Ep 20 Creativity: Insights from chef Thomas Keller on creativity and culture

I had the incredibly rare opportunity to have dinner with luxury retail developer for properties like Hudson Yards and the World Trade Center, Ken Himmel, and three Michelin Star chef Thomas Keller at his restaurant Per Se in New York City. We discussed their approach to creativity, leadership, building culture, hiring, and more.

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Transcript

Stephen Gates : 0:00

What's going on crazy ones, and welcome to the 20th episode of The Crazy One podcast. As always, I'm your host, Stephen Gates. And this is the show where we talk about creativity, leadership, design, innovation, and a whole host of other things that matter to create a people. Now, if you've listened to the show, for any period of time, you know how much I turned to and look to some of the world's greatest chefs for inspiration. I turn to them for inspiration on creativity in the way that they take the same ingredients that everybody else does and just seem to be able to create this endless variety of new dishes. And for the best ones, I turn to them for inspiration around leadership and culture. And a lot of the things that I think really are the absolute difference between good and great. And I've talked about that before. I've talked about other conversations that I've had with other chefs. I've traveled all over the world seeking out these conversations, and this week, seemingly impossible. And then probably brought another one of these moments, another moment where I was able to cross something off the bucket list. And I don't understand how I ended up with a life that I did. I don't understand how I've been able to cross these off with such incredible regularity. But one of the things that I did learn along that way is that whenever these moments come, you need to slow down and you need to savor them. It was somebody who I used to work with who taught me this, and I think it's one of the most important things I've ever learned. Because it happened. The very first time we went to work with Apple, we were standing in front of one infinite loop. And he pulled me aside and put his hand on my shoulder and he said, you know, you need to slow down. You need to savor this moment you need to take it in for what it is because you don't know if it's ever going to come again. So take the time to enjoy it. Because of that. I think I was able to slow down and enjoy this experience to really think Understand it for what it was, and to see just how truly exceptional it was. But let's start at the beginning. Let's talk about how we got here and how this dinner happened. Every day, I take the train into New York City to go to work. And this is about 45 minutes where I just have time to do whatever I want. I can answer emails, I can do work. But one of the things that I always do whenever I'm taking this trip is I open up Flipboard. If you don't have Flipboard, I'd highly recommend that you go get it because it's one of those great apps. That's a news aggregator that you can go in and customize for the things that matter to you. And it's the way that I honestly keep in touch with so much of what's going on in my industries and in the things that I'm interested in. The vast majority is set up around topics that I really find interesting for work, it's on creativity on digital on different platforms on a whole host of other things on creativity and inspiration and part of those is that there are a few tiles in there that I have that are dead. catered to these chefs that I really admire. Heston Blumenthal for and Adria and of course, Thomas Keller, because it's, I don't know what, whenever you say it, it sounds so much more stalkerish than I guess it feels whenever you set it up. But these are people who I genuinely admire, and I get a huge amount of inspiration from them. So I just figured why not keep tabs on them? Well, a few weeks ago, in the morning, I was riding into New York and was opening up Flipboard and hit the Thomas Keller square and in one of these little articles popped up, and the headline got my interest enough to be able to click on it. And then what it said was enter to win a free private dinner with Thomas Keller per se. And as somebody who obviously has the level of interest that I have in somebody like that, it's definitely something that you would want to find out more about. And so I traced down the link and it brought me to a company called radiate. And this is where it started to get interesting and a little bit serendipity Guess because radiates a company that's been founded by a woman named Betty Leo. And Betty has been an anchor for Bloomberg Television. She still is an anchor for Bloomberg, but started this company radiating. And radiate is really dedicated to help people become better leaders. Obviously, this is something that I'm incredibly passionate about. But to be able to win this dinner, it asks you to be able to sit down and write an essay to be able to talk about how do you see the parallels between cuisine and leadership? And I think again, if you've listened to the show for any amount of time, you know that I'm not short for stories in this area. And so I sat there in my head as the train rumbled in New York going through this Rolodex of possibilities of what's the story that I would do so I popped open the keyboard on my iPad Pro and said about writing a short story. And again for you, any of you who listened for any amount of time, it's the story whenever I got to speak with Heston Blumenthal, speaking about how he uses the butter as a The bellwether to determine if a meal was going to be good or not that if the butter shows up hard, it's obvious that the chef isn't sitting down and isn't paying attention to his guests experiences. But if it shows up and it's soft, and it's easily spread, then it's a really good indicator that it's going to be a good meal. Talk about how that's affected the last 10 or so years worth of dinners with my wife. But how also, I always felt like it was such a great analogy, that it was really something that showed how you have to walk a mile in your customers, your consumer shoes, and to really build that empathy and how that's something I've always really connected with. So I wrote this up in a few sentences and fired it off hitting the submit button. And honestly, fairly shortly after that, totally forgot about it. It was just life rolled on work rolled on and a whole litany of other things as my life tends to go. A few weeks later, I had a day where I'd taken the day off work. And it happened because some friends of mine in Adobe had gotten me a day pass to go to Comic Con here in New York. And that that evening and my wife and I had been invited to the launch party of the new perfume for Louie Vuitton. And somehow in my world, the combination of going from Comic Con to Louis Vuitton makes complete sense. But it was the moments in between these two events were this serendipitous lightning struck. If you've ever been to the Javits Center, which is where Comic Con is held. It's a massive Convention Center. It's the same as any of the biggest ones in the world. This one in particular has a place where if you go down two sets of escalators, there's a large, I guess it'd be best described as a cafeteria that sits underneath the show floor. So my wife and I were wrapping up at Comic Con just deciding what we wanted to do for dinner, and decided to go down there to get a drink. It's a fairly intense, fairly stimulating environment with people filled in costumes and every possible comic piece of memorabilia you could ever want. sitting at the table down there sipping on a which I remember was a cherry coke and an incredibly, incredibly overpriced cherry. coke. I took out my phone and start checking my email. And as I'm doing that, I came upon one email in particular and my wife who was sitting there I think on her phone as well suddenly became very puzzled as I sat there for probably the better part of three or four minutes simply repeating the words Holy shit. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. Over and over again staring at my phone and wide eyed bewilderment. I think that the slightly overweight Kylo Ren to my right and the gentleman dressed as beast to my left found equal confusion and why I was kept repeating this over and over again. But my wife I think not sure if this was a good oh shit or a bad OSHA finally kind of grabbed me and said What is wrong? And at which point I in kind of a hushed tone for me said, Oh my god, I can't believe it. I won a free dinner with Thomas Keller. Well, the funny part was I completely even forgotten to mention to my wife that I'd entered this because it was just one of those things I'd done on the train not seeming to think that this was going to be something that was actually going to happen. So I then had to recount the whole what the contest was entering on the train, yada yada everything I've just told you guys, but realized what was going to happen and how unbelievable that was. And so fast forward to this past Thursday night, or at six o'clock, my wife and I showed up at the Time Warner Center, to be able to sit down for dinner with Betty, the founder of radiate and honestly, who are two of the most extraordinary gentlemen I probably ever had the pleasure of having dinner with. The first one was a gentleman named Ken Hamill. And a lot of you may not know Ken's name, but I think you definitely should. Ken is responsible for honestly more large scale, high end luxury retail than probably anybody else in the world. He's the gentleman who built the Time Warner Center in New York, and is currently in the midst of building Hudson Yards here in New York City, which are two massive, massive undertakings If you look it up, you can see that generally it's guests that he owns somewhere north of 20 billion billion with a B dollars in real estate. But honestly, as somebody who has been able to construct more amazing consumer retail experiences more amazing high end retail experiences than probably anybody else in the world, and also then to be able to sit down with Chef Keller, who is probably in my estimation, probably the greatest American chef, having both per se in New York and the French Laundry on the west coast, has been able to maintain two three Michelin stars probably the highest honor that a restaurant can receive restaurants on two coasts along with a host of other I guess we would say kind of smaller endeavors as in boo Shawn, which is a booster that he has in Danville and Las Vegas, and Busan bakery which is a place so just getting kind of like fast casual sandwiches and there are a number of different outposts for that. But someone who has has absolutely reshaped the face of cooking has reshaped so many things. And as somebody who, you know, I really have, I guess I'll just own it, I think stopped because of I just find the way that he views the world the way that he builds culture and the way that he builds teams so fascinating because if you ever sit down and experience one of his restaurants, the culture is so clear the standards are so clear at every single level. So the chance to sit down with two men like this, to ask them questions to be able to just kind of answer those questions that you've always had was absolutely a once in a lifetime opportunity. And so we all went and so there were two other contest winners, each of us brought a plus one. And we all went and sat down and what was a small, private dining room on the corner of per se is kind of larger dining room and sat around a circular table. There was a lot of interesting things that I learned Coming out of this, and I think there's a lot of things that everybody here can really be able to take something away from and be able to learn from. So I guess I wanted to share honestly what we're going to be probably five of those insights that I thought were the most interesting and the most important. And the first one really came out of whenever dinner started. So Ken and Thomas have obviously worked together because Ken brought Thomas into Time Warner Center for this collection of what honestly is probably one of the best collection of, of high end restaurants in one particular destination, maybe in the world. And the interesting thing was, and I had read about this, but I guess had forgotten about it was that five days after per se opened, it had caught in fire, and did a huge amount of damage to the restaurant. And so the chef started to tell the story. And it happened on Saturday, February 21 2004. And the chef was back working with two of his other sous chefs back in the little kitchen where they prepare the meat. It's a small room, probably just big enough for about Those three people, and whenever they're in there, he said he could smell smoke. And that wasn't an alarming smell per se because it was one of those things where he had insisted on putting a wood burning fireplace into the restaurant. There was a wood burning fireplace at the French Laundry in Yountville, and he really wanted one here in New York as well. I think you can understand Ken's distress about this because I can only imagine the complexity of putting a wood burning fireplace into a massive glass and steel skyscraper. But anyway, upon smelling the smoke chef thought that maybe somebody had started a fire in the fireplace and so had walked out into the kitchen to see that Well, no, nobody had started a fire actually. And but by that time, he could see smoke coming down through the light fixtures and through the sprinkler heads. And it was one of those things where then he realized that it actually was a fire and got everyone out of the restaurant called the fire department. And then went on to talk about how the FDNY had showed up and at one point then he has a fireman standing on the prep table in the kitchen with an axe. Basically waiting to break through one of the walls because they had figured out that the fire was in one of the walls. And that was the only way they're going to be able to get to it. And so finally getting the order, I guess he chops into the wall the fire, then finding this new fresh supply of oxygen, I guess, absolutely explodes and does a massive amount of damage in the restaurant. Obviously, I think, you know, Ken had equated this to the people that he was having dinner with that and that night thought something had happened to one of his children. And how chef Keller obviously after this massive amount of work being opened for only five days, just desperately wanted to leave New York because this was such a heartbreaking event. But then an interesting thing happened that he started to get cards and started to get flowers. And initially he felt like this was something that was happening because people simply hadn't heard about the fire these were he ratcheting on being open gifts. But then as he started to look at it a little bit more, he saw that they were coming from his Asian friends and his Asian clientele because I guess in And he didn't specify which but in some part of Asian culture, I guess having a fire is considered good luck. So they were sending him cards and flowers to congratulate him on this fire. This moment in particular, really led him to an insight. And I thought that it was a really interesting and a really powerful one. Because what he said was, the insight was that he was looking at this problem all wrong, that you could look at the damage that had been done, you could look at it as really seeing it as this massive setback. Or what you could do is you could look at it as honestly the ability to fix and be able to improve on all those little things that you didn't be able to get to. Because obviously, in the course of any project, building a massive top of the line restaurant, in a lot of ways isn't fundamentally that different from any creative endeavor. There are trade offs you have to make along the way as it goes from the ecstasy of the initial idea through the eye and sometimes the agony of its execution. There are compromises that have to be made for time for budget for any host of different reasons. But there are things that if you got that chance to go back and do it again, you do it a little differently, you do it a little bit better. Well, this was his chance to go back and fix everything to perfect the things that weren't quite right. And that that was really the way that he looked at it, he sent a lot of his staff off to be able to kind of do what it was that they wanted, whether it was harvesting oysters or working at another restaurant, because they had the ability to do that, and over the next five months rebuilt the restaurant. But it really was this change of perception that sometimes it really does take something like that to be able to let you see things differently. And I think that I think that it's just an incredibly important point. Because as creatives we are naturally people who look for problems, we look for disconnects, we look for shortcomings, it's something I'm certainly guilty of, because it's one of those things where I launch a project it finds some matter of success that I'll enjoy it for a few minutes before then I can just Simply see the flaws in it, I think that we're all probably going to be able to do that. But I think having the ability to step back and to see the glass half full, oftentimes, maybe work for some of us. But I think that it really is one of those things, though, that can make all the difference, because you can help you refine that inspiration, it helps you really be able to kind of get back in and do something better. And I think so often, this is what you need, whenever a client puts your work down or tears it apart, or you don't find that love or support that you thought was gonna be there for something to not give up on it. And so I thought it was just, it was an interesting and very kind of relevant insight and story for me. But then we went on and part of that was then one of the things that I was very much interested in both from chef Keller and from Ken Hamill was whenever they hire people, because these are people who are both running massive organizations, they go all over the world, but you have to maintain a level of creativity you have to maintain a level of quality and a focus. So what do you look for whenever you hire people? What are the things Things that you feel like, really make them stand out. And so chef Keller had two that I think are very much overlooked. And I thought were very important. And then Mr. Himmel had two other ones that I thought were also equally good. You know, from chef Keller, it really came about talking about for him that the two things that he really looks for are persistence, and patience. And I think too often in creativity, and too often just in profession in general, these are two things that I think too often just simply get looked over. Because so often, whenever we talk about persistence, we look for the immediate gratification, we look for the easy win as creative as we like the beginning of the process, whereas there's all the possibility and we like the very end, where it's all the accolades. It's the 80 or 90% in the middle, where we tend to struggle the point where you have to really understand that once again, creativity as a blue collar profession, you've heard me say this before, I will certainly say it again, but this is the chance and this is the challenge. Because I think so often, if you want to be a better leader, if you want to be a better creative, this isn't always easy. changing things isn't easy, doing new things isn't easy. And I think time after time, whenever I talk to so many of these creative leaders, and I think whenever I'm self reflective on my own career, you find that it takes hard work. And I will also certainly admit that I think anytime you read an autobiography, anytime you sit down for one of these moments, there is certainly the I don't know what the the ego that wants to kick in and find all the things and these incredible man, all these things in these incredible people and the things that they have done and then somehow How is there a mirror to it and equivalent to it in my life because I'm just like them. And so I don't try to delude myself into that and I don't try to do it too much. But I do think that it is something that for me that you have to be willing to stick with something and you have to really be able to stay with it. And I think this is where patience comes in as well because I see so often somebody Young creatives and the chef talked about it with young culinarians, about how it really is something where they want the success. Now they want to run and rush and to be able to really kind of get to that next stage in their career, that for somebody that was in one of his kitchens, maybe they were learning to master a particular dish or cutting something a particular way. And as soon as they do that, they want to move on to the next thing. And so often, he'll advise them that maybe they should actually stick with it another few months or six months, because those moments will be gone too fast. And that so often, you'll be on to the next thing and that you'll be longing for the day is whenever you were able to go back and be able to do the basics. And here again, without wanting to overly draw conclusions around things like this, but I think it's true. I think the longer that you're in a creative profession, and the more senior you become, the further you get away from what brought you into that profession. I think if you're a young chef who comes into the kitchen in whose learning you love to cook but as you then become the executive chef or in the case of chef Keller, that The person who is overseeing multiple restaurants around the world, you probably have to fight for the time to be able to still cook. It's something that in my career, I have to fight to still be a designer, I have to insert myself into projects, I have to force that time into my calendar, because there just suit too many other demands on my time, the politics, the strategy, the leadership piece, these all are things that become much more of the things that I'm looking to, and less to be the person that's sitting down to become a hands on designer. And so I think that both of those, it was really great to hear him say those because I think there are values that really resonated with me. And I think that there are two qualities that more creatives really need to think about and look at, about how do you have that persistence to not give up the first time you hit a bump in the road because doing anything new is not going to be easy, and rarely Are you going to get it right the first time. But then also having the patience with your career. And even here, again, to take that moment to just stop and take it in to savor what's going on and understand what is it that we're doing. And so then in talking to Mr. Mr. Hummel, I think that it was one of those things where for him, it was really looking for passion. And the other thing that I found, interestingly was people who have traveled, because it really lends a perspective towards the work that they do. I think passion is obviously something that you have to have. And I think in both cases of the chef and Mr. Hamill, that it's one of those things where you're, you're trying to do things that other people haven't. And so you have to have a love for it, you have to have a passion for it, you have to be able to overcome those things. But at the travel one, I also really I have to agree with because I think that it really does change your perspective. It gives you so much of a bigger view of the world and of the problems that are out there. And I think that there are too many people who simply wait to experience life. There are too many people who simply wait to experience the world. And it doesn't mean that you have to travel the world and four star luxury. I think that if it's something that really matters to you, you can find a way you see people doing it all the time. There's a designer, a woman who I used To work with who I used to joke, I felt like had a gypsy soul because she would just simply travel to a destination, no real plans and would just kind of see where the world would take her. And she'd been bungee jumping on Australia and to been to the Grand Mosque and parts of the Middle East and a ton of things in between. and I felt like you know, she had such a fantastic perspective so much beyond her years because of that. But I think that those are the sorts of just kind of basic things that you can't forget, you can't forget, perspective, you can't forget passion and patience and persistence, and all of those sort of things that lead to the still What does that blue collar work ethic, and to be able to hear it coming from men who found such such success through awards and recognitions and monetary rewards for the work that they've done and everything else that still abides? Because that's the other thing that I see in so many other chefs and so many other creative people. Is it sometime that fades, they find some success, and then all of a sudden those little details that dogged persistence of all Little things fades. And all of a sudden they're wanting to go home early at night, they're leaving the details up to other people, they're no longer keeping their eye on the ball. But that's the thing that makes the difference. It's why whenever you walk into the kitchen, at per se or French Laundry, you'll see a camera mounted to the wall and a large television screen. And that what that actually does is it creates a connection between the kitchens of the French Laundry in California in the kitchens and per se in New York, where no matter where chef is he can keep an eye on the other kitchen, and that they can share between those two because that little attention to detail still is so important. But not letting that fade and not letting success. dull, that persistence, not letting it dull that passion. Because I think whenever you do that, then that success fades and then it does become your 15 minutes of fame. And it looks like a fluke not like the fact that luck and I think this is always the thing that drives me crazy. People go Oh, you're so lucky. You know what? I will not deny that I think there are moments where the universe Has lined up to provide me with unbelievable opportunities. But at the same time, I will also argue that I felt like luck is the residue of skill that I had prepared that I had had the patience and the persistence and the passion to put in the work so that whenever those moments came along, I could capitalize on them and make the most out of them, and really be able to make them into something that mattered, as opposed to letting that moment come along. And then then I was gonna get ready, then I was gonna start being persistent because in that moment, it slips past you. It's gone, fleeting, and just out of your way. So from there, I think that it was one of those things where we had finished dinner, and went back to tour the kitchen, which is obviously a large, impressive, diligently constructed environment. And one of the things that you'll notice is that most everything that needs to be attached to something, a tablecloth to a piece of paper is affixed in the kitchen with green tape. And one of the things that I would I would tell you to do is that if you Enjoy inspirational works if you just like seeing the inner workings of high level creative teams go follow per se New York on Twitter, because what they do most nights is that every night there's a saying that they will tape down to the past which is basically the table at the front of the kitchen, where they pass the finished dishes up to the servers to take them out into the dining room. But all of these things you'll always see are fixed to the table with green tape. And so the green tape has become an interesting tradition I had heard about it and read about it by a chef just to make sure because just because you read about it doesn't mean that it's true. But the green tape came about because whenever he was building the French Laundry, everything that you do in a kitchen needs to be labeled. You have containers, think about the Tupperware in your kitchen, but if you had that on a massive scale, you would need to know what everything is you need to label it. Well so often what you would do is you would take a piece of tape and that you would put it on the outside and probably in a sharpie, right whatever it was cheese Tomatoes, whatever the ingredient, whatever the part of the dish was, you know what it was, or other people would know what it was. Well, the problem with that is whenever you're done with it and you take the tape off, it obviously leaves a residue that builds up over time, not terribly sanitary, kind of a problem whenever you're in a kitchen. Whenever they were finding the fence in French Laundry, he had a painter that was in in the kitchen, who is painting it, and he noticed how there's one particular masking tape in that case that was green that he would use to be able to do some of the edges and can peel it up, went over and asked him about it. Well, anybody who's owned a home anybody who's had to paint a wall or anything like that has probably gone to Home Depot or Lowe's. Most of the tape you'll get now is blue, because painters tape is somebody decided it was going to be blue, but it's basically a low adhesive tape so it sticks but not enough that it would damage the paint behind it. But so he saw this and thought that this was the perfect solution and had grabbed a few rolls with this green painters tape and had started to use that in his kitchen. So that was the origin of the green tape. But the interesting thing was four years whenever they Did the French Laundry, they would tear the tape, you would just pull out the PC you needed rip it off, stick it on write something down. Well, it came time to open per se. And so what he did sort of like a Noah's Ark would be to take the people that he needed his chefs, his trainers, his managers, his best servers, and brought them to New York to be able to train the people that we're going to be opening per se. And an interesting thing happened that they went to start to put that kitchen together. And that one of his main expediters had come from California has suddenly took this roll of tape and pulled something out and grabbed a pair of scissors and cut it. And he said whenever that happened, you probably could hear a pin drop because everybody just status sat around kind of wide eyed and slack jawed looking at what had just happened because so many people for so long, had always torn the tape. Well then a new tradition was born so it per se now whenever they do anything with the tape, it is usually accompanied by a pair of scissors or a knife so they can cut it and I think There were two kind of really interesting things here. I think that the first was that he was so open, the team was so open for anyone to be able to question tradition to be able to change it to be able to not have their processing what they do be so sacred that they become blinded by it. And I think this is an incredibly important thing for any creative person or for any creative team is that you don't get blinded by what you've done that there is some point where you are open to if not actively seeking out, how do you rethink your process? How do you not get blinded by it? How does the comfort of it not stand in the way to be able to do something new? And yes, it's something as innocuous as tape but I guess for me, it was one of those things that really marked the way that his culture is built the way that they think that it was something that they would embrace and that they would celebrate and that anyone could question it. But I thought that the other thing that really did was that it created a tradition. It created something that people could bond around it created something that it let everybody be able to rally around that and I think that that was one of the Other things that you found all around the kitchen were these signs of their culture. It was the green tape. It's the fact that in every one of his kitchens, there was a clock with a plaque underneath it that says sense of urgency that over the door, whenever you go out of the kitchen into the there's a breezeway that connects the kitchen with the actual dining room because they felt like they needed a transitional space, because so often you come out of the kitchen through those double doors, and you're right into the dining room that they needed a bit of a prep space between those two. But whenever you walk out above that door in the kitchen, embedded in the tile is the word and the definition, finesse of what that means. But there are all of these little monikers that are put throughout the all of these different things that really define the culture. It defines the tradition, it gives somebody and everybody something that they know they have to hold themselves to and just how incredibly important that is. But I think it also really showed you know, because getting getting a tour of a kitchen like that for me, on the one hand As somebody who desperately loves to cook is just a trip into Willy Wonka's laboratory. It is the ability to see how they work and how they do things. And honestly, without even being explained, look at how the ingredients are prepared, how are they cut? How are they cooking, what are the stoves look like. But it also really shows you the attention to detail and the thoughtfulness that was put into that space. Where there are very particular areas where the exact same white table claws that sit on the tables out in the dining room have been taped down to particular prep tables, then that above those are the exact same lighting that's out in the dining room because obviously the kitchen in general is much brighter. But the reason why they do this is because this allows them to have a space where they can look and see the food the way that their customer will see it. Because it's one of those things if you ever look at a piece of meat under bright fluorescent lights, it looks very, very different than if you're in a dimly lit dining room with a soft sort of spotlight on a white tablecloth. But it's that little detail the fact that there's a space to To do that, to be able to make sure that they're looking at things through their customers eyes. And that that, again, is just such an important detail. It's a different evolution of the butter story of making sure that you're really paying attention to what matters that you're creating those experiences and those memories. And I think whenever you talk to a chef, he doesn't talk about creating food, he talks about creating memories, and how important that is. And I think that, like I said, that's really the perspective that we all have to have on these things. And I think that the next thing that really became apparent was that as we traveled through the restaurant, that just as a leader, the humility and the respect that he had, that even for somebody who has achieved so much for somebody who by rights could be somebody who is so much, I guess, just more of an asshole and there are tons of chefs that I've met that level who certainly fit that description, but it's somebody who you just truly see is so Nice and thoughtful and respectful, and the way that it really expressed itself. And I'm sure that probably nobody else at the dinner even was aware of it or even thought of it. But it was something that I really caught on to that as we were sitting down having dinner. And as we traveled to the restaurant, I noticed that every single person he interacted with whether it was from the executive chef down to the busboy, he called them chef. And chef in the restaurant world is the sign of ultimate respect. That is the person who is in charge of the kitchen. It's the person who is the engine that drives the entire vehicle forward. And so so often, whenever something comes into a kitchen, an order or something like that, the chef will call it out. And everybody always responds, Yes, Chef, but to see him pay that respect to everybody else on his staff. And I first noticed that as the dishes started to come into the dining room, and they will be placed down here time and time again would say thank you, Chef. And at first I thought, Well, wait, that that's not the show. I know what the chef who was Who is in the kitchen looks like that's not him? Why is he calling him chef? And then by the second or third time I realized why is because it was for him, it was showing that equal amount of respect to every single person was on his team. And it really was, it was something that I need to learn from. I think it was something that a lot of that really, let me understand that I think, you know, I tend to focus on driving people in setting that standard. But I think you know, there are some times you also have to make sure that you don't lose sight of that humility, and you don't lose sight of that respect for everybody so that they really understand how much they're valued. And it was just, it was an incredibly impressive thing. And I think, you know, he just he genuinely is one of the nicest most sincere people I've, I've I've ever met. And then the last part of this and the last insight really came from because the culture that he's created is something that fascinates me, because he has had what is genuinely some of the most talented chefs in the world come through his kitchen who've gone on to do incredible things. Grant agates, who opened The number one restaurant in America called Alinea worked for chef Keller and a whole host of other people who have who have really gone through that kitchen. They always speaks so well of him. They always speak so highly of that. But as somebody who has such a huge organization has to maintain it, how do you create that culture? How do you create that team? And I think that was the one question I wanted to ask more than anything. And so in a lull in the conversation at dinner, I jumped on it, and jumped on that opportunity to ask him about how does he see creating his team? Or how does he think about that in a world where you have this turnover? And I think, if you lead any creative team, you see that and it's an analogy that I've been struggling with for years to try to find what is the right way to phrase this? What is the right way to think about it? And whenever I asked him the question, and he answered it, his answer was perfect. It was exactly the way that I should have been thinking about this and never saw. And I think that here again, that's the genius of somebody These people, all these creative people have these great leaders is that they have the ability to just look past the obvious. And what he said was from a very early age whenever he first started running restaurants that he realized that what he needed to do was to run his restaurant, his organization, his team, like a sports franchise. And as soon as he said it, I thought God dammit, that's perfect. Because the reason why in a sports franchise, it's one of those things where you constantly have to keep talent in the pipeline. You have a star quarterback, a star, header, a star player on your team. Well, you tend to know that those stars age, they fade, they want to go other places for more money, but somehow the team and the franchise has to soldier on they have to continue. This is the way he thinks about it is this sort of way of developing talent. And I think in all In other cases, the conversation went on, also found out that I think he was a sports franchises for pretty much everything. Because whenever he was growing up, he either wanted to become baseball player or a cook. And it seemed like the baseball hadn't quite worked out, thankfully for all of us. And so that instead he'd gone on to being a chef. But that insight to think about it like a sports franchise because you have to constantly be drafting new talent. And then once you have that talent, you have to be grooming it and growing it and be able to kind of keep it coming up through the farm team. And I think that was even interesting to be able to as I pressed on it a bit more that that's even the way he thinks about the different tiers of his organization. That at the very high end the the major league team is per se in the French Laundry that the farm team for that often is then his Busan restaurants, which again are very, very high quality, but not at that three star level. And then the farm team is really the the Busan bakery, the there's that fast casual concept where you can just get sandwiches and soups all incredibly well done. But that was it is that this was this was his kind of feeder leagues, the things that were going through and, and really putting the talent together that he could start to raise up inside of his organization. And then at some point, though, they would get to the top, they would get to the majors, and that you would work with them. And let them be the star player and support them as much as you could, but at some point, you knew they were going to go on. And I think that whether it was go on because of money or be another opportunity, which again, he was very open to and very supportive of that if people weren't gone by age 35 to open their own restaurants that they probably missed the boat, and that he would tell them that, that so often, whenever you would see him interact with a staff or talk about ideas that you could genuinely tell it, it wasn't about him taking credit for it, that it was about the team and their ability to create the idea and letting them take credit for it. But I just felt like it was such the perfect analogy, the such the perfect way to think about teams that the ones that really are the most successful are the ones that can groom talent that can bring it up. That's so awful. The ones that are flighty, that are great one year and then terrible the next year are the ones that chase just the big player contracts, the superstars that they can bring in for a few years, have a few really great years, win some championships and then be in debt for the next 10 years as they try to pay that off. There was something to that stability to that succession planning to that ability to just really grow the talent. Because here again, you would also hear chef talk about how you have to bring people in, you have to teach them and grow them and groom them. And it's a philosophy that I've always really felt that I'm never going to hire the perfect creative. I don't even know what that would mean if you ask me, but I think in so many cases, you bring them in you look at what they're good at, you look at where they need improvement at and where they need improvement is where you start coaching and growing and making them better than when you got them. Because that's also the side effect. The benefit is that you get talent that's better, they're happy. They feel like their work is going on continuing to be better. But it's just I don't know what it's just it's Just a perfect way to think about it. I don't know, another way to think about that. So without going on and sounding like even bigger and more of an embarrassing fanboy than I already am, I'll be posting some more photos about this on my Instagram and on my Twitter feed any other thoughts and things like that I know that radiate is also good planning on, they had recorded a large chunk of the evening and had done some interviews. And I would, I would honestly encourage you to go over and check them out. It's at radiate inc.com, radiate I nc.com. And just because I think what they're trying to do is, is what is going to be really interesting and impactful to the people that like this show. Because it really is for people who want to be stronger leaders who want to be better creatives who want to make an impact and make a difference, which is a lot of what it is that I'm trying to teach here. And so take a few minutes and go over and check it out and see what they're up to because like I said, there'll be some good content there. But if you're interested in more keep an eye on my social media as it rolls along. As always, I'll post some show notes too. There's some links to chef Keller, he did a fantastic TED talk a few years ago, throw that up there. And a few other things if you just want to find out more about him, but as always, you can head over to podcast dot Stephen Gates calm at Steven STP HEN for the show notes, listen to other episodes and just kind of keep track on what we've been up to. If you liked the show, as always, I ask head over to iTunes, head over to whatever the platform is you listen to us on and throw a review up there. It makes a big difference. It lets people know that the show is actually good brings more listeners in and it's the only currency I'm ever going to ask for. As always, the boys down illegal want me to remind you that all the views here are my own. They don't represent any of my current or former employers. These are my own personal thoughts. If you have any thoughts, any questions, anything you want to find out more about you can always shoot me an email shoot it to ask at Stephen Gates calm. And finally I say it every time because I mean it every time but thank you for your time. I know that time is the only true luxury that we have. And I'm always incredibly humbled that you want to spend any of it with me all this talking about Food has me in the mood to be able to go have a good lunch, and hopefully it has you a little bit more inspired than whenever we started. Until next time, stay crazy