (Find your OCD people.) (× The Toyota Way CI).
- Hidden systems. Hidden rules of the road (in the restaurant — yield to the right etc. for waiters (× milonga’s counter-clockwise direction)). Dish-relief sign if a conversation with a guest starts. (× The Design of Everyday Things (knowledge in the head)). What you don’t notice is the result of work.
- Kaizen as a game — a challenge to oneself.
Unreasonable 5%. Spend 95% of your resources very calculatedly, spend the other 10% extravagantly, crazily (× Artist’s Way: Artist Date; Creative Being: Doing things differently; Improvise: Breaking patterns; The Toyota Way (future state): Brainstorming & by-leaps, radical, non-incremental improvement; Microdosing vs Macrodosing; daydreaming time; “time off”, vacation time). Budget for a portion of crazy (time, money, experiences, nights out). (× Die with Zero). “Manage 95% of your business down to the penny; spend the last 5 percent “foolishly”. Because the last 5% has an outsize impact on the guest experience, it’s some of the smartest money you’ll ever spend.”

“Excellence is the combination of thousands of details executed perfectly.”
- **Excellence is attention to detail** — different playlists depending on part of service & how full the room is, etc.
- “Magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect.”
- Aggregation of marginal gains (Sir David Brailsford, British cycling coach) — for multiplicative factors. (Himself inspired by kaizen)
Role-play the Black Swan (× Antifragile) to pepare for a singular event. Random “Critic of the Night” table.

Seeds are planted in childhood. Will Guidara’s 12-year-old inspiring visit to Four Seasons; Bourdain’s cold soup.
- You have to be impressed, to impress others (× Kitchen Confidential) (× Creative Being: inspiring each other to stretch, set new standards)
Start with what you want to achieve, instead of limiting yourself to what’s realistic or sustainable. (× The Toyota Way (re-imagine the future state)) (Relationships, profession.)
Run toward what you want, as opposed to away from what you don’t want. Short-term sacrifices for long-term gains (Naval’s Rule of Thumb).

Integrative thinking: Choose conflicting goals (Southwest Airline: cheapest + best service) — you create yourself a niche, have to innovate.
- Resolve conflicting messages. Drop the bill with a full bottle, so the guest doesn’t feel kicked out (nor gets impatient to ask for the bill).
- Have a mission statement to guide decisions. Coherent decisions yield a clear result (× Tiny Experiments). (× Clear Thinking (rules in order to prevent decision fatigue)) (× Made to Stick (core mission should guide behaviour))
- Scaling up: “The bigger we get, the smaller we have to act.” (× Degrowth)
Open talks and broadcasting (Pavlina): “I believe you can speak things into existence.” (Jay-Z) Say it to my face.
Starting into a new organisation: Don’t cannonball. Ease into the pool.
- Spend your first weeks sitting down with every coworker — hear them out. (× Power of Moments (home visit))
- Identify the strengths of each team member — no matter how hidden. Give them jobs/roles accordingly.
  - Make sure people who are trying and working hard have what they need to succeed — the manager’s responsibility
    - The best moment to give someone more responsibility is before they’re ready. Grow to the role.
- Tell what to do but explain why. (× The Culture Map)
- (Recommended: The One Minute Manager)
  - Criticize the behaviour, not the person. Praise in public; criticize in private. Praise with emotion, criticize without emotion.
    - Give feedback all the time — whether criticism or praise.
    - External compliments: ask to tell it to the person in charge directly (or bring them in)
    - Give feedback – and let them know they’re still loved (~~unless they’re not~~).
  - Address issues early. (Also in relationships.)
  - Award specific feats. Regular awards should still target specific feats — no “employee of the month”. (× The Power of Moments)
- Make participation in programmes mandatory (though paid).
- Hire the person, not the résumé.
  - Be unreasonable in who you hire.
    - You cannot expect someone to keep giving all of themselves if you put them alongside someone who isn’t willing to do the same (× “rather not hire than hire wrongly”).
      - New coworkers: let them work side by side with someone embodying your culture.
    - When you hire, ask yourself: Could this become one of the top two or three on the team?
    - Cupping hand vs bonfire of enthusiasm.
  - Hire slow, fire fast.
- Marry someone better than you. Partner up with someone better than you. (Mentors)
- Asking for help is a sign of strength and confidence. Don’t let your ego get in the way of asking for what you need.
Leadership: own up to your mistakes; apologize. Don’t just fix your mistake; apologize as well.
- Give people responsibility and room. Control stifles creativity. “The more control you take away from people on the ground, the less creative they can be, and guests can feel that.” Give an objective — let them figure out the means. (× Let the team figure out the strategy.)
Post-mortem the failures; celebrate the wins. “Athletes go to the tape when they’ve had a bad game, to see what they can fix. They don’t often go to the tape when they’ve had a great game—but that’s how you celebrate and hold on to what you did well.”
Family meal to consolidate culture. Telling one inspiring story from a coworker embodying the business’s values (× Made to Stick) (creating a canon of stories) (× award specific feats) — or from other businesses in the same field: what we have been impressed by (× Made to Stick (music menu meetings)). Create a culture of co-inspiration.
- Internal pointers, terms and sayings — to consolidate culture, to communicate things fast. (× Made to Stick — shorthands) “Don’t go to bed angry.” – as effective though somewhat sectarian.
- Fill people up so they can fill others up. (“If you fill up your heart, it spills outside.”) Family meal to give good vibes to forward.
  - “There’s no more powerful incentive to give great hospitality than to have been on the receiving end of it.” (× On Writing (cannot blow minds unless you’ve been mindblown yourself (by others)).
- Important rituals to protect at all costs. (Also for oneself — × Essentialism, Clear Thinking).
- What the team talks about during hangouts (× SSB).
Know your co-workers’ jobs. New restaurant managers have to spend one day working in the kitchen. Know what you manage (× time spent at the gemba — × Toyota Way).
- “In many companies, people at the top have authority but no information; people at the bottom have information but no authority.”
- Keep information flowing, so managers know what’s up. (× Kitchen Confidential)
Clear the air before finishing the day. “Don’t go to bed angry” – bring things up in the moment, address issues immediately, don’t let them fester. (× Relationships, RH).
- People want to be heard more than they want to be agreed with
- Explain your reasons. “It’s important to me.” (× CM) (Also when trying to convince/persuade)
  - Yield to the person who cares the most about the issue – in case of differing opinions. (differing opinions of varying intensity, of varying skin in the game).

Other

Priceless gifts. Gifts unquantifiable by money (× Debt, × Money).
- It isn’t the lavishness of the gift that counts, but its pricelessness.
- The value of a gift is in how it makes the person feel, not how much went into giving it. “Maybe it was the thirtieth time we’d handed a traveling guest a snack box, but it was the first time for them.”
  - Meaningful, thoughtful gifts (× The Power of Moments)
  - “People will forget what you do; they’ll forget what you said. But they’ll never forget how you made them feel.” (cf Wallguy)

Journal in order to keep perspective over time – as you take on different roles, identities; as different selves take center stage. As a waiter, you view the world as a waiter. As a manager, you view the world as a manager – though you also want to be able to view it as a waiter. Revisit past journaling to revisit different perspectives.
- “Perspective has an expiration date, no matter how hard you try to hold on to it.”
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” (Maya Angelou) (× Creative Being)
“The secret to happiness is always having something to look forward to.”
“Do less, and do it well.” (Tasking new hires with a single thing to improve – × OKR)
Take care of yourself so you can take care of others. (× first response). “I can only be authentic and inspirational and restorative if I buy back the time to restore myself.”
5 stages of grief — ~~g, r, i, e, and f~~ denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
People mistakenly show love the way they want to receive it. (Chapman, 5 Love Languages)
Funeral: “Instead of mourning her loss, we celebrated her life.”
- Drink your best bottles on your worst days.