The Leadership Table
The Leadership Table brings together hospitality leaders and changemakers to share real-world strategies for growth, leadership, and communication. Hosted by Jason E. Brooks, each episode delivers insights you can use right away.
The Leadership Table
From Surviving to Thriving: Scaling People-Centered Leadership with Lissa Bowen
In this episode of The Leadership Table, Jason E. Brooks sits down with Lissa Bowen, Fractional Program & Partnerships Director at The Good Work Collective
— a nonprofit creating trauma-informed, paid workforce training for individuals impacted by incarceration, foster care, and systemic barriers.
With deep roots in hospitality, HR, and leadership development, Lissa shares how building systems rooted in belonging, accountability, and opportunity transforms lives and workplaces alike.
🔍 Topics include:
- What makes The Good Work Collective’s model different from typical workforce prep
- Why frontline leadership matters more than ever
- How trauma-informed systems unlock true potential
- What the restaurant industry gets right about second chances
- Why radical welcome and real accountability can (and should) co-exist
🎧 Full show notes + links at jasonebrooks.com/podcast
🔗 Learn more about Lissa’s work: https://gwcollective.org
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Leadership Table. Today's guest is someone I've known and respected for over a decade Actually, it's been over 20 years. We first worked together back in Charlie's even into Focus Brands, now GoToFoods, and I've watched her leadership journey evolve in really powerful ways. Lisa Bowen is currently the Fractional Program and Partnerships Director at the Good Work Collective, a nonprofit helping people impacted by incarceration, foster care and trauma rewrite their stories and build sustainable, thriving lives. She's also someone that lived this mission, serving as a foster parent, adopting her son through the system, adopting her son through the system and volunteering with organizations like Ignite and Experience Life Connected that uplift kids and families in powerful ways. But long before that, she was helping franchise brands, restaurant operators and frontline teams build better cultures from the inside out. Lisa, I'm so glad you're here. This is going to be something meaningful.
Speaker 2:I tell you what it is so good to see you. It has been a while, but, like you said, we go back a long way. So I've watched your career. I'm so proud of you. I am just delighted to be here with you today.
Speaker 1:Thank you. You know a lot of people don't understand. Well, no slash that. Because the people that listen to this podcast, they know our industry is small, talked about how many different people that we know, how they have impacted lives, teams, relationships in many ways, and it's crazy how small this world is. We think, oh, I would love to go here and meet this person and meet that person, the people we meet and the places we go within this industry. Although you don't want to write a novel, we can absolutely write several novels based on these amazing characters. So I thank you for wanting to be on this podcast sitting at the leadership table and helping to let people know some of the amazing things that you've been working on now. You've led teams in restaurants, franchises and now nonprofits. What's that red thread that connects it all and what brought you to the Good Work Collective?
Speaker 2:That is a great question. And a long, long time ago, back in O'Charlie's days, actually, one of the vice presidents I remember him saying to me Bowen, we're in the people business, food is our product. So that stuck with me for the last 25 years. And so the red thread that ties all of these experiences I've had together and brought me to the Good Work Collective is just that it's all about people.
Speaker 2:My whole career, regardless of what industry I was in, I believe that the success of that business is dependent on the people. So I've always looked at it and said how can we build systems where people can belong, feel like they're part of something bigger than them and grow? And the reason is because it's just good business right. Everybody wins. When you hire the right people, put them in the right place, give them a fun, safe, clean, healthy place to work where people care about them, your results are better it's. You know, numbers don't lie.
Speaker 2:So I think that you know so much of what we do is dependent on our frontline workers. Because, at the end of the day, who has more contact one-on-one contact with our guests, our customers? You know, depending on what industry you're in, if any customer facing industry, who has more contact. It's the folks on the front line. So it's our responsibility, I think, to invest in them and provide opportunities for them to be seen and heard so that they can actually meet their full potential, and ultimately, that's how you build a high-performing team. So Good Work Collective allows me to use all of the things I've learned about people in the last you know I don't even want to say how many decades I've been in this industry, because it'll make me old but learning all of that about how to build these cultures where people love to be, good Work Collective just allows me to use those superpowers for something good.
Speaker 1:Tell people about what the Good Work Collective is, though, because, again, we can do research. Check out your bio. You are amazing, but the way you explained what the Good Work Collective is, I was even floored by it. Collective is I was even floored by it.
Speaker 2:So essentially what the Good Work Collective does and it's kind of a play on good work, right, because I spent a lot of my career in recruiting and what I learned is that if you give people the opportunity to do good work, that they're motivated to do, that they like to do and that they're appreciated for, then they can provide for their families, they can grow, they can become managers, they can become directors of operation. I mean, it isn't dependent. Beautiful thing about the industry is it's not dependent on necessarily where you came from, but what you bring today. And so the Good Work Collective works with formerly incarcerated or justice-impacted individuals we're in Cleveland, ohio, so our Cleveland neighbors that are impacted by the justice system and formerly incarcerated to give them job skills and kind of a returning from prison entry into the world and I'll talk a little bit more about that when we get deeper into it. And we do the same thing for kids who are aging out of foster care. My husband and I were foster parents. We adopted my youngest son from foster care and you know the outcomes for kids that age out without any support net are really not great. And as we learned that as we got into the system, that's when we focused our own foster careers on working with teens who were going to age out of the system so that hopefully they could have some tools and resources that once they aged out they'd be able to actually get good work and be able to, you know, not end up as one of those statistics and a bad outcome. So the Good Work Collective actually provides trauma-informed education and resources with a paid program so that they come into our program and they start to get paid day one.
Speaker 2:We're going to do culinary training because in the building that we're housed in, which is a former settlement house in Cleveland that is the new settlement house now we're going to have commissary kitchens and a cafe that our program participants will learn in from some local chefs who are going to come in and help with the programming. On some of the technical skills. They're going to get ServSafe certified. We're going to do some communication and leadership development so that they actually can build their ability to communicate with people who are different than they are. We're going to use DISC. We're going to use situational leadership.
Speaker 2:We're going to use a lot of the tools that I came up with in the industry so that people can then graduate from our program and essentially be ready to go in a kitchen in a front of the house where they can get a job. Some may go to culinary school, some may go to trade school, some may go into entry level customer service jobs jobs. It really depends. But we're going to give them all of those resources, in addition to wraparound services with other nonprofits who help with, for example, adjudication services and housing services, and there are just a number of people that work that do a lot of the similar work in different arenas like housing and transportation and different kinds of therapies and things like that. That we'll all work together as a community and serve these folks in our neighborhood.
Speaker 1:That is amazing work and we are so similar, so a like our focus on how can we make people better at being working beside creating environments with other people. There's a lot of times that we will focus on so many other technical skills, but how many programs do we have that help make leadership better within your business model to provide not only, of course, better profits, but just a better systematic approach to building teams that know how to get the goals that they set out? For it doesn't matter if that goal is to build a daycare, build a rocket, or build a kitchen to put out some amazing sauces, or build a kitchen to put out some amazing sauces. How do you help put together a team to do the impossible at a very fast-paced, hot-working, emotional environment and be successful at it? And so I'm so glad that you accepted to come on to the leadership table to help define that.
Speaker 1:Now the good work is absolutely doing that. Your program, as you spelled out, it's not the typical workforce prep. It is very different from what most people get taught when it comes down to workforce prep, and the people coming in have different challenges. Not that they're bad, they aren't bad challenges, they're just different challenges. Now you've led, you've co-led some initiatives like Gangsta to Genius and Foster to Fly. How are those structured and what principles shape their success for these initiatives?
Speaker 2:I have to tell you I'm always about a good name and a good tagline. I can't help it, but we built these programs. I will tell you how some of this stuff came to be right. I did a half-day simulation not too long ago. It was held at the Justice Center in my town and basically you had to live through the experience of being released from jail after a felony and they had people there from like, probation and the drug testing place and people that you could go try to get a job with and you know, food stamp people and housing people and the pawn shop and going to get your ID and all this kind of stuff. And you had to go and execute all this stuff in a certain amount of time, just like you do in real life life.
Speaker 2:And when I got out I had a social security card, a birth certificate, a Walkman and 20 bucks. I didn't have enough money for an ID. So I had to figure out how am I going to go get an ID, because I can't go to probation, I can't go to get housing, I can't go to get, can't do anything without an ID. So I was like, well, I'm going to sell this Walkman, right, so I go to sell the Walkman Guess what? You need to go to a pawn shop and sell something, you need an ID. So I went through this and there was an opportunity. They created opportunities everywhere for you to steal, for you to steal money, for you to steal stuff, and we were told it was okay as long as we don't get caught. But if we get caught we have to go back to jail, and getting a job was impossible. Everybody turned me down, partly because I didn't have an ID.
Speaker 2:I did have a Social Security card and a birth certificate, but it was. I was so upset by the time it was over, and I was so angry because I do understand recidivism rates. Right, it's part of my job. Two out of three formerly incarcerated people are rearrested within three years. Sixty percent remain unemployed a year after their release.
Speaker 2:Anybody other than me think that those two things could be related? Right, if you can't have good work, you're going to have to figure out a different way to put food on the table, and we don't create environments where people can do that. So same thing with foster care. Right, 50% of youth aging out are either homeless or incarcerated before they're 25 years old. We give people like there's this sense that you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps, but if there's not any access to bootstraps, you don't get to do that. So what we're trying to do about these systemic barriers for people in these situations is kind of providing them with the bootstraps, if you will. So what we want to do is create programs, paid programs, so that they're not actually trying to steal to put food on the table for their families.
Speaker 2:I had a kid when I got out in my program and I had to buy school supplies and I had to do stuff. So what we do is we actually have built these programs essentially so that they'll have paid training. We will help them with outplacement, hopefully working with great hospitality companies who want to hire our graduates right. Graduates right will work with culinary schools. My son, my youngest son, went to culinary schools, so there are plenty of culinary schools out there that offer wonderful scholarship programs but work with them on things that will help them build lives.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you really look at it, the whole idea behind incarceration is our justice society giving somebody their debt to society. You have to pay your debt to society, and that's what prison is about, or jail or whatever it may be. When you get out, your debt is repaid, according to our justice system. So why not provide somebody with the resources so that they can move forward after they've paid their debt and be able to have a happy, productive life? And that's what we designed our programs to do. So, if you think about it, the paid training is a big, big part of this. Without the paid training, it doesn't work because they still need to put food on the table. So we designed the program to be trauma-informed so that we understand some of the behaviors, that we can work with people that have those behaviors, and so that we can give them the resources they need to get up just to get some traction, to get their bootstraps on, so they can then pull themselves up by them.
Speaker 1:Now you are scaling these systems for bootstraps, scaling these systems to heal. You're helping license this model to new communities, not just in Ohio. How do you preserve heart and humanity while designing these systems for growth?
Speaker 2:I will tell you, this is where some of my restaurant experience is really coming in handy, because I'm treating this expansion and the scaling kind of like a high-touch hospitality brand, right. So when you franchise your restaurant space or license it, you don't just give them a manual and walk away, right, you're trying to keep the core ingredients the same in our case trauma-informed care, paid pathways, leadership, development and the fact that the community wraparound services are there. So, just like a restaurant franchise, though, we let that local market kind of influence the flavor of what they're going to ultimately produce. So I think that piece of it and creating licensing so that we can scale this beyond Cleveland into other distressed markets is going to be the key. But honestly, I'm just looking at it like a restaurant franchise. We're going to provide support, we're going to provide the playbook, we're going to provide the training programs.
Speaker 2:But you know, the local people in the community, the ones who are running this program, they're the ones who are going to be on the news, you know, on the morning show, on the radio show, on a podcast like yours, talking about the work that they're doing in their community, and it's very community specific and, I think, just like any restaurant company. That's how we're looking at it and we're not chasing fast growth. That's not the idea. That might be one place where we might differentiate from restaurant franchising. I think sometimes we grow a little too fast in the franchising world and we've seen some symptoms of that with some of the closures and buybacks. But that's not what we're chasing. We're more about chasing kind of a deep root, community-based expansion, and for me it's way more important that each location does carry the same spirit of like radical welcoming and accountability that we have in our program and that's more important than you know putting one in every city in the next year, right.
Speaker 1:I love the radical welcoming. You know you've speaking of restaurant, restaurant industry and the restaurant business. You've sat on both sides of the table and a lot of restaurant owners, a lot of restaurant executives and HR teams know and basically understand a little bit about hard to hire talent. But what should business leaders know about hiring people with justice or foster backgrounds?
Speaker 2:Well, I think that there's a myth around them being risky hires. I will tell you from my own experience, people who have been through the foster care system or the justice system are some of the most resourceful, loyal, hardworking people you will ever meet in your life. I agree, hardworking people you will ever meet in your life. In some cases they come from generational trauma, generational poverty and really kind of haven't had a fair shot, and I think when you give them one with the right support, like what we're doing at Good Work Collective, they'll knock it out of the park. And, frankly, there's data to support that.
Speaker 2:By the way, the Harvard Business School actually did a research paper and I'll provide it to you. It's called Hidden Talent. It's around staffing and finding people to staff in kind of hidden places, and I'm happy to share that with you so you can share it with your audience. But they found that employers reported to them that they have higher retention rates in formerly incarcerated team members than they do from the general population, than they do from the general population I would love for you to send that over and I will definitely put that in the show notes with a link to it.
Speaker 1:And I think you're right. Whenever we look at people that have that kind of background, there is a lot of commitment that they find because they know that they're looked at a certain way. They aren't blind to that fact. And when someone not even takes a chance because it's not a chance, gives the opportunity to bring them in, to offer them good work, to help provide good work as well, that commitment is tenfold than what we find out of any other applicant coming in our doors or applying online. So I agree with that statement.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean, it's one thing that I have always loved about the restaurant industry and, like I said, I've spent decades in it, from the time I was 13 years old and working at the Purple Turtle Dariette back before there was T-Ball, there were actual baseball teams that came in, you know little tiny kids for ice cream. But from those times until today, our industry doesn't just accept people from all walks of life, but allows them to actually reach their full potential. Right. It's always been about the quality of their work, regardless of their past. Look, you and I both know people that have run divisions, have run regions, have been vice presidents, coos of restaurant companies, have been owners, have been franchisees that never set foot in a college classroom. But I'll bet you, if you looked at a job description, it would say a college degree is required. But what's required is somebody who's really good at this, who understands that. High-quality food, keeping a place clean, providing great food, providing exceptional hospitality. I don't know. I think that's something that's just ingrained in who you are as a human, regardless of the circumstances of your past. And again, I'll bring back up debt to society paid. Perhaps it would make sense for hiring managers to invest in people who have paid their debt to society.
Speaker 2:And let's face it, foster kids are there through no fault of their own, through no fault of their own, regardless of how bad their situation was at home. They would have way rather been with their family than been in foster care. It just wasn't safe for them, right? That's not their fault. And so many at a certain age don't actually even get placed into foster homes. They go into group homes where they get very little kind of individualized attention. But you know, imagine the manager that takes that kid under their wing and shows them a path to something that could be way better. There's going to be loyalty there, I'm telling you right now, and they will perform beyond your wildest dreams.
Speaker 1:I'm telling you, it is all about belonging and accountability. It's not either or it is both.
Speaker 2:It's not either or it is both. So how can operators and execs build cultures that expect more and support more? Really important and some of this is kind of my trauma-informed background by working with foster kids but a lot of leaders and way too many, by the way, in my opinion avoid really what they call difficult conversations or, you know, hard conversations in the name of being nice or trying to be kind. But the truth is clear. Expectations are kindness, right. Accountability isn't the opposite of compassion. It's actually an expression of compassion, right.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So we look at this at Goodwill Collective and we say I call it positive accountability. That's how I've taught it my whole career. It means that we're honest about what's expected. We're going to set clear expectations, but we are not punitive. And I think this comes down to examining your own motives for those difficult conversations. Right, are you a manager that's going to go into this conversation with Jason because he's late all the time, really letting him know who's boss? Are you going into that conversation to just show him who's right, or are you going into that conversation with Jason so that you can help Jason be better? And I think there are managers that go into that conversation that say I'm going to show him who's the boss, and I think that's the exact wrong way to go about it.
Speaker 2:I think that a lot of times we and I'm not for lowering the standard, don't get me wrong you raise the level of support, you don't lower the standard, because people will always perform to your level of expectation. Always, if you set the bar high, people will either perform to that level or they will leave. They will select, self-select out, because they don't want to work that hard. They can't do it, whatever it may be, or you'll be able to show that they can't do it right. If you lower the bar, I can assure you with absolute certainty that people will either drop to that level of expectation or they will leave because they don't want to work like that. So lowering the bar is never the answer, but what you do have to do is have clarity around what success looks like, and that starts with your job description. I raised two kids that are in this workforce right now and they want to know what's expected of them with clarity, because they want to do good. They want to do good, they're not lazy, they don't not want to work, they work really hard. But if they don't know what success looks like, what are they supposed to do? Then you have to use feedback as fuel, not to beat people up, not to create fear, and I've watched people use feedback like a weapon. I mean just bludgeon the heck out of somebody with their feedback. Constructive criticism, whatever you want to call it. It's a shame-based thing and it really shouldn't be. It should be about moving forward, gaining agreement.
Speaker 2:Hey, jason, you've been late, a lot lately. Is there something happening that I need to know about to help you be on time? You might say, oh, my kid's school schedule changed. It's really hard for me to be here at nine o'clock. In which case you look at the business and say can I bring you in at 915 instead? Would that be helpful? All of a sudden, jason's back on time again.
Speaker 2:If it's not, then you have to say okay, what can we do? You explain how you know it affects the team, how it affects the guest, how it affects the business, how it affects them, and say can you agree, jason, that this behavior needs to change and you need to be on time. And for the most part, if they understand why they go, yeah, lisa, that makes perfect sense. What can I do to be on time? Right, and then don't just let that go. People just go. Okay, we've agreed, and then it's done.
Speaker 2:You have to visit, revisit and revisit and come back to it and be consistent. And then you celebrate when it happens. You know you're a manager that says what do you need from me? And then they do what you've asked and you go. Well, yeah, you did, because I told you you had to. Why don't you go, man? That's awesome, you've done great, right. So I think it's around. People are going to make mistakes, heart of growing. You've made them, I've made them. I make them all the time. I mess stuff up all the time, but the same guy that told me I messed up this morning Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Right, I logged into this yesterday because I thought it was Wednesday, look at the end of the day, you know, we all make mistakes, and the same guy that told me it's all about people, he's the one that told me that if you don't make everybody makes mistakes, just don't make the same one over and over and over again. Right? So growth includes mistakes. And guess what, when people are not afraid to fail, they're not afraid that they're going to have their manager beat the heck out of them. They learn faster and they do better faster, because failing is just part of growth. It's not something to be ashamed of. So I think those honestly. If you know, that's how I explain it. But I think it all starts with clear expectations. This is a person who spent as much of my time in recruiting as possible. Being honest about what the job is is where that all starts Radical transparency.
Speaker 1:I actually want to go back to your definition of accountability, because I speak to the same thing. People take the term accountability as that last step right before they fire someone and it's like, no, that's not what accountability is. Accountability is you having the true clarity, painting that clear picture of what success looks like within a specific role, and it's not just one time, like you said. Yes, it needs to be in the job description, but it also needs that reminder nearly every day. Why? Because we don't have AI that works for us. Yes, some of us use chat, gpt every single day like they are an employee, but when people walk in your door, they have many things that are on their mind, whether it's bills or things that need to get fixed with their car or insurance or medical or relationships or social media. Yes, that is a real challenge for a lot of the people that work for us. But accountability is painting the picture of what does success look like today, for the next four hours, the next eight hour shift, next eight hour shift. What does that look like for today? To help them reset, to feel like that they know what success looks like, how they can belong and get and reach to that expectation and then giving the feedback, like you said, in the right way.
Speaker 1:No, there's not always positive feedback, but it is the way that you deliver that feedback that gets them to either A tune in and then to react positively for future behavior or go on defense just to try to tell the why they did something. The why start with why, yes, but within that feedback context, why does it matter? It is changing future behavior for a better outcome by one percent. Just as long as it's by one percent, then, yes, we are making progress. Want to shift gears? Some, all right, many leaders talk about impact, but your life is built around it, from being a foster parent to serving on boards like Ignite and Experience Life Connected. How do these personal commitments influence the way you show up in your work?
Speaker 2:Well, I think I show up the same way in my life as I show up in my work, and you know we had that conversation a little bit earlier. I believe that in StrengthsFinder I'm a maximizer, right, I want to take good and make it great, and that's just how I look at people. I think everybody has potential and they just need resources, they just need a chance, right, and not everybody's gonna. You know, I've been disappointed, right. I mean not everybody's showed up the way that I wanted them to, but it doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying, right. I'm not going to take the next kid and say, you know, you're not going to be okay because the last one, you know, was a challenge. I'm just not. It's not how I'm wired. And you know my son was. I'll give you an example of how I'm the same at home and at work.
Speaker 2:My youngest son was in culinary school and he did his capstone project. Which of all things? He chose a Greek restaurant and I don't know, but he had swordfish. It was this delightful, like lemon swordfish, it was really good. And he had a gyro, like you would expect. But he I said, alex, you know, don't be surprised if it doesn't go as well as you think it's going to go, because I don't know how many people are going to come for Greek food. He ended up having the school opened when I was in high school, so it's been open for a very long time and he had the third largest sales of anyone else.
Speaker 2:And I said why, why, how did that happen? You know, because I want to know, it's Greek food. And he said because we sold everything. And I said okay, tell me more. And he said well, most of the restaurants they don't sell everything because they can't get it all out of the kitchen in the time that we have, because they only serve for like two hours a day. You went in from 11 to 1, you could go get lunch. And he said they couldn't get all the food served so they couldn't sell it all. Right, and I said okay. And I said they couldn't sell it all right. And I said okay. And I said well, why did you sell all of yours?
Speaker 2:And he said well, when I had to assign people to stations, I put them in the stations where they were best. I didn't put my friends in the good stations and put other people that I didn't like like in stations I knew they wouldn't like. He said I put them in the stations where they were going to be good and I said, okay, aces in places, right. And then he said and then when they were doing their prep, I went to each one and I worked with them for a little bit, asked them if they needed anything and made sure that they had their stuff ready to go on time. And then when we were in service, I went back on the line and helped them when I needed to. But then I left them to do their thing and I went out in the dining room and I talked to everybody.
Speaker 2:I made sure the servers were okay and I said well, didn't everybody else do that? Don't they teach you that? And he said, yeah, mom, no, they don't teach us that. I said well, how did you know to do it? He goes, you taught me that.
Speaker 2:He said you've been teaching Mitchell and I that, since we could string sentences together, how to like maximize people's effort, and I didn't even know I did it until he told me that. But then when I was with my last company, because of it we actually created a leadership program that stacked on top of a high school culinary program that taught leadership and how to teach people to communicate with people who are different than they are. You know, everybody in my family's taken a disc. Everybody in my family's taken StrengthsFinder. Like it's all around, like understanding that who you are at work is also who you are. When you're not at work you may have some more relaxed behavior, but at the end of the day you're the same person and the activities you take place in outside of work are probably a reflection of the same kinds of activities that you have when you're at work.
Speaker 2:So I think, and a lot of it's shaped by my parents, my parents. I grew up poor, but I never knew we were poor Really, because we always had a big garden and we always had a cow and a pig and you never named them and we had chickens and so we always had fresh eggs. My dad was a beekeeper. You know, like I never knew that we were poor really, until I got to college and then people said what do you mean? You make your own clothes. And I was like I want stuff that's different, you know. So I go to the fabric store, you know. You asked me where I got this skirt. You must like it, you know. So I didn't know, but they taught us that you know a good book and a good meal. You're not poor, yeah.
Speaker 1:And you give some to everybody else too right.
Speaker 1:Wow, I mean first going back to your youngest son's capstone with mise en place, aces in places, matching the people on your team's skill set with the role, servant leadership, and then being the mayor of his four walls to make sure that everyone was taken care of All of the things. That really makes restaurant business work. And what's crazy is you said it, you said it A lot of schools don't teach that because it's not sexy. Yeah, like that, but what's not sexy is teaching true leadership skills. And that is just crazy to me that more schools don't lean on that aspect when they have the data, with him selling the third highest sales since With Swordfish. It was crazy. I mean, we live in a small town.
Speaker 2:I didn't think anybody would order it.
Speaker 1:Thank you. So anyways, I don't know that was. That was amazing, but look, we could.
Speaker 2:You know, and I will tell you that you know, this is what I think. I love the restaurant industry, which is why this work that we're doing now, which is why this work that we're doing now. We made a conscious decision to tie it into the restaurant industry because these are good jobs. They're good jobs for good people who just want to do good work. So if we can teach them the skills to be able to come out of the gate after this nine to 12 month program, we don't just it's not a six week thing. We work with them for anywhere between nine months and a year to get them up on their skills, to give them some experience, to really allow them to grow and teach them. You know things around self-awareness and managing stress and communicating with people who are different than you are, and you know when to apply direction and when to apply support in leadership. All of this stuff goes along with what we're doing, in addition to therapy and the wraparound services that are going to be provided by some other people. But you know, restaurants are awesome. They're awesome places to work and I will fight anybody who argues with me about the fact that working in a restaurant a busy restaurant on a Friday or Saturday night when everything is hitting on all cylinders, it's the most fun you'll ever have at work. And if you say it's not, I swear I will fight you because it is so fun to work in restaurants. I mean, think about what we do.
Speaker 2:We're literally table side at the most important moments of people's lives anniversaries, birthdays, graduations. I remember one time I had some guys come into the restaurant it's the middle of the day and they got this huge table and they were having cocktails out on the patio and I took them some appetizers because they were all drinking pretty good. And I go, what are you guys doing? And they said we just came from a friend of ours funeral and we're just telling stories about him and I was like y'all stay as long as you want. If you need cabs to get you home, I'll get them for you. It was back before Uber, but I was like I will do whatever you need to do. You guys enjoy yourselves. I'll bring out some more apps for you.
Speaker 2:And you know, we don't know, because they don't always tell you why they're there, but there are moments that people oftentimes can't get back. You can't get back a first date. You can't get back a 50th anniversary. You can't get back the dinner when the first kid in your family graduates from college. We just every moment that people share or don't share with us are special moments. All life's special moments have food and drink involved, almost you know. So we provide a service that's invaluable and training people and getting them prepared to be able to do that and having partners in the industry that see the value in that and are willing to like work with us, to hire some of our folks or sponsor a kitchen or whatever it needs to be. You know we're I'm always going to work in the restaurant industry in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 2:I'm never going to work in the restaurant industry in some way, shape or form. I'm never going to. From the time I was 13, probably earlier than that, I was like nine when my parents gave me an Easy-Bake oven for Christmas and I would make those stupid cakes and they're cooked with a light bulb for the love of all that's holy and I would give them to my dad when he would get home from a hard day at work. My dad was a carpenter. I'd give him these cakes and he would eat them. He didn't even like sweets very much. He would tell me how awesome they were and I was like I'm going to do this forever in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 1:And you know, good Work Collective is just allowing me to do it in a different way. Oh, lisa, your causes, your mentality around leadership, giving back and people is exactly what we should all be striving towards Now. I need to. We could speak all day, but I want to get these, these, these two signature questions, because I am really biting at the bit to figure out what you're going to say. All right, so if you could sit at a leadership table with any three leaders, a live or from history, who would you choose and why?
Speaker 2:Okay. So you gave me a heads up about this question, by the way, which I appreciated, because three people is almost impossible. It's like so, and I'm a little bit of a challenge the rules kind of girl. So I'm going to have three categories of people. Okay, categories of people so, but all of them, all of them have a common thread of building systems, creating environments where people can thrive, doing something to make the world better, and and that that, to me, is important. So those are the people that I respect. So I put it into three buckets.
Speaker 2:So I think about what people do with their money is my first category. So from that standpoint, I would put Mackenzie Scott at my table. I would love to pick her brain. She gives away a lot of money. She has a lot of money. She gives away big and fast and without strings. It's not like a typical grant. You can't go and apply to get money from Mackenzie Scott. She finds you and she admires the work you're doing and then she gives it and she trusts the leaders closest to the work to use the money in the most appropriate way. It's brilliant.
Speaker 2:Mark Cuban is another guy I'd put into that category. I went to Kentucky, saw him a big basketball fan. He bought a basketball team, which is cool, but that's not why I would put him at my table. He looked at the prescription medicine system and said there's got to be a better way. Getting your medication shouldn't bankrupt people. So he built, took his money that he worked hard for, and he built this platform that allows people to get more affordable prescription medicines. So I'd love to talk to him about that.
Speaker 2:The second category of people that I would want to talk to are people that built their businesses around human beings, right. So one of my heroes and I heard you talk about red threads earlier and stuff like that I love Marcus Buckingham and, man, I would give a million dollars to pick that guy's brain if I had it, which I don't but data and dignity can exist together, right. And he takes data and applies it to people no-transcript. And we don't do that at Good Work Collective either. We don't fix people. We provide resources for people to win.
Speaker 2:So I would love to talk to Marcus Buckingham about how he even came up with the idea of strengths-based leadership. And the other person I put in that bucket is Richard Melman from Let Us Entertain you. I'll put you in the way back machine friend Once again. I wanted to work for Rich Melman so bad back in the 80s because what he was doing around people-centered leadership was unheard of. I mean, this is back when people would throw a six pan at you just because they didn't like how your hair was that day and he was in there like doing the right thing all the time, not even a ninth pan, a sixth pan full.
Speaker 2:No, like I'm going to hurt you with this thing, right, and he was out there building restaurants around people, and I never moved to Chicago. I went up there in this is how long ago it was. I went, my husband and I went in January to go visit Chicago because it's one of my favorite cities and I had to buy a Sunday paper so that I could see what jobs were open for Richard Melman. That was my plan. But if you've ever been to Chicago in January, I remember leaving with my big fat Sunday paper on my lap and looking at my husband going. I don't think I can live here, it's too cold.
Speaker 2:So I never worked for Rich Melman, but I still have an enormous amount of respect for him because I think innovators and disruptors are the people that I want at my table and I want to figure out how they came up with the idea and what makes them tick. And then the last one is around the simple truth that no one is beyond redemption. And that was his philosophy and that's how he lived his life and that's Nelson Mandela no one is beyond redemption. And he also said by the way, when you talked about the impossible, people don't want to do the impossible. He said it's only impossible until somebody does it. So those are the people I would have at my table.
Speaker 1:You have an impressive set of board of directors. I tell you.
Speaker 2:I know right, I wish.
Speaker 1:I could actually get them all at a table together.
Speaker 2:I'm like we're doing some cool stuff. You guys would love it, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So for the last question and I know you've been in recruiting retention operations for many years not like that many but you definitely know. You know people. You've had amazing conversations, whether it's how they're helping shape others or how you're giving them feedback on how they shape others. But what's one conversation in your life or career that reshaped how you show up as a leader?
Speaker 2:That's a really good question.
Speaker 2:And a long time ago when I first started recruiting, I spent the first 10 or so years of my career in operations. I was a restaurant operator. I was out there boots on the ground every day and when I went into recruiting, you know people say how did you get into recruiting? And I always say did not ask enough questions, right recruiting. And I always say did not ask enough questions right. But at the end of the day I got into recruiting because our VP of operations came into my restaurant one day and said you have a great team, you have a great staff, you hire really great people. You should apply for our recruiting position. And I said I just hire people who want to do this job and would love it right. And he said well, that's what we need. So I applied and I got the job against all the odds.
Speaker 2:I still have no idea how I got that job, but I remember sitting with him one day and we were kind of doing succession planning, but I didn't know it was succession planning at the time. But we were looking at where we had some openings and we were getting ready to open a restaurant in a fairly rural area and I said I can't find anybody. I just, you know, I don't know what to do. It's like it's a problem. You know it's a big problem. And he looked at me and I'll never forget he had like one of those voices, almost like James Earl Jones kind of voice, and he looked at me and he said, lisa, when somebody comes to me and they have a problem and they don't have any recommendations for solutions, that means they're whining and I don't like whiners. And I thought I mean I would drive the getaway car in a bank robbery for this guy, like I would do anything for this guy. And he just told me I was a whiner of all things right, I've never been a whiner. And it locked me up hard. I was like oh my gosh. And I told him. I looked at him, I said I will never do that again. And he said doesn't matter if your solution is the one adopted. He said just never go in with a problem that you don't at least have ideas for solutions.
Speaker 2:And it literally changed how I view problems, because I don't ever look at something like it's a problem. I always look at something like what are potential solutions to this situation that I have that I'm not going to call a problem, because then I'll be a whiner. And I try to come up with them because Tom Root calling me a whiner like it broke me a little bit and I was like I can't let this happen anymore and to this day he is one of the people that I admire most. But he taught me that lesson that there is no problem that doesn't have a solution. You know, be the architect of your own problem, be the architect of your own solution.
Speaker 2:And I think I've used that and it's become a bit of a superpower, because I think about what could go wrong and how can we plan for that, you know. And so people would always come to me and they'd say I have this idea, here's my idea. What questions are they going to ask me about this? Where are the gaps? What's missing? Where am I going to get hit? Because I'm always going to look at something and go what could be better? How could I make this problem or this solution even better than it is? And he taught me that and while it a little bit like it took me aback because he never said anything to me, that was like negative before, but it really it tied a knot in my tail a little bit, and I thought about the world a little bit differently after that.
Speaker 1:Very true words. No one needs another voice stating what the issue is. That's exactly why this meeting or phone call or conversation is happening. We need to speak to what are options for solutions.
Speaker 2:Yes, love that.
Speaker 1:Lisa, thank you so much for reminding us that leadership is about designing systems where people can rise, especially those most overlooked To our listeners. If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone, building a people first culture. So subscribe, leave a review and visit Jason Ebrookscom for more conversations like this. Lisa, thank you so much for sitting down at the leadership table and until next time, manage, lead, coach. Repeat Lisa, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:I enjoyed it thoroughly. It's so good to see you.
Speaker 1:Excellent.
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