Introduction

You need to make a decision but don't want to make a mistake. For decades, Dr. Constance Dierickx has helped leaders make wise decisions. Now, she's sharing how to see what others don't and make great decisions when it matters most. So come on in and have a seat. It's time for your appointment with The Decision Doctor.

Constance Dierickx

I'm very happy to welcome you to this episode of the Decision Doctor Podcast with my guest Ryan Turner. Ryan is a co-founder and partner in a restaurant company, Unsukay, and a founder of a not-for-profit serving food service workers, the Giving Kitchen. How does a political science major turned restaurant worker become an entrepreneur, business leader, and fearless and effective advocate for food service workers? I'm excited to talk with Ryan about all of that and about business, major pivot points, and how he continues to learn about leadership. Ryan Turner, I'm so excited to see you. Welcome to the Decision Doctor podcast.

Ryan Turner

Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.

Constance Dierickx

Oh, you're so welcome. You know very well that I've been aware of your company, Unsukay, and the Giving Kitchen, which is a not-for-profit you started, for many years and I'm a super fan. But for the listener, tell us about your business, and then tell us how you got to where you are?

Ryan Turner

My business is Unsukay Restaurants, which is a multi-concept, multi-unit, independent restaurant group that was started in Smyrna, GA with our first restaurant called Muss & Turner’s. We now have six other concepts. We have MTH pizza, we have Local Three in Buckhead, which is our second restaurant we opened. We have Eleanor’s, which is a speakeasy next to Muss & Turner’s. We have Warhorse Investments, which is a private dining club in Buckhead as well, and Seahorse Advisors, which is a sushi concept for Warhorse members, as well as Rochambeau, which is another restaurant in Buckhead. And so we started with one restaurant. It was me and Todd Mussman. We worked together at a restaurant called the Food Studio in the late ‘90s and basically bumped into each other when we both moved to Smyrna, unknowingly. We were at a Publix grocery store and we started to get together with our wives. As any romantic story, one night we probably had too much to drink and started talking about doing something and ended up pregnant with an idea. And then a few years later, my other partner, Chris Hall, who's also a chef, kind of the same thing, but different in getting to know him and then starting to talk about the future and ambition and brought him into the mix when we opened Local Three. And so all three of us are equal partners. We've been at it almost 20 years, which is incredibly unique that you have 3 alpha males all with very different personalities and different competencies and in the restaurant business, who have all stayed married and stayed in business and still love each other. It’s a unique thing. Where I came from, very quickly, I grew up in Maine in a milltown called Auburn, Maine, just north of Portland and went to school, like a lot of folks, with no idea of what I wanted to do for a living. They made me choose something, so I chose political science. Once I was done with school, I didn't really want to pursue what I perceived to be the only two doors to open, which would be to become a teacher or an attorney, and then just kind of ended up in the hospitality business. I started working as a line cook my junior year college to help pay for college in addition to work study and fell in love with the industry. I started cooking, but I'm more known as a front of the house guy. I don't do anything professionally in the culinary realm. Sometimes I do get referred to as a chef in the media, which drives my partners mad, so I love that. But I love cooking and I love cooking at home, but I'm more the business guy in the relationship, if that makes sense.

Constance Dierickx

Yeah, I know that when you and I met a few years ago, we had the luxury of time to get to know each other. I think we were talking about the ideas in my first book. And I said, well, do you cook? And you said no, I count the beans. I don't cook the beans.

Ryan Turner

They cook them, I count them.

Constance Dierickx

Yeah, they cook them, I count them. I thought that was so clever. I'm gonna brag about you a little bit. A few years ago, you were awarded the James Beard Humanitarian Award, which is a really big deal.

Ryan Turner

Constance Dierickx

So I would love for you to tell a little bit of the story of how the Giving Kitchen got started and where you are today. How many people do you serve? It's a really compelling, beautiful, heartwarming story.

Ryan Turner

Where we are now is a national organization that serves every state in the Union. We also serve Puerto Rico in two ways. We help food service workers, financially, who are unfortunately out of work due to unforeseen or unanticipated crises or hardship. They're injured. They're ill. There's a fire in their home. There's a death in the immediate family. They're in a position where they can't work; therefore, they can't earn. And we do our best to help them bridge the gap, to be able to get from not being able to work back to work without experiencing a negative financial spiral that could really wreak havoc on someone, especially those in our industry who are well known for not making a lot of money. Some of them are working, literally, shift to shift to pay their bills. So we help with utilities, mortgages, rent. The amount of evictions that we've helped people avoid is mind boggling. The second way that we assist folks is with what we call the Stability Network, which is a network of existing community resources that we can refer them to. It could be something related to they need to find a home, they need furniture, they need a surgery. We have doctors who put up pro bono surgeries, as an example. It could be something related to substance abuse, suicide prevention. There's dozens of different incredible organizations that are well-established that we can refer folks to that don't necessarily need the financial aid, but they need aid in other ways to maintain stability or get back on their feet. We have served well over 20,000 food service workers, and I think we're approaching over $14 million that has been awarded to folks. 50% of the folks who do receive awards have children in their home. So this is impacting not just them specifically, but also the lives of a lot of children, which is something I'd like to point out. There's a lot more road ahead of us than there is behind us, and we have 15,000,000 people in our industry, second only to the federal government, as far as the largest employer in the country. The data suggests that, at any given time, 1% of the population is in some position of hardship or crisis.

Constance Dierickx

And one of the things that brought you, Muss & Turner’s, and the people around your business to my attention so poignantly was years ago when an employee of yours who was beloved got extremely ill and you banded people together to help him.

Ryan Turner

Constance Dierickx

Yeah, it's an incredible story. For the listeners that don't live in the larger Metro Atlanta area and maybe haven't been exposed, for an organization to have expanded its reach so quickly, one of the things that I observed in new organizations is sometimes as they grow and expand, they lose the spirit, they lose the heart, they lose sort of this ethos and ethic of what got them started. And that is not true of the Giving Kitchen. If you go to an event – I was at Team Hidi, which is your big, big fundraiser which is coming up in March of next year, is that right?

Ryan Turner

That was the name of the initial party we threw, called Team Hidi. His nickname in high school, which he despised, was Hidi and we found that out from his brother. So, of course, we had to run with it.

Constance Dierickx

Of course, you had to run with it. I know I'm not telling you any of my names, or it'll be on social media. But when you go to the event where you've got almost 100 food vendors, you've got chefs and restaurants that have booths and tables set up that you can walk through and eat to your heart's content, but the ethic and the energy there is not disconnected from how this thing got started. So why do you think that is? I think it's remarkable and heartwarming.

Ryan Turner

I appreciate you noticing that. I tell folks who've never been, you cannot understand this until you get in the room because energy is real and you have to be amongst other humans to sense it. But the energy in the room is palpable. It's been like that from the first event. And when you have a group of people, look at it from, most everyone listening to this has probably been to some charity-oriented food event where it's under the auspice of, it's a marketing opportunity for restaurants to come and give food away in hopes that someone's gonna go, “Oh my gosh. Where'd that come from?” And come into the restaurant. And so that happens all of the time, but not everyone there is as into it as you might want them to be, because it's not an organization that's that personal to them or something that's incredibly important to them. The Giving Kitchen and Team Hidi event, everyone there literally wants to be there. And there's not a place on planet Earth they would rather be. Anyone who's been to that event put an X on their calendar for the next year because it is something that when everyone wants to be there and the people that are serving the food and the drinks have this level of energy of appreciation and gratitude, because this is an event to help them and their people and their people when they're in need, that's an energy level you cannot duplicate. I would challenge anyone to find it anywhere else but at this event.

Constance Dierickx

eah. No, I have it marked on my calendar already for next year. But I discovered that, I don't know what it was but, you could just be standing at a table eating something you'd picked up and people that you had never met would walk up and you'd be in a conversation immediately. You would be talking about how delicious the food was, but it was all – You're right. People feel a personal connection, and I think it's because you can't have been on this planet for very long without having known someone who died too young, who got a dreadful diagnosis. And I think that whether you knew Ryan and Jen or not, I certainly did not, but I got connected to them when I was standing at the counter at Muss & Turner’s, and I was paying for takeout, I think. I was standing there and there was a big glass that probably had pickles in it at some point, and it had a handwritten note that talked about Ryan. You see those things all the time. But there was something about the fact that he'd been a cook or chef at Muss & Turner’s, it made it very personal and it also communicated to me how much the people who owned the restaurant, how much you cared.

Ryan Turner

Yeah. Ryan was with us for seven years as a chef, and he transcended into brotherhood for me and Chris and Todd, my partners, and for everyone that he worked with there. And we've been through a lot. This was, I mean, he'd been through the most challenging period of our business career going through the Great Recession and we had just been in battle together daily. I talk about this with our team. Due to the nature of our business, for one, our industry attracts and is willing to accept people from all walks of life and there's this veil of non-judgment that exists in which you have all these different people from different gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, religion, political views, whatever it may be. But they all come together to accomplish one mission, which is to take care of the people that are coming in and do our best to make them feel like gold and walk out with their hair on fire. And it's a live performance every day, and it's improv. When it goes great, the guest never experiences a thing, and that only happens if all of these people come together, communicate in a certain way, and support each other in a certain way.

Constance Dierickx

Yes. And when a group of people become a team, they have momentum that allows them to do what a random collection of people, no matter how talented, cannot. This energy and focus of the people behind Ryan and his family that became the Giving Kitchen is an example of what you describe and it creates marvelous momentum. But you could have messed it up had you not been willing to give up some control in the best interest of the organization. Because I work with organizations that acquire companies from founders, it's a painful part in the life of an organization when the founders who've got it going, and they've got it going to the point that other people are interested in it, in the case that I'm describing, it's they're willing to buy in, cough up lots of money. But a lot of the trouble happens when the new owner comes in, they leave the founder in place and the founder fights to maintain control. You and your partners and the people originally behind the Giving Kitchen had to allow other people to come in and do things. So how hard was that? Or was it not difficult at all?

Ryan Turner

So what you're describing is widely known and written about as the Founders Paradox, and is something that I've been aware of. In my early 20s, I realized that there is a lot to learn that I was actually interested in and started reading a lot of nonfiction books relative to leadership and business and time management, all the stuff. And so I got exposed to a lot of concepts intellectually over the years. But there's a big difference between understanding something intellectually and then emotionally. Your emotions and therefore your behavior is matching and supporting that intellectual understanding. So there's a term I use when I talk to my management team, and it's a term that I take personally. How do you maintain being viably obsolete? Viable meaning you're continuously bringing value, but you're obsolete in that the organization doesn't need you. The team doesn't need you. You're not an indispensable linchpin, because if you are, then that's a weakness in the asset that you're responsible for, whether it's for-profit or not-for-profit. So aware of it, understanding it, and trying to get out of our own way, intellectually, that wasn't something that we were allergic to. But then the ego takes over and that desire to control, to be right, we all battle it as humans, as part of the human condition. And handing things over for others to do is not easy for everyone, but at the same time, if you understand the big picture and understand that your inability to do that is going to undermine and potentially ruin the thing that you love and care about so deeply, then you're able to start to pass over the torch or the baton or wheel or whatever. For the Giving Kitchen, we knew that we needed to hire someone that really not only knew what they're doing, but had the time and ability to put into it, that it really deserved. It got to the point where it was obvious that there were elements about the organization that were not getting tended to because there was no one really responsible and didn't really have the time to put towards it. So from a business perspective, me and my partners, as founders, have been working on this for years, how to hand over control to others who, we hope and believe, care as much about our baby as we do.

Constance Dierickx

I want to call out and put some language around what I understood you to say. I'm delighted that what you're describing as a leadership process for yourself and your partners’ maps exactly onto what I talk about in my latest book, Meta-Leadership, and the concepts were not born out of me doing any new research. They were not born out of me sitting alone in my office and saying, “Oh, this sounds good.” But it was born out of me reaching back and touching research that's long established about how people change their behavior. The three parts, and it's really simple to remember, and you just described that process. One is cognition. You have to be able to think about not only what's happening, but you have to think about how you're thinking about it. So that's where the word or the phrase metacognition comes in. And then you have to wrestle with the emotional aspect that's happening to you. So you're wrestling, you and your partners are wrestling with the idea that you've got to get help. You've got to not have a death grip on everything and be the linchpins. And that's challenging for most of us. I will include myself in that. And then, you have the brain, the heart, if we wanna think of it in body parts, brain, heart and then the active part, the doing, because the understanding and the insights you develop from all the reading and your willingness to wrestle with your emotional reaction would be worth nothing if you didn't act upon those things. And that's the hands part or the active part. So, I'm thrilled and delighted that you found your way, and most of us find our way by bumping up against the walls a few times. A lot of the people I know and admire have had these paths where we don't end up in the place we're supposed to be when we're 25. But I think that having the ability to describe that process, and then, hopefully, my simple language added to your ability to transmit that to others. Two of these three aspects of changing our own behavior or helping others change don't work. You have to have all three. Recently, you had a pretty big transition at the Giving Kitchen. You hired a new CEO and you went from having sort of a manager person. You've evolved to, now, am I correct that the person in the role now leading the Giving Kitchen is the chief executive officer? Is that her title?

Ryan Turner

Yes, that is correct. Yes. So Allison Padilla-Goodman is our new CEO. She was most recently with the Anti Defamation League running the Southern Division for 10 years. And so she's our third, the title now is CEO, but previously had been Executive Director, but essentially the same responsibilities in many ways. I was part of the search committee in selecting and recommending Allison to the board. We had an amazing group of folks who threw their hat in the ring and frankly, any of the three finalists could have easily taken over this organization, but Allison just really impressed us. We, as a search committee, got aligned on what were the key attributes that we felt were most important. That was a really key thing for us to do in ultimately making the decision. And then she also has experience with running regional offices. And one of the questions that I asked that she answered very quickly and just really impressed me was, if you were to leave today, how many of the people that report to you could take your job. And she said, without really thinking, she goes, “Oh, three. Actually, probably four.” And that told me everything that I needed to know about her understanding of leadership and management. And then we were given a link to a video that her team had created for her in celebration of her 10 year anniversary, and it was 6 minutes of clearly unscripted, unprovoked, unbelievable comments about her as a human being, first and foremost, and as a leader, secondly. It was just things like that that was like, okay, this is the right person to take this organization where it's at now to the next level.

Constance Dierickx

I'm really excited for you. I want to highlight and underline something you said about the need to establish a description of the attributes and characteristics of candidates so that the selection process proceeds based on more than the resume. We know from the research that more than 50% of senior executives hired from outside the organization will fail in less than 18 months. That is a scary statistic. And we also know that the most important job of a board, whether it's a not-for-profit, is choosing the leader and overseeing their performance. So, I am thrilled at how you describe the process and her. I hope I get to meet her sometime. That would be just awesome.

Ryan Turner

Yeah, I've not heard that statistic, the failure ratio, but it doesn't surprise me, whether it's the CEO or anyone coming in from the outside. It's so damn obvious and it's easy for people with a lot of responsibility to hire someone that they perceive to have, you can check all the boxes, their resume looks good and they have all the right experience and they have the right titles or whatever. But I learned the hard way that just because you know someone has in their resume that they've been, let's just say, a general manager for a restaurant for 20 years has nothing to do with whether they're gonna be a great general manager in our organization. You could take someone who may have all the experience in the world and is just a world class a**hole and completely ruin your culture within weeks.

Constance Dierickx

So my advice to new CEOs, and I work a lot with CEOs, in that transition, and then often for years afterwards, is don't start off by kicking the door in and shouting commands and telling people, “Well, when I was at “fill in the blank,” this is what we did.” Because you have to notice that you're in a different context. But it's really surprising how often people – well, it’s not surprising, the research says that we revert to old habits that have been reinforced. And so it takes an act of will to step back and say, how is this situation different?

Ryan Turner

Absolutely. I mean, we're all humans and the impostor complex is real. And everyone's battling certain levels of self-esteem. And you come in, and the ego, the only reason the ego's there, the primary purpose is to be right. And so you have all of these things at play, and someone comes in and they're in the new territory and they want to establish status and respect and all of these things. The way they go about it can just completely annihilate any possibility of them developing trust, which is earned, and that takes time. And if they never come to that understanding or they never realize that they've annihilated trust within the first few months, they have no shot. Zero. It will never happen. Trust is the only ingredient that I know of that is absolutely essential for any meaningful long-term, genuine relationship to exist.

Constance Dierickx

Yeah, it removes friction. So, Ryan, you have given the audience a lot to think about, and I want to thank you for that. I want to ask you, before we hit the end button here, what is the best business decision you have ever made?

Ryan Turner

Best business decision. Wow. That's a tough one.

Constance Dierickx

I know.

Ryan Turner

Oh, wow. I would say the best business decision has been more of a mindset of understanding that nothing inherently good or long lasting comes quick or easy. Being willing to stay in the crucible of adversity and challenges and curveballs that are rich, certainly rich in my world, and understanding that this part of the path – to me, it’s like the Super Highway to wisdom is understanding adversity is the path. It is the way to become more knowledgeable and wiser so that you can invest into the future only through present moments because that's all we have. And so if you're able to understand it's not gonna be easy and it's not gonna be quick, and there's no straight line, and yeah, you may see the peak you wanna get to, you have to make a decision to embrace a certain mindset. If you feel like, more days than not, that you're making progress in the right direction, you will stick to it. You will stay with it. The other thing that I think has been important is not attaching some sort of external outcome and making a decision that this isn't about selling a company for a billion dollars or having some incredible exit or whatever it may be. It's been more intrinsic in what's driven me in this understanding that the proverbial peak, you can define and people define success in many different ways, where I'm at in life right now, it comes down to one thing. How much peace of mind are you able to enjoy? Am I able to wake up more days than not with the mindset of, like, hell yeah, let's go, and am I able to go to bed at night more days than not with the mindset of, I feel like I left it on the field, I contributed, I brought value to the world I'm very fortunate to be in. There's certainly countless people that I decided to have in my life and countless things that we've made decisions about that have contributed to where we're at for sure.

Constance Dierickx

Sure, but it's all under that frame of the important decision for you, the best decision was not what to do, but how to think, how to be, how to show up.

Ryan Turner

Yeah. A lot of people, depending on who you are, are very anchored to the past or attached to the future in a way that is just never gonna allow you to get to where you're trying to go.

Constance Dierickx

And people, unfortunately, live their whole lives against that external measure. And that can end up being pretty sad. It's interesting. I'm going to say one more thing. When my husband and I were dating, very early in our dating life, we had a conversation about what's the most important thing in life to you. And we agreed that it was something you just said: peace of mind.

Ryan Turner

Yeah.

Constance Dierickx

And that has been our shared mantra. I would have to say, I think it's prevented us from veering off the road a few times.

Ryan Turner

Oh my gosh, it's amazing. We have the privilege to serve a lot of people, and our restaurants, in particular, attract a segment of folks who typically have discretionary income and have done well financially and have done well relative to status and title and fame, fortune, whatever it might be. So, we get a chance to study them in our little laboratory. And a lot of these folks that that many would believe should be happy because they're just so quote unquote successful are miserable human beings and it's so sad to see them suffer. And it's also, to me, sad to see those who quite don't understand what success really is, create a narrative of that's what I wanna be, that's where I wanna go and do a lot of things at maybe their own expense or the expense of others or relationships because they want to get there. They get there and they're empty and they're like, okay, what's next? Is this it? And because the internal conversation is so disruptive, they never really get to enjoy what they achieve on the external.

Constance Dierickx

Yeah. And I think that it's a great joy to go to. A Giving Kitchen event, and I'm going to pitch it hard here at the end, go to a Giving Kitchen event and look around and feel the heart warming joy of knowing that you are in a small way, as a buyer of a ticket or buyer of an auction item, that you are contributing to other people's lives being a little better off. So that's great. Thank you so much, Ryan. You've given us a generous amount of your time this morning. In the show notes will be the link for the Giving Kitchen. There will be information about the Giving Kitchen. And for anyone that lives in Metro Atlanta or even if you don't, you can get a plane ticket.

Ryan Turner

Well, yeah, to come to the event. I'd, if you don't mind, I have just one call to action for the folks who are listening to this. It's really simple. I'm not gonna ask you for money.

Constance Dierickx

Sure.

Ryan Turner

I'm just gonna ask that you share the Giving Kitchen with those who are in a position to serve you in a food service establishment today, tomorrow, next week. There are people who need help right now that are potentially taking care of you. It could be your favorite bartender, your favorite server, your favorite barista, your favorite book at your Country Club. It doesn't matter. They need to know that this organization exists. They don't. Very few people do relatively speaking. So please spread the word. Of course, if you want to contribute, you can go to TheGivingKitchen.org. There's multiple ways to do that, but more importantly is to make sure that people in need know about it.

Constance Dierickx

Excellent. Will do, and I'll encourage others to do. Thanks so much, Ryan.

Ryan Turner

Thank you. Take care.

Constance Dierickx

Outro

The Decision Doctor will be back with more advice soon. Hit the follow button on your favorite podcast app and check out TheDecisionDoctor.com to receive the Meta-Leadership self-assessment and other no-cost resources. We'll see you next time.