111: Kelly Featheringham | How to Lead Highly Effective Teams

Adam Lamb: 00:00:00

Good afternoon, welcome.

Adam Lamb: 00:00:03

This is another episode of Turning the Table sponsored by Benchmark 60.

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This is episode 1 1 1 part two of our ongoing restaurant series called We Before

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Me or The Great Hospitality Culture Reset.

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In just a few moments, we'll be speaking to our featured guest executive

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leadership coach and mentor Kelly feathering him when she's gonna get

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us grounded in the ABCs of attracting, cultivating, and inspiring team members

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for maximum organizational impact.

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We ask that you share the show with someone you care about who

Adam Lamb: 00:00:33

can find this information useful.

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And please, if you can't leave a review, my name is Adam Lamb

Adam Lamb: 00:00:38

and I am a career coach for chefs and hospitality professionals.

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And I'd like to introduce my co-host, Jim Taylor of Benchmark.

Jim Taylor: 00:00:46

Adam , as, as always,

Adam Lamb: 00:00:47

Good to see you.

Adam Lamb: 00:00:48

Exactly, sir.

Adam Lamb: 00:00:49

There is a lot going on, isn't

Jim Taylor: 00:00:51

there?

Jim Taylor: 00:00:51

There's a lot going on.

Jim Taylor: 00:00:52

Yep.

Jim Taylor: 00:00:52

So lots of

Adam Lamb: 00:00:53

interesting stuff happening.

Adam Lamb: 00:00:54

So before we bring Kelly on, I, you know, in last week's show,

Adam Lamb: 00:00:59

you kind of threw something out as kind of like a no brainer man.

Adam Lamb: 00:01:03

It just kind of took me by surprise when you said that you'd spoken to somebody

Adam Lamb: 00:01:07

and they said that you can either manage by fear or you can lead from love.

Adam Lamb: 00:01:15

So that was kind of apropo and kind of , you know, I get it, that

Adam Lamb: 00:01:20

managing, you know, comes from limited resources, you know, declining outcomes.

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Whereas love is a little bit more expansive and contraction

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or expansion, you know, you can almost feel in your body.

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And then something came across my feet that kind of blew me away, which was this

Adam Lamb: 00:01:36

concept of, you know, you really have to have a lot of courage in order to build

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and lead a team, especially when you know there might be some people on there

Adam Lamb: 00:01:46

who, you know, do things better than you.

Adam Lamb: 00:01:48

Mm-hmm.

Adam Lamb: 00:01:49

, like, how did you navigate that in your own career?

Adam Lamb: 00:01:53

Because I know, you know, you were kind of a different type of manager

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than I experienced, you know, you.

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Much more enrolling.

Adam Lamb: 00:02:02

And you were a lot about the team, so did, do you ever get in that spot

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where, you know, you're bringing on guys that you know, you know, might,

Adam Lamb: 00:02:10

you know, outshine you, and how did you deal with that emotionally?

Jim Taylor: 00:02:16

This is a loaded way to start the . Start the chat today.

Jim Taylor: 00:02:20

And I, I'm sure Kelly's probably laughing at,

Adam Lamb: 00:02:24

at Oh, she's definitely got a grin on for sure.

Adam Lamb: 00:02:27

Enjoying

Jim Taylor: 00:02:27

in this conversation, but kind of kick it off.

Jim Taylor: 00:02:30

I mean, so first of all that, that sort of comment that I made

Jim Taylor: 00:02:34

about, you know, leading from love or from fear of those, Last week.

Jim Taylor: 00:02:38

I can't take credit for that.

Jim Taylor: 00:02:40

Tyler Williams is, is his name.

Jim Taylor: 00:02:43

He's the, the leader of everything culture at Zappos, which is, I mean, everybody

Jim Taylor: 00:02:49

knows that company and they have Sure.

Jim Taylor: 00:02:52

Unbelievably strong culture and employee retention.

Jim Taylor: 00:02:54

And I think he told me that his actual title is fund.

Jim Taylor: 00:02:57

He's just in charge of making sure that everybody loves coming to work every day,

Jim Taylor: 00:03:00

which we also talked about last week.

Jim Taylor: 00:03:03

But you know, how that resonated for me was, and, and we, Kim and I got

Jim Taylor: 00:03:06

into a good discussion about this, is that you can't lead from just.

Jim Taylor: 00:03:11

Acceptance.

Jim Taylor: 00:03:12

You can't lead from just care.

Jim Taylor: 00:03:13

You can't lead from, I'm just here.

Jim Taylor: 00:03:15

It's either you love what you do and the people around you, or you are

Jim Taylor: 00:03:19

trying to basically force the issue.

Jim Taylor: 00:03:22

And you know, you can't be anywhere really in the middle, but.

Jim Taylor: 00:03:25

I mean, how I did that, it, there's an interesting thing, and we could,

Jim Taylor: 00:03:28

again, we could talk about this a lot.

Jim Taylor: 00:03:30

A very close friend of mine, we can leave his name out of this, but a very close

Jim Taylor: 00:03:35

friend of mine was actually just promoted to the position that I was trying to get

Jim Taylor: 00:03:40

when I was still in the corporate world.

Jim Taylor: 00:03:43

And when him and I met on the, on the job in the restaurant he was,

Jim Taylor: 00:03:50

I think he was a fireplace salesman.

Jim Taylor: 00:03:53

And he was bartending one night a week and, and he was someone who we just saw

Jim Taylor: 00:03:57

a lot of potential in, and a lot of, you know, he just had a way about him with

Jim Taylor: 00:04:02

people and, you know, he just was, he took a humble approach to everything he did.

Jim Taylor: 00:04:06

And so we actually approached him about getting into management,

Jim Taylor: 00:04:08

knowing that he had a really.

Jim Taylor: 00:04:10

You know, a lot of upward mobility and, and, you know, fast forward a few

Jim Taylor: 00:04:14

years, it's funny, I was, I actually had to, had to swallow my pride a little

Jim Taylor: 00:04:19

bit when I phoned him the other day to congratulate him for being promoted

Jim Taylor: 00:04:22

to the job that at one time I was really working hard to get and didn't.

Jim Taylor: 00:04:26

So you know, I think it's just about everybody wins together and when it

Jim Taylor: 00:04:30

comes to team leadership and management, and if you can't accept that there

Jim Taylor: 00:04:35

are gonna be people at some that are better at some things than you are.

Jim Taylor: 00:04:38

And if you can't wrap your head around the fact that you should

Jim Taylor: 00:04:42

actually do everything you can to help move them forward towards their

Jim Taylor: 00:04:46

strength you know, the, the leading from love side of things gets.

Jim Taylor: 00:04:50

A little messy and hard to, hard to do

Adam Lamb: 00:04:52

so.

Adam Lamb: 00:04:53

Right.

Adam Lamb: 00:04:53

And I, I, our, like, our lead in to bringing Kelly on this quote by

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Steve's jobs, which is, you know, management is about persuading people

Adam Lamb: 00:05:01

to do things they do not want to do.

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While leadership is about inspiring people to do things

Adam Lamb: 00:05:05

they never thought they could.

Adam Lamb: 00:05:06

And toss that out to good friend Chef Ryan Dodge, who I

Adam Lamb: 00:05:13

think is all about that kind of stuff.

Adam Lamb: 00:05:14

So, Wanna welcome to the show, Kelly Feather.

Adam Lamb: 00:05:17

How are you doing?

Adam Lamb: 00:05:19

Great.

Adam Lamb: 00:05:19

How are you guys?

Adam Lamb: 00:05:20

I'm doing great.

Adam Lamb: 00:05:21

And we just wanna throw this up because of course this is what started at all.

Adam Lamb: 00:05:24

Thank you.

Adam Lamb: 00:05:25

Kelly's book, Maximizing Team Performance by Mastering Your ABC's.

Adam Lamb: 00:05:29

How Simple?

Adam Lamb: 00:05:30

It sounds so simple.

Kelly Featheringham:

: 00:05:34

If only it were right.

Kelly Featheringham:

: 00:05:36

kidding.

Adam Lamb: 00:05:38

Yeah.

Adam Lamb: 00:05:40

So Kelly everybody knows you as this amazing coach for C-suite

Adam Lamb: 00:05:45

executives and, and building teams and stuff, but you've had your start

Adam Lamb: 00:05:50

in a somewhat different environment.

Adam Lamb: 00:05:51

Did you not?

Adam Lamb: 00:05:52

Did you, did you start out in the hospitality industry?

Adam Lamb: 00:05:54

Did

Kelly Featheringham: 00:05:54

you I did, I did.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:05:57

Tell

Kelly Featheringham: 00:05:57

us

Adam Lamb: 00:05:57

about that.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:05:59

Yeah, I , so picture me 12 years old busing tables.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:06:03

. Yeah.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:06:07

Seating people busing tables running around the restaurant.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:06:10

Mm-hmm.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:06:10

, I loved it.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:06:11

I I really did.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:06:12

I got my, got my start there.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:06:14

So I bought my basketball shoes for high school, things like that.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:06:17

Mm-hmm.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:06:17

, and then I stuck with it for quite some time.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:06:20

I think it's one of those things that's in your blood.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:06:22

My mom has been a lifelong waitress and it's just, it, you get caught up.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:06:28

I was reading one of the articles actually on, on Jim.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:06:32

LinkedIn page all talking about when you get caught up in it, that you,

Kelly Featheringham: 00:06:35

your friends are in the industry.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:06:37

You date the people in the industry.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:06:39

Your roommates may be the people into the industry.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:06:41

You might even marry them.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:06:42

And it's, it, it, it really is.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:06:45

I almost feel like it's intoxicating.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:06:47

It's, it's hard to extricate yourself from it, and that's part

Kelly Featheringham: 00:06:50

of why I was in it for so long.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:06:51

Even after I was doing other jobs, I usually had at least another one or

Kelly Featheringham: 00:06:55

two jobs going on the side because it's just the, the energy, the

Kelly Featheringham: 00:06:59

environment, the support that you find and and teams is one of those

Kelly Featheringham: 00:07:04

things that in restaurants, I really.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:07:07

Felt you, you feel like you're a part of a community in a restaurant more so than

Kelly Featheringham: 00:07:11

you do in any other job I've ever had.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:07:13

Because you, you work these crazy long hours.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:07:17

Mm-hmm.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:07:17

, you're commiserating about what's going on.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:07:19

If there's chaos in the restaurant, be back of the house or front of the

Kelly Featheringham: 00:07:22

house, you really do lean on one another for support and encouragement and

Kelly Featheringham: 00:07:27

it's just a great, great experience.

Adam Lamb: 00:07:29

And you had your own store at 19.

Adam Lamb: 00:07:31

I mean, you were a hard.

Kelly Featheringham:

: 00:07:33

Night Young professional.

Kelly Featheringham:

: 00:07:35

I think it might have been 20, but yeah, I, I . Wow.

Kelly Featheringham:

: 00:07:38

I did I once, It's crazy to say that.

Kelly Featheringham:

: 00:07:40

I mean, I mm-hmm.

Kelly Featheringham:

: 00:07:41

, I have a picture somewhere.

Kelly Featheringham:

: 00:07:43

I posted on LinkedIn a while back when my, my shift manager outfit for Pizza Hut

Kelly Featheringham:

: 00:07:47

with my little bow tie and, and yeah, it's it's one of those things that's,

Adam Lamb: 00:07:53

A great memory.

Adam Lamb: 00:07:54

Yeah.

Adam Lamb: 00:07:55

Because I think most of us, you know, at that age are thinking

Adam Lamb: 00:07:58

very different thoughts.

Adam Lamb: 00:07:59

. Yeah.

Adam Lamb: 00:08:01

Yeah.

Adam Lamb: 00:08:02

And that, and so you spent some time in government.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:08:05

I did, I did over 15 years in government quite the

Kelly Featheringham: 00:08:08

shift from, from attending bar winning tables to traveling around the world

Kelly Featheringham: 00:08:12

and building teams, foreign affairs.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:08:15

I was in the business of building relationships and building teams and

Kelly Featheringham: 00:08:19

making sure that they had the support, the tools that things that they, they needed.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:08:24

You know, Jim, you mentioned just a few minutes ago about when we don't

Kelly Featheringham: 00:08:28

necessarily know everything and we bring somebody else on that is more

Kelly Featheringham: 00:08:31

knowledgeable, and I found that that was one of the greatest things that

Kelly Featheringham: 00:08:35

I figured out and I, I don't know that I figured it out on purpose.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:08:38

It just kind of landed in my lap that I worked with very technical

Kelly Featheringham: 00:08:42

folks and they were so brilliant and every day I sat in awe of, Wow.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:08:46

I.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:08:47

How do they know all of this stuff?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:08:49

Who knows all these things.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:08:50

Yeah.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:08:50

And my job was just to make sure that they had the resources and

Kelly Featheringham: 00:08:54

the support they needed so that they could make us all successful.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:08:56

And I was just kind of like the, the backup

Kelly Featheringham: 00:09:01

. Adam Lamb: It's interesting that you say

Kelly Featheringham: 00:09:05

more mature in my, in my in my outlook and my leadership style, I realized that

Kelly Featheringham: 00:09:10

really my job was to clear everybody's.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:09:15

To keep their lanes clear so that they could just move

Kelly Featheringham: 00:09:18

forward with what they had to do.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:09:20

Why did your time in government lead you to the space of No, I

Kelly Featheringham: 00:09:25

think there's places out there where this type of skill could be used.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:09:32

I think that part of it was I was getting to the

Kelly Featheringham: 00:09:36

point where I was tired of traveling.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:09:37

Mm.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:09:38

I got married in 2016 and I kind of had other things I wanted to

Kelly Featheringham: 00:09:42

be doing back here in the States.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:09:43

I didn't wanna be spending so much time, so I started thinking

Kelly Featheringham: 00:09:46

about what was next for me.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:09:47

Mm-hmm.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:09:48

. I also had an executive coach through the government, and she was amazing.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:09:52

I loved the support that she had and the concept that, gosh,

Kelly Featheringham: 00:09:55

where were you 20 years ago?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:09:57

I, I, I would've really benefited from, from having

Kelly Featheringham: 00:10:00

somebody like me when I was 20.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:10:02

And I wanted to have, A new role that I would have a closer impact.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:10:08

I was very tied to the mission in my government job and I loved working there,

Kelly Featheringham: 00:10:12

and I felt very passionate about it.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:10:13

But you always feel two or three steps removed, whereas this, every day when

Kelly Featheringham: 00:10:18

I talk to people, I get to see them.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:10:20

I.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:10:20

Figure something out that they're struggling with or, or having a

Kelly Featheringham: 00:10:24

breakthrough or an aha moment or just celebrating a promotion or,

Kelly Featheringham: 00:10:27

or a new job, Things like that.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:10:29

I really selfishly get to be much closer to all of those wonderful moments.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:10:34

Mm.

Adam Lamb: 00:10:35

And Jim, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.

Adam Lamb: 00:10:37

No, no, go ahead.

Adam Lamb: 00:10:38

So I was, initially you were kind enough to send me your book, which was great.

Adam Lamb: 00:10:46

And then I looked at it and I said, It's 94 pages.

Adam Lamb: 00:10:49

Look at that.

Adam Lamb: 00:10:50

Hmm.

Adam Lamb: 00:10:50

And it so sounds so simple.

Adam Lamb: 00:10:52

And yet within the first few pages, you know, I got a couple gut punches.

Adam Lamb: 00:10:56

Because you make a very strategic case for how.

Adam Lamb: 00:11:04

A leader would actually look at things.

Adam Lamb: 00:11:06

And you talk about the ABCs, so can you go over those, those, those building blocks?

Adam Lamb: 00:11:10

Right.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:11:11

Yes.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:11:12

So the ABCs are assumptions, boundaries and communication.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:11:16

And the way I talk about 'em in the book is, you know, we're

Kelly Featheringham: 00:11:19

constantly making assumptions.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:11:20

So being aware of that boundary setting, maintaining, pushing back both from the

Kelly Featheringham: 00:11:25

the boundary set, as well as the person that's pushing against the boundaries,

Kelly Featheringham: 00:11:29

and then leveraging communication to improve the first two, improve

Kelly Featheringham: 00:11:33

our behaviors around the first two.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:11:35

, Adam Lamb: Right.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:11:36

The thing that struck me was , you're talking about business, but almost every

Kelly Featheringham: 00:11:41

single one of those three things I've found to be critical in the health

Kelly Featheringham: 00:11:46

of my personal relationships as well.

Jim Taylor: 00:11:51

And you know what's interesting?

Jim Taylor: 00:11:52

I'm sitting here going all of the, I immediately, when you said those

Jim Taylor: 00:11:56

three things, immediately went to specific scenarios that I've

Jim Taylor: 00:11:59

experienced in the restaurant business.

Jim Taylor: 00:12:03

Yeah, especially the boundaries piece and the communications part.

Jim Taylor: 00:12:07

I mean, the assumptions one, there's, you know, there's things like with

Jim Taylor: 00:12:10

that too, obviously, but you know, the boundaries part is incredibly relevant

Jim Taylor: 00:12:15

in hospitality and communication, especially in an environment that,

Jim Taylor: 00:12:19

you know, is always on the go.

Jim Taylor: 00:12:21

I mean, that's one of the, I find one of the biggest challenges that most

Jim Taylor: 00:12:24

leaders in hospitality have is how to communicate, you know, one of the things.

Jim Taylor: 00:12:29

That I was challenged with at one point when I was still doing, you know, the

Jim Taylor: 00:12:34

corporate operations thing was someone actually said to me once, You have to

Jim Taylor: 00:12:39

find a way to make sure that the host on their first day that has never worked

Jim Taylor: 00:12:43

in a restaurant is as confident and understands the mission as much as the

Jim Taylor: 00:12:47

person who's worked there for 15 years.

Jim Taylor: 00:12:50

And that's incredibly challenging to do.

Jim Taylor: 00:12:53

Yeah.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:12:55

Yeah.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:12:56

And the hostess is the face, right.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:12:57

They're the first, first person that people meet when they come there.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:13:00

They're kind of the, the

Jim Taylor: 00:13:04

linchpin.

Jim Taylor: 00:13:04

So can we, can we touch on, and not to give away all the secrets in your book,

Jim Taylor: 00:13:07

obviously, but can we touch on maybe the communication piece a little bit?

Jim Taylor: 00:13:10

a little bit

Kelly Featheringham: 00:13:11

more.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:13:12

Yes.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:13:12

In the book, I talk and, and just in general in my coaching and training,

Kelly Featheringham: 00:13:16

I, communication is just one of those things that I think that we

Kelly Featheringham: 00:13:21

use without thinking so often, right?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:13:25

Mm-hmm.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:13:25

, I mean, we're, we're constantly communicating with our body language,

Kelly Featheringham: 00:13:28

with what we're saying, with what we're doing, with what we're not doing,

Kelly Featheringham: 00:13:31

with the decisions that we're making.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:13:33

There's so many different ways that we're communicating.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:13:37

Which is great, but if we're not thinking about how clear that communication

Kelly Featheringham: 00:13:42

is and how intentional and, and how specific we wanna be thinking about

Kelly Featheringham: 00:13:46

it more from an objective driven perspective, then a lot of times our,

Kelly Featheringham: 00:13:52

our communication can go sideways.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:13:53

I mean, how many times do we ask a question and someone answers something

Kelly Featheringham: 00:13:56

completely different and you're think.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:13:58

That's, that wasn't what I asked.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:14:00

Was that, because I didn't phrase the question correctly, was that because

Kelly Featheringham: 00:14:03

they heard something different?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:14:04

Was that some kind of a barrier in the way that we're communicating?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:14:07

There's so many ways that communication really breaks down.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:14:12

The way that we build relationships, we build business.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:14:15

We, we keep our day to day going smoothly.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:14:18

And if we are paying attention to how we're communicating and being specific

Kelly Featheringham: 00:14:23

and being measured in what it is that we're asking and we're telling,

Kelly Featheringham: 00:14:27

it can really save so much time.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:14:30

It saves a lot of money, it saves a lot of relationships, I think because you.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:14:36

Learn how to navigate the, the communication styles of each other.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:14:41

And a lot of this is done by asking questions.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:14:43

I think so often, and this kind of ties into the assumptions piece.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:14:47

Mm-hmm.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:14:47

, we don't ask a lot of questions in, in, in the essence of time.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:14:51

Worrying about offending somebody, making somebody feel stupid, looking stupid.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:14:55

We don't wanna ask questions cuz we don't.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:14:56

People to think we don't know, but we don't ask a lot of questions.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:15:00

We just talk.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:15:01

So in the more questions we ask and the more listening we do, I mean,

Kelly Featheringham: 00:15:05

we've all heard that, that we have two ears and one mouth, right?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:15:08

So it's very true asking questions than really hearing the answer

Kelly Featheringham: 00:15:13

just empowers us to be such a, a more effective group of people.

Jim Taylor: 00:15:20

Perfect.

Jim Taylor: 00:15:20

That's a pretty solid

Adam Lamb: 00:15:22

takeaway.

Adam Lamb: 00:15:22

Hey, Adam?

Adam Lamb: 00:15:22

Yeah.

Adam Lamb: 00:15:23

I, I . Shared a story with Kelly in an email about an assumption

Adam Lamb: 00:15:30

that I had made that really blew up in my face, which was, we're doing

Adam Lamb: 00:15:33

this menu change at a restaurant and I pride, you know, always prided

Adam Lamb: 00:15:37

myself on being a good communicator.

Adam Lamb: 00:15:38

So I over-communicated.

Adam Lamb: 00:15:40

We had plenty of sessions had, you know, everything posted on the Wall station,

Adam Lamb: 00:15:45

everything, and then there was a person that was, you know, continually making the

Adam Lamb: 00:15:50

same mistakes and went up to him and kind of challenged up and he would, you know,

Adam Lamb: 00:15:54

Look up from his shoes and kind of whisper to me so that no one else could hear.

Adam Lamb: 00:15:58

But Chef, I don't know how to read.

Adam Lamb: 00:16:00

And so I think that sometimes we don't even know the questions to ask.

Adam Lamb: 00:16:05

So if we don't, then it's incumbent upon us to like have imagination.

Adam Lamb: 00:16:10

I mean, to know that someone, or to think that someone didn't know how to

Adam Lamb: 00:16:14

read when that had never come up before.

Adam Lamb: 00:16:16

And of course he's not gonna bring that up.

Adam Lamb: 00:16:19

Which leads me to the other point, Kelly, I think sometimes.

Adam Lamb: 00:16:23

Thinking about my own career, I never asked because I didn't want to know.

Adam Lamb: 00:16:27

Yeah, right.

Adam Lamb: 00:16:28

Because then, because if I knew then it would be incumbent upon

Adam Lamb: 00:16:32

me to change it, which is kind of shameful to admit, you know?

Adam Lamb: 00:16:38

But yeah, that's why it was kind of daunting to me to read it.

Adam Lamb: 00:16:42

I mean, I think I've made a lot of progress, but I think the way

Adam Lamb: 00:16:46

that you've laid everything, and given case studies to work through.

Adam Lamb: 00:16:51

There's eight case studies in the book where you read and go, Okay,

Adam Lamb: 00:16:54

so this is the situation and what assumptions are they making, like work?

Adam Lamb: 00:16:57

And then that last page of the story is, okay.

Adam Lamb: 00:16:59

So if they were, if they were working the ABCs, this is what the

Adam Lamb: 00:17:03

situation would've looked like.

Adam Lamb: 00:17:05

and everywhere I turned talking to my wife about her business and, and it

Adam Lamb: 00:17:09

seems like those three issues come up so often and I'm really glad that you.

Adam Lamb: 00:17:20

Say it in such an accessible language, I guess is what I wanna say.

Adam Lamb: 00:17:23

And, but that's not all of it.

Adam Lamb: 00:17:25

After the case studies, you also talk about some things that you language 'em.

Adam Lamb: 00:17:30

I think for me they were kind of assumptions or like I thought

Adam Lamb: 00:17:33

I knew them, but can you talk a little bit about adaptive oversight?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:17:38

Yes.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:17:39

So , I, it, it's, so, adaptive oversight is my version of micromanaging.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:17:48

Micromanaging is such a dirty word, right?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:17:50

It should be four letters.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:17:51

Everybody gets very stressed when I talk to them about micromanaging and, and.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:17:57

We can't micromanage.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:17:58

You don't do that.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:17:59

And, and, and I think as I mentioned in the, in the book, we all have our

Kelly Featheringham: 00:18:03

story of that manager that was all up in your business and just drove you crazy

Kelly Featheringham: 00:18:08

because they didn't know how to do it.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:18:09

But we also have probably had several managers that were micromanaging

Kelly Featheringham: 00:18:13

us and we didn't realize it.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:18:15

And, and like I say in the book, it, it wasn't magic, it's adaptive

Kelly Featheringham: 00:18:19

oversight, the way I describe it.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:18:22

Because what they're doing is they're thoughtfully.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:18:25

Applying the level of support and oversight that you, specifically,

Kelly Featheringham: 00:18:30

you the employee need, and you do that by getting to know the employee,

Kelly Featheringham: 00:18:34

asking questions, understanding what they need from you, and paying close

Kelly Featheringham: 00:18:39

attention about how long they need.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:18:42

For you, right?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:18:42

There are a lot of employees that are brand new, and they

Kelly Featheringham: 00:18:44

do need a lot of support.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:18:45

And you can call it micromanagement or you can call it support because

Kelly Featheringham: 00:18:49

you wanna set them up for success.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:18:50

So we need to give them the support that they need.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:18:53

And then there's that time where you taper that off you.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:18:57

You kind of take a step back.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:18:58

It's like a child with a bicycle, right?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:19:00

They're on their training wheels.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:19:01

You're holding the seat for a little while.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:19:03

Everybody needs their seat held for sometimes.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:19:06

But at some point you have to let it go and, and they may fall off and

Kelly Featheringham: 00:19:10

then you help 'em back on and hold the seat for a little bit longer

Kelly Featheringham: 00:19:12

and you work with them to do that.

Jim Taylor: 00:19:14

Right?

Jim Taylor: 00:19:15

So the micromanaging thing, like you said, it's a bad word, right?

Jim Taylor: 00:19:19

I mean, nobody, everybody hears that and they, they remember that maybe that one

Jim Taylor: 00:19:23

person that they worked with, but so, so many people I think in my experience, fall

Jim Taylor: 00:19:27

into micromanaging because they're either, Afraid of letting go of control or they,

Jim Taylor: 00:19:35

you know, I worked with lots of managers in my career that they openly would tell

Jim Taylor: 00:19:39

you that I feel like if I give away all my secrets, then I'm gonna be useless.

Jim Taylor: 00:19:43

Yeah.

Jim Taylor: 00:19:44

So they would end up micromanaging people, you know, because they

Jim Taylor: 00:19:48

needed to have that, that still that control over what was going on.

Jim Taylor: 00:19:51

So how do you help people go from that position to.

Jim Taylor: 00:19:56

, you know this, this different way of looking at things in adaptive oversight.

Jim Taylor: 00:20:00

How do you help them make that transition?

Jim Taylor: 00:20:01

Cause that seems like a big, fairly complex, you know, thought process.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:20:07

It is, and I think that it's more of a mindset shift.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:20:12

I think it's that shift from managing to leading, and I

Kelly Featheringham: 00:20:16

think it's understanding that.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:20:18

Again, the the team piece is so powerful.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:20:21

We're so much stronger when we have a group around us and we don't need to

Kelly Featheringham: 00:20:25

know everything to be the rockstar.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:20:28

And, and if you train somebody to be amazing, they lift you up, right?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:20:32

They that you get to do more things.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:20:34

You get to broaden your expertise or broaden your roles and responsibilities,

Kelly Featheringham: 00:20:39

and then they lift you up.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:20:40

And then further and further, I think, It is a mindset shift though

Kelly Featheringham: 00:20:44

for people to get to that place of understanding that they don't have to

Kelly Featheringham: 00:20:48

be the only one that knows everything.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:20:50

That by empowering people around them to to be able to bring

Kelly Featheringham: 00:20:54

their skills to the table.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:20:55

Then they can add to theirs, and then they'll be seen for other things as an

Kelly Featheringham: 00:20:59

expert and then, We're, we're constantly building and layering upon that.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:21:04

But it is, to your point, it's not a, it's often, it's not an easy

Kelly Featheringham: 00:21:08

switch because type A personality here, you know, control freak.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:21:12

I like to know everything and how it's getting done right.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:21:15

At the same time, I can't possibly do all of the things and, and, and

Kelly Featheringham: 00:21:19

if I want to grow and succeed and, and get better and better, I have to

Kelly Featheringham: 00:21:25

be able to allow for that space for others to be able to come in and, and

Adam Lamb: 00:21:29

pitch.

Adam Lamb: 00:21:30

So do you think it's a fundamental misunderstanding

Adam Lamb: 00:21:33

of how delegations should work?

Adam Lamb: 00:21:36

Because clearly there's a space where, you know, everything's clearly laid out.

Adam Lamb: 00:21:41

Do you have any questions?

Adam Lamb: 00:21:42

Do you understand what, what the expectations are?

Adam Lamb: 00:21:44

Do you have any assumptions in need?

Adam Lamb: 00:21:46

Okay, so then they go off to do their thing and maybe a manager

Adam Lamb: 00:21:50

waits too long to check back in.

Adam Lamb: 00:21:52

Or, I mean, I guess your adaptive oversight principle means that, You

Adam Lamb: 00:21:58

clearly understand everybody's need level and apply yourself appropriately to that.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:22:05

I, I think, yes to the second part that you apply,

Kelly Featheringham: 00:22:08

but it's a little bit of a hybrid.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:22:10

I think that it best, and we're talking best case scenario, right?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:22:14

Oh, oh.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:22:16

The key here is to.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:22:20

Just be watching.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:22:21

And I think I, I talk, I have a chapter in there where you're not stalking or

Kelly Featheringham: 00:22:26

lurking in a creepy way, but the best bosses are the ones that are kind of

Kelly Featheringham: 00:22:30

around and just, they're paying attention.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:22:32

There's knowledge is power.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:22:34

The more we know, and it doesn't even have to be in questions, just

Kelly Featheringham: 00:22:37

checking in, just asking question.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:22:39

Walking around and hearing what's going on.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:22:41

If you have a staff member that's really struggling and you keep noticing

Kelly Featheringham: 00:22:44

that, they keep running over to the person next to them to ask them

Kelly Featheringham: 00:22:47

questions, they might have a challenge and they're afraid to come to you.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:22:50

So just the power of observation really sometimes can empower you as a leader

Kelly Featheringham: 00:22:55

to, to figure out, Oh, maybe I need to, I need to slow down on the delegation

Kelly Featheringham: 00:23:00

to this person cuz they're, they're taking a little bit longer, right?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:23:03

The other thing is just setting really clear objectives with them.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:23:06

Hey, this is what I want you to do.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:23:07

Check back in with Mihir.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:23:09

How does that work for you?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:23:10

How does that feel?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:23:11

Are we good with that?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:23:12

Is we'll look at it and then they may come back and be like, I, I

Kelly Featheringham: 00:23:16

don't need that much oversight.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:23:17

And be like, Okay, well, we'll take a look at it and we'll see.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:23:19

And, and we have to be, we have to be sensitive to that because again,

Kelly Featheringham: 00:23:23

it's then, it, then, then you're venturing into that micromanager as

Kelly Featheringham: 00:23:26

opposed to the, the adapt oversight.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:23:28

But just clear communication about, Hey, I just wanna make sure that you've

Kelly Featheringham: 00:23:32

got what you need so that you can rock.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:23:35

. Adam Lamb: So in the book you talk

Kelly Featheringham: 00:23:38

Secrets of Delegation, so you want to give away a couple of those

Kelly Featheringham: 00:23:45

You know, we're all about solutions here on this show.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:23:46

I mean, there's problems that we talk about, but we really want to be able

Kelly Featheringham: 00:23:49

to, to highlight something, some, you know, a few concepts or tools that that

Kelly Featheringham: 00:23:53

folks can take back into their operation this weekend and make a difference.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:23:57

So, yeah.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:23:58

Any way that you could assist them would be much appreciated.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:00

Absolutely , absolutely Delegation's all about clarity.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:05

We have to be very specific.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:07

If you're gonna delegate to somebody, especially a brand new person,

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:10

you wanna tell them what you wanna tell them, when you wanna talk

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:14

to them about how you, you may.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:16

Wanna leave it up to them about exactly how they get it done, which is probably a

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:20

great way to, to give them some space to be creative or figure it out on their own.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:24

But you wanna make sure that they have very clear objectives.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:27

They know exactly what you're looking for, they know exactly

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:30

when you want it, and they know exactly how they want it presented.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:33

Am I coming?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:34

Am I briefing you?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:35

Am I gonna talk to you about it?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:36

Am I gonna at a restaurant?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:38

Am I gonna bring you the plate of whatever it is I'm making?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:40

Right?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:40

We wanna make sure that they know exactly what they need because

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:43

in the with delegation, the more things we leave up to chant.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:48

Chances.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:49

Chances happen.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:50

Right?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:50

Right.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:51

So you never know what you're gonna get, which that may be your approach.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:54

It may be something where you're offering some growth to an to an employee and

Kelly Featheringham: 00:24:58

you wanna give them the opportunity to be like, Hey, go out, see what you

Kelly Featheringham: 00:25:01

can come up with and come and do this.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:25:03

But you also have to be okay with whatever crazy thing they come up with.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:25:07

Could be amazing or could be, Wow, you really took this in a different direction.

Adam Lamb: 00:25:10

Right.

Adam Lamb: 00:25:11

And it seems to me that what I'm hearing you say is, Direct, clear mutually on in

Adam Lamb: 00:25:17

conversa or direction is definitely the way to go because either that or you're

Adam Lamb: 00:25:24

dancing kind of around assumptions, right?

Adam Lamb: 00:25:26

You assume that they know or da da and you're constantly checking back in,

Adam Lamb: 00:25:28

Listen, stop me, Stop me if I, you've heard this, or you already know, but

Adam Lamb: 00:25:32

I just wanna make sure that it's, you know, we promote clarity here and make

Adam Lamb: 00:25:36

sure that they're every, because that way at least everything's above board

Adam Lamb: 00:25:39

and they know, and when either they.

Adam Lamb: 00:25:42

Don't succeed or start to follow behind.

Adam Lamb: 00:25:44

There's like, okay, so what didn't you understand about

Adam Lamb: 00:25:47

what we talked about before?

Adam Lamb: 00:25:49

I mean, did we go over this?

Adam Lamb: 00:25:50

Did you interpret this differently?

Adam Lamb: 00:25:52

And I found that to be really, really powerful in in coaching sessions,

Adam Lamb: 00:25:56

coaching and counseling sessions, as a way to kind of bring everybody back to

Adam Lamb: 00:26:00

the standards of, or the, or the kind of, not assumptions, but what we wanna see.

Adam Lamb: 00:26:06

So we talked about this, we talked about this, talked about this, and where are we?

Adam Lamb: 00:26:09

And that's why for me, those coaching councils are an addendum to their

Adam Lamb: 00:26:15

annual review, because by the time we get to the annual review, I

Adam Lamb: 00:26:18

don't want anything to be a mystery.

Adam Lamb: 00:26:20

Like there should be no surprises or gotchas.

Adam Lamb: 00:26:22

It's like, okay, we talked about all this, and yet in our environments,

Adam Lamb: 00:26:26

they're hospitality environments.

Adam Lamb: 00:26:28

They're moving so fast most of the time.

Adam Lamb: 00:26:31

Yeah.

Adam Lamb: 00:26:32

Wh how do you.

Adam Lamb: 00:26:35

Managers who are transitioning into leaders to understand that you gotta

Adam Lamb: 00:26:38

take the time, you gotta schedule it, you gotta post it in there.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:26:43

Time is such a, such a hot button right now.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:26:48

I don't have enough time.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:26:49

There's not enough time in a day.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:26:51

One thing that I find that I.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:26:54

I, I like to incur, encourage curiosity.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:26:57

Mm-hmm.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:26:58

. And, and if you are delegating and you're giving a description, why not

Kelly Featheringham: 00:27:01

say to the person, Tell me what you're thinking about how you're gonna attack.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:27:05

Just be curious and, and let them describe it back, but even before they go off

Kelly Featheringham: 00:27:09

to do it, because then you might find out before they even start that, whoa,

Kelly Featheringham: 00:27:12

they, that was not what I was driving at.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:27:15

Let's, let's take a few steps back and re-talk about the terms

Kelly Featheringham: 00:27:17

here, but, you know, tell me a little bit about your approach

Kelly Featheringham: 00:27:21

here and, and you can approach it.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:27:23

Pure curiosity.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:27:25

Hey, you work different places.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:27:26

I'd love to hear how you, how you're thinking that you're gonna tackle this.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:27:28

Something like that.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:27:29

Sure.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:27:29

Mm-hmm.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:27:30

. And then you know, with the, with the leaders and, and

Kelly Featheringham: 00:27:33

scheduling the time, it really.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:27:37

It's just driving in that point of we're all so much more successful

Kelly Featheringham: 00:27:42

if we all come together and take the time to support one another as a team.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:27:47

If, if, if you have a team member that's struggling right now, and if

Kelly Featheringham: 00:27:50

we take it totally in a different direction, maybe you have a team member

Kelly Featheringham: 00:27:53

that's that's going through something personally and just need some time.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:27:57

A, a manager's gonna say, Take the time, do what you need to do.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:28:01

You're gonna make the time to help them out In that situation, why wouldn't you

Kelly Featheringham: 00:28:04

make the time to help them out to be more successful in the organization that

Kelly Featheringham: 00:28:08

you're running, that you're leading, and then you're all gonna be more successful.

Jim Taylor: 00:28:11

Right.

Jim Taylor: 00:28:12

Yeah.

Jim Taylor: 00:28:12

And that, that time com, the combination of the time piece and delegation, I can

Jim Taylor: 00:28:20

tell you for sure that the one of the biggest challenges that I had, especially

Jim Taylor: 00:28:24

in multi-unit management, It's so busy.

Jim Taylor: 00:28:28

So how much time do I have and combine that with, I'm gonna delegate

Jim Taylor: 00:28:33

things to people who I think are capable of getting good results.

Jim Taylor: 00:28:37

But then when do I step in and beat a safety net, and when do I let them

Jim Taylor: 00:28:42

essentially fail in order to learn?

Jim Taylor: 00:28:44

Right?

Jim Taylor: 00:28:44

I mean that, especially because margins are so tight and

Jim Taylor: 00:28:48

time is so little, you know?

Jim Taylor: 00:28:50

I found even with myself, especially early in my multi-unit career, I just

Jim Taylor: 00:28:54

always jumped in and bailed people.

Jim Taylor: 00:28:56

That wasn't, that didn't do anything good for them.

Jim Taylor: 00:28:59

Right, Right, right.

Jim Taylor: 00:29:00

That was serving me and my paranoia that if the result wasn't good, then I

Jim Taylor: 00:29:05

was gonna have to answer to somebody.

Jim Taylor: 00:29:08

. Adam Lamb: You did, You

Jim Taylor: 00:29:10

Right.

Jim Taylor: 00:29:10

Yeah.

Jim Taylor: 00:29:11

And so, you know that, that's, I always found the, especially in multi-unit,

Jim Taylor: 00:29:15

you know, to try to connect this to hospitality, that hospitality piece, that

Jim Taylor: 00:29:19

was a really difficult for me, especially early on in, in that part of my.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:29:23

When you're looking at dollars and cents,

Kelly Featheringham: 00:29:25

allowing your staff to fail when it costs money is, is very difficult.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:29:32

Yeah.

Adam Lamb: 00:29:32

And, Oh, go ahead.

Adam Lamb: 00:29:34

Sorry.

Adam Lamb: 00:29:34

No, no, no.

Adam Lamb: 00:29:35

And, and hard to argue with, right?

Adam Lamb: 00:29:36

Because at the end of the day, everybody's looking at the p and l and

Adam Lamb: 00:29:41

I just wanted to kind round back to your, your statement about curiosity.

Adam Lamb: 00:29:45

Especially, you know, thinking about leading junior.

Adam Lamb: 00:29:51

Members of management, like so chefs or, or lead or lead service or whatever,

Adam Lamb: 00:29:56

and to actually ask that question opens up the door for role play.

Adam Lamb: 00:30:00

You know, so tell me how you're gonna handle that and have that all kind of

Adam Lamb: 00:30:03

gamed out before it goes out, which I'm a really big fan of because, It's

Adam Lamb: 00:30:09

a great opportunity to catch anything like, Okay, so give me the review now.

Adam Lamb: 00:30:15

Kelly, I know.

Adam Lamb: 00:30:16

I wanna be conscious of your time and, and first off, say thank you so much

Adam Lamb: 00:30:19

for, for spending this time with us.

Adam Lamb: 00:30:21

I'm sure our listeners got a lot out of it.

Adam Lamb: 00:30:23

I know that I did mm-hmm.

Adam Lamb: 00:30:24

. But one thing I'm really curious about is how much like I get that

Adam Lamb: 00:30:33

somebody who hires you is already in that space of curiosity and wants to.

Adam Lamb: 00:30:37

you know, how, how different things can be, but what kind of resistance

Adam Lamb: 00:30:44

do you encounter in going into these operations and not necessarily maybe

Adam Lamb: 00:30:47

with the ceo, but with the teams?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:30:52

Hmm.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:30:54

I don't get too much, I think.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:30:58

I, I'm, I'm there to listen more than anything else.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:31:01

If I, if I'm doing a training, obviously it's just a general training and mm-hmm.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:31:04

, I, the way I approach my activities with organizations and with teams is

Kelly Featheringham: 00:31:10

very much a, a coaching format, not necessarily a hardcore, Here's 25 slides.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:31:17

I'm gonna talk at you for two hours.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:31:19

I actually don't use a whole lot of slides.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:31:20

I'd rather have conversation around scenarios that they're experiencing.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:31:24

Mm-hmm.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:31:25

, it's a safe space.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:31:26

We don't, I, I don't report out.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:31:28

It's, it's the team.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:31:29

So they can come and it can be a complaint fest.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:31:32

I'll let that go for a certain point, because I think sometimes that's important

Kelly Featheringham: 00:31:35

so that I can hear what's going on.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:31:38

And then we talk about the scenarios, kind of with the book, like the

Kelly Featheringham: 00:31:42

book where I took the, the mm-hmm.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:31:44

scenario and then the.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:31:45

Principles and then the, the optimized version of it.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:31:49

We do that in real time.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:31:50

We talk about, Well, this is what's happening right now.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:31:52

Let's game it forward to your point, let's, let's role play this.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:31:55

How could you do this differently?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:31:57

And then when they do it, if they're doing it in ways that sound really problematic,

Kelly Featheringham: 00:32:01

then I just ask a lot of questions around.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:32:04

So, Fast forward a few hours.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:32:06

What, where, where's this gonna end up here?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:32:08

What, what is this gonna look like?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:32:09

How's that person going to, to re respond to this?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:32:12

And things like that.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:32:13

So it's, there's not too much pushback, I think, because it's more,

Kelly Featheringham: 00:32:17

there's not really wrong answers.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:32:19

We just ask a lot of questions about how to optimize, how to improve,

Kelly Featheringham: 00:32:23

how to make it personal to them.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:32:25

Right.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:32:26

That's going to be, cuz everybody's solution is different.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:32:28

Everybody's

Adam Lamb: 00:32:29

different but it, but in the end, they're all pretty

Adam Lamb: 00:32:32

clear that they want things to.

Adam Lamb: 00:32:34

Right.

Adam Lamb: 00:32:34

Yes.

Adam Lamb: 00:32:35

That's the, that's the common value that they hold.

Adam Lamb: 00:32:37

Yeah.

Adam Lamb: 00:32:38

Yeah.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:32:38

No one comes to work wanting to do a bad job.

Adam Lamb: 00:32:41

totally get that.

Adam Lamb: 00:32:43

Very true.

Adam Lamb: 00:32:45

, do you have any

Jim Taylor: 00:32:46

thoughts?

Jim Taylor: 00:32:48

Well, I'm gonna have to go and order myself a copy of

Jim Taylor: 00:32:50

the book, that's for sure.

Adam Lamb: 00:32:51

I'll send you mine.

Adam Lamb: 00:32:52

It's all marked up with all the good parts.

Adam Lamb: 00:32:54

the one, the one

Jim Taylor: 00:32:55

thing that sort of stuck with me is the the, the assumptions

Jim Taylor: 00:32:59

thing and the, I think the example was you ask a question and they don't answer

Jim Taylor: 00:33:04

properly or they don't, you know, and immediately my mind went to assuming

Jim Taylor: 00:33:10

that they're not listening, Yeah.

Jim Taylor: 00:33:13

Rather than, you know, trying to look at that differently and think, did I, like

Jim Taylor: 00:33:17

you said, did I ask the question properly?

Jim Taylor: 00:33:19

Was I clear?

Jim Taylor: 00:33:20

Did I communicate properly?

Jim Taylor: 00:33:21

Was the timing right?

Jim Taylor: 00:33:23

Was there other distraction?

Jim Taylor: 00:33:24

You know, there's a million other things that could be going on,

Jim Taylor: 00:33:26

but I think I think so often we probably would go to that.

Jim Taylor: 00:33:30

Were you listening?

Jim Taylor: 00:33:31

Pay attention, right?

Jim Taylor: 00:33:32

Mm-hmm.

Jim Taylor: 00:33:32

, get off your phone or, you know, something like that.

Jim Taylor: 00:33:34

And it, but there's so many other variables that could go into that.

Jim Taylor: 00:33:37

So that's a big takeaway for

Adam Lamb: 00:33:38

me.

Adam Lamb: 00:33:38

Definitely.

Adam Lamb: 00:33:38

Right?

Adam Lamb: 00:33:39

Cuz we wanna make it about us.

Adam Lamb: 00:33:40

Instead of them.

Adam Lamb: 00:33:42

Kelly?

Adam Lamb: 00:33:43

Of the three and I think, I know we're gonna go with this

Adam Lamb: 00:33:45

anyway, but I'm gonna ask anyway.

Adam Lamb: 00:33:47

So of the three Assumptions, boundaries, and communications in your experience

Adam Lamb: 00:33:54

is like, if someone's listening to this and they want to go in and

Adam Lamb: 00:33:57

try something, which one of those three do you think it would be the

Adam Lamb: 00:34:01

most impactful or, or the ones that folks have the most problems with?

Adam Lamb: 00:34:04

It.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:34:07

Oh, I know.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:34:08

Probably assumptions.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:34:10

I mean, I, I,

Adam Lamb: 00:34:11

they're in so insidious

Kelly Featheringham: 00:34:12

they, they, and we do it all day long and Right.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:34:15

Like I say, it's, we don't do it to be mean.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:34:17

We do it.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:34:18

I think we do it to take care of people, we do it to, because we're worried

Kelly Featheringham: 00:34:22

about them and we don't want them to think they're, we think they're stupid.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:34:25

We don't want them to think they don't understand.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:34:26

Right.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:34:26

We we're constantly think of what is.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:34:29

Term about parents that are, We had the lawn, or what was it, The lawnmower

Kelly Featheringham: 00:34:33

parents mowing in front of the kids.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:34:35

We're doing that for other people all day long.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:34:37

We're trying to clear the path for them to make sure that they don't feel any

Kelly Featheringham: 00:34:41

kind of unease and I think discomfort.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:34:43

Yeah.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:34:44

We, we kind of constantly have to keep thinking before we say something.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:34:47

I'm like, Am I assuming something here?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:34:49

Cuz I might be, and maybe I should reframe the question.

Adam Lamb: 00:34:54

Hmm.

Adam Lamb: 00:34:54

I find that fascinating because, , I've no come to that conclusion myself,

Adam Lamb: 00:35:00

is that I have to be okay with some someone else's uncomfortability.

Adam Lamb: 00:35:03

Yeah, right.

Adam Lamb: 00:35:04

And vice versa.

Adam Lamb: 00:35:06

I don't want you to make it easy, You know, I don't want

Adam Lamb: 00:35:09

you to make me comfortable.

Adam Lamb: 00:35:09

I just need to understand what's going . And that's such a weird

Adam Lamb: 00:35:13

place to be in, because like you said, we're all carrying one another.

Adam Lamb: 00:35:15

Like we don't, We're all geared for harmony, so that's where we default

Adam Lamb: 00:35:20

to instead of like, Well, we actually need to solve the problem first.

Adam Lamb: 00:35:22

Right.

Adam Lamb: 00:35:23

Jim, I'm sorry, I cut

Jim Taylor: 00:35:24

you.

Jim Taylor: 00:35:24

No, no, I was just saying I really enjoy the, this concept.

Jim Taylor: 00:35:27

I think that it's, I mean, yeah, we'll say the same things over and over again.

Jim Taylor: 00:35:32

I mean the, mm-hmm , the communication side of things,

Jim Taylor: 00:35:34

the boundaries and hospitality.

Jim Taylor: 00:35:35

I mean they all, it's just very relatable.

Jim Taylor: 00:35:37

So I think it's good stuff.

Adam Lamb: 00:35:39

Fantastic.

Adam Lamb: 00:35:40

And when's your second book coming out?

Adam Lamb: 00:35:41

Kelly . I mean that's, this one was so good.

Adam Lamb: 00:35:46

You know, there's gotta be another one, right

Kelly Featheringham: 00:35:48

There is, I'm working on it next year.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:35:51

. Adam Lamb: And to be clear You

Kelly Featheringham: 00:35:54

You're not doing any new episodes, but there is one.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:35:58

But all that information's out there.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:35:59

So what's the name of the podcast?

Kelly Featheringham: 00:36:01

It's

Kelly Featheringham: 00:36:01

called Building Your Best Career.

Adam Lamb: 00:36:03

Building your best career.

Adam Lamb: 00:36:04

I'm gonna make sure that that's in the show notes building.

Adam Lamb: 00:36:07

And if someone wanted to get in touch with you, they were listening to this

Adam Lamb: 00:36:11

and like, Yeah, I'm just gonna let her hat come in here and do this.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:36:15

Yeah, you can.

Kelly Featheringham: 00:36:16

I'm on the website, kelly feathering.com or my email is Kelly Kelly feathering.com.

Adam Lamb: 00:36:22

Of course it.

Adam Lamb: 00:36:24

That's awesome.

Adam Lamb: 00:36:25

Kelly, thank you so much for your time.

Adam Lamb: 00:36:26

We're definitely gonna have you back because this conversation is

Adam Lamb: 00:36:29

way longer than 30 minutes, so I really appreciate you being here.

Adam Lamb: 00:36:33

Thank you very much.

Adam Lamb: 00:36:34

It's been our pleasure.

Adam Lamb: 00:36:35

Thanks so much.

Adam Lamb: 00:36:36

Join as well.

Adam Lamb: 00:36:37

Thank you.

Adam Lamb: 00:36:37

Thank you.

Adam Lamb: 00:36:38

You bet.

Adam Lamb: 00:36:39

And that's it for this episode of Turning the Table.

Adam Lamb: 00:36:41

Join us next week for the most progressive podcast out there

Adam Lamb: 00:36:46

in the hospitality industry.

Adam Lamb: 00:36:48

And.

Adam Lamb: 00:36:50

It's also a while.

Adam Lamb: 00:36:51

What Jim?

Adam Lamb: 00:36:51

It's, where is it now?

Adam Lamb: 00:36:52

It's 50, 55, 60 in the uk.

Adam Lamb: 00:36:55

It's in the, in the business charters.

Adam Lamb: 00:36:57

It's definitely climbing, that's for sure.

Adam Lamb: 00:37:00

Which I think is amazing.

Adam Lamb: 00:37:01

So thanks for all our listeners.

Adam Lamb: 00:37:03

We really appreciate you.

Adam Lamb: 00:37:04

Please share the show, like, subscribe, put some stars in there.

Adam Lamb: 00:37:08

We really appreciate it.

Adam Lamb: 00:37:10

Have a great.

Adam Lamb: 00:37:16

Thanks for joining us on this episode of Turning the Table with

Adam Lamb: 00:37:19

me, Adam Lamb and Jim Taylor.

Adam Lamb: 00:37:21

This episode was sponsored by Benchmark 60.

Adam Lamb: 00:37:24

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

Adam Lamb: 00:37:27

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

Adam Lamb: 00:37:31

managing workload productivity.

Adam Lamb: 00:37:33

Over 200 restaurants and food and beverage operat.

Adam Lamb: 00:37:36

Have discovered for themselves how to increase staff retention and become

Adam Lamb: 00:37:40

a preferred employer in their market by using our proprietary system.

Adam Lamb: 00:37:45

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

Adam Lamb: 00:37:48

for, then check out Benchmark 60 on the web@www.benchmarksixty.com.

Adam Lamb: 00:37:53

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

Adam Lamb: 00:37:57

restaurant profession's oldest problem.

Adam Lamb: 00:37:59

Turning the table is a production of realignment media.

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