Jason Taylor 0:00

Welcome to this edition of the People's Playbook Podcast. I have to tell you, I'm pretty stoked today. I have Matt Ralph in the studio today, and Matt is uh well known to a lot of people, but you know, specifically in the hospitality world. He's a hospitality leadership coach. I'll say leadership as well because he branches out of hospitality as well at times. He's a keynote speaker. He's an author of an excellent book called You Can't Do It Alone, which I have a copy of and recommend it highly. He's helped thousands of leaders actually build stronger skill sets and lead their teams to become better individuals, to, you know, build healthier, healthier cultures and become more profitable in the hospitality business. Matt, welcome to the show today. Jason, thank you so much for having me. Pleasure to be here. Yeah, it's gonna be fun today. I've I've uh I've been looking forward to this episode because, you know, Matt, you've you've done so much coaching throughout your career and you worked for so many different leaders along the time. So you've coached, let's say, over 100,000 hospitality leaders. For sure you have, right? What's that one leadership pattern you see repeated across, you know, the very best of teams?

Matt Rolfe 1:04

Overcommitment is one thing. One thing I learned when I started doing this was trying to coach through priorities and plans. Yeah. One thing I realized that great leaders are doing, and and they often have an uh awakening moment themselves, is how do we do less really, really well? And we've all heard that before. But even some of the best teams are overcommitted with really good intentions and desires and there's an outcome that they want. But the reality is if we want to do things at a great level, one of the opportunities is how do we really focus on what matters most right now?

Jason Taylor 1:32

Yeah. Why do you think they overcommit? Is it because they I'm just wondering, is it because they think, hey, I have to have the answers for everything? Or is it just, hey, I want to, I want to solve everybody's problems? Why do you think they overcommit?

Matt Rolfe 1:43

Yeah, I think, you know, from my personal lesson, and and I'll share my story, is the more I was doing, the more valued I thought I was to my team members. So if I worked more hours, did more, took more on, um, I was more important, more valued, more cared for, and and the opposite was actually true. What I was doing, I was uh stepping in on my people's work, I was taking over, I was helicoptering my feedback. And I would say that that echoes through to a lot of leaders. And and I was talking to one this morning, and and he said, My my job is to make sure my people don't fail. But one thing he said he's realizing is by doing that, he's not even having his people to grow. So I think there's a reason. So people that are overcommitted, I don't say just do less. There's a conversation ahead of that. There's a there's a deeper conversation to really unpack it. There it's usually how we grew up. I think what what I found is the root of there's something that happened as you were growing up as a kid or a teenager that started to build that foundation. Yeah. So how do we go back and be generous with ourselves? Because it's not just do less. We've got to get more connected to the story or or the purpose of why we're behaving that way. And for me, it took a lot of work and been a therapy.

Jason Taylor 2:43

Yeah, yeah, for sure. No, I and I love how vocal you are and how uh transparent you are about the therapy. Matt, when you when you talked about I love I love this road you're going down right now, do you think that you know trying to do everything is more of a young leadership trait or a more tenured uh leadership trait? So I know you still think I'm in my 20s, but I'm not. I uh but I did things much differently as a 25, 26, 27-year-old. And I believe with leadership without titles as well. But I think some of the things I look at back when I was in my 20s and 30s in leading a team, I'd I might even go, ugh, why did I do that way? And when I'm now that I'm 54, right? So what are the differences between younger leaders and and more tenured leaders?

Matt Rolfe 3:24

Yeah, my my experience is it's you know, our identity and relationship to our work and our life. And that might sound like a big piece. In my 20s, a lot of my identity was my work. In my 30s, a lot of my identity was my work. You know, I I got some life lessons as I got older, as I had kids, you know, as I wasn't able to wasn't able or didn't want to do 80-hour work weeks anymore. I find there's usually an event or a moment or a period in time that allows you to look at it differently. So part of who I was in my 20s and 30s was awesome and got me where I am today. But in order to where I want to get to now, I needed to make a change. And I was in a business group, entrepreneurs organization, and and I almost had like an intervention. You get to present like once a quarter or once every six months, depending on the size of your group. And my group brought me in. I remember the same for the rest of my life. They said when we met you and you were doing all this stuff, it's you seemed it seemed really cool. And you were doing great things, and it got us all excited. What we just felt is you're you're unfocused and you're a bit out of control. And they were saying it with love and respect and working with them. They're a peer group, but they said doing more doesn't always produce a better better result. So that was my pause moment. At times I still I overcommit, but I think my identity shifted where much more comfortable in my skin and success at work or financial gain at work's not going to balance my my life anymore. So and I do see some younger generations that are that are much more balanced. I have some people that work for me that are incredibly high performing leaders and they work 50 hours or less a week. And that's like they're pretty clear. That's what I'm getting. They're not, they're not willing to do the 80. Yeah. And they probably should.

Jason Taylor 4:50

It's so different the generation that we we were in as opposed to the one that that's coming up now. And and there's no right or wrong, right? It's just peep people are different, right? And I love that I guess I almost want to call it a smack in the face that the that your peer group gave, because I as well, Matt, have had the same smack in the face, right? Like, hey Jay, I know you like to move at that speed. I know you like to do all that stuff in the other day. I I actually don't. Yeah. And by the way, I think that one of the smacks in my face was, you know, I think you're doing a whole bunch of things good. I don't think you're doing anything really great right now. And wow, it was just, it was first of all, it was like, whoof, that kind of stung, right? And then once the stinging and the burn kind of took away, it was like, okay, they've got a good point there. And you adjust and you pivot. And it's amazing when somebody close to you, an entrepreneur group, I'm in an entrepreneurial group as well, when they say, Hey, you know what? Like, settle down. Settle down and just let's focus and let's let's follow up on that stuff, right?

Matt Rolfe 5:48

One of the celebrity leaders I I've got a chance to work with, they're the most in control. Like there, it's it was always surprising me to see, you know, the person deemed it the most success, or I might really look at their values and see the most success, well-balanced family, you know, really growing organization, you know, significant financial wealth. And we were they were always in balance. Like I remember meeting Mark McEwen from the McEwen group, who some might know from shows like Top Chef and doing work with him, and he didn't have a laptop. Once I got to know him, I'm like, what's the deal? He's like, I don't show it to anybody, like I don't need it. And he was just balanced, and not to say that's where I'm going. It was an example of what the path I was on probably wasn't the same.

Jason Taylor 6:24

What I think they have in common is they give trust to their team, right? And trust and communication actually breed integrity, and they actually, you know, I used to think that person's not going to do it the way I I can do it. But then somebody stopped me one day and said, Hey, what if they do it 85% the way you do it, or 75% even. So what? You know what I mean? I have to tell you, I had Marty St. Louis from the Montreal Canadians came and spoke to our group the other day.

Matt Rolfe 6:49

That's amazing.

Jason Taylor 6:50

Yeah, and he said something that was really just resonated with me. He's very, very just a really good person, good human being. And we were talking about a decision he had to make on the bench whether he was gonna pull the goalie in the playoffs or not, because uh the goalie allowed three goals in on five shots. And he whispered something to his assistant coach. Uh-huh. And we asked him, we said, What did you whisper to your coach? And he said, I whispered, can you please, you know, signal up to the box and find from our goalie coach if I should pull him or not. And he said, ultimately I knew that was my decision as the head coach, but he said, I was going on emotion and I needed to get I needed to bring logic into that decision. And I needed to trust, to trust my team that I hired to do a specific job. And the goalie coach is specifically hired to use logic when looking at a when looking at a net keeper. And he said, the goalie coach said, don't pull them. They weren't all his fault. And even though it's hard right now, don't pull them. And they won that game. But Marty said, he said, listen, he said, if it was up to me at that time, I would have went emotion. Yeah, let's yank him. He's done, right? But he said, I didn't. I went with logic and look what happened. Right. So I think as leaders, lots of times we just have to look at a little more logic, take the emotion out, and actually put the trust in our team and communicate.

Matt Rolfe 8:10

Yeah. I think it's a brilliant example. I can still remember watching and and seeing the replay of the whisper in in the ear. But yeah, but also what you're sharing there is just being present to emotion. You know, one thing I'm I've done a lot of work and I can feel emotion in my body before I'm gonna say something. Some of my favorite calls, I'll get a couple every month from the leader in their car saying, I can't go in the office yet, I'm too emotional. It's like, okay, just pause. Like give yourself some grace, like three minutes. Or get outside perspective to make the decision you need to make because you know when we're emotionally charged when I am, I don't always make the best decision.

Jason Taylor 8:38

Yeah. And it's great when you can just actually be self-aware enough and say, you know what, I don't react. So many times I want to get on that laptop and I think I see that email and I think, oh, I am going to respond to that right now. Yeah. When you sit back as a leader and you just say, Whoa, whoa, I'm not going to respond to that right now. I'm just going to give it an hour, give it two hours. It is funny. When you come back even half an hour later, you think, Whew, thankfully I didn't send that email, right? Because it it made no sense. I was speaking out of emotion and not logic. Matt, you uh you often have been quoted as saying as leadership is a people problem, right? Not a strategy problem, right? What's the biggest mindset that leaders have to shift to make that make that happen?

Matt Rolfe 9:19

Just to focus on, I think the one thing is you know, we can process our way, you know, try to process our way through any situation or put plans in place or initiatives. But I think it's the the teams and the leaders who step back and really think of, you know, what does support for me look like for my people right now? Do I really have a people strategy? And I say that with care. It's not not to say that you got to go ahead and do a big people strategy plan, but what are you doing to show up for for your people the way that they need? Not only in their developments, but in a lot of like most of the time, what I've seen is that leaders, so even if it's your direct report, they they want time with you. You know, whether it's a GM in a restaurant or a CEO of a company. So how do we create space and time to have a conversation that's not directly related to business performance? And how are we showing up consistently for our people? Uh right now they say 70% of people are expressing feeling lonely in life and at work.

Jason Taylor 10:09

Yeah.

Matt Rolfe 10:10

60% are burnt out. Those statistics don't scare me. I get really excited because it's a low-hanging, low-hanging fruit to shift the conversation. Yeah. But if you if you don't, not only is it there you're not going to get the output, you're going to get the channel, but that's one of the most expensive costs.

Jason Taylor 10:25

Love that. Speaking about burnout, great segue. So hospitality in particular actually is known for burnout, right? It's a it's a fast-moving, high turnover industry and sector. What leadership habit quietly creates it before anyone actually even notices it?

Matt Rolfe 10:41

I think the key, you know, when we look inside of any environment is communication. So when we stop communicating how we're performing, what we're doing, and where we're going, I think it's really easy for people to site. My phone ring rings every week, and this surprises people from C level or director level or BP level, leaders that call me and say, I think I have to leave the organization because I no longer know the right fit. This is coming at that senior tier of you know, large scary scale national chains of regional side restaurant groups. So think about the person that's in a management position. So, you know, our job and and a change, I'm not a big statistic person, but people that are bought into a vision bigger themselves are four times the language. So if we just show them, if we don't show them the vision, people get lost and there's a lot of choice out there for employees. Or it's not that they pick up and leave, they just don't have the performance because they're not sure that they could. So I think the biggest shift right now is to to make sure that do we know where the company's going? Do I still align? Why should I care?

Jason Taylor 11:37

Yeah.

Matt Rolfe 11:38

And the conversation's good. Like I get pushback all the time is are you in agreement to what you expect of people is the question. And again, why did you say that last quarter? A lot's changed since that's going on. Yeah. But look at look what's happened. We're we're halfway through the year as we record this. You know, there's been a lot of change no matter what industry you're in right now.

Jason Taylor 11:55

Yeah, absolutely. What a what a what a great thought. So speaking about the people that call you, you you work with hundreds of restaurant brands, right? What separates cultures that consistently retain those great people from those who are constantly hiring?

Matt Rolfe 12:08

Yeah, I I think it's a level of to keep it simple, the are we in agreement with what's expected of our people? So often we get hired and there's a job description and a role and we go and do a job, but that shifts and the expectation expectation changes. And it doesn't mean you haven't sat across in your monthly, weekly, or quarterly meeting and said this is what we want. It's are we in agreement of what execution looks like? Meaning, do I have the space and time to do the work that matters most? What we do is we coach out, don't I'm not talking plan out 45 hours of your week. If I can plan out eight to 12 hours of a leader's week inside a restaurant or whatever operation, we can we can get the output. But are we in agreement where we can give them that time? Uh, do they have the support above them? Meaning they're we're getting the direction, the coaching, recognition, and reward. And also do they have the team below them, meaning that they because often somebody go back and say, I know what you want me to do, but I'm short 20% of my staff, or sales are up, or PS system's not working, whatever it is. So I can't, although I want to, I can. So we're not in agreement. So I think the biggest shift over do we retain or not is are we in absolute agreement with our people on both sides of the team?

Jason Taylor 13:10

Great answer, Matt. So your book. You you can't do it alone. First, I'd love to talk about the name and how you came up with that name, right? And I I've I've obviously have a good understanding of it. I've read it, it's an excellent book and uh highly recommend it to anybody, any leader and whatnot. But what made you say, hey, I'm gonna keep uh you obviously saw something within that leadership group and that and you know what you're working in that made you name that title. So just talk about that that title for a second, if you could.

Matt Rolfe 13:37

Yeah, so I'd look to, you know, the difference between leaders as you know, we work with what we consider the top 10% of the market, and certain leaders can scale the organizations, and others will get involved in it. And they're what I watched over not over months, but years working with different people is their ability to understand that success comes from enrolling the team, you know, and really engaging the team. And really, our job is to be at service of them. I remember talking to the publisher and they had a whole bunch of different ideas, and I said, What about this? And they said no. And I went back and talked, and I'm like, nope, that's I'm not doing this to sell hooks and books. Like I think I pay, I think I pay Amazon every time I sell the books. Like I gotta pay them 10 cents rather than them paying me a dollar. It's it's like the education out to the market. And I still remember, you know, there was uh an incoming president to the Joey restaurant grouping. It was a big shift because the you know, the president, other outgoing president was uh basically a founder of the project. And just looking at his side of just how remarkable his approach was to knowing that that they were doubling in size, you know, significant base and knowing that it could do it all. And that was a core. And then I went on another conversation with Temleters and System Language. And it was also a reminder. It's not a reminder that we can, it's got the out we get the opportunity to bring others on this journey with us. It's that's really exciting.

Jason Taylor 14:53

Yeah, what a great answer. So I'm not sure uh if and who follows you and and whatnot on social, but I will say this to the audience: if you need to follow somebody, follow Matt because he has some great stuff. He's regular in his posting, LinkedIn. I love his LinkedIn posts. Matt, I see a lot of those posts where you're walking in somewhere or you're in a restaurant or you've just left a restaurant and whatnot. And I'd love to ask you this. When you walk into a restaurant and look for five minutes, what tells you whether, you know, how healthy their leadership is just by walking in there for five minutes?

Matt Rolfe 15:27

Yeah. I think it'd be the same if if you know, I walked into any business. One thing I've learned as a coach is I'm watching physical cues, not words. So you can see, you know, 70% of our results are driven by how we show up. You know, I call it a, you know, or Tony Robbins calls it, who told me to call this our physical state. So how we're showing up. You can really see somebody eyes up, head up, you know, they're they don't necessarily need to be smiling, someone's got to be working hard, but you can feel the culture. So what I'm looking when, I walk into a great restaurant, or I walked into a strategy session with a really great group that if you know if you're in Canada, you know them. And I walked in and I said, I and I closed my bag and I said, Man, right. I said, We're not getting to the slides, we're not having a conversation. Something was wrong. And they said, No, it's not. And five minutes later, it all started to unpack. So you can see a lot just by by being generous and being curious.

Jason Taylor 16:13

Being present too, right? Yeah. Wow, great stuff. So part of your journey and what you you're very vocal about is encouraging leaders to prioritize wellness, right? And take time for themselves. How do you convince high achievers that move fast, you know, are constantly being proactive to actually rest and show them that that's actually going to improve their performance? And I'll give you a caveat. So many times I talk to a leader and they'll, it's almost a break and write, hey, I can, I can go on five hours sleep, or you know what, I can do this in six, I can do six hours sleep and still perform it. And it's almost this like myth that you think, oh, that's a that's a sign of look at me, look what I can do on no sleep. How do you actually take that myth and squash it and just say, hey, you know what? Rest, prioritize, be well.

Matt Rolfe 17:01

Yeah, I think there's a stage for for all of us as leaders when we start to look just outside the role. And some of us, it it is, it's there's periods of time where you maybe you're building a business and it's a five-year plan and you're head down for five years and that's life. And but you've got a strategy, a vision, and possibly an exit in the plan as well. And you know, go get it. But for a lot of us, the fundamental shift and what it was for me is you know, if I wasn't balanced, I could do well at work, but I couldn't show up to support my kids. Like there, there's what I find is where's the emotional leverage? You know, and maybe it's not just kids who are, you know, am I taking care of myself? Or there's a doctor visit that's a wake up. I'd have, you know, somebody called me and say the doctor said I'm overweight and I've got to get back to work. I've had that doctor's meeting. It would say it's it was an outside factor that we all have. Yeah, we all have, right? But I think the side it's like at a certain point as we you know see this leadership success, whether that's uh responsibility, title, or financial, but at a certain point that starts to balance. So I've got great leaders, they uh they work really hard and they and they work a lot. And I don't think I don't believe in balance. I work really hard and I work a lot of hours. I believe in what what Jason said up front is but I am present. Yeah. And I wasn't until you know a handful or decade ago. But now wherever I am, my phone's down, I'm with my kids. Yeah, with my friends, if I'm with myself, you know, if I've got to recharge. So I think I'm not the one to believe in eight to ten hour workdays. You know, I I'd be a hypocrite if I said that, but I am a believer that I do need to find some balance. And I've learned the hard way too. I burnt out. I flat out burnt out of my career and and had to deal with uh with the repercussions of that. Yeah, absolutely.

Jason Taylor 18:34

So I hate bringing this up every podcast, but we have to because it's the age we live in. So there's this little thing called AI. I don't know if you've heard about it, right? So it's uh it's yeah. So AI, it's changing every industry, Matt. And what do you think? And where do you think hospitality leader leaders should embrace that technology? And where should they never replace the human touch? Because hospitality is very much about interaction, communication, the human being and whatnot. So how do you kind of juggle AI in the hospitality industry versus that human element?

Matt Rolfe 19:09

Yeah, I I get really excited about this because it's starting to become more clear. But I think how we hire leaders in hospitality will will change. It is for the bigger groups, it's changing now. The reason being is back down predictive ordering, food costing, scheduling, and you can take that to any industry, right? That's not related to me if we overall sell a guitar person. But basically on where technology can take us, it's going to be able to do that better, faster, and not in the future today. We need to, it still needs a human touch and review and understanding. But I think the opportunity is to utilize technology to create more space and time for us to invest in our people and our guests. One thing for hospitality, we are one of the last human-to-human connection businesses that are left. Uh, sure, we're going to get kiosk and you know, ordering a new solution, sure. But we have the ability to connect with humans and create them and experience. And I'm really excited about that. But I think for any leader, it's, you know, how do you stay curious? How do you start to embrace whatever you can put your hands on to understand AI? And the challenge is it's not a choice, but I don't see it eliminating jobs. Sure, sure, there might be back end production in in years to come. And the one thing I also know is we don't know what they're building or creating. Uh the third and six-month roadmap is pretty exciting for hospitality, the 10-year, who knows? But I I think my what I'm helping my clients is how do we embrace change? I'm not trying to be an expert on technology, but how do we make sure that what we buy from this sexy tech company can actually be implemented and produce the result that it's bought for?

Jason Taylor 20:33

Love that. I love that. Yeah. And again, it's here, it's never leaving. But at the same time, how do we how do we actually grasp it and use it to our advantage, but still be that human being? Matt, uh, you've been generous with your time. Just got a couple more questions for you. So one thing I want to ask you is we've coached so many people. If someone actually leaves a team that you've coached, what do you hope they remember about the leader they became, not just the results they achieved?

Matt Rolfe 20:58

Yeah, I think you know, part of when we're leaving, we we see the transition. I think there's a whole bunch of opportunity, whether you're leaving or not, to look back at what you've done.

unknown 21:06

Okay.

Matt Rolfe 21:07

Dan Sullivan owns a company called Strategic Coach here and he in Toronto. It's one of the world's biggest coaching companies. And he wrote a book, The Gap in the Game. And just to bring it into one minute, he said, you know, we can't actually see things we haven't achieved yet, but we can pause, say, and look back 90 days and realize what we've accomplished. Sometimes I want leaders to do this to stop, whether they're leaving or not. If you're leaving, there's great experiences inside that. You know, if it's a hostile exit, there's still great experiences. In most cases, it's just a transition. I want them to recognize how you've grown, who you've impacted. And what usually ends up happening, it wasn't the initiative or the process. It was how you worked with other people to finish the results. And that's always a reminder, no matter what industry you're in, the results matter, but the relationships matter more.

Jason Taylor 21:47

Absolutely love that. Matt, leadership's a journey. And I'll I'll close off with this. And I just kind of want to get your response to this. Leadership's a journey. And we're thrown into it a lot of times. All of a sudden we get a team that we lead, we've never done it before and whatnot. But we struggle through it and we kind of, you know, make our way around and whatnot. And to our point earlier in this conversation, we evolve as leaders. So if I was talking to, you know, Matt over a coffee and just saying, hey, Matt, if you could go back to your younger self and you know, give your younger self a piece of advice on leadership and just what you need to do differently because you're you've come back from the age you are now to talk to that 20-some on year-old Matt. What piece of advice would you give yourself?

Matt Rolfe 22:34

I think like the the deeper answer that you know that Manate is that you're enough. Right. I think I spent a lot of my career realizing if I didn't work uh, you know, harder, faster, try to be better, that I I wasn't gonna get the opportunity. And I think a lot of people around me saw the potential, but I was so head down that I probably um hindered someone with potential. I got in my own way. So I think the key thing is is work hard, but be patient and be intentional. And that it's not all all about work, but um, you know, that's how like I gave, you know, if there's a couple of business startups at a young age and you know, started as an entrepreneur at 25, it really wasn't that important. Yeah. It was. Um, you know, that's some of the things that I spent, you know, sleepless nights over. Yeah, they weren't that important. So I I think uh one thing I realized is not absolute energy or force, consistency.

Jason Taylor 23:25

Yeah, consistency. Consistency, great answer. Matt, with that, listen, you've been amazing with your time today. I appreciate you. I appreciate what you do for the industry. I also appreciate just your your road to making people better leaders and you know, driving an industry that needs really great leaders to help fuel that industry. It's evident in the work you do and the social uh aspect that you post in the speeches that I've seen you do and whatnot. So thank you. Keep going down this road. We need you, and I appreciate your time today.

Matt Rolfe 23:56

Thank you. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

Jason Taylor 23:57

Awesome. Thanks, Matty. If you love that session and that conversation as much as I did, would love to have you join our People Playbook community in the link below.