Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business

Setting the Table by Danny Meyer provides lots of value for business leaders. I ranked this book five stars based on the value alone. The reader should be apprised that the book is written as a memoir of Mr. Meyer's experience in the restaurant business. As a business leader you should study excellence in your industry and outside of your industry and there are numerous take-aways in Setting the Table that can be applied to any business. Here are ten excellent points I took away from Mr. Meyer's book. 1. The Excellence Reflex - "A natural reaction to fix something that isn't right, or to improve something that could be better." The excellent reflex is a natural reaction that some people have and cannot be taught. Meyer trains his leaders how hire those that have it. 2. Employees can be categorized as Overwhelmers, Whelmers, and Underwhelmers. It is easy to identify Underwhelmers and get rid of them. The most dangerous employees are the Whelmers because "they infuse an organization and its staff with mediocrity...and send a dangerous message to your staff and guests that "average" is acceptable." 3. Coaching is correcting with dignity. 4. You obtain valuable leadership skills while managing volunteers. It requires you to consistently motivate employees beyond their earnings. 5. Create a sense of "shared ownership" with your customers by taking an interest in them and making them feel important. They will view you as a partner instead of a provider. 6. ABCD - Always Be Collecting Dots. You should aggressively collect lots of little information about your customer (dots) as they interact with your product or service. Then make the connection between the dots as a mechanism to improve your product or service to all customers. 7. Customers may love your product or service but the relationship that they have with you or your employees is what builds loyalty. Therefore you should take every opportunity to exceed expectations to create a lasting relationship. 8. Enlightened Hospitality - "We would define our successes and our failures in terms of the degree to which we had championed, first, one another and then our guests, community, suppliers and investors." This is an extremely powerful concept and is rooted in the integrity theme Meyer has throughout the book. You can't expect employees that don't treat each other with respect, who can't be hospitable with one another to then turn around and treat the customer with respect and high levels of hospitality a customer deserves. Poor relationships internal to the organization migrate to poor relationships external to the organization. Ultimately being last on the list benefits the investor by long term organizational success. 9. Judge your staff on 51 percent emotional job performance and 49 percent technical job performance. You can always teach technical while emotional is much harder if not impossible to develop. Lack of emotional job performance skills destroys teams and alienates customers. 10. "The road to success is paved with mistakes well handled" and "the worst mistake is not to figure out some way to end up in a better place after having made a mistake." The ten points above are obviously more powerful in the context of the book when illustrated with Mr. Meyer's stories and experiences. Dr. James T. Brown PMP PE CSP Author, The Handbook of Program Management

As I write this, about 70 or so 5-star reviews have already been written about Danny Meyer's "Setting the Table." Am not surprised. Rather than repeat what's already been said, will just hit some of the highlights and then try to add a few new thoughts. PROS: This book is a gem about managing and growing a business...and not just for folks in the restaurant biz. But it doesn't read like a business book, which is good. Since Meyer is writing about his own experiences, Setting the Table isn't clinical or academic the way many books covering similar themes (how to hire people, the meaning of hospitality, etc.) tend to be. I also appreciated Meyer's ability to learn as much from his mistakes as from successes. Through many examples and stories, he shows how getting better is not only about focusing on what went right but also asking and being honest about what didn't and how it can be improved. Finally, even if you've heard similar insights before, Meyer often puts the pieces together in new & interesting ways, much like the new combos he finds for his theme restaurants. As a result, I came away with more than a few useful applications to my own work, which is in the nonprofit world. CONS: There aren't many cons here. It's just worth noting that the book starts out with about 50 or 60 pages of background on Meyer's formative years, before getting into the restaurant business. Readers who want to get right to the heart of his restaurant career should know this. On the plus side, this is one of those books that gets better as you get deeper into it, so keep going. The dessert doesn't disappoint! BONUS; Though I'm not a restaurant guy or management type, am always impressed by people who can communicate and get messages across to others clearly, in whatever field. Meyer is gifted in doing this. His spot-on explanation of the difference between "hospitality" and "service" is just one wonderful example. As a result, reading the book gave me some good approaches for getting my own ideas across more clearly to others. Not bad for a 10 dollar investment!

This book is no doubt of general interest, but in my opinion it will be especially helpful to those in leadership positions in industries that have hospitality functions other than the restaurant business. I run a large health system in South, and found that I could translate many of the challenges that Mr. Meyer describes, and the strategies that he has developed to address them, to the challenges of running hospitals and medical schools. Hospital and hospitality have the same latin root, and the needs of patients and restaurant guests overlap. I downloaded the book on a plane thinking I would be interested in it because I grew up in NYC, am a bit of a foodie and have enjoyed dining in Danny Meyer restaurants. I enjoyed learning about the restaurant business, but I learned much more about leadership strategies from an angle that I would not normally encounter. Mr. Meyer writes well and can be quite pithy. I deleted one star only because I found his extensive description of his privileged upbringing, and his frequent name-dropping, to be a distraction (at least for me). That said, this is a minor criticism of an otherwise very useful book that is easy reading.

Fast delivery and a book worth reading.

Parla della vita del Sig. Mayer partendo dalla sua infanzia alla scalata di successo come imprenditore nel settore della ristorazione di alto livello. Lettura piacevole ed interessante dove si possono prendere molti spunti e riadattare alla propria situazione. Consiglio vivamente l'acquisto.

Super super !!!!

Me gustó que te cuenta su vida, antecedentes, historia y los aprendizajes de sus experiencias. Está entretenido al mismo tiempo que vas aprendiendo.

This book is truly inspirational, Half Autobiography, Half Business Book, I think this book is an essential read for anyone in the Hospitality industry, Danny's Passion and Love for the Industry come though loud and clear in this book and theres some great lessons that can be learnt from it as well, BUY IT NOW!