This podcast offers business solutions to help listeners develop and implement action plans for lean process improvement and implement continuous improvement projects, cost reductions, product quality enhancements, and process effectiveness improvement. Listeners come from many industries in both manufacturing and office applications.
You are looking for the types of clients that are willing to change, that are interested in changing, curious to change.
Vince Lanni:I'm gonna continue to find solutions and learn with you. That's the value is that you're not in this alone. I'm I'm gonna help you get there. Like, we're gonna figure this out. This is where curiosity plays such valuable, you know, part in the arrangement.
Catherine McDonald:The best way to develop ourselves is to develop our mindset and our skills to enable us to move further up that continuum from judgment towards curiosity.
Vince Lanni:We're all in this together, and we're finding solutions together. We feel like more of a team when there's that kind of common goal. Curiosity is a great tool to have that that you can really keep stay stay engaged with your team, and your team can stay engaged with, the goals of the company.
Patrick Adams:Hello, and welcome to this episode of the Lean Solutions Podcast led by your host, Catherine McDonald from Ireland and myself, Patrick Adams. How's it going, Catherine?
Catherine McDonald:I'm great, Patrick. Great. How are you?
Patrick Adams:I'm doing amazing. I'm not sure when this episode will air, but literally last week from the point of this recording last week, Wednesday, my daughter had her first baby which means my first grandchild. So, I couldn't be I couldn't be better than I am right now.
Catherine McDonald:Oh, big smile on your face. Congratulations. That's so you. All doing well.
Patrick Adams:I appreciate it.
Catherine McDonald:All doing well, I hope. Yeah.
Patrick Adams:All doing well. Yes. All doing well. Healthy baby boy. His name is Edmund.
Patrick Adams:Edmund Oak, TBoss. They're going to call him Eddie. So, yeah.
Catherine McDonald:Oh, that's
Patrick Adams:about was pretty amazing to hold hold my grandchild in my arms for the very first time. Pretty awesome. So Bit of a high
Catherine McDonald:high for the next while, I'd say.
Patrick Adams:Yes. Yeah. And they've they've actually lived since the time they were married. They've lived outside of the state. They've lived in Montana for about two years.
Patrick Adams:And so they moved home about a year ago and which I'm obviously thankful for. Now they're living here locally so it's nice.
Catherine McDonald:Amazing. You'll see the baby grow up. Lovely.
Patrick Adams:Yes. He's a curious little guy and I say that for two reasons. One, because, his his eyes are everywhere just always wanting to know what's going on. Right? But I I say it for a second reason because of our topic for the day.
Patrick Adams:So, good lead in here to our topic, the power of curiosity. We're gonna be talking with our guest Vince Lani from Nashville and it's funny, Vince and I met each other a while back. We'll talk a little bit about that once we bring him onto the stage here, but it's an interesting story about how we met but I'm interested to hear from him about how he's applying continuous improvement in the restaurant industry. So, yeah. So, with that with without further ado, do you mind, introducing Vince and we can bring him to the stage?
Catherine McDonald:I will indeed. And I am, yeah, I'm excited to hear what Vince has to say. I used to work in the hospitality sector for a good many years. So I'm really interested to see how Vince has approached this. So let me introduce Vince.
Catherine McDonald:So Vince helps bars and restaurants make more money faster, guaranteed. After a successful career opening and improving some of the most prominent bars on Broadway in Nashville, he launched his consulting business to help even more people in the restaurant industry implement strategies that boost productivity and profit. Welcome to the show, Vince.
Vince Lanni:Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. Good to see you, Patrick.
Patrick Adams:Yeah. Good to see you too, Vince. It's been a little while, but I'm excited to to get back on with you here. And you and I were together. For those of those of you that are listening in that don't know this yet, because it hasn't been made public, but Vince and I were actually on a reality TV show together.
Patrick Adams:So I'm just gonna I'm gonna leave it at that. Let your your curiosity, know, is the
Vince Lanni:topic of the day curiosity, right?
Patrick Adams:That's right. So more to come on that. You will hear more on the reality TV show that Vince and I were on together a few months back and it'll be coming out. Well, we don't know sometime this summer, maybe in the fall. So more to come on that.
Patrick Adams:But Vince and I had some really great conversations while we were together around the topic of continuous improvement because that's all I think about and talk about. So Vince probably got overwhelmed with my conversations. But in those conversations, funny thing is for many people, are using continuous improvement principles and techniques in the work that they do, but many times they don't even know it or they don't call it that or they've never made that connection. And for Vince, Vince is at the time when him and I met was not familiar with the Toyota Production System manufacturing or process improvement being applied. But as we continue to have conversations about the work that he's doing in the restaurant industry in Nashville, I was like, Vince, everything that you're doing aligns exactly with the work that we're doing, with our clients.
Patrick Adams:And so obviously we hit it off and, and had some really, really great conversations about, continuous improvement, you know, in the restaurant industry. So I'm excited to have you on the show, Vince. It's great to see you again.
Vince Lanni:Thanks. Yeah, good to see you. I'm excited to be here. And I do think a lot of it relates. We were talking on the show and getting to know each other and it was really like, We were there for self improvement anyway, really, at the end of the not to give too much away, but entrepreneurs, self improvement stuff.
Vince Lanni:That's something that I've always been trying to do, whether personal life or business, is always trying to improve. There's always room to improve. So how can we do that?
Patrick Adams:That's right. That's the question. Yeah. That's right. Go ahead, Katherine.
Catherine McDonald:You guys competing? So, obviously, you didn't fall out because, you know, you're here today, Vince. Were you were you competing, or were you on the same team? Or not to let's give way too But I'm really We
Vince Lanni:were compete we were competing. Not in the but it's a very supportive competition. You know? It's not like I can't think of a show to compare it to, but not nothing nothing crazy. We're not backstabbing each other or anything like that.
Patrick Adams:Yeah. No no no backstabbing. It was more all all the individuals that were there were competing for, you know, top three or whatever, top five, top 10, whatever but it was a self development show as well. So your entrepreneurs, business owners are going on to the show and they're learning how they can take these different techniques and apply them to their business to be able to improve their business. So, you know, again, Vince and I were kind of competing against each other, but at the same time also helping each other and lifting each other up and supporting each other through the entire process, along with many other amazing entrepreneurs that we met while we were there.
Patrick Adams:So,
Catherine McDonald:yeah. Sounds amazing. Definitely, definitely keep us updated. I really want to see this now. So, Vince, you know that our topic today is curiosity, and it is a great topic.
Catherine McDonald:It's not something we've brought up too many times. I think even though it pops into our conversations every now and then, it hasn't been our main focus. And I think it's great that it is today because it's just so important. As we were talking earlier, I mentioned that I really think it's just a cornerstone of a good way to improve, effective way to continuously improve. And without it, I'm not sure we can.
Catherine McDonald:So maybe you can give us your thoughts, Vince, on the power of curiosity and where it all fits into what you do in your work with bars and the hospitality sector?
Vince Lanni:Yeah. For me, it's really I think of when I'm curious about something. Right? Like, I'm engaged in it. I'm I I'm I wanna know the answer.
Vince Lanni:I'm determined to find the answer. I'm motivated to find the answer, and I feel like I'm contributing to something if I'm curious and we're we're learning something together as a team or we're trying to solve a problem or, you know, fix up find a solution for something. I think, you know, curiosity is a great tool to have that you can really stay engaged with your team and your team can stay engaged with the goals of the company.
Patrick Adams:Vince, when you go into work restaurant in the Nashville area, how does curiosity come into play when you're talking? Just think personally, I think about some of the companies that we go into where, I'll just give you the other side of it, where I have leaders who think they know it all, And they don't have any form of curiosity whatsoever. They just like, they think that they have the right path. They know what they want. They're heading down a path.
Patrick Adams:And I think there can be some benefits to that, right? To have a strong leader that knows where they're going. But there's also, I think, a downside to that because without some level of curiosity, are you 100% right all the time? I mean, how many leaders can say that, right? So there has to be some level of curiosity where it's like, okay, we have certain problems that I don't know how to solve.
Patrick Adams:And I need to be curious about how to get to the solution. What's the right approach to this? And what about my team members and their level of curiosity and being able to drive innovation from within whatever the things are that are within their control? So guess, yeah, so back to the question, how does curiosity play a role when you go into a new restaurant or a bar or somewhere that needs help with improvement? How do you engage the leaders or the team members in some level of curiosity?
Vince Lanni:Well, a couple of things with that. They have to be already kind of I'm not going to convince a leader that's set in their ways to change. Some people aren't for me yet or I'm not for them yet. They're not there in that they want to improve or that they see that the way they're doing it could be better. Some people do think that they're right 100% of the time.
Vince Lanni:Some people still are like that. I'm looking for and finding, being attracted to whatever you want to call it, people that are looking for that self improvement already and just don't know exactly what to do next or don't know exactly where to find it. This is where I can come in and help bridge the gap on all the trial and error. Is the strategy that they're going with going to work? Might, might not, might need a tweak.
Vince Lanni:Who knows? And for me as a consultant for restaurants, I love this topic. I think this is a great overview kind of what I do because I'm not just going to share what I know. Going to I am curious about their business. I'm curious about their problems.
Vince Lanni:I'm curious about solving them. I am genuinely interested in solving the problems and helping them find solutions. I think that part kind of separates me from other restaurant consultants who will just kind of give them a course, give them homework to do and share what they know. What I say is I don't know it all. I'm going to continue to find solutions and learn with you, but that's the value is that you're not in this alone.
Vince Lanni:I'm going to help you get there. We're going to figure this out. This is where curiosity plays such a valuable part in the arrangement.
Patrick Adams:I love that. Two things that I heard there that I think are important to repeat. One is you're not you you are looking for the types of clients that are willing to change, that are interested in changing, curious to change, where, you know, those those, restaurant owners that are set in their ways and don't think they need to improve or don't think they have problems, that's probably not the right client for you, right? Mean, I think, Katherine, I think that's the same for us too. I mean, it's unfortunately, there's been times where I've landed at companies where that happens and I didn't realize it until it was too late.
Patrick Adams:But to your point, Vince, I would rather not work with companies where that's the feeling of leadership. They're just not ready for change.
Vince Lanni:Now, do they have like a lot to benefit from being ready to that and open to that? Yeah, sure. But if they're not there yet, I mean, you really can't beat them down with all the information on why that's a better way to do it. They kind of have to get there themselves. People don't change until it's kind of staying the same is a little more damaging than the change is.
Catherine McDonald:Yeah. Yeah, it is a good point. And I see it, and I suppose I would be the same. It's very hard to work with somebody who's on a totally different mindset to you. Often what I've seen when it comes to curiosity, there are a few people who talk about this, that curiosity occurs sort of on a continuum, where on the far left, you've got judgment on the far right, you've got curiosity.
Vince Lanni:And
Catherine McDonald:I've heard people speak about the fact that we're human and we all have a little bit of judgment in us. But we will I guess the best way to develop ourselves is to develop our mindset and our skills to enable us to move further up that continuum from judgment towards curiosity. And sometimes when we go into an organization, what I found and I don't know if you found this, Vince, is that there's an awful lot of blame going on. There's a real lack of curiosity. There's just quick judgments going on, and that's leading to obviously a lot of conflict and team issues.
Catherine McDonald:And oftentimes those are the organizations that need consultant most. They need an external person to come in to help them see and understand what's happening and to help them understand their own mindset and maybe skill gaps and work on them with them. But as you say, they have to be open to all of understanding that they need to develop. So I totally get what you're saying there. I don't know, have you ever been in that situation where you go in to help an organisation and you see this kind of practice is going on and you can step in and help them with that?
Vince Lanni:Well, one thing you touched on is the blame game kind of thing. And I think that that's super important because when we're trying to solve problems together, that kind of brings us all together in a community. So this is where that curiosity really plays a value in the culture of not playing the blame game. We're all in this together and we're finding solutions together. We feel like more of a team when there's that kind of common goal.
Vince Lanni:But to answer your question, I typically don't get that far. So if the owner is interested in they're going to make the decision to hire me or If the owner is interested in the self improvement stuff, and maybe he's got a couple of leaders on the team that are stuck in their ways, they don't think they need to improve, whatever. I haven't gotten that yet, but I don't think that that's outside of the realm of possibility by any means. I can totally see that happening. Typically, I'll get that from the owner right off the bat.
Vince Lanni:And it'll kind of end the moving forward and working together thing before I even get to the team because the owner is just set in a ways and they don't see the value. But they're like, I make a ton of money. I'm good. I'm like, You are. Yeah, you make millions of dollars with this bar or restaurant, right?
Vince Lanni:You could make an extra half million a year probably if you did. Is that of interest to you? Some people don't really see the value in a lot of this and some people do and they're open to this kind of self improvement curiosity type thing.
Patrick Adams:So let's back up a little bit based on what you just said, because I'm sure there are people that would be interested to hear your approach when you go into a new restaurant or bar. I'm sure it's different depending on the size or the, again, whether it's a bar or restaurant. But when I think about the kind of work that you do, I think about the TV show, is it called Bar Rescue? Yeah. Is that kind of similar?
Patrick Adams:I mean, that's probably elevated for TV, you know, but, you know, I guess I'm asking you, what is your approach? Like, what does it look like when you have a restaurant owner that says, Vince, we'd love to have you come in and work with us? Where do you start? What do you do?
Vince Lanni:Well, first off, that show, I always hated that comparison. And because the guy is such an asshole on the show.
Patrick Adams:He is.
Vince Lanni:He is. And I'm just like, oh, I'm not like that. I'm a nice guy. Like, I'm here to help. And I'm also not going to invest a ton of money into the renovations like they do on the show because they got all the money and the sponsors.
Vince Lanni:But then I kind of retrained my mind on that self improvement and thought, well, at least that's something people know about and can relate to kind of what I do, so let's go from there. So to answer your question, I do that a bit, but my first step is to find not only the money that it costs to hire me, but a lot more than that. So we're going to look through their order guides, we're going do an inventory audit, look through their vendor pricing, and find the best pricing for them. A client I worked with recently, they're on track to save over 100,000 in, 2025 based on this. Like, we just went through, looked at everything, took a couple months to negotiate some pricing.
Vince Lanni:I have a network of resources and vendors here in Nashville that I have connections with. So kind of setting them up with different options for POS systems or linen services, stuff like that and and the food is the big one. You know, food prices are always fluctuating. When you're trying to shop around for prices, you don't get the best prices. So, we have some strategies that that make sure that we're finding you the best prices available for your restaurant, and the savings are incredible.
Vince Lanni:And then they think, wow, I've just been ordering this from this company for so long. I'm like, yeah, now what are you going to do with that $100,000 This is where step two comes in now. Step two is what do we do with it? Do you want to do marketing spend? Do you need to hire another manager, focus on leadership development, get some more support in there on your leadership team so you can do more work on the business and not be so into the day to day as an owner?
Vince Lanni:Or maybe there's some incentive programs that you've wanted to do for your leadership team that just haven't been in the budget. Well, you don't even have to dig it out of the current budget. We're going to find you that money. So that's the big step one. And then steps two and three are are, you know, just kind of trying to find ways to improve staff retention and guest retention.
Vince Lanni:So, staff training, morale, leadership development, all kinds of self improvement practices, and we're gonna talk more on curiosity and all that stuff coming up on how it applies. And then, yeah, some other, you know, guest retention practices that I've done through my time to help other restaurants.
Patrick Adams:Okay. So that all makes a ton of sense. And I'm sure I have to imagine that maybe it's not the case, but restaurants and bars probably have a high turnover rate when it comes to their employees, I would guess. So some of the work that you're talking about that you do maybe would help increase some of that retention and help keep people around longer, which obviously is a huge expense for owners to have to retrain and we'll go find and then retrain people. What about systems?
Patrick Adams:Like, do you work? Do you do a lot of work on the back end system side of things like the processes that they follow in order to order the supplies that they need or to the process of inputting orders into the system or whatever it might be. You do some work on that?
Vince Lanni:Yeah. A little bit. We can do some people don't have a great inventory tracking system. We can help there. Sales forecasting and budgeting for orders weekly.
Vince Lanni:Okay. So you're ordering based on what your expected sales are instead of just bringing it up to par. You know? Okay. Only order what you need.
Vince Lanni:Like, let's let's keep it lean. You know? Yeah. Yeah. So we we have some tools, and we'll help them with that as well.
Vince Lanni:And then also just, yeah, as far as systems, systems in the non, like, tech way or something might be workflow of the servers and the bartenders and the bar backs and making that a more efficient process.
Patrick Adams:Gotcha. Okay.
Vince Lanni:Good. Really varies from different place.
Patrick Adams:Right, I figured that. So thank you for that. I wanted to take a couple of steps back just because there's a lot of people that are listening right now who probably maybe have never watched any process improvement or continuous improvement tools being applied to restaurants or to bars. So it's just kind of nice to know your high level approach.
Catherine McDonald:Yeah. And seems to me that really the key is to ask questions. It's really as simple as that. You know, we're talking about going into organizations and understanding what's happening. And the only way to understand is, well, two things go to as we call it the GEMBA in Lean events.
Catherine McDonald:That's the word that suppose Lean practitioners would use, go to GEMBA, see what's happening. But that's essentially what you're talking about. Go in, see what's happening, observe the work and ask questions. It really does come down to doing that really, really well. Right?
Vince Lanni:Yeah. Absolutely. And, I mean, like, some of the best ideas come from the the frontline people too. So keeping them curious and letting them know that, like, you're open to their suggestions.
Patrick Adams:Absolutely. I loved the other thing I said earlier. I said I had two points and I don't want to miss that second point because the other thing that you said earlier was you said that not only are you looking for ways to help generate curiosity within the companies that you're working with, But you said you approach them with curiosity and that you don't have to have all the answers. And I think, again, that's probably the most important thing that helped me be more confident. You know, when I'm going into all these different companies that are maybe in different industries, maybe different parts of the world, they don't even speak English potentially, but I can be confident knowing I don't have to know everything about their process.
Patrick Adams:I don't have to know everything about what they do. I just have to be curious. Catherine, to your point, ask the right questions because they're the experts. They know their process. They know the work that they're doing.
Patrick Adams:Now, yes, there could be some inefficient processes. There could be some wasteful activities that are happening, but asking the right questions will help bring some of that to the surface. Would you agree, Vince?
Vince Lanni:Yeah, absolutely. Definitely the key to confidence really is not that you know it all, but that you can solve you'll figure it out. You know? That's really confidence at the end of the day is knowing that because I'm not arrogant. I'm not going to sit there and say, I know everything and that I can solve any problem.
Vince Lanni:That's crazy. No one knows everything. But I'm confident that whatever the problem is, I'll figure it out. I've probably seen something similar or I've seen enough that I know that I'm building that confidence by this happened. I didn't know how to handle it, but I solved it.
Vince Lanni:The next thing happens. You don't know how to handle it, but you solve it. And this is just growth and self improvement. As you continue to do that through your life and career, you develop that confidence that no matter what happens, I'll figure it out.
Patrick Adams:And that leads me into my next question, specifically around problem solving and continuous improvement. So for you personally, do you have any stories or maybe your approach to how or why curiosity is so critical when being applied to problem solving or to continuous improvement? Any specific stories or just how use that curiosity piece to really create some good problem solving solutions?
Vince Lanni:Yeah, I like puzzles. And it's really like a game or a puzzle when there's when there's something going on. And I had an employee that I worked with who every bar that I would go into, I'm the problem solver. And I don't know. It's probably just because of this, you know, take on curiosity and and confidence in problem solving.
Vince Lanni:But I came into this place and he was the guy. He was the problem solver. Things would break. I don't know how to fix this, but the POS systems are shut down at midnight and we got 100,000 people in there. We're competing against each other in a fun way to try and solve the problem first.
Vince Lanni:That made us a little more efficient in doing it. The staff would get a kick out of it because they'd be like, Oh, who's going to win, Vince Curtis? Who's going to win this time? Kind of thing. Then also, this is the other important thing, too.
Vince Lanni:When you make it like a game or like a puzzle and you don't treat it so seriously, you're not so frantic about it, the staff feels that they're way more confident, they're way more comfortable, they know that it's going to get taken care of, they're not going to freak out, the guests are still going to have a good experience because the team's not freaking out because you're not freaking out. That's what I think really plays a big role in it.
Catherine McDonald:And what about Vince? So you go in, you're a great problem solver. You're an external person coming in to help this organization. They're delighted to have your help. You have excellent problem solving skills.
Catherine McDonald:But how do you help them to become better problem solvers so they don't become reliant on you?
Vince Lanni:That's the big thing, teaching them how to do it. So ask them questions. If they have a solution or a potential solution, say, Okay, does this solution solve the problem the way you want it to? And then make them answer that. Does it?
Vince Lanni:Is this going to have the result that you're looking for? Or are you just throwing stuff at the wall? And it's Okay if you are, but let's dive in and figure it out. And if they really do think that it's going to work, then they can try it. And if it doesn't work or if it does work or maybe there's a hiccup along the way, we're going to go through more of the why on why that happened and how they think that could be more efficient in the future.
Vince Lanni:Yeah, really getting them to think ahead on, Okay, does this actually solve the problem? Or is this just something that I feel like I need to do now?
Catherine McDonald:Yeah, that's really good. Because obviously, we know that critical thinking skills are on a decline in a lot of organizations. There are a lot of reasons why that could be. But we know that engaging frontline staff and workers in this kind of problem solving and innovation and giving them ownership of issues and involving them every step we know that works. So it's great to hear that that's your approach.
Catherine McDonald:And I suppose I had another question because having worked in bars and restaurants, I know how busy they can be. And I think this applies not just to bars and restaurants, but to lots of other service sector organizations where the actually the frontline staff are so busy, they don't really have a lot of time to stop and think they're all go, go, go, do, do, do. But we know that as consultants in this kind of trade where we go in to try and help organizations, that they do need to take a step back in order to think and to see how to improve and to take that ownership. So how do you do that, Vince? How do you go into these really busy places and convince management, first of all, to let you go in and spend the time with people?
Catherine McDonald:And then I suppose, secondly, make the most of that time because they have to get back to work?
Patrick Adams:That's a good question.
Vince Lanni:It is a good question. And the main thing that I want to do is to define who works for who. In my opinion, and what I've had the most success in, is that the leadership team, the managers, they work for the team. So if they're too busy running around, why don't they have time to think and come up with a solution? Why are they so busy?
Vince Lanni:You need to go in and help them. I think that's the first step is to really define your role as a leader. And that's you work for your team, they don't work for you.
Catherine McDonald:Real story.
Patrick Adams:It's an important point. Yeah. Yeah, that's an important point. You'd be surprised how many leaders don't understand the power of just being the person that's in the back, not in the forefront, but in the back that's helping to remove those roadblocks and set their team up for success. I mean, those are the leaders that find the most success hands down.
Patrick Adams:You know, they understand the value. Go ahead.
Vince Lanni:Think of it this way. I mean, we're in the service industry. We call it the bar and restaurant, like we're in service of the guests. The frontline workers are in service of the guests, but as a leader, who are you in service of? You're in service of your team.
Patrick Adams:Right. Right. So true. Now I want to go back to the question though, I want to dig a little bit deeper on this because I think not just in the hospitality industry, but in many of manufacturing and healthcare, we find ourselves so busy that sometimes we feel like we don't have time for self development or we don't have time to challenge existing processes or we don't have time to improve this or that. How do you get around that Vince?
Patrick Adams:What do you what do you do? Do you do you you recommend that they block time for improvements? Do you pull them off their work? Do you do it outside of regular business hours? I mean, what how do you do it?
Vince Lanni:Yeah, that that's a great question, Patrick. I I think you have kids, you'll understand this. If you can't, if you don't have time to have a catch with your kid, did you not have time or did you not make time? And when you think of it like that, you're you're you're you're yet like and then that would make you feel pretty bad. You know, if I, oh, I didn't make time for that.
Vince Lanni:Like, I didn't prioritize this. So, take that to managing a bar restaurant. Do you not prioritize the well-being of your team? Do you not prioritize increasing sales and your bonuses and all that stuff? Everyone's going be like, no, I do.
Vince Lanni:I do. Well, then why aren't So yes to time blocking. I love time blocking.
Catherine McDonald:And it doesn't have to be complex either, right? I mean, thirty minutes before a shift or at the end of a shift can be added and taken back by people. I think what we have to ask for here is flexibility from people, from management, but also from everybody,
Vince Lanni:from
Catherine McDonald:the entire staff team if we want to do this. It's going to take flexibility. Would you agree?
Vince Lanni:Flexibility is it's a bonus in the industry that you have flexibility. That's a great pro of the industry. Use that valuable tool. Use that as a resource because you don't have to go in and do the same thing all day. You have those ups and downs in business, right?
Vince Lanni:Like you get the lunch pop and you die down a little bit before dinner and you get busy at dinner. It depends on the restaurant you're in. But typically, there's these ups and downs and busy times in the restaurant where you might have some time to sneak away or some time to huddle up the team and be like, cool, we got our asses kicked there. What do you think we could have done? And I've done this as a new manager or a consulting company.
Vince Lanni:I'm like, what could I have done in that scenario that would help you get through that shift easier? Finding that little time, making time for that stuff is so important. So I use some tools, I guess you could call them templates, that are to keep topics on top of mind of how am I going to help my team today and how am I going to increase sales? And keeping those two questions always at the forefront, ask myself before the shift, write it down, check-in midway through the shift, have I done that yet? If not, let me make that a priority moving forward through the rest of the shift, and then a recap at the end.
Vince Lanni:That sounds like it's a lot of extra stuff, but it's really not. If you think about how long it takes you to answer two little questions, a minute, then you review it halfway through the shift, it takes another minute or two, and Then you do it at the end of the shift. We're talking five minutes here to make such a big impact. So it's not that they don't have time, it's that they're not making the time and they're not using their time efficiently.
Patrick Adams:Right. Yeah. For us in the lean world, we use a tool called leader standard work. And it's really a lot of what you're talking about where prioritizing is important because busyness is going to come. When you show up to work in a restaurant, in a bar, or for any listeners, work whatever work that you're in, you show up, you don't have to have a plan for the day if you don't want to, and you're you'll be busy.
Patrick Adams:And by the end of the day, you'll feel like you did a lot. But then if you stop and think about, okay, what did I actually accomplish today? What are the one or two things that I got done today? A lot of times, if you don't have a plan, if you don't prioritize, you get to the end of the day and you're like, I mean, I feel like I was busy all day, but what did I actually get done? Versus I'm going to do one on ones with my frontline team leaders today.
Patrick Adams:I'm going to get two of those done. I'm going to walk the, we would say, Gemba, but I'm going to walk the floor and I'm going to look for opportunities for improvement. I'm going to find at least one opportunity for improvement today. And I'm going to dive into the financials maybe, and I'm going to look for one opportunity to make an improvement today. So I'm going to do those four things today.
Patrick Adams:I'm prioritizing those. Those are part of my standard work for the day. So now at the end of the day, you're still going to be busy all day. But at the end of the day, now you can look back and go check, check, check, check. I was able to complete those four things.
Vince Lanni:Right. And it's a difference. Are you busy or are you productive? Mean, there's such a difference. I always think that busy is a feeling.
Vince Lanni:It's how you feel. You feel busy. But you're not necessarily any amount of productive just because you feel busy. You have a lot to do or you're doing a lot. But like you said, are you actually doing a lot or is it just kind of running in circles?
Catherine McDonald:I actually think that sometimes these service sectors, they are without knowing it solely without even trying a lot of the time. Okay, sometimes they're not and there's issues, but they have to be so lean.
Vince Lanni:That's true.
Catherine McDonald:They have no choice but to be lean because they're customer facing. The customer sees everything. So they have to the voice of the customer comes first. They get the voice of the customer so quickly and easily compared to sectors that are not customer facing. And so I've worked in the hotel sector and I've worked in nonprofits.
Catherine McDonald:And there's a similarity there, really. And I know you don't technically use the word lean, Vince, but I suppose what have you seen in terms of bars and restaurants to maybe prove that point? What are they doing that is actually really efficient? What can they teach other sectors, do you think?
Vince Lanni:Yeah, there's a lot of those intangible metrics in a bar and restaurant, right? So we're talking ticket time You can't track Some things, you look at the sales, that's like a clear metric. You look at time of day and all that stuff. That's like on paper in the computer, you have that. But how many times is your server running back to the kitchen to grab a side of ranch that they forgot with the order?
Vince Lanni:How much time does that take? How much time are people waiting to be seated or waiting for a drink at the bar? These are things that you can't get by running a report on your business. These are things that you need to watch, track in your head, make notes if you to write them down through the shift, go ahead. But these are all the little things and so much more that you have to be on top of.
Vince Lanni:And these are the things that really matter. To your point, you get that information right then and there, you can make changes and improvements. It doesn't even have to be at the end of the shift. You can do it on the fly. You can jump in and be in service to your team and help out to improve any of those metrics that are failing.
Vince Lanni:And then you can take it to do refresh topics or a little more training or a little more follow-up with some people to improve those over the next week. But it's definitely a quicker information gathering process and being able to improve it a lot faster.
Patrick Adams:Love that. I didn't really think about that until you said it, Kathryn, it's so true. I mean, for many organizations, customers, they never meet the customer or most people don't. The customer places an order and you're fulfilling that order through this long value stream. But for you guys, Vince, I mean, the customer's standing right there and they're like, I need a drink.
Patrick Adams:How long does it take? You can have
Vince Lanni:facial expressions, the body language, all of it.
Patrick Adams:Right. That's really interesting. We maybe we should bring a group down and do do our own, little gemba, waste activity, that'd be pretty cool. Some guys that work with you.
Vince Lanni:That'd be awesome.
Patrick Adams:So we've talked about a lot of things in a short amount of time, but if you could sum up, you know, maybe some practical strategies for anyone that's listening for integrating curiosity into their daily practices or integrating their curiosity into how they make decisions or how they improve processes. What would be a couple of things that you would say, these are just a couple of practical strategies that you should follow?
Vince Lanni:I mean, think first, number one is lose the ego. You don't know it all and be open. Be curious. Number two is I I I if I if I'm, like, bringing up the idea on something, like, something I wanna change or an, you know, an idea for improvement, of course, I think it's a great idea. It's my idea.
Vince Lanni:But I want the team practice, this is the practical part, right? Tell the team to poke holes in it for you, whether that's your other leadership team or your front of house team, whatever it is. Have them poke holes in it because that's going to give you some feed, you know, the feedback that you need to really make it a great plan or a great improvement moving forward and you don't have to double back and kind of fix things as you go because it didn't work the way you thought it was going to. Like, there's so much value in in the team and their opinions. Make them feel like their opinions matter and that you they can always come to you with cool ideas or or any any type of improvement options.
Vince Lanni:Like, your door is always open. Kinda have that practice that culture of we're always looking to improve. I'm not going to always have the best ideas. Y'all might have the best ideas and if they are great, give them credit. If they're not great, you take the credit and you try to help them make em better.
Vince Lanni:You know, people will come to me and say, whatever it is and I'm like, Here's why I don't think it'll work. And then sometimes it just won't work. Or sometimes they'll come back to me a week later and a bartender will come back and be like, Okay, you said it wouldn't work because of this, but what if we did this that solves that problem? I'm like, Okay, cool. Let's try it.
Vince Lanni:Right?
Catherine McDonald:Yeah. So what you're saying is what you're saying is organizational improvement really does start with individual self improvement and developing those like humility and the skills of curiosity. That's kind of what I'm getting from you, Vince.
Vince Lanni:Yeah, absolutely. And and from top to bottom of the organization that it's okay to question what you've been doing forever there, and it's okay to question new ideas no matter who they come from, whether they come from the owner or it's okay to question them.
Patrick Adams:Vince, one last question from me, and then I don't know if Catherine has one more. But just if you were to think about all the different bars, restaurants, owners that you've worked with, you don't have to say names here, but who would be or what would the organization be that maybe you would say was the best customer or I guess the best improvement activities that happened with them would be like your highlight, maybe just a little story about them. And then the opposite side of that, your biggest challenge and what did that look like?
Vince Lanni:Yeah. Biggest challenge first is I can't do it all. I'm just kind of giving them I'm helping them. But at the end of the day, they had to execute. And sometimes I put a lot of faith into that they can execute what we've talked about doing, and they don't always do that.
Vince Lanni:And that's kind of the risk you take as a consultant on are they? They're going blame me now because it didn't work, but they didn't actually do it, right? Kind of thing. So I have worked with a client like that before. And then a success story is a place called Greenery Co.
Vince Lanni:That I work with, and they are really open to it. I mean, they knew what they needed. They knew their weaknesses, I guess, and they were very clear and very open about that. They very much wanted to improve, and they're so willing to try new things. And that's really their curiosity and their willingness to improve is why they've saved over $100 for this year.
Vince Lanni:And they're on track to increase sales by 10% to 15% for 2025.
Patrick Adams:That's amazing. Yeah. The story, the initial, the challenge too, as far as that one goes, I mean, that's a tough one. And I think even for many who are listening in, a coach internally, I think they can resonate, even if they're not a consultant or running their own business, just even as an internal coach. A lot of these concepts that we're talking about, they definitely matter for sure.
Patrick Adams:So Catherine, last question for you.
Catherine McDonald:Yeah, I just I had something in my mind there about curiosity. So I think it's a skill we lose over time. We start out really, really curious. Patrick, you said about your new little grandchild and how curious children are. And as we grow up and get older, we definitely, definitely lose those skills.
Catherine McDonald:And I'm just wondering, Vince, because obviously you see the value in curiosity. You role model it with every organization you go into, and it's something you try to develop in your team. How do you think, Vince, we can, I suppose, promote the power of curiosity in people? How can we get the people we work with to work on that skill and to be more curious? What do you think?
Vince Lanni:I think it's more of like the human vulnerability of it's Okay to not know it all. And especially from an owner standpoint or a leader that is looked to for answers and feels like they should know it all and they need to have this kind of tough exterior like it doesn't need to be like that, you know? I think leadership years ago was always about strength and a lot of that still carries over and like you said, as we get older, like, that's definitely, something we'd pride ourselves on. But leadership really is it's kind of changed with the tech era to turn into brains a little bit more. And then now I feel like, as we're talking about self improvement and curiosity, heart is the big thing in leadership.
Vince Lanni:So I I I think being willing to open yourself up to the new experiences and to being vulnerable and admitting that you don't know it all, but having that same strength and confidence and brainpower to know that you can figure it out.
Catherine McDonald:Yeah. Yeah. I guess what leaders role modeling that every day, it it rubs off.
Vince Lanni:Yeah. And if they're okay to ask questions, then their team's gonna feel comfortable to ask questions too. That's what we want. If they don't know something, we wanna make sure that they have this information so they can do a better job. And also, they might have a question that prompts a really innovative change that helps the company too.
Patrick Adams:Yeah. So true. Vince, the last thing I'm gonna ask as we close here with everyone listening in, the next time that Catherine and I are in Nashville, will you bring us to your favorite pub?
Vince Lanni:Absolutely. Oh, yeah. Yay.
Patrick Adams:Alright. Good. I'm glad. I'm looking forward to that. We definitely wanna get down there and and see you.
Patrick Adams:And, yeah, we we, we're excited to to have you on and appreciate all your insight. I know our listeners definitely will take value from this episode and just appreciate you coming on.
Vince Lanni:Absolutely. Yeah. I hope there was some value there for everyone listening and I appreciate your time and it's great to see you again.