About this episode

Danny Meyer discusses how to maintain a strong company culture while scaling a business.

When a company is small, maintaining a strong culture can feel relatively easy. But as organizations grow, layers of management, geographic distance, and pressure for efficiency can make it much harder to preserve what made the company special in the first place. Restaurateur Danny Meyer has spent decades figuring out how to do just that. He founded Union Square Cafe and built Union Square Hospitality Group, then helped scale Shake Shack from a single location in New York City into a global restaurant chain. Along the way, he’s learned that culture isn’t what happens when the CEO is in the room—it’s what happens when they’re not. He explains how he turned his philosophy of “enlightened hospitality” into a set of specific behaviors that employees can understand and practice. He discusses why companies should hire for both technical expertise and emotional skills, how to identify people with a high “hospitality quotient,” and why promotions are one of the most powerful tools leaders have for reinforcing culture. Meyer is the author of What Could Possibly Go Right? The Essential Journey to Scale an Enduring Culture.

People in this episode

Guest: Danny Meyer

Topics covered

• company culture
• scaling businesses
• hospitality
• leadership
• employee engagement

Keywords

• culture
• enlightened hospitality
• hospitality quotient
• promotions
• leadership

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Union Square Cafe, Union Square Hospitality Group, Shake Shack

Books & works: What Could Possibly Go Right?

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