DAN SIMONS

Men, lemme get right to the point. I believe we need to get fluent. If something affects or will affect 49.6% of the population, we should understand it, right? If something affects every woman at some point in her life, then as humans who have professional, personal, and family relationships with women, we should understand this thing, right? Before I go any further, let me get my disclaimer out of the way. I’m male, I’ll never experience menopause myself, and I’m not an expert on menopause. So, why is a guy who knows so little about menopause writing about it? Because that’s exactly the point. I know only a little, yet I have several roles where I believe I’m compelled to know more and to talk about menopause. I’m married to a woman; I’m a father; I’m a business leader with over 1,200 employees; I advocate regularly about mental health in the workplace. I’d be negligent if I wasn’t talking about menopause. Here’s my quick mea culpa. I was essentially clueless about menopause. I understood it to simply be a phase that concluded the pregnancy years and included hot flashes. That’s it, that’s what I knew. Absolutely fair and accurate to describe myself as ignorant. My ignorance was more than just failing to understand the biological change, symptoms, causes, and effects; my ignorance meant that I had no idea what my mother, my sisters, my wife, and every other woman I knew around my age was going through. Here's another way to look at my cluelessness: imagine if I said to someone I love, “You’re going through this phase that affects your mind, body, and overall wellness, and it may become the dominant thing affecting you, and I’m going to just ignore it, not know anything about it, and not be supportive in anyway.” What sort of person would I be to say that to someone I care about? WHY I AM WRITING ABOUT MENOPAUSE At the most basic personal level, it seems like a good idea to understand what Suzi, my wife, will be and is experiencing. Seems like a good idea to educate my three sons on what their mom AND every other woman in their lives will at some point experience. Seems sensible to understand what has happened, is happening, and will happen for my mum and sisters. I also want to ensure my female employees know we care to understand and support what is or will happen to their mind and body. Seems sensible to educate my male employees on what is or will happen to 100% of their female colleagues. And it seems sensible if I want to effectively talk about mental health that I talk about menopause and hormones, since they can be so deeply intertwined. Hormonal changes, that is, changes in hormone levels, can wreak havoc on the brain and body. I learned this early on about menstrual cycles with my sisters and my mum; I learned more with my wife in our lives together, including during and after several pregnancies. (If you don’t know what I am talking about regarding menstruation, pregnancy, and postnatal hormone shifts, and you are in any personal or professional relationships with women, this is another area to do some learning.) And here’s the thing, hormonal changes aren’t just happening or going to happen to all women; they are happening and are going to continue to happen to all of us. Every day, we are learning more. With this knowledge, we have the ability to be more understanding of ourselves and others; and we are better positioned to deal with our symptoms and potentially treat the root cause. My intent with this blog is four-fold: normalize talking about menopause (and hormones); provide a catalyst for business leaders to learn more about menopause and add it to the list of topics where they can provide education and support to their employees; encourage other men to learn more; and be a conversation starter that people can share digitally with their families, friends, partners, and colleagues. SUBJECTIVITY, QUICKIE DEFINITIONS & MY IGNORANT ASSUMPTIONS Definitions and vocabulary are helpful, so let’s do a few quickies. When discussing menopause, it’s important to also know about perimenopause, the phase leading up to the final menstrual period. To paraphrase definitions from the Mayo Clinic, perimenopause means ‘around menopause’ and refers to the natural transition marking the end of the reproductive years. During perimenopause, the body's production of estrogen and progesterone, key female hormones, rises and falls. Many of the changes experienced during perimenopause are a result of decreasing estrogen. After 12 consecutive months without a menstrual period, menopause officially begins, and the perimenopause phase is over. The word “menopause” is derived from “mēn” and “pausa.” The Greek “mēn” meaning month, and the Latin, “pausa” meaning cessation or break. Conveniently and cluelessly, I had always presumed the word menopause legitimately was conveying, Men, ohhhh, you should pause (your intention), because I’m probably not interested. Seriously, I really thought that — and now I understand I was just falling into my own ignorant pitfall of thinking this phase experienced by a woman had a definition that would be about a man. Man-centric thinking, I know, I know. Also, during perimenopause or menopause, many may want their partner (man or otherwise) to keep their paws to themselves; however, that is not an accurate or appropriate blanket statement, and if anything, it just feeds into the ignorance (primarily of men) surrounding the topic of how to engage with a woman experiencing these pivotal phases. Also, I want to note that when I use a phrase such as “women experiencing menopause,” I am not intending to exclude or offend a person who may go through menopause but who no longer identifies as a woman. My perspective is this a human topic, so I hope my approach with terminology conveys my sentiment. WHAT I AM DOING IN ADDITION TO BLOGGING As a business leader, I’m bringing menopause up at work and reminding supervisors and colleagues that this is another topic on which we must be empathetic. The convergence of mental health, physical health, relationship health, and workplace performance means that we all have compelling reasons to explore, understand, and address the phases and symptoms of menopause. I hope you can share this blog with your executive team and your HR team to see if there are ways you can elevate and support the topic of menopause in your company. I believe it fits right in with initiatives around profit, productivity, and business goals. After all, we need our teams, individually and collectively, to perform at their best for the business to perform at its best. As a husband, I’m learning more and asking Suzi how she feels while being supportive of her journey with Hormone Replacement Therapy, HRT. (She wants me to say it has been an up/down/up journey but for her it is well worth doing now that she and her doctor have found the right recipe.) Maybe you can share this blog with a woman in your life to express that you’re on the journey with her, learning, and interested in knowing how to be supportive. I’m taking responsibility for learning more. I am also working to normalize this conversation amongst my family, friends, colleagues, and anyone who happens to read my blogs. I encourage you to do the same; together, I hope we can help propel the conversation forward to be more informed and stop the hush hush stigma and ignorance. Will you join me? TABOO OR TOO PRIVATE? Before I sign off, let’s do a quick review of any reason to not talk about menopause at home or in the workplace. … Pause. Pause. Pause. Well, that’s quick enough review — there’s no good reason. Wait, you think it’s too private? You aren’t comfortable talking about it? Let me try to convey this, albeit with some slight sarcasm: maybe human reproduction is somehow private, icky, or taboo? That’s odd. If you’re reading this, somehow a sperm met an egg and formed a relationship, and you arrived in this world through the vaginal canal, or maybe you bypassed the canal via Caesarian birth. That vagina and uterus, month after month, are part of this amazing biological cycle and function. Hormones are heavily involved, of course. It doesn’t have to be private, and it isn’t icky. This is just science and human biology. So, let’s push through the taboo if you’re stuck there, and I promise, I’ll abandon any judgment or sarcasm. I really do respect that for each person, this conversation has a range of comfort, discomfort, or unfamiliarity. I’m trying to draw you into this conversation, not push you away. I hope you’ll consider moving through any unease. I am certain the people you care about will be glad if you do. For more on menopause in the workplace, you can listen to an episode on the Anxious Achiever podcast where I was recently a guest.

Menopause is a human issue. One set of humans experiences it, and it just seems incredibly important that all humans get it. This includes business leaders, as I discussed with Morra Aarons-Mele on a recent episode of her Anxious Achiever podcast , "Want to Run a Good Company? You Can't Ignore Menopause Anymore." Anything that significantly disrupts your work becomes a work issue, which is one of the main reasons I have been on a mission to encourage discussion of menopause with business leaders everywhere. Give it a listen and share it with your colleagues and friends. Morra's book, The Anxious Achiever: Turn Your Biggest Fears into Your Leadership Superpower, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in April 2023. She recently won the 2023 Mental Health America Media Award. Also on the podcast was Amy Gallo , author of Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People) , co-host of Women at Work podcast, and contributing editor at Harvard Business Review . You can also read my blog on the topic, "Menopause. Men All Pause. Leaders All Pause."

I had the opportunity to speak with Michael Tingsager on his podcast, Hospitality Mavericks. Our conversation ranged from building a winning biz culture to mental health in the workplace to why family farming plays a key role in ensuring we have healthy food available and a balanced planet now and in the future. Give it a listen below or by going HERE . And let me know what you think. Hospitality Mavericks is a podcast developed to bring together the world's "Mavericks," or people who do things differently from the norm and refuse to cash out on their values by caring for their people, their communities, and the planet.

I believe the single largest productivity gain staring us in the face is not technology, robots, layoffs, or new manufacturing methods – it is improving the mental health of our workforce. Do this, and you can, and will, unleash a massive productivity gain. People can run much faster and longer if they shed that backpack full of burden they have been dragging around, often in secret. So, whether you’re a hard-core conservative or a left-leaning progressive, you have huge motivation, aligned with your principles, to take my advice. And the first place it often starts, is rejecting what I think is one of the stupidest management strategies: Expecting your team members to leave their problems at the door when they come to work. Who can actually do that? Or be expected to do that? And why does anyone want that anyway? I’ve written before about companies deserving the talent of their employees, moving away from the stereotypical and hierarchical (and mostly patriarchal) top-down squeeze of blood, sweat, and tears from every single employee. It is not a wise way to harness the talent of your team, and it is a terrible way to build a business. What I didn’t specifically address is what comes up day after day in operating our restaurant company: The mental health and emotional wellness of our team matters way more than anything else. Of course, to run a successful business, you need specific skills and expertise, organization and consistent management, smart budgeting and forecasting, good communications skills, and clients/guests/buyers who want what you’re creating. But none of that matters if some of your people are falling apart or don’t feel safe or supported in their day-to-day work. The best playbook in the world is worthless if the players are in elite physical shape yet terrible mental shape. Excellent performance requires health. And mental health is health. Mental Health & Emotional Well-Being Here’s the thing. A lot of people struggle with their mental health, and that means it is highly likely a lot of people working with you and your company do too. According to the National Institutes of Health, nearly one in five U.S. adults lives with an identified mental illness. In 2017, that was 46.6 million Americans. There are many, many more who have not been identified, but who would likely meet the criteria for diagnosis. In addition, nearly 8% of adults reported having a substance use disorder, and of course, many don’t report. The estimated number of adults with serious suicidal thoughts is over 9.8 million – an increase of 200,000 in just one year. In addition to diagnosable mental illnesses, we all know there are a lot of other life events and experiences, whether temporary or long-lasting, that impact one’s emotional state. Whether grieving the loss of a loved one or pet, struggling through the end of a rough relationship, coping with financial worries, managing a sick kid or aging parent, dealing with housing problems, or simply not getting enough sleep because you have an infant or go to night school, everything on this list can impact the well-being of your employees and their ability to do their job, even the simplest of tasks. Putting your head in the sand and ignoring these glaring realities impacting the people in your company is not only stupid, it’s irresponsible. Yet, many companies merely cross their fingers, close their eyes, and hope for the best while simultaneously demanding success from their teams. Or even worse, they articulate specifically that you should keep your personal life, including any problems, to yourself, leave them at the door, and focus only on your job when you are at work. Or else… go work somewhere else. Ugh. That is totally unrealistic. Who can honestly leave their personal life, especially their problems, at the door? I know I can’t. And I don’t want to. Everything Matters. Everything is Personal. In our company, we say, “Everything Matters. Everything is Personal.” This means, we know and expect you to bring YOU to work, every day. All parts of you. Your smarts, expertise, energy, drive, hopes and dreams, as well as your worries, anxieties, fatigue, weaknesses, family love and angst, physical and mental health, and challenges. The best way to deal with that wonderful and complicated stew that is each and every one of us is not to try and refuse it entry, but instead embrace it and support the process of dealing with it. Of course, this doesn’t mean that in our company you can just behave however you like and screw whoever doesn’t like it. Far from it. Rather, it means we recognize each person as a whole, and we hold everyone accountable for each and every piece of themselves. BUT, they also know that they have the support of our entire team. How does this actually work? The best way to explain it is to go through some scenarios. Someone is repeatedly late to work. What do we do? Before we start reprimanding them and threatening their position, we ask, “why?” What is going on that is preventing that person from getting to work on time? Another person appears to be chronically angry, is acting out and/or yelling at co-workers (or even guests). What do we do? Well, of course we intervene immediately to create a safe environment for everyone. Our approach to our employee is first a question, “Are you okay? Where is the anger coming from?” We dig for a cause instead of just hammering them for a symptom. A very reliable employee suddenly starts regularly calling in sick or seems to be hitting the bar heavily after each shift or appears unkempt, down, lost. What do we do? We seek to understand why. What is happening in their life? What is their mental state? How can we help? All of these can easily trace back to one of Stephen Covey’s famous points fromThe 7 Habits of Highly Effective People®, “Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood®.” In the current business world, this decades-old principle still remains one of the most innovative, especially as it relates to mental well-being, the success of our employees, and of our business. Real Business Innovation in 2019 Recognizes Mental Wellness The single best way to achieve the esteemed “productivity gain” in a company, or achieve success across your entire enterprise, does not come from a new computer, a new robot, or a new method. Try a 50% improvement in the mental health of your workforce, and you’ll see incredible gains in productivity. I’m not a scientist or researcher, so it would be great to have someone from Harvard Business Review to back up my statement with real evidence. But, I have all the evidence I need. I’ve been participating on, building, and leading teams for almost 30 years, and I am certain that the elite results are achieved when mental health and emotional wellness is prioritized and addressed, so that the team members are unleashed. If you’re the smartest data scientist around, and can develop the algorithms for Watson or Alexa, but your anxiety prevents you from talking in meetings or your moderate depression makes it hard to get out of bed some days, all that aptitude and ability you have been fostering will never be maximized until you find a way to stop lugging around that 75-pound mental health burden backpack. If your mom is sick and you’re struggling with ways to support her and pay your bills, there is no way you are eagerly drumming up new business contacts or able to creatively brainstorm the company’s next advertising campaign. All of these scenarios are only made worse in a company that looks away, that asks you to leave your problems at the door, that doesn’t seem to care about you, only your work. Real innovation is seeing people for who they are, connecting with your employees, and creating a safe environment for everyone, every single day. Trust me, innovate with mental health, and you’ll see a surge in all sorts of other innovation and productivity. In this environment, everyone can excel together. Everyone can benefit from participating in building the business. You aren’t building it on the backs of your team. You are building it in collaboration with every single member of your team. When they excel, the company excels. That’s real business innovation in 2019.

Talent is always the most valuable commodity in a business. Everyone says it. Most everyone knows it. Bestseller after bestseller on The New York Times list confirm it. I enjoyed reading Daniel Coyle’s The Talent Code as much as anyone. Yet, most companies struggle to go beyond putting up posters that say: “People are the most valuable asset we have.” It is the companies that truly recognize the value of talent – and how best to recruit, nurture, harness, and retain it – that are the most productive and profitable. Employees who see the virtue in their talent, and the importance of cultivating it, can clearly write their own tickets. But wait, I need to pause for a minute. After I wrote this blog, I realized something was missing, so I’m coming back to inject a thought right here. What I’m writing about can only be effectively applied if you – as a boss, leader, co-worker – view the world through equal eyes. This means if you’re a bigot or can’t believe everyone is equal regardless of where they are along the gender spectrum, then don’t waste your time reading any further. Of course, there’s a good chance you (or I) are unconsciously incompetent on matters of equality, so for all of us, it’s always worth taking a good, hard look in the mirror on a regular basis and asking for feedback from friends (and non-friends)… but now my sidebar has gone on far too long, so let me get back to the topic at hand. An Unproductive, and Frankly Stupid, Management Strategy in Many Companies The reality in many companies is so stereotypical it has become a caricature. The typical boss pushes and squeezes and demands performance, and then just squeezes harder when the employee doesn’t deliver the result. The employee stops caring, only works at what the boss can see, and doesn’t really give a sh#% about the company, the clients, and just doesn’t want to do the work at all anymore. It is a miserable model that will never lead to long-term success for the company or the employee. The only upside is that it’s made the Dilbert cartoonist and The Office TV show creator into wealthy celebrities. So, what gives? Why has this been the way if it doesn’t actually work? Managing talent is not easy work. It has been a moving target for much of the last century. There was the paternalistic (yet anti-Semitic) model introduced by auto magnate Henry Ford, which fed into a begrudging partnership enforced by public- and private-sector unions. This broke down in the 1980s when economic collapse and competition ripped apart the prickly alliance between employer and employee. The Millennials are here, and Gen Z is knocking on the door wanting integrity and authenticity in the workplace. For a generation raised with electronics and social media, they know how easy it is to play pretend in the electronic world, to manipulate an audience with a photo filter, or the search engine optimization (SEO) behind an online story. While these tools are familiar, many of them want to know there is more substance in their work. Thankfully, innovation, global competition, new generations of employees, and emerging staff shortages are requiring an overhaul of workplace relationships and the adoption of a new and better model. A New Model: Deserve Your Talent Equitable employer-employee covenants are the new gold, with boss and employee held accountable. In the good ones, there is strategic planning meant for both, with career paths, skill development, and job satisfaction giving equal billing to the tasks, priorities, and projects. This is the landscape for our Deserve Your Talent model, where employers create a culture of never-ending learning and reinvention to develop skills and retain employees while achieving greater levels of operational success. Employees in many ways are their own masters, adapting, excelling, and owning their personal potential now and in the future. To have a remarkable partnership between employer and employee, both must be given room to grow that acknowledges their contributions and responsibilities in the long-term advancement and success of both the company and its people. Homegrown Hires Adopting a Deserve Your Talent model requires internal strengths, creating the capacity to dip into a pool of skilled professionals who understand a company's history and culture. This reduces turnover and failure rates that come with external hires. According to the American Management Association, organizations that filled 25 percent or more of middle-management positions with external hires have double the turnover of those that choose to elevate homegrown candidates. The goal of a Deserve Your Talent strategy is to find, train, and elevate employees with high potential who are already inside the company. The first stop is always in-house for promotable talent and not Craig’s List or a headhunter. You make this known in the company, and employees begin to strive for more. High-performers who are confident in their own potential have better opportunities and know they will be rewarded. For employers, it is critical that Deserve Your Talent becomes a process and not propaganda. To preserve talent inside the organization, employers must seek out potential and foster it. Invest in aptitude rather than hiring a resume. See your current employees for who they can become (rather than who they are). Remember where you were five or 10 years ago. Provide experiential training and honest feedback, maintain the ebb and flow of talent, and encourage employees to take the steps necessary to grow. In this approach, rather than squeezing and choking every last bit of work out of our employees, we can relax a bit. And breathe. Then we can take a look at what is working and what isn’t and try to figure out what is choking off their proverbial airway. Maybe they just need more oxygen, more space? Or a barrier removed physically, mentally, politically? We work to see the aptitude even when the employee can’t see it in themselves, and try to identify the things preventing that aptitude from blooming. Sometimes you gotta change the soil they are planted in or change the plants around them or add different nutrients, and voilà, that seed that wasn’t sprouting can now turn into a solid oak tree. For employees, Deserve Your Talent is empowering but comes with responsibility. It means owning your potential and taking responsibility for your progress. While employers provide the fertile soil, only the employee can grow their fullest selves through self-examination, openness to learning, hard work and rigorous habits, and assertively fostering their own growth, both personal and professional.

Now has got to be the time. That thing that has been bothering you for a while, maybe a long while, that thing you just sorta tolerate: the stiff ankle, your periodic little limp, the pain in your hip... You just accept it and press on, and just kinda ignore it. Or maybe it’s deeper. That secret gnawing at you, the lost relationship with someone close, that underlying feeling of sadness or anxiety that you just can’t shake. But, you push on. You convince yourself it doesn’t affect you, that it’s no big deal. But… if you pause and really take a moment, you know that you’re kidding yourself. You know you need to deal with it. You know it really does matter. Do it. The time is NOW. Let’s stop ignoring stuff. Let’s stop sweeping it under the rug. Let’s stop pretending to be okay when we’re not. Let’s stop feigning fine. What’s making me think that “now” is something that needs to be said and written about now? Not a week goes by that I don’t have a convo with at least one of our 1,500 employees where “now” is part of the solution to a significant problem. Treating the symptoms is futile; discovering, owning, and addressing the cause is where the magic happens. Now has got to be the time. Take care of yourself, now. Your whole self. Your body. Your mind. Your mental health. Make the call, schedule the appointment, take that first step. You deserve to solve the ache, the limp, the pain, the burden. And you can.

The resiliency, tenacity, and optimism that drove you to choose your college or university, and achieve the goal of graduating, are the same exact ingredients that will serve you well as you come out of school into our CovidWorld. While you will hear many voices of doom and gloom, don’t get sucked into that dark, swirling vortex. Shut off the 24-hour news cycle and don’t allow the Twitterverse to become your Universe. There are opportunities. After a forest fire, growth returns. Every. Single. Time. This is your time. You didn’t choose it, but it is yours regardless. Embrace it, make it your own. Find a need and fill it. If necessary, pivot from the vision you had 90 days ago and create a new vision. Invest your energy into what is possible. Don’t allow your energy to dissipate into the morass of the impossible, of visions destroyed, and opportunities evaporated. Believe in yourself. Create a team. Set a goal. Start a company. Pitch your ideas. Network to the companies thriving in the CovidWorld Economy. Come up with ways to compete against those companies. Network to the companies who could compete against those companies or products, pitching yourself and your value to help their pivot. Class of 2020, you have already been making the world a better place. Your commitment to Conscious Capitalism is clear through so many of your actions and impacts during your undergrad years. Now it is time to go out there and be part of this next wave of people ready to re-imagine our world and our society during CovidWorld, and most importantly, in a post-vaccine world. It is your world, your planet, your community. Don’t let anyone or anything stop you from re-making it to align with your vision. Congratulations on your graduation.

I’m a restaurateur; my business partners are American family farmers. I am an optimist, and I believe we can substantially improve the food system. Business leaders must shift from a singular stakeholder view of maximizing profit, to a multi-stakeholder view where the planet, the community, workers, and natural resources are valued in the decision-making process. Capitalism isn’t the problem; it is simply deficient when administered with profit as the only stakeholder. We need profit, we need capitalism, we need to do Capitalism, Consciously. Restaurants can make an impact right now. We can put invasive species like Chesapeake Bay Blue Catfish on our menus; we can eliminate plastic straws and all sorts of single-use petroleum-based plastics and support manufacturing innovators like NewLight Technologies; we can vote to support anti-trust enforcement in agriculture and food processing; we can name, shame, and create financial downsides for polluters, poisoners, and destroyers; we can reward and incent sustainable practices. We can also acknowledge where we are part of the problem. The status quo feels safe, but it is going be the death of us, as we eat microplastics, contribute to climate change, while decimating farmers’ abilities to grow food. Those who run restaurants with a Conscious Capitalism approach will end up creating more value in the long-run. As this becomes evident, board room leaders will be forced to change because a singular devotion to profit will be a path to corporate failure. Together, we can shatter the status quo and do better. This is the short speech I gave for Food Tank’s interactive dialogue, “Towards A Global Food System that Supports People and Planet,” hosted to collect perspectives as input for the United Nations Sustainable Food Summit. Food Tank President, Dani Nierenberg, convened mission-driven players to share our challenges, opportunities, and visions for the future as part of their United Nations Food Systems Summit 2021. As the world comprehends the significant role our current food system has played in the planetary crisis, food companies around the world are quickly taking steps – some big strides, some early motions – to take responsibility and reduce the impact of their supply chains. But unlike big food, some mission-driven companies were conceived with the very goal of designing a new food system that’s built for planetary and human health.

I was sitting on our patio at Founding Farmers & Distillers, on Mass Ave in DC, talking with two of our restaurant leaders. Listening to them talk about their careers, their journeys, where they have won, and how they have righted themselves through the stumbles and the mud. These two guys have never faked anything. They put in the work. They acknowledge their short comings. They dig deep, they take the pain when they aren’t good enough, and they find a way to get better. They strive for mastery and along the way they are never trying to fool themselves, or those around them, in the areas where they haven’t figured it out yet. Their words were so real, their paths so authentic. It struck me that their winning, impressive careers have no element of faking anything. They are the real deal and it shows in who they are, how they engage, and in their work. So, for any of you out there who’ve been told to fake it till you make it, or for those of you who have flowed these words over your tongue, I say it’s time to self-edit. Delete the phrase, eliminate the concept from your thinking and how you present yourself in the world. Realize faking it is a bad idea, a lame paradigm from the first moment someone uttered the words. Instead, let’s just do the work and tell the truth.

At the recent Conscious Capitalism CEO Summit, I had the opportunity to talk, from the main stage, with a room full of conscious capitalists – CEOs, founders, and presidents dedicated to elevating humanity through business. The video of my presentation below includes how to prioritize mental health in the workplace and ways leaders can embrace vulnerability to build connection with their teams and better operationalize mental wellness. I discuss the potential impacts on a team’s ability to succeed, as well as the financial reasons why mental health should be a priority. I also share our company’s mental health playbook and a starter-kit playbook for others to consider. Thank you to Conscious Capitalism, Inc. for the chance to share, connect, and learn in this awesome community of high-impact conscious leaders. #ConsciousCapitalism

< 168 > < 10,080 > These two numbers should always be at the forefront of our mind. If you don’t know what they represent, then you definitely need to keep reading. How many times do we hear or say life is precious or appreciate the time you have or make the most of it? I invest time thinking about time, how we humans spend it, and how to get value out of time spent. I teach time management in workshops at George Washington University and during what we call "Farm School" in our restaurant company. These classes always start with a series of exercises to illustrate common misconceptions about time and planning. I have my own tricks and I borrow some from experts, including Stephen Covey and Laura Vanderkam. I ask everyone to close their eyes and open them when they think a minute has passed. The vast majority cannot effectively time a minute even when it’s the only thing they are trying to do. How can anyone expect to manage the schedules of their days, their weeks, their lives if they cannot accurately manage the length of a single minute when asked to do nothing else? And look, if you think you manage your time well yet don’t know that there are 168 hours (aka 10,080 minutes) in a week, then how can you possibly be effective at allocating this limited resource? My students expand their awareness of how they spend their time using Vanderkam’s 168-hour spreadsheet. Everyone maps their time, down to 15-minute slots. For most, there are big aha moments. OMG I can’t believe I spent 95 minutes laying in bed watching cat videos. Do I really spend four hours a week chatting after meetings and outside the gym? Wow, my kid-carpooling takes four hours a week? I would’ve guessed it took nine. We also discuss and work to change how humans use technology. Everyone turns off all of their notifications on their smartphones and laptops, for our meetings and hopefully beyond, with guidance to only turn on notifications that we realize we need. We raise awareness about how the default software settings that blast us with constant notification banners and buzzing benefit tech companies, not human users. We immerse into modern day ways of what I call, Shields Up. This obvious nod to the USS Enterprise means we find the equivalent of a protected space, like a library, whenever concentration is required. We discuss the importance of creating this space in everyone’s lives, of making decisions when to check emails, news sources, and social media instead of being manipulated by the constant barrage of prompts from “smartphones.” My work is to give humans – whether students, colleagues, friends, and even my own kids – tangible, useful skills and tools to apply to their own lives, personally and professionally, moving forward into this new age. Creating Your Own Personal Productivity Map One of my big goals in teaching, and one that can be cumbersome to articulate, is helping students define “productivity.” It’s not just about output, doing more or fitting more in. It’s about creating your very own Personal Productivity Map and ensuring it includes value. So it’s not just time. It’s quality of time and related outcomes, with the goal of leading a full, rich life. As defined by you. We consider questions such as: Are you productive because you checked 20 things off your to-do list? Or are you more productive for doing that one thing you have been trying to get to, that you are really excited about, that really matters to you? Which scenario creates a more satisfied, richer, fuller, less-overwhelmed, less-behind feeling? I often liken it to standing in front of the "all-you-can-eat” buffet. You have a choice to stuff your face with everything there is, all of it, thinking perhaps you are getting the most for your money. Or you can pick and choose the food that you really like, that you want to eat and that you know makes you happy and satiated, and just eat those. In the end, which holds more value for you personally? Here’s the thing, you really can have it all. The key is to define your “all” and then ensure you allocate your 168 hours a week and every one of your 10,080 minutes a week, with a priority that ranks your “all” items at the top. When there are things you don’t get to during the week, it doesn’t matter, because you’ll get to your top priorities. This strategy comes in part from Covey’s famous big rocks and little rocks video, which is worth watching if you haven’t. Consider your big rocks first, as your priority, then your medium rocks, then smaller rocks, and then I like to add or filter out the sand, that represents all of the noise that gets no priority and thus very little or no time. For many, the answer is obvious. We know very well what our big rocks are. Still, many of us don’t have our lives set according to productivity maps. We focus on getting our stuff done, thinking if we can just get through it, maybe we can then get to the good stuff, rather than putting that thing we really want to do first, that thing that will likely lead to more happiness. We all have lists with too many things. If you use a Personal Productivity Map in picking through the list, you can edit out the stuff of less value. Of course, there are many things, like taking your kids to basketball practice and paying your bills, that can’t be eliminated, but most of us have a lot of other stuff on our lists that can be removed or at least dropped to the bottom. Then there are the things not on our lists that actually take more time than we acknowledge. They are often electronic. The television was the old one, but now it is more likely your Instagram feed, random Pinterest meanderings, or gamers who just want five more minutes. But there are also simple things like the mindless conversations at the end of a meeting that add little to no value to anyone’s life, or when you run into someone at the gas station and end up talking about a whole lot of nothing. This is not to say, don’t be social or amicable, but unless that chit-chat connects to your “all,” why invest any of your 10,080 minutes in it? With a Personal Productivity Map, we can all approach our time and how we spend it by giving more of our attention to the things that make us feel satisfied, fulfilled, special, even magical. Prioritize your 168 hours. Define the activities, people, and goals that have value to you. Have the courage and clarity to edit out the noise from your life and allocate your 10,080 minutes to your curated list of "all" you care to do. And you’ll be the one leaving the “all-you-care-to-eat” buffet thrilled about your experience and the tasty treats, rather than the one rolling out feeling awful, and stuffed with a bunch of junk you don’t even really like. See related blog: Personal Productivity Map.

Summer is almost here, and with it the influx of teens and young adults behind counters, in lifeguard chairs, mowing lawns, and serving food. Restaurant work is at the top of the list for many as temporary work, for its convenience, flexible scheduling, plethora of jobs, and the potential to make more money than minimum wage. Many people, parents especially, presume these entry-level restaurant jobs are irrelevant in the long-term for personal or professional development. However, these assumptions are flat out wrong. As a restaurateur with a team of 1,200 employees, I see how the high-paced, high-demand, service-oriented environment of many restaurants is fertile soil for the developing brain. While many jobs help teens and young adults learn critical life skills such as timeliness and accountability, numerous aspects of a restaurant environment go well beyond those entry-level lessons. Successful performance in restaurants requires a high-level of cognitive functioning and aligns with what it takes to win in the workplace, from the front desk to the board room. My understanding has come from working with our team, reading research, and talking with several friends who are mental health specialists, including Julie Baron, LCSW-C, who specializes in working with teens and young adults. The Developing & Changing Brain There are neurological reasons for the old saying that “practice makes perfect.” As we repeat a task, whether learning to type, swimming, organizing our schedules, or even knowing how to interact with people and behave in multiple environments, we are building neurological pathways in the brain. These connections are not built in a single event but over time. The more we do something, the better the neural connectivity, and the better we become. Our brains are constantly changing throughout our lives. We are in a persistent state of building and adapting our brain’s inner roadways, fortifying the consistent pathways and branching out with new ones; adapting to our activities, changes in our environments, challenges, traumas, and illnesses. This process is happening at a much more industrious and potentially life-changing pace during young adulthood where the brain connectivity is also “pruned” based on infrequent use, such that resources can be dedicated to connecting and solidifying the synaptic pathways we are frequently utilizing. This means how teens and young adults spend their time directly influences their brain development, which also has direct implications on their future success. Restaurants as Hands-On Learning Centers for the Developing Brain Restaurants provide a live-fire learning environment for the developing brain. I consider working in a restaurant similar to going to the gym – in this case, the brain gym – for teens and young adults. The reps and the workouts are as relentless as they are effective. As illustration, I have broken down five skills developed in restaurants that correspond to what I see as impacting future success. Restaurant Skill 1: Reading the Table & Guest A great server doesn’t only deliver your food and drink in a timely, efficient way. They know and can even anticipate your needs. At Founding Farmers, we call this skill, “reading the table” and “reading the guest.” Guests may be gathering for a graduation or a birthday, having a working meeting over lunch, dining together to commiserate a grave loss, or getting together for one of myriad reasons. In DC, you may have a Supreme Court justice lunching with her clerks, or lobbyists discussing their latest strategy to get a bill passed. Or a family dealing with a recent cancer diagnosis. At another table, there may be a group of tired, hangry tourists, or a group of foodies striving to be Influencers. Each of these scenarios requires a different type of engagement and service that you can only determine by “reading,” which begins as the guest arrives at the front desk and continues at the table. The employee who falls into the superficial, judgmental trap of “profiling” and judging the guest on physical characteristics or attire is in for a rude awakening. “Reading” is the true skill; snap judgment is failure territory. There’s no directional signage to tell the server how to care for a table. Sure, sometimes a guest’s needs will be crystal clear with what they want and how they want it, but way more often than not, the server must be the navigator and the director. A lot of great service comes from being cued into the non-verbals of everyone at the table. A skilled server will assess the group dynamics, the different individual personalities and apparent needs, and then determine how best to customize the interactions to satisfy the guests and accomplish the goals of the restaurant and the desires of the guest. Reading the table means giving the guests what they need, on their terms. Sometimes mirroring works; the guest is exuberant and wants the server to emulate their vibe. But mirroring can also be the exact wrong thing to do; a mad or sad guest certainly does not want a server in one of those moods. The server must be able to absorb and analyze social cues, non-verbals, and vibe, and then distill it down quickly into a conclusion that allows them to determine their guest’s needs, meet them where they are, and then find a way to exceed their expectations. This could be through cleanliness, efficiency of service, kindness, or allowing space and privacy. So, if they are celebrating, the server makes it even more fun. If they are depressed, the server carefully sprinkles kindness in appropriate doses to help the sun shine, even just a bit. If they are mad, the server tries to take the edge off. A table could have one guest that is a tyrant and another who is mortified by their tyrant companion. Then the server needs to navigate, defuse, form alliances, and redirect the overall experience so both guests can settle down and settle in. As the restaurant worker navigates the diner, verbally and non-verbally, not only are they learning better service but the brain is learning more about human interaction, cataloguing the millions of micro-interactions and macro-interactions. The restaurant worker is framing out new, evolved responses and methods of interaction to succeed in establishing a relationship to serve and care for the guest. Restaurant Skill 2: Building Relationships, Social Skills, “Small Talk” One of the ways a server or bartender can get a read on their guests is through conversation. Everyone has had that server who walks up to the table and in nearly-robot narrative, introduces themselves, starts rattling off specials while perhaps looking down at their notepad, and likely doesn’t notice whether anyone at the table is paying attention. They don’t create connection with their guests, and the diners would be better off speaking their order into an Alexa device on the table. In many restaurants, servers are taught specific social skills in how to engage their guests in “small talk.” There’s an art to starting a conversation, especially with a guest who may want a conversation but isn’t comfortable starting one. The right amount of eye contact is magical, too little is odd, and too much is creepy. Servers can start conversations around weather or sports, or even better when there’s a unique authentic entry point: I love your briefcase, my Dad has a similar one; or You look concerned about the battery life on your cell. Would it be helpful if I charged it for you? Entry lines must be genuine, and the server’s goal to connect must be authentic; the guest can sniff out a phony. In my restaurants, we talk about serving from the heart and connecting with guests because it feels good for all involved. With this as the motive, the likelihood of a connection is high. Conversations are far more than words. A server may have good, authentic words and motive, but if they miss the signs of “not right now,” stand too close, talk annoyingly loud or too softly, they will fail in their goal to provide the guest with the desired experience. Restaurant Skill 3: Station Orchestration & Becoming a Master Juggler Being “in the weeds” is a common expression for those working in restaurants. For non-restaurant people, it generally refers to getting into the details, but for restaurant people it means totally drowning under a tidal wave of everything that must be done at the same time, with impossibly high standards and demands. Busy servers, bartenders, cooks, and expeditors are juggling many tasks at once. They are working to sequence and prioritize, manage their time, and create the most efficient path to do all the work so that every guest is provided excellent, hospitable service with timely food and drink...and a side of hot sauce, oh and can I get a refill on my Arnold Palmer, I dropped my fork, my mashed potatoes are cold, can you turn the air conditioning down (and figure out, does that mean make it warmer or colder). A busy restaurant requires its employees to be exceptional at constantly shifting from one task to another in a high-pressure environment. For those in the front of the house, they also have to do it all while smiling and remembering they are on stage. For those in the kitchen, precise movements, teamwork, and high standards are a must. If you stepped into the kitchen with me at my restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown DC, you could observe what is required to serve over 10,000 guests per week and watch humans perform the jobs of dishwashers, prep cooks, chefs, and expeditors, handling endless waves of culinary requirements. A sous chef, with eight burners and a griddle, is literally cooking more than a half dozen things at one time. Meanwhile, the tickets keep coming, and she is coordinating her timing with the cooks on the pantry, grill, and fry stations. It’s hot in the kitchen and sharp knives, flames, steam, and speed make for a potentially dangerous recipe. In the midst, a server will arrive with special verbal requests, eg, “Table 211 asked to hold the tomatoes. Sorry, I forgot to add that to the ticket.” Or “this guest is allergic to mushrooms. Are there mushrooms in that?” Or the returns will appear, “This guest changed his mind, he wants it medium rare not medium well, can you refire?” Or “My guest at 118 says the sesame sauce tastes too much like sesame, can we remake this with a different sauce?” It is high pressure, with tight timelines, requiring high levels of coordination while constantly shifting tasks, gears, and focus. Every station needs to have its ingredients properly prepared, stored, and ready for the chefs. Many restaurants have an expeditor to help this kitchen flow and to ensure the accurate movement of food to the front of the house. The Chef in the expeditor role is both the quarterback of the kitchen – responsible for all the food coordination and timing, food standards, recipe adherence, food safety, temperature – and communication liaison between the servers and the chefs. This Chef in command sets the tone for the shift: calm, steady voice, excellent organizer, ranker and solver of problems, and true leader. The role is the ultimate combination of air traffic controller and pilot, or how I sometimes see it, like an orchestra conductor who knows each instrument, each musician, the music, the right combinations, and has the capacity to bring it all beautifully together. Restaurant Skill 4: Optimize Seating & Working Under Pressure The gatekeepers to the dining experience are the hosts. They receive guests, manage the flow of traffic from door to table and back again, assess reservations, walk-ins, phone calls, and individual guest needs, working to optimize the restaurant’s seats and manage each server’s workload. This is a dynamic set of requirements. Sometimes hosts have sophisticated technology at their fingertips to assist in their seating plans, sometimes they just have their eyes, a table map, and a written waiting list. However they manage it, they are prioritizing, sequencing and, much like a live game of Tetris, puzzling together a complicated seating plan that changes by the minute. When the guest arrives with six people for their reservation for four, or with the infant who needs a highchair as the fifth guest for their reservation for four, no software is going to replace the need for the host’s mental gymnastics, fluency with the floor plan’s unique elements, and calm-under-fire problem solving-solving skills. The host doesn’t have the luxury of sitting in a quiet library to analyze the problem, edit the algorithm, and develop a theory to solve the challenge. All this spatial recognition, puzzle assembly, dis-assembly, re-assembly, is done in public view with the sights and sounds of the restaurant buzzing all around. The guests are right there in front of them, asking how long it will be until their table is ready, some may be frustrated by a wait, others may want to change their reservation from eight to nine, or they want to change their seat, and the phone may also be ringing with additional reservations. As they continue to manage the flow of people to tables and new guests rolling in, hosts have to keep their cool. They also must have some of the highest levels of emotional control, even in the face of other humans who don’t. Restaurant Skill 5: Staying Tuned In & Focused At Founding Farmers, a server manages a four-table station within which they are responsible for the sequence of service for four entirely different dining experiences, which average 75 minutes per table at dinner. Each of the four tables is at a different phase of that 75 minutes, yet the server needs to keep them all running, being attentive to each guest, at a sensible pace, while the clock of the guest, and the restaurant, is going tick tock, tick tock. It’s incredibly dynamic and varied. In addition to all the requirements we’ve discussed so far, the server must stay consistently focused. Six to eight hours (and sometimes more, to which my staff can attest) of intense focus is a must. A juggler who lets his mind wander is no longer a juggler. And so it is for the bartender or service staff member, who cannot keep their mind’s eye fixated on the job at hand. Throughout every step, servers and bartenders have to stay tuned in. This unwavering focus allows for all the ongoing input (verbal requests, non-verbal signals, team support, operational communication) to be processed, ranked, and organized to ensure right place, right time, right way. The restaurant work requires physical stamina, and mental stamina for attention and focus; rather than Siri providing notifications to be dismissed mindlessly, this work environment requires each worker to stay tuned in to their surroundings so they can set their own direction, adjust on the fly, and keep pushing forward. Future Leaders Work in Restaurants From chefs to servers, expeditors to hosts, restaurant work is intense, dogged work that builds neurological pathways for future success. It goes beyond teaching how to work hard. Restaurant work emphasizes how to strive for mastery, be part of a team, lead from wherever you are, and share in the success of something bigger than your particular task. All of that is not only a path to future success, it is leadership in the making. So, as you think about the value of those restaurant jobs, whether for entry-level, or those who make it a professional career, you can now imagine the neural pathways and soft-skill development that these workers are immersed in creating and learning. In 2021, there were approximately 14.5 million people working within the restaurant industry. It is no surprise that eight in ten restaurant owners, and nine out of ten restaurant managers, started in entry-level positions. (https://restaurant.org/research-and-media/research/industry-statistics/national-statistics/) What we don’t know from the data is how many other successful executives, entrepreneurs, lawmakers, change makers, and other leaders worked in restaurants during their youth. From my anecdata and all the conversations I have with those high-up the career ladder, it seems to me that early work experience in restaurants is highly valuable. Now, as I learn more about brain science, I understand why. I’m always curious to hear from my readers, so if you’ve ever worked in a restaurant or have seen evidence of these benefits in your employees, please share your stories with me.