Deirdre Auld On Leading With Curiosity, Not Fixing

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About this episode

Josh sits down with Deirdre Auld, CEO and partner of Coda Restaurant Group in Boston, whose portfolio includes SRV, Baleia, Gufo, The Salty Pig, and the soon-to-open Celine. Deirdre traces her circuitous path into hospitality leadership, from an early love of architecture and a stint in private equity to years running restaurants and eventually stepping away to earn a master's degree and a leadership coaching certification from Northwestern. She and Josh dig into the coaching philosophy she's built her career around: assuming people are whole and complete, leading with curiosity instead of trying to fix, and helping leaders ask better questions rather than hand out answers.

The conversation moves through Dierde's approach to running one-on-ones and leadership meetings at Coda, her mental models for hiring, firing and performance improvement plans, and where she sees restaurant technology and AI heading over the next several years. Deirdre is candid about both the promise and the risk of leaning on AI as a thought partner, why she still believes human connection is the hardest thing to replace in hospitality, and what it took to build a leadership culture that can absorb constant change. It's a wide-ranging, thoughtful conversation about leadership, mentorship, and what it really takes to develop people well.

Links and resources 📌

Visit meez: https://www.getmeez.com

Follow meez on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/getmeez

Follow Josh on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshlsharkey/?hl=en

Follow Josh on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-sharkey-406965b/

Visit Coda Restaurant Group: https://www.codarestaurantgroup.com/

Follow Deirdre Auld on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deirdre-auld-b40666162

Follow Deirdre Auld on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deirdreauld/

What We Cover

01:19 From architecture and private equity into restaurant leadership

08:59 The story behind naming a restaurant Celine

15:11 Growing up in Raleigh and moving to Chicago for school

18:17 Finding her way back into restaurants after stepping away

20:54 Choosing to go back to school for a master's and a coaching certification

29:54 Building a coaching product for restaurant leaders

35:01 Where coaching ends and therapy begins

44:18 Using AI as a thought partner without losing critical thinking

50:07 Skill thinning, governance, and the hollowing out of middle management

59:43 One-on-ones, team structure, and weekly rhythms at Coda

1:06:30 Do performance improvement plans actually work

1:12:00 Closing thoughts and an invitation to visit Coda's restaurants

Transcript

Deirdre Auld (00:00.202)the most important coaching rule. I mean, there's two. It's like assume that people are whole and complete on their own. You're not there to fix them. You're there to just work alongside of them. That's one. And then the second is curiosity over everything. Ask questions. And so it's really important for me that we model that as leaders and that we also expect that of our leaders. That

when they come with a hard statement that we're like, What else might be true? Or how else might we be able to see this? Or when they ask us a question where they're like, What should I do in this situation? Usually my first response is, What do you think you should do in this situation? You know.

Joshua Sharkey (00:36.77)You're listening to the meez Podcast, I'm your host, Josh Sharkey, the founder and CEO of meez, a culinary operating system for food professionals. On the show, we're gonna talk to high performers in the food business, everything from chefs to CEOs, technologists, writers, investors, and more.

About how they innovate and operate and how they consistently execute at a high level day after day. And I would really love it if you could drop us a five-star review anywhere that you listen to your podcast. That could be Apple, that could be Spotify, could be Google. I'm not picky. Anywhere works, but I really appreciate the support. And as always, I hope you enjoy the show. It's really nice to have you here.

Deirdre Auld (01:17.514)Thank you so much for having me, I appreciate it.

Joshua Sharkey (01:19.982)I was so blown away with just your thoughtfulness when you were chatting on that panel that I was like, my god, I can't wait to have a a a further conversation. And this is like my cheat code where I get to get to have conversations with people during business hours, which we normally wouldn't be able to have an hour-long call. I'd be like, Hey DJ, can you just like add for an hour on a phone call? And so we get to do this here. And and so we kinda get double duty. Anyways, I'm stoked. By the way, we're already recording, so we're here. But you're the current CO of Coda Group and

I'd love to actually I want to hear a little bit more about your past because you were in restaurants and then you went to back to school to Northwestern for leadership consulting, worked for, you know, some of those types of companies. And I think you're in finance as well, right? Or maybe you can private equity, right. And then obviously went back to restaurants. So I wanna hear about that. But first, I heard that you were originally into architecture.

Deirdre Auld (02:01.402)In private equity.

Deirdre Auld (02:14.826)Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So my actually my undergrad degree is in architectural studies and interiors. I went to a program that focused a lot on commercial interiors, adaptive reuse, but had like a traditional architectural foundation to the program, which was great. Being an architect, you, you know, have to complete your master's and get licensed. So I was kind of on the fence about if that was going to be my next step in life. I just like I think in in all things, what I've come to really like learn as an adult is I love

the process of creation and I love like experience making whether that's like physical space or you know with guests and whatnot. And I just love form too. Like I'm a freak about furniture. Like I think about furniture all the time. I like get so excited to see it and like product design and whatnot. And so yes, still, you know, still a big fan, still has kind I still have kind of like a toe in the water in that space.

Joshua Sharkey (03:09.038)I bet. By the way, I agree. It applies to everything and design thinking applies to everything. And I don't know a ton about architecture other than the things that I like and I have some friends that are architects, but I've always loved Marcus Vitruvius. Is that his name? There's like these three pillars. I think it's like fermatus it's basically like durability, utility, and and beauty. Anything that you create should be something that's like durable.

Deirdre Auld (03:23.18)Yes, yeah.

Deirdre Auld (03:32.986)Yeah.

Joshua Sharkey (03:36.426)and sustainable and like actually performs and has some sort of utility and and of course is beautiful, has some sort of delight to it. I just loved that framework because it clearly is, you know, anything that you build, if it's a restaurant, like, is it sustainable? Does it actually have great e you know economics? Can you like serve people properly? And do you have, you know, can you actually like deliver on what you're saying you can? And then provide delight. Honestly, it's literally the exact same thing with technology, right? Like

Does the site work? Can you log in? Is it fast? Is it actually provide a function that you want? And and and does it have some magic moments that make you like really excited about it? I always love that that stemmed from architect.

Deirdre Auld (04:15.232)Yeah.

Yeah. I love to kind of like the maybe like slightly more modern version of that in the design thinking world is feasible, viable, desirable. Yeah. Like you have to be able to deliver on all of those things. And it's like such it is such a great framework for decision making when you're making any kind of decision to really put it through that lens of like, is what I'm thinking about actually feasible? And to what degree is it viable for the business, for the scenario? And then is it ultimately desirable? I think really.

lands those same three pillars that you're describing. And it's easy for us when we're in decision making to be really biased by one of those three, but having the lens of all three of them, I think, helps to like do a little bit of reducing the internal personal bias that you might have towards like really wanting the solution that you're going towards and helps you like think from a wider perspective. Yeah.

Joshua Sharkey (05:08.174)It's easy to overindex on one. As a chef, you're like, I just wanna make great food that's beautiful and you know, that that tells my story and your food cost sucks and you know, you can't can't actually get it out on time because there's seventeen steps to pick up. And you so you have to also think about like, okay, how's this gonna work in service? And my brain always goes to food, but I have to imagine how it plays out and how you think about running the business.

Deirdre Auld (05:31.48)Yeah, for sure. Well, I think, you know, there's the very literal piece, which is that I've had the privilege of being involved in all of our design processes. And actually with our newest property, Celine, I'm taking the lead entirely. We decided not to hire a firm to work with us.

Joshua Sharkey (05:46.222)I love that. my god, that's amazing.

Deirdre Auld (05:48.846)It's been a very fun adventure, but also like a totally different challenge for my career and really feels full circle in terms of like tapping the energy and the time that I put in in the early days of my career and the kind of bread crumbing throughout my career. Yeah. So there's like the literal translation of how it shows up. It also shows up, I think, you know, in it in terms of that like decision-making element, especially for holistic changes. And I like what you just said about food. And I do think like this is a perfect example. So I'm gonna run with it for a minute in terms of like

Even in storytelling, you know, we're in a a storytelling moment. In society, people connect to stories, they connect to individual ideas, individual people's experiences, which is so lovely. But sometimes I think we overindex on the fact that like at some point, like stories get old, right? Like we all in our relationships, in our personal connections, like we all tell the same stories over and over again. And at some point our partners roll our eyes and they're like, Yeah, yeah, I heard this 10,000 times. And so I also think you have to think about it from like,

What's the longevity of this? And how long should the story stay the same? And how much do we change as people? You know, even for myself, like boomeranging back to a company that I had spent so many years with and grown up with, really, like I don't see things from the same lens that I once did. And I don't see, you know, the stories as needing to be exactly identical. I think there's pieces of the brand that really do have to stay true to form and deliver to people. But again, I think there's like this kind of

blend of who you are and then who you should evolve to be or who you could evolve to be. That's important. And in restaurants in particular, I think to your point of that self-expression is really critical because it is what ties people and captures people from an interest level, from a connection level. But also, I think we all know there's been so many restaurants that have stayed the same for so long and at some point they like lose the plot or they change too fast. And then they also lose the plot and you're in this

constant delicate battle of like what is true to us, what is our next iteration, and and how do we capture that for folks?

Joshua Sharkey (07:55.35)Yeah. Yeah. It's also why I think it's so important to have your why and be really clear on it, because a lot of things will change over time. But the original, you know, catalyst of why you started something, as soon as you forget that, it's really hard to stay on track. It it's actually hard to keep that as 'cause everything will come at you to make you change and slowly diverge from the reason why you started it in the first place. And I think that's how most things become less durable is

Deirdre Auld (08:10.84)So sure.

Joshua Sharkey (08:24.152)You're forced to. It it is really difficult. You know, market changes, you can supply chain, you have customers ask for a lot of things that like make sense but don't make sense for why you started something, and then you start making these decisions that over time you're like, my God, we were going here and now we're like here. And how do we get back to the here? It's really, you know, it's tough. And I I mean I think about it all the time. I wanna hear like how you think about Coda Group, but before that, why Quebec? Like how did you land on Montreal and Celindio?

You named a restaurant after Celine Dio. Like how did that happen?

Deirdre Auld (08:59.0)Well, from a personal level, I will say it had been from like way too many years making horrifically bad takes on music videos with my cousins in their house, to Celine Beyond music. We're all very big fans. Our moms were both very fake fans. Our moms are sisters, and we were just overly dramatic kids that loved to dress up and make music videos. So there's that personal piece of just loving her music, feeling a sense of relation. I think she's really been able to like

kind of speak for so many different generations of people. And right now I think we're sort of in this period of we speak very generationally like boomers are this and Gen X is this and millennials are this. And so in some ways, what I, you know, love about her ethos is she's silly, she doesn't take herself too seriously. And yet she is quite literally one of the most serious talents of our time. And she really is able to span

Towards everybody. And I think that's something we feel is important and prioritize for our group. In terms of the Quebec element and the Montreal element, kind of multifold. Like the way that we think about restaurants as a company is we're local operators. We have all of our own internal capital. We don't have outside investment at this point. That might be something that happens down the line, but we really operate from the mentality of like, we're people that live in Boston and we want.

To be a part of Austin and we want to make spaces for our neighbors and friends. And so we always have a couple concepts brewing that we're interested in each of us as partners or folks that are have been internal with us for a period of time that are trusted advisors and and trusted team members. But we kind of wait until we find the space and then we let the space speak to us, both from a building perspective and capacity perspective, but then also from a neighborhood perspective.

so with this project, we're going into a newer neighborhood for us. We're going to South Boston in the Fort Point area. It's kind of an iconic building. It's a very cute, like almost triangular shape, standalone business. There's nothing above it. There's nothing touching any of the sides, which is like wild in Boston to find something that's that unique, but also has this very old world feel to it. And, you know, I think there's so much shared energy between like Boston and Montreal. Like,

Deirdre Auld (11:19.096)They're both these cities that have this kind of European look to it, but are also both places that were ultimately colonized by Europeans at one point in time. So they have these identities that are tied back to Europe, but then they also have these identities that are their own. And there's quite a bit of conflict in that too. Yeah. And, you know, with Montreal, you know, very admittedly, like myself and my two business partners, Ted and Jim. We all love Montreal. Jim, in particular, his best friends live in Montreal. He goes up there.

multiple times a year for over a decade. we all love that food. And then there's also something about when you're there, you kind of feel like you're at home in Boston from an architectural perspective from small, cozy neighborhood spots. It's almost all local. It's not like a big, you know, chain city. And up until recently, I would make the same argument for Boston. It's all been like local operators, seen a little bit of a pivot in the last few years. But it just felt like

The right thing to deliver something that was like cozy, a little bit indulgent, and yet also not too indulgent in a neighborhood that doesn't have something like that. Yeah.

Joshua Sharkey (12:26.574)That makes sense. I mean, Montreal might be it's definitely my top three food cities. I I love it. I I mean I I remember the first time I went, I went to Appyat Cachon and I think we ate the entire menu and I had way too much qua garas. but I mean that restaurant for is like kind of like the epitome. I mean there's so many. You can show beef and there's I there's so many good restaurants there, but it's a beautiful place for food.

Deirdre Auld (12:48.748)Yeah. And they really strike a balance because, like, I mean, their food is it's so serious, but it doesn't take itself too seriously. Like thinking about Joe Beef, right? Great call out. They have like the foie gras double down is the most ridiculous item I have ever seen. Two pieces of foie, basically as buns for a sandwich. Like you cannot eat that frequently or even maybe a whole one and

Yet it's like done in this restaurant that like they take the food so seriously and every detail is thought of and it's a cool space and you feel good when you're there. I don't know. I like the balance that they're able to strike.

Joshua Sharkey (13:21.294)Yeah. yeah. I mean the the foie with the poutine that popula like those it's just so good. I also loved the what's the thing with in the snow where they pour the maple and they do like a little candy, you know what I'm talking about?

Deirdre Auld (13:25.603)Yeah.

Deirdre Auld (13:33.973)my gosh. I don't know what it's called, but yes.

Joshua Sharkey (13:36.82)Love that. Yeah. Did you ever go to Wells in New York? There was this guy Hugh, Hugh DeFour. He was I I think he was a chef at Alpha, actually. And him and his wife Sarah. Sarah was formerly at Heritage Pork and they opened this place called Wells along City. Then they opened a couple more. I think they closed, but it was like very Montreal style food in New York. The only thing I will say is like, well, let me ask ask you, what's your take on the Montreal bagel?

Deirdre Auld (13:40.056)Did not.

Deirdre Auld (14:01.654)this is getting me in so much trouble. I don't love it. I like it. I like the wood fire aspect, I think, from a flavor perspective. But I I just don't think you can get better than New York Bagel. I really don't.

Joshua Sharkey (14:14.814)Yeah. You can't. And you know I you can't. You just can't get to the New York bagel. I do like the pastrami. I like the meats there. Like the the smoke meats are really good. And there's a place Mile End in New York that did a really good job as well. Noah. I don't know if you ever went there. You don't spend a lot of time in New York, huh?

Deirdre Auld (14:29.326)No, having been. I used to. I used to go down quite a bit. And it's so funny because it's like so close to Boston. You know what mean? But I do get sometimes these days like analysis browses, like there's so much going on constantly. And I'm just like, do I just want to go to the same places that I love so much or do I want to try new things? I was down there last October, had a great time, went to a few new spots, which was super fun. I got to go to Cafe Chelsea, like really tasty food, beautiful interior.

You know, a couple of times going out for some fun bars like Flower Shop, really, really cool place. there's always something new. And I feel like you have to stay so on top of the New York scene, otherwise you like miss yes, whatever's coming up and going. Right. I grew up in North Carolina, yeah. So I was actually born in Boston, but I spent almost my entire childhood in North Carolina.

Joshua Sharkey (15:11.18)Je you're from North Carolina.

Joshua Sharkey (15:18.801)gotcha. Okay. Where are North Carolina's group?

Deirdre Auld (15:21.257)in Raleigh.

Joshua Sharkey (15:23.251)nice. So when did you leave North Carolina?

Deirdre Auld (15:25.118)Carolina. I left North Carolina for college. I went to school in Chicago, both for undergrad and then boomerang back again for grad school. Yeah.

Joshua Sharkey (15:32.27)What was that like moving from Raleigh to Chicago?

Deirdre Auld (15:35.252)You know, they're so different. They could not be more different. I was so excited. I mean, I've had two very different experiences in Chicago because I was so young the first time and like just excited to be in like a major city and away from, you know, everything and everyone. But also like it's totally different when you live in a city and you're like, I don't drive in this city and like I don't know where I'm going. And most of your recommendations are like tourist traps to start with and it takes time. Yeah.

It was a really good experience. I think it's a great like city for folks that are like wanting to have that full major city experience but not get like potentially crushed by like the prices of New York or LA or whatnot. So being very young there was was a was a good time.

Joshua Sharkey (16:21.176)Did you have an accent you went there?

Deirdre Auld (16:23.134)No, no accent. I you know what? I think because I had like super northern parents and I was super like southern with all of my friends and family that I was just like the weird neutral. Yeah.

Joshua Sharkey (16:32.974)Yeah, 'cause I grew up Virginia and I went to Conary School in Rhode Island. And I think I lost my accent pretty quickly, but for what I was told, I had a little, you know.

Deirdre Auld (16:42.178)A little twin. Yeah. I mean, listen, I mean you you probably are the same. I can put it on if I need you know what I mean?

Joshua Sharkey (16:48.014)Yeah, yeah. Well it's funny when I talk to my some friends back home I'm Man, you got an accent. yeah, I guess that's what I sounded like.

Deirdre Auld (16:51.842)Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Even like some of my friends who I grew up with, like I don't even remember it being that thick when we were kids and now as an adult, I'm like, my gosh.

Joshua Sharkey (17:01.036)Yeah, so you probably had a little one. So I want to hear about how he got back to the restaurants, but Celine, is she going to know? Are you gonna reach out to her people and let her know that she's got a restaurant named after her?

Deirdre Auld (17:07.926)Mm-hmm.

Deirdre Auld (17:13.72)Definitely not. definitely not.

Joshua Sharkey (17:17.974)I mean you should at least send a note. If it doesn't get to her, that's fine, but like, you know, if she's gonna she's gonna be in in town at some point right.

Deirdre Auld (17:25.146)Yeah. I mean, I think I'll let the universe handle that one a little bit. I can't stop anybody else that decides that they want to send a note. Yeah. She got a lot going on right now, you know what I mean? Like personally and professionally. So but yeah, maybe it'll get back to her at some point. And I think it's just it's a lot of it with her again, like I said, like the embodiment of just the fun and the silliness, but also the seriousness is just really hit the mark for me. Yeah.

Joshua Sharkey (17:34.242)Yes, yeah.

Joshua Sharkey (17:51.758)I remember when I had restaurants in Brooklyn and there was a there's a lot of like actors and musicians that lived around there and a couple of guys in the Black Keys lived by there. And when they would come in, I would run downstairs and change the playlist to like go write to a Black Keys song. Terrible idea, by the way. Just got up and like talked to them and instead I just start playing their music.

Deirdre Auld (18:10.894)Yeah, I should

Deirdre Auld (18:15.758)And you're like, it's so crazy, it's all in the background.

Joshua Sharkey (18:17.71)What a coincidence. okay, so how the heck did you get back into restaurants? And and maybe a little bit about like why you left, because you left and what's really interesting is you know, you you sort of diving deep into leadership consulting, management, training, development, which are all things that are a huge struggle in in the restaurant space. Maybe that's why you came back, but what tell me about that journey of like leaving and then coming back and what you expected to be different coming back?

Deirdre Auld (18:44.568)That's a great question. I mean, I think, you know, like a lot of other folks in the pandemic, I was at like a total peak of burnout. I was probably at a peak of burnout before, but I have like a particular habit of like squashing my feelings into tiny boxes and keeping it moving. Me and every other restaurant operator and chef that I know. And yeah, I think

Joshua Sharkey (19:00.142)Hey, join the club.

Deirdre Auld (19:07.262)going through that actual experience of having to like look so many people in the eye and people that I loved and cared about deeply and lay them off with no knowledge of what was going to happen. Like there's the physical toll for all of us during the pandemic, both the isolation, but then also like, you know, being short and staffed when we are getting back online and the work they are doing. But I think it was like that emotional work that took it out of me. And I had simultaneously been hitting this point where

I knew I needed growth for myself. I have this one GM that I still work with now and I just absolutely love her. She's been with the company for well over 15 years. And she had said to me in her last role transition when we moved her from one of our more casual restaurants to a slightly larger, higher volume restaurant. She had never really tackled the host stand. And she was like, like the host stand is my thing. Like that's what I'm gonna like learn. That's what I'm gonna become excellent at. It's one of the last gaps for me as like an operator. And

I just remember how much that impacted me where I was like, Well, what's my next thing? Like I'm very ambitious in terms of like curiosity and wanting to learn. And so yeah, I just felt like I was hitting this wall of, you know, what's next? What is there for me to learn? Like, I mean, we just survived a pandemic. So what is really gonna come at us next? And it was that moment where I knew I needed to invest.

in my own education again. And learning in education is really, really, really important for me and important for me with our teams. And I knew that it was that time that I needed to pivot to focus on myself a little bit. So that was really what prompted the, you know, transitioning out and going to grad school. And then I'm learning this whole new set of skills and thinking about things differently. And so I was like, all right, this is a perfect time to experiment and and try to

Joshua Sharkey (20:54.648)Who did you have to talk to without that's a big decision? It's hard, right? It's a hard decision to decide and it's risky and it's scary and costly, right? All all these things. So that can't happen in a silo, I imagine. Like who did you talk to?

Deirdre Auld (21:07.758)For sure. And also there was no like chat GPT therapists, as I know a lot of people use these days. So this

Joshua Sharkey (21:14.774)By the way, like my hack with that is it's programmed to immediately debate the other side of whatever I'm asking because like no matter what it is, whether it's and I don't even use GPT as much now because it it's hard for it to do it, Claude's much better at it, where it's like by default it has to look at the other side and like it has all my therapy sessions, so it also like understands my cognitive biases, but like it's so easy with these models, you know, to placate and like you have to force them to like no no no like don't take my side, tell me Yes You know, tell me what I'm missing.

so I I I feel like it's it can be dangerous or it can be

Deirdre Auld (21:48.694)Yeah, no, I mean no, no, no. I appreciate that. And I think kudos to you because I think that is gonna be one of our bigger uphill battles when it comes to AI. It's like as a collective, I think there's been a lot of work towards reducing unconscious biases and and this is a tool that sometimes brings it back. So shout out to you for for building the model so that it will push back on you and and whatnot.

Joshua Sharkey (22:09.87)I mean it's it's critical. I actually feel like I should just send people this prompt 'cause I've been working on it for so long, but it's just it it took a long time to get to a place where it actually like it's funny 'cause I had things I was like struggling with with my wife, 'cause we did couples therapy and things, and like for so long I had this story in my head of all the things that we're I was upset about. And then so quickly I'm like, yeah, there's these other things to consider, you know, that I I'm I'm discounting. And I feel like we all do that.

Deirdre Auld (22:35.622)Hundred percent. Like every day in life. One hundred percent. Right. Okay. Yeah. I mean, my my partner, John, he is always a great sounding board and like he has such a good balance of like taking a position where he wants to support me. But he is, I think, one of the few people that is like capable of telling me when he thinks that I'm like super off base or crazy. You know, Eli, who you and I both know, Feldman has always been a great sounding board.

Joshua Sharkey (22:39.018)If who were those people that helped you with that?

Deirdre Auld (23:03.138)To me, he was a very early mentor in my career. And he's like quite good at being very, very open and honest. I have a couple girlfriends that were all really big champions of helping me work through the process. You know, and also credit at the time to my business partner, who's again my business partner, Jim. We were partners in SRV at the time. And he could have, you know, fought tooth and nail to be like, no, don't do this. This is not good for us or whatever. But

He was really good about being like, You have to do what's right for you and like I won't hold it against you. And and I think that permission is important. Like letting people go is important.

Joshua Sharkey (23:41.9)Yeah. So you triangulated over a number of different like parts of your life. That's that's great.

Deirdre Auld (23:45.794)Yeah. And then I also did like o hours of internal like spiral. You know, the core.

Joshua Sharkey (23:50.668)Yes. Yeah. Sleepless nights and what am I doing? my God, I'm crazy. Eventually you became Eli's coach, right? Well we'll we'll talk about that. But but all right, so you you made this very hard decision which I could guarantee I'm I'm sure did not happen overnight. It took sure it took a while and a lot of back and forth. But then you did. Left the restaurant, went to Northwestern, back to Northwestern to study

Deirdre Auld (23:56.233)Yes.

Deirdre Auld (24:13.186)Yeah. So my master's degree. So I didn't go to Northwestern the first time. I went to Columbia and Chicago the first time. And now I'll go. My master's degree is in organizational development and change management. The program really focuses on like they like to describe it as like the human side of the MBA. So like how do you actually get organizations and individuals to work successfully together, to be able to grow, to be able to be sustainable? And then I was lucky and part of the reason I chose the program was they also let you dual track.

certifications. They have a massive lens of DEI and all of their programming, which was really important to me. And then they have executive coaching certification. So I was able to do the masters and do the coaching certification at the same time.

Joshua Sharkey (24:57.358)That's awesome. That's great 'cause it sets you up right away to be able to you know, to go do. Yes. What was the biggest takeaway from organizational n design? Because that's that seems like a lot of behavioral psychology more than anything else.

Deirdre Auld (25:08.104)Yes. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of models, right? So there are a couple like major models for how to move the needle on change, but like so much of it is actually like there's like a change curve that you can look at that's very similar to the stages of grief. And a lot of it is about understanding how to people how to let people get through the feelings on their own and like how to make sure that the communication is relayed in the right way.

Working with change agents, you know, looking around, I think this is something that a lot of us in restaurants could do better, but like identifying the people that are going to champion the change in the right way and at the right time is super critical. So, you know, a lot of it was about like how do you kind of set up a change plan and then make sure that it's executed all the way through to the end.

Joshua Sharkey (25:53.294)Yeah. I mean that's I remember I was running this restaurant group before me is we had to change a lot of systems and and there's seven different brands and different CEOs at each brand, different operators of each brand. And I had to do a lot of research around change management and psychology in order to make this happen. I remember it had you know, like trying to get everybody to be a part of the decision. So it wasn't given it wasn't like pushed on them, but they actually became part of it and validating their feelings ahead of time and

It was a lot. It took months. The tech part was very hard. But actually the hardest part was actually getting everybody to just decide, okay, we're gonna now just sort of step function change the way that we operate with this big part of our company, but we're all gonna, you know, like be eyes wide open about what the what the issues will be and get into it together. It was it ended up being really fun, but it was it was a big challenge. I can't imagine doing that all the time.

Deirdre Auld (26:45.202)Yeah. I mean, I certainly will say, and it's part of why I was like, I'm not gonna go be a change consultant. Like it's not necessarily in my like long-term interest scope, but I think it is helpful. And I think what you named is so important. It's like some of those pieces that I won't ever, you know, drop or release is like the concepts around like allowing folks to voice their opinion. It is it is so much easier. It is research based and it's easier for folks.

to let go of the thing that they want and get on board with whatever the decision is, if they have the space to at least say and share and be heard around what they think is important and valuable.

Joshua Sharkey (27:23.404)Yeah. Okay. So you went back to restaurants after studying this, but you also started tableside. and you have I think you have a couple different

Deirdre Auld (27:33.144)Yeah, I have like ten thousand

Joshua Sharkey (27:35.214)But we'll see what are you doing outside of being the CO of a restaurant?

Deirdre Auld (27:46.07)Yeah, so I have yeah, great question. yep. So table side is something that I co-created with Cassie. She and I both studied at Northwestern together. And Cassie's an outside the restaurant person. She's been in marketing for her whole career, but she has one of like the deepest levels of empathy and thoughtfulness of any human that I've ever met and just cares so much about, you know, supporting folks and being there for folks. And I think she and I really aligned on like the problem solving piece and the

like leadership gap that you had called out earlier that exists and not only in restaurants, but in all businesses. And we really looked at this as a space where we could try to find ways to serve the restaurant industry. So we created table side. It, you know, has gone through quite a few iterations. And it really serves kind of on the B2B side. So we wanted to create training and development that would help managers and chefs to improve their actual skills tangibly and, you know,

We learned a lot about learning transfer and how adult learning happens and then tried to apply those principles. So the way that it's set up now is basically companies can invest in the product and then self-facilitate their teams. Initially we were facilitators, but financially it's just not feasible for restaurants necessarily to take on that burden of cost of having professional facilitators facilitate. So we shifted the model so that it could be run internally for companies.

So that's one. And then I started doing my own consulting as well. I was doing some partnership and working with Shybert. I was doing some work for a company North Carolina. I took on quite a few coaching clients at that time, some inside the industry and some outside, which was very fun to be able to look at the full scope of leadership. I had folks at Kraft Heinz, folks at Google, folks that owned restaurant groups, folks that were chefs in restaurant groups. And so it was a big part of life for a few years was.

you know, just really work down these one to one coaching relationships as well.

Joshua Sharkey (29:44.846)That's so cool. I wanna know about that product. So it's so it sounds like it's like it's like a self serve thing. They can just use this product and then what is it, what does it do? How do they implement it?

Deirdre Auld (29:54.254)Yeah, so it's facilitated, it can be facilitated either as like a larger scale workshop or a two-day workshop, or it can be done initially the the first iteration of the model was to do either sixty or ninety-minute session once a week over the course of eight weeks. And you can do it as like smaller groups or you can do it in cohort style. And the goal is to help managers learn a couple of really fundamental points of leadership. First and foremost is reflection.

research shows us over and over and over again that leaders that have active practices of reflection, both in the moment and after the moment, tend to have the strongest success as leaders because they're able to actually like stop notice patterns, stop repeating them and start implementing new approaches. So that was one scope. Another part of this is to help managers start to understand their communication styles.

but framed in a way that would be a little bit more tied to restaurants. You know, we all have different styles of communication. And it's important to identify your own and be realistic about it. And then also start to see like what your peers and your coworkers' communication styles look like. Cause I've always found that that's one of the biggest gaps in restaurants. You know, there's long been the trope about like front and back. And I understand why there's breakdown in the working relationship sometimes because you're serving different goals, you're serving different challenges, you're serving different means.

And often you have really different communication styles. And so that was one of the other goals. Mindset was another piece, is just learning how to reframe something so that you can actually have a different look at it. I think at the core of what our program created and looks to serve is also a lot of coaching principles, which is developing curiosity, developing a more flexible mindset, being able to look through different frames at

problem so that you can hopefully see something that maybe you didn't see before and then be able to tackle it. And then also having some of those more like hard skills built in like communication, conflict management and development.

Joshua Sharkey (31:58.622)Interesting. So reflection, communication, mindset seem to like the core of that. And so the the product also helps you understand what's your communication style. And is it to take to understand it so you can lean into it and know how to operate based on it or to change it or

Deirdre Auld (32:13.816)Yeah, I mean, more in the former, but a little bit of both. And I think like our positioning is that folks should not try to be something that they are not. You know, like communication styles are like they're complicated because they're built some of it is nature and some of it is nurture, and they're often built over like a whole lifetime, right? And so we are not trying to have somebody who is like an an indirect person become a super direct person.

But what we want them to see is like where might the gaps be if you don't have some of the level of directness that's required when you're working with somebody who is very direct or maybe needs that style of communication. So I think it's about learning how to lean into your own and then also learning how to flex or just at least name with the other person when there is a miss that's that's happening.

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And check out the show notes moving forward because we're gonna be adding promotions and discount codes so that all of you lovely and brilliant meez podcast listeners get a sweet deal on meez. I you know, it's funny, I've had a couple executive coaches and they've been very helpful, but I feel like it's one of those things I use my therapist now more as a coach because so many of the things my biggest, you know, like my biggest issues that are reoccurring are things that have are rooted in like childhood and you know, abuse of abuse of like

father and like a a lot of that stuff like created a lot of the things that I do today with people pleasing. You know, there's a lot of methodologies that in coaching that that have been helpful for me, like cube conversations and how to you know, like have the conversation the right way and more tactical things. Yes. I find the harder things are the things that are like ingrained in us that like I know exactly what I'm supposed to do. I just can't do it. Because it's like, you know, it's like a 10 year journey to like, you know, now that I've identified it to actually work through how do I

actually, you know, turn this into like how I operate day to day and it's really hard.

Deirdre Auld (35:01.728)Yeah. Yeah. And it's a fine line. You know, I think a lot of folks start in coaching and they think like, this will suffice this therapy, but it's not therapy. And that's really important to distinguish. And and coaches have to have the ability to draw the line and say, like, hey, like this is something you should bring back to your therapist because like we are not trained the same way. There's some overlapping, you know, principles. There's a lot of like work on the idea of, you know, goal achievement as you're as you're naming. And I think you have to both

As a coach, be able to make that discernment. And then also as somebody who's in coaching, like recognizing who is the right person to have those discussions with. And I do think you're, you know, you're right. Like ultimately in coaching, like you want to help that person achieve a goal. And they need to be able to define the goal really clearly. And that's the first step. And what I often find is people are not quite ready to define the goal because they're still doing some of that pre-work in therapy or they need a little bit of time.

But then once it is defined, like a coach should be able to help you kind of work through that with pattern and process. And then also highlight like, hey, you've noted this, you know, this thing that is preventing you over and over and over again. Like that is something that you might need to spend some more time in therapy with. So a dual relationship is ideal. And sometimes it's back and forth, right? Like for my own life, I had a good number of years in therapy. And then I was at a place where I was like, okay, I feel like I'm okay right now to

take a pause and just kind of like go into practice mode. And then I hit a point in my career where I needed a coach that was really focused just on my like leadership learning and my development in my career. And then like the swing back happens as well, you know, where you're like, okay, these other things need to now be resolved for therapy. So being a little bit flexible and ambiguous, I think is a good thing.

Joshua Sharkey (36:51.384)Yeah. Yeah, but I I also do think that there's just some very tactical things from a from you know consecutive coaching standpoint that, you know, when you be before you know them, you would never you would never assume and then once you are taught them like the right way to terminate somebody, for example. That should be a five minute conversation, not a forty five minute one. You know when I learned the right way, I was like, my God, I've been doing this terrible for like ten years. I can't believe I didn't know this. And and you're and like how to make it thoughtful and compassionate while still being, you know

It things like that that you just wouldn't know. Unless you happen to innately be some, you know, like mastermind of those things that you just wouldn't know.

Deirdre Auld (37:29.57)Yeah, it's like the coaches manager idea.

Joshua Sharkey (37:32.288)Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there's this guy Michael Mockery have you ever?

Deirdre Auld (37:35.022)Yes, the mockery method.

Joshua Sharkey (37:37.474)Yeah, yeah. Like I have it's funny, I took all of his actually I don't know if this is wrong. Sorry, mockery. but I plugged all of his stuff into my AI. So as I when I make decisions, I have, you know, I try to have like full context on everything. So it's got all my therapy sessions. It has, you know, mo mockery's sort of frameworks and a couple other you know, coaches that I have. And I will pull this now in if you've written things and I just constantly am like pulling things in so I have all this stuff to index when I'm thinking through a decision.

'Cause most of our decisions are not binary. They're not like there's, you know, there's a right or wrong. It's that there's, you know, you have to think through like your your own biases. Yeah. So I think executive coaching, no matter what, is that there's everybody should do it. And it doesn't need to just be COs.

Deirdre Auld (38:24.588)Yes, a hundred percent. In fact, sometimes I think like it's it it can be too late. I hate to say that it's not never too late. I think sometimes when folks invest at a C suite level, like they have already developed so much pattern and so much framework that it's like double the amount of work to undo some of those mental models. Whereas I actually think the very first time people should consider coaching is like early in their career when they want to make that transition.

From being an individual contributor or a team member into being a leader because you don't have habits built and you're not and it's great to like have mentors and to like read books and consume and listen to podcasts, but also having somebody to like push you through the thinking at that point is really critical. And it can still be highly effective for folks at that like sort of

later end of their career or their more executive level, but it can be more challenging to just unwind some of the thinking and the expectations.

Joshua Sharkey (39:26.072)That's so pointing. I've never thought about that, but it makes so much sense that, you know, first of all just yeah, it's so hard to break habits. It's much easier to build to build them. And starting before you're a manager when you're starting to I don't think anybody does that. I I can't think of anybody that's like, I'm thinking being a manager, I'm gonna start, you know, working on this now. It's usually you do it and you learn as you go. How is it coaching Eli?

Deirdre Auld (39:46.775)Yeah.

it was so great. You know, it's so funny. I I feel a level of gratitude because like Eli provided so much to me in the early days of my management career. He was the director of operations at the Barbara Lynch Group in my first full-time management role. And he gave so much time and so much energy. And then I once he left, I was like, okay, but I still need guidance. I would like call him all the time and ask him for coffee and get his insights. And he did a great job of just sort of

pushing me to think instead of just feeding me the answers, which I really appreciated. And we've known each other for over fifteen years at this point and our relationship has evolved. And so on a personal level, it was such a point of privilege to be able to feel like I could give back to somebody that gave so much to me. at a time in their career where I think they needed it, right? Where I think he needed to have the opportunity. And

I will say usually a line for me is I do not coach my friends or people that I have like a certain level of relationship with because you like you have a bias then and you know too much and whatnot. But for whatever reason, I was like, I think we can do this. Like with Eli. I think we have like an open and honest enough relationship and like we both want to see each other succeed. And so we gave it a whirl. And and I would say, you know, overall pretty successful. I think the funny part with coaching, both for the coach and the coache is results are

very rarely immediate. It takes time and you have to just sort of be okay with the fact that you might not see everything that you do come to fruition right away, but you can like tie things back. And so in particular, you know, I left the coaching engagement being like, okay, I feel like good about where we are and the progress that we've made, but like isn't enough. And then now seeing him

Deirdre Auld (41:38.722)really thriving in the space that he's in and and seeing some of those goals that he put so much time and energy into a few years back really come in to fruition has been like a total delight to watch.

Joshua Sharkey (41:52.854)So cool. And you guys did a I don't know if you guys you guys did podcast together in in the past.

Deirdre Auld (41:57.25)Did yeah yeah we did. I think well you may see it again. Who knows? We've we've never officially like closed the chapter on it. I think we were just sort of both in a transitional phase of, you know, what do we want this to look like and what's the goal here? And yeah, it was it was a fun experience because we have both a good healthy level of seeing things the same and seeing things very different. So yeah, it was fun.

Joshua Sharkey (42:19.83)was frequently thoughtful, occasionally brilliant, right?

Deirdre Auld (42:23.148)Yes. Yeah. So that's a phrase that was really important for Eli and his partner Andrew when they were opening Shybird and and one that when we were talking back and forth about what the name might be, he was excited about the potential of using. And I I loved the idea because like we knew we were gonna be thoughtful in the podcast and maybe we went on hit on something once in a while. It probably should have been frequently thoughtful, occasionally brilliant, sometimes stupid.

Joshua Sharkey (42:47.086)it's from article in the Atlantic, right? I think there was an article on shyness or something, right? Was that something that you sort of resonated with, this idea of shyness equals can equal brilliant brilliance, or is that more more more Atlantic?

Deirdre Auld (42:53.27)Yes, yes there was.

Deirdre Auld (43:02.37)Probably more Eli. I would say that it was not something that I had spent a ton of time thinking. It's something I've heard from him over the years. And I do agree. I think what resonates with me in that capacity is very similar to the concept of like DAI DEI work, is that the loudest voices are not always the right voices, right? And most often. Yeah, most often. And and and there is something to be said for bravery and putting yourself out there. And that should not get

diminish, but there also is something to be said for those that either need a little bit more time to process or don't feel 100% comfortable. And then I think for those of us that are comfortable, it's our responsibility to find space and create opportunities to give comfort for folks that need a little bit of space.

Joshua Sharkey (43:48.546)Yeah. I love that. Okay. Well, we were on a panel about I don't know if it was supposed to be about AI. I actually never quite understood what the purpose of it was, but we certainly that's all we talked about. and you had some really interesting perspective. One which is a term I think you might have coined called skill thinning. And that really stuck with me. I think maybe more than anything was that. What's your take on AI? Obviously you're running restaurants now, you're thinking about leadership. Obviously you've you

Deirdre Auld (44:07.907)Yeah.

Joshua Sharkey (44:18.04)You have mental models that you use and and now you're also sort of coupling this with like how does it impact people and labor and responsibility and business? That's a lot. But like let's just I'd love to hear your perspective because I heard some of it, but obviously others didn't, and also I didn't hear everything that that you thought.

Deirdre Auld (44:35.446)Yeah, I'm I mean, I appreciate the space to be able to talk about it. I think at the core, it's actually one of the places that I have the most conflict in my life around right now. in the sense that like there's so much good about AI and so much potential. And, you know, we had chatted a bit about like I think the best part really is the democratization of access and opportunity. Like people can build things that they may never have been able to build in the past and they can solve.

problems and they can have these immediate thought partners and they can have self-editing and it also reduces cost in a way that's like really incredible for small businesses. I mean it's incredible for all businesses, but for those businesses that really need the cost reduction, it can be amazing. There is also this piece and the conflict piece that I had around is like there is a serious environmental factor that's happening. It's I don't think that it's overblown and I think we have not found solutions that are necessary yet.

And in the hands of the wrong person, there can be misinformation, there can be, you know, bias that can happen. And so, you know, I think it's a tool that is so much positive, but probably needs a few more guardrails than what we have right now. All that to say, I use it all the time in my life. I use it for business in a lot of different capacities. We are evolving our use of it as a company every single day.

And I do think that as an industry, restaurants need to embrace the access point and the opportunity that AI can provide in order to really think about how to survive more long time and reduce our costs and increase our output.

Joshua Sharkey (46:21.294)What's your what do you think is the highest leverage thing that's happening for you and your team right now?

Deirdre Auld (46:26.326)You know, I think one of the highest leverage has actually like really recently what's been interesting is it's giving us tools to negotiate with tech companies in a way that we never have before. And there is like an an actual dollar, you know, ROI tied to that because I just don't think we feel like we need some of those.

Folks, the same way that it did before, because although it would be a lift, like we're like, well, we can probably build a low-stakes version of whatever this is. Would it be perfect? No. Would it be more customized to us? Likely, yes. So that's a big leverage point. It's also been really critical in design communication for me as we move to opening another restaurant. And you know, my skills are weakening from a physical drawn standpoint to be able to take that.

And have AI help me to use my drawings, material selections, et cetera, and come up with a visual that others can fully understand the vision that I'm trying to drive towards is a really big leverage point for us in terms of reducing the cost of opening the next property.

Joshua Sharkey (47:36.226)Yeah. Yeah. I by the way, I totally agree. I think that there's just a lot there's just a lot more that that you can build on your own. Anything that's like a report of you know, of other data. And I've seen some stuff that that your partner that Ted has has built in and it's it's true. You can just there's a lot of stuff that that you should be able to do on your own. Now, obviously managing that at scale is tough. I think that that's where I think a lot of folks will see like it will be more difficult. Not not

impossible by any means, but somebody will have to manage it when it breaks. If it's something you depend on and it breaks before software company fixes it, now you fix it. There's there's there's that. But I do think that I I agree there's just a lot more leverage now for you to be able to negotiate with, you know, any company. And any company that's really just a of a reporting tool, I think is gonna have a real challenge.

Deirdre Auld (48:24.3)Like, don't tell them that we're not planning on replacing their tech with our own tech.

Joshua Sharkey (48:28.186)Well, I mean, I think you I think you should, you know, and I you know, I tell everybody like, you know, Eli Eli and I have this conversation all the time. It's like, you know, it's incumbent upon us. I mean, I now I'm less in the restaurant space, more in the tech space, like it's incumbent upon us like we have to build a solution that would be a lot more difficult for for you to build. something that you rely on often and it's like easy and and feels like a a a good price point because if we don't, there's no reason for you to not you know, build it. Now there are people that have varying

you know, opinions on this or people that think that, you know, if you try to build software at scale that works for like a bunch of your a bunch of your staff, multi tenant and permissions, that it could create a a lot more issues and challenges that maybe is not your business. But I think either way, you know, on the margins there's a lot of opportunity there. and I've it's cool to see everybody build it. I seeing Ted on your team, I like that was very impressed.

Deirdre Auld (49:17.654)Yeah, he's he's going for it. And you know, I'll say like we're I I don't discount the fact that like the setup that we have now as a leadership team, like we have the privilege of Ted having enough time to be able to spend some time in this, right? And and not all restaurants and not all teams are like that, but we are actively prioritizing that because we see it as like a real win point for us and as long term something that's going to be healthier for the business. You know, and and

Even that model of mentality alone has to be something that we shifted and that we had to do consciously to say like, okay, like we're gonna not put all this other work pressure on you and let you have enough time to explore in this space. And Ted's also just like a super hardworking guy that is always, you know, going for it. So a lot of it yeah has to really be to his credit.

Joshua Sharkey (50:07.726)Yeah, I love that. It's really cool. I I had a really great talk with the first time I've ever met him. had a really, really great conversation with him. What's skill thinning? You talked about this and I think it's what I mean, I I'm I'm at it's more rhetorical 'cause I heard you talk about it and it makes a ton of sense, but I think people should hear how you think about skill thinning.

Deirdre Auld (50:24.856)Yeah, I think you know, skill thinning is is kind of exactly what the word says, which is that we are seeing a reduction in skills, both hard and soft, from team members in the workforce right now. And I think there are a few reasons for this. Number one, in the restaurant industry specifically during COVID, things changed. We had a massive reduction in force. There was a total change to how people operated, both

legally from like a governance perspective of what we could and couldn't do. And then that changed the setups of the businesses and who was working and how many people. And it it put more pressure on those that knew how. And also we had to accept team members that maybe didn't know how or didn't have the same level of skills as we once had. And

was this hollowing out in terms of like middle management that I found in the restaurant industry, the Sioux and the line or not the line level, the Sioux and like the floor manager level, et cetera. And all of a sudden folks were being promoted into general manager executive chef roles that had a lot less time developing as managers, as leaders in their previous roles than I had seen historically to be true. And so all of a sudden you have general managers that are

in that role that like really don't have a handle, let's say, on finances, or really don't have a handle on reservations in the books or how to navigate really challenging guest experiences just because they have not had the same level of time. And the adage 10,000 hours to mastery has existed for a long time for a reason, because you need repetition, you need practice, you need to be exposed to things that are challenging, that are hard in order to kind of like

gain those levels of skills and you need investment from your companies from a like more classroom, more practical application in order to gain skills. And so I think restaurants, ourselves included, we had to get to a place where we were like okay with certain roles having less skills or less interest than they had previously because we were left with a much thinner pool of applicants and a much smaller market of folks to work.

Deirdre Auld (52:43.864)And then that coupled with what's going on in our society, number one, attention ch spans are shrinking. Like I love TikTok just as much as an ex girl. but we see things in clips and we see things as quick sound bites. And then we often take that as fact or we think we know it, but that's surface knowing, that's not deep knowing and not understanding. Those are different things. So we're kind of like losing that like diving into topics in a way that develops knowing.

And AI is sometimes thinning skills. It is giving us outputs back that allow us to skip the critical thinking or the challenge piece around it. And you know, what I notice in some folks' AI usage is they ask AI to create something and then they don't even read what it says. They're just like, great, copy paste. And so you even lose that sort of ability to say, like, okay, what did it say and why? And how do I feel about this?

Or how do I think this will land with another person and let me edit from here?

Joshua Sharkey (53:46.318)Yeah, I I first of all I totally agree. I think it happens not just in restaurants and every everywhere. And it does it does require looking at AI as as a tool and extension and not and and that you have to be the last mile. I I can't tell you how many times I see a post now and I'm like, that is clearly AI wrote the whole wrote the whole thing. You know, like this is real. We're having like the you see there's like certain things that you're like you're like, God, just like rewrite a little bit.

And then ask yourself, like, would I ever say that? And to the same point of like when I asking questions to an AI about therapy where I like I have to force these sort of you know the other side of the story and thinking through cognitive biases, like I will not let the AI write things for me fully. And I have a very explicit instructions of like, here's all the things like never put this in, never ha use these phrases and always ask me to you know, to to to read through. Because what I worry about is is, you know, everything's sort of like

Gravitating toward the mean, towards like the you know, this sort of mediocrity of thought. Where like nobody has like their own unique unique thoughts and you see all this stuff posting, where it's like clearly that was AI. Like it's very obvious.

Deirdre Auld (54:56.846)Yeah, I mean, first and foremost, it's like you guys take the M-dashes out. We are good on the M-dashes. Like, let's get rid of them because it's your first clue. No, and I and I Yeah, yeah, yeah. Something is noodling on. Yeah, exactly. And I I think that's also unfortunately, I think there's a reality of that. It's kind of coupled in it, it's an interesting time where like we're like deep in cancel culture. And I'd like to be very clear that I think accountability.

Joshua Sharkey (55:06.52)Or something's stuck with me.

Deirdre Auld (55:26.062)Privately and publicly is really important, right? Like we all have to face it at different point points in our life. So I so I'm not chastising accountability, but we also are like lawyers behind a screen on a message board saying whatever we want and very easy to like cancel or take somebody down. So I also think like when you have this tool that can make everything sound so nice and flowery and present and not offend anybody, it's like not helping us in terms of like.

The mediocrity effect.

Joshua Sharkey (55:57.102)Yeah, well, and also I think what it it will do over time is when you see all the thing that's being posted or the somebody creates an asset or an artifact that they give to you, and the the objective for them is, okay, I want people to respond to this. I want engagement, or I want my boss to be happy with this. And what actually happens, I think, over time, is that people will start to lose a sense of what what do I actually think? What do I care about? What's my

thought on this because you don't even you you don't even think about that anymore. That's terrifying. You know, where where like these thoughts that you like e if each thing that you're doing is in service of some sort of outcome and not like intrinsic, it be I think that's I think the the most danger is in that. Which also is why I think that ultimately that will that will get solved for and that AI is not going to sort of wipe out all the jobs because we as humans are are like our emotions are actually

biggest part of what makes, you know, things work, right? Is the connectivity between two people. And clearly I would not like, you know, like have a conversation with you and be like, you know what's you know, what stuck with me most lately is you know, some like AI driven thing where I'm like reading off of a text, you know, where I gonna have a conversation and I'm gonna stumble a bit and I'm gonna say the wrong word. And that's actually what what makes a conversation like really nice. And I think, yeah, your to your point of how do you I think what you said at the on the panel was

The server walks up to a table and that table is really upset. They can't look at GPT and ask what to say. They have to be able to respond in that moment. They have to have empathy. They have to be able to acknowledge and validate whatever this c this customer's saying. And that's a skill that you can't just like, you know, AI away. Yeah. And how do you you know, how do you handle that? Now, you know, someone might say, Well, they could have AI glasses on and it tells them exactly what to say and they repeat it and you know, there's there's that, but I don't think that that's gonna I don't think that happens.

Deirdre Auld (57:55.35)I I mean, I I think if it does happen, my God, I will be the first one at the table being like, I don't even think I believed what you just said. You know what I mean? Like 'cause I don't I just don't think that you can replicate authenticity and and genuineness. I think you have to be like Kate Blanchett award winning actress level in order to like hit that otherwise. And I don't think there's that many of them out there. So I also think like there is in in context of the skill thinning, and you know, I spent most of my time in front of house in this industry.

There is a level of vulnerability that is required in having an open conversation with somebody, whether they're a stranger or a regular. And it is a part of developing because when you miss with a person, you learn really quickly what not to do again or like what to look for. And that is all part of like the data that you're compiling, you know? And in some ways, like we're just trying to do the same thing that the LLMs are doing as well. Like we're trying to take in.

experiences and be able to sort through them as quickly as possible to try to have a positive end result for whoever it is that we're in front of.

Joshua Sharkey (59:01.302)So as you think through this and you think through like y you know, developing all the new managers, like what's what what what are you telling them today? What do you build what are you telling new managers? I remember when I when I got to Boston for that trip, I stopped at Lions Group. Is that the name? Lions Group and I spoke with this woman, Karen, really, really great. really, really s sharp and she was running training for them and she was talking through, you know, just troubles of like, you know, not just the skills that are diminishing, but actually the desire to

want to learn about wine or service and actually care care about that. You know, obviously all these new managers are much younger. They have very they're they're entering from a different place. Like what do you what do you tell them? How do you how do you get them involved and excited?

Deirdre Auld (59:43.564)Yeah, great question. Still trying to figure it out. you know what I'm what I'm learning this go around that's been really interesting. So like clap classroom style learning has always been a part of like my own development as a leader, but then also my own approach as a leader. Like in both iterations of being this company, we run trainings that are focused on our jams and chefs. It could, you know, the it can really span the gambit like in

Two weeks, probably to the chagrin of some of my other senior leadership team members, like our leadership training is actually all about US government because I want our teams to understand how they are important to the ecosystem of local and larger, right? Like, and I also want them all to register to vote by the time that we finish it because we sit important here and they need to do that. so we're gonna spend some time talking about that and we're gonna draw the parallels between what it means to occupy and operate a business.

And also what it means to have governance that impacts us and you know, what are the historical impacts. So trying to think and present classroom style training in a way that is both really practical. We have an amazing senior leadership team member, Tony, who's our director of service that ran a whole training on conflict management. And it was something that stuck with the team and she had a lot of practical approaches, and they still bring it up. So we we do still take that lens of in classroom management. What I'm

Finding this go-round is having so much more impact than maybe even the previous iteration of you know being a leadership in this company is time, real time together, not in the restaurant, in the field. Recently we took a trip to Montreal to do a little more recon. myself, Jim and Ted. And then we took our bar director, our opening chef, and our opening general manager.

and the opening general manager that we have is somebody that works with us now and she's a really talented person, incredible guest, really great with staff, has just the best, most consistent approach in terms of her energy and her attitude, but has never really been into wine. It's definitely a gap. And, you know, we've tried the like you teach online, we'll teach online, you participate, be in these pieces.

Deirdre Auld (01:02:02.946)And it just hasn't stuck. And all of a sudden, she and I are at like 700 dinners together over the course of three days because we dined at so many places. And I think her hearing myself and our bar director and Ted, one of our partners, talk about wine and be excited and enthusiastic and how it was when we would go in with the food. And my gosh, we haven't seen this region in so long. And wow, this would be a really fun thing to try. Like

There was this engagement spark that I had not seen in the wine space. And then that's when the questions started to come. And that's when the curiosity started to build. And I'm noticing every time that I am able to like spend any level of time or energy with a team member outside of the spaces, outside of service, engaging in the basics and the product and the things that we do, their curiosity is peaking in a way that's actually like having a little bit of reverberation in the drum.

Joshua Sharkey (01:02:58.286)I love that. Yeah, I always found that that was really I remember taking my team to like, you know, the farm where we got our cabbage and it was just such a you know, such a great experience. And, you know, you have to get people outside their element too.

Deirdre Auld (01:03:09.218)Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, I think the other piece is like an the most important coaching rule. I mean, there's two. It's like believe, assume that people are whole and complete on their own. You're not there to fix them. You're there to just work alongside of them. That's one. And then the second is curiosity over everything, ask questions. And so it's really important for me that we model that as leaders and that we also expect that of our leaders.

when they come with a hard statement that we're like, what else might be true? Or how else might we be able to see this? Or when they ask us a question where they're what should I do in this situation? Usually my first response is, What do you think we should do in this situation? You know.

Joshua Sharkey (01:03:50.914)When do you know it's not the right fit and that you need to let somebody go?

Deirdre Auld (01:03:55.446)man. That is such a good question. unfortunately, sometimes you know right away and you just don't listen to yourself. yeah, I would I would it's probably more than I care to admit in my own career. And you know, you let other voices or your own internal conflict take over. I would say most of the time, you know, when it's not right early on. And then I think

Joshua Sharkey (01:04:03.438)Probably ninety five percent of the time, right?

Joshua Sharkey (01:04:20.96)Sorry, I no please how how do you fucking fix that? Because that's like the hardest thing. Like it really is like so much of it is just like, you know, and you just you can't figure out you you have all these justifications and maybe after this or if this thing happens and how do you fix that?

Deirdre Auld (01:04:36.366)I don't know, Josh. I'll be honest that my astrologer told me that my inner Capricorn is gonna fight against fight against my like ability to have psychic connection with anybody or like real like gut knowing. So I don't I think a lot of it is probably just like learning yourself more and more and learning how to check in with yourself. I do really believe that like the more clear you can get on your values and the company's values and check against that, the better.

chance you have of saying like they just didn't fit with values. but I'll let you know when I figure it out.

Joshua Sharkey (01:05:12.578)Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's it really is just I think it's the toughest thing. Okay. And what's the second thing? You said

Deirdre Auld (01:05:18.958)Yeah. I mean, I think that the other piece is like when you start to notice that you're not delivering on your value proposition andor your culture and and those two things are often entwined for me is that's when you have to make the pivot, right? Like where is culture being chipped at and how long will this reverberation last for? Do they have the ability to sort of swing back and

And be a part of the culture in the way that we see or need. And also, like, are they not actually delivering on the the promises that we're making towards guests? I, you know, we have moments where we have folks that are creating product that are not aligned with the brand or the value proposition or that are like pushing to charge more than what is aligned to our value prop. And it's just at some point, if there's a certain level of coaching that they can't receive, I think you have to.

have the back of the staff and you have to have the back of a guest and just like the business as a brand to say like, Hey, this isn't the right fit. And also knowing that like just because it's not the right fit doesn't mean that person is not going to be capable of doing the job somewhere else. Right. It's just not the right fit.

Joshua Sharkey (01:06:30.05)What's your thought on pips? Are they worth it?

Deirdre Auld (01:06:32.258)They are worth it. I I know like I would probably have a lot of folks that would strongly disagree. But I will say as a, you know, business owner, from a protection standpoint of the business, they're really important piece of protection, but probably more importantly than that, it is a chance to have something documented so explicitly and so clearly what needs to be done and what the outcomes are.

In some ways, like I look at pips as like very similar to coaching. You're like, what is the goal? What are the expected deliverables? And when great, can we all agree to this or not? And often when people give feedback, they think that they're giving a clear message and they're sometimes missing the mark or they're only delivering half of the message. And the pip it puts it in a perspective and a tangible resource that makes it very hard to miss the mark.

Joshua Sharkey (01:07:25.186)Yeah. So the counter argument to that is that anybody that gets on a pip, there's a ninety-nine percent chance they're already out the door. and it's really just more documentation to make sure that you have that in place. Do you is there can you straw man that because I do like you know, I'm having this conversation with somebody, they're like, Yeah, you know what? Like if you put on a pip, you're basically letting them go anyways. So we either just we should just decide are you letting this person go or not? And

Yes, do the pip still, but that's probably have you have you seen it work? Have you seen

Deirdre Auld (01:07:59.374)Yeah, yeah. I have seen it work. Yeah. We had a sous chef that had a pip and like not only was able to come back from it, but eventually was able to be promoted. And I I f I do think so much of it is like, what is a mentality you as the person delivering the pip or creating the pip is going in with? Like if your goal is just to move on from that person, that's what's gonna happen. Like if you have given up the fight for them, they're not going to fight harder. The likelihood is that they're not gonna fight harder than what you've given up. Like

The way that we believe in our people or don't believe in our people is often the outcomes that we get. Right. And I think that if you truly go in thinking like, okay, I'm I'm trying to give you the clear guidance and the clear path forward, there's a shot. You can't control that person, but you can control what you provide to them. And like for me, like it does come down to the fact that like I don't want any of our team to ever feel blindsided to something. So even if the end result is going to be termination, like,

I wanna be like we we tried to ring every bell and we tried to raise every alarm and we tried to give every piece of coaching and every piece of feedback. but I also think like if the ideal goal is we're doing this, we're documenting and we're giving you something that's like an artifact that you can go back to and reference and you put the work in, then like we can come out of this and you can be better in the long run.

Joshua Sharkey (01:09:18.616)Yeah. I have seen it work couple of times. I think also i your your point is probably really the most important one is what's where are you at right now? Like do you already see this person out the door or you actually see giving them a chance? And that's probably the most important thing. Okay. So I mean I could ask you a million questions, but I will say just because I love just hearing perspective because you're running restaurants now, like you've a million problems. Are there is there a problem that you that you you you don't have a crystal ball, but

You see that in five years is not gonna be it's gonna be obsolete.

Deirdre Auld (01:09:53.421)Absolute, man. Really don't want to get my words in five years. I'm just kidding. yeah. I mean, I think one problem that I that I do think will be obsolete and hopefully even less than five, like technology talking to each other and working in tandem to support the business. I think we're getting much closer to that solution, right? Everything is sort of in a silo right now, you know, like definitely.

The challenge around like open APIs and how things incorporate and and how they look and feel and work together. I do think that there could very easily be a solution within the next five years to that. And that that will make having a view of the business much easier, much more holistic, and also potentially letting the tech raise flags amongst each other with different things. I'm certainly hopeful that that will be obsolete. Other obsolete, I mean.

Deirdre Auld (01:10:54.988)I this is a dark one. I think maybe not obsolete, but one of the positives that is happening for restaurants right now that is not necessarily a positive for other industries as workforce reduction happens, partially because of AI and also, you know, companies rethinking their models and moving to like less hierarchy and more flat operations, et cetera.

There is a lot of reduction in force, a lot of reduction force in the tech industry. We have been for years in sort of this very thin workforce. And all of a sudden, in the last year, I would say that is starting to really change for restaurants. And I think that access to capable, thoughtful, interested humans is going to grow in the next five years for restaurants.

Joshua Sharkey (01:11:45.654)That's that's for sure. I mean there's so many hundreds of thousands of jobs and, you know, Meta, Microsoft, all that are either they're just not hiring anymore and andor laying off that yeah, there's a big workforce. This was awesome.

Deirdre Auld (01:11:58.99)Yeah, thank you. It was so nice talking.

Joshua Sharkey (01:12:00.576)yeah, I'm so stoked that you that you you found some time. Well, what do you what what's the rest of your day look like?

Deirdre Auld (01:12:06.158)that's a great question. I have a couple one on ones going on later today with some of our senior team members. And then I have a to manage a neighborhood call for something that we upset them about. And and then I'm actually gonna go work on off site. We have like a concierge, a big concierge event tonight. And so we have a table to sort of represent the restaurants and okay, get to meet people. So yeah, it'd be super fun.

Joshua Sharkey (01:12:28.184)I I now I have one more question. I'm sorry. Yes. One one on ones. Does the person that you are meeting for the one on one, do they own the agenda and do you and if there's not agenda, do you show up? Tell me how you handle one on ones 'cause it's it's been

Deirdre Auld (01:12:40.482)Yes, they own the agenda. I'll add to notes and whatnot. It's it's like constantly running. We have them accessible at all times. So as we're moving throughout the week. but it is their role and their space and they're the experts. So I want them to have ownership of of the time. And also, you know, I do really believe in being like a hundred percent accessible and available in that time. Like I'm not on my phone texting, you know, I want them to have my attention and so I want them to get the most out of whatever they need.

And yeah, usually like it's fairly time bound too, because we should be able to accomplish things. There is each role's a little different, usually an hour for our senior leadership team and a bit shorter for some of our other team members. Weekly or about it's every other week right now. We work, we've been in sort of a pattern of it's every other week individuals and then we do on the bye week all together. so that we can, you know, just make sure that.

Joshua Sharkey (01:13:16.406)Thirty minutes, forty five.

Joshua Sharkey (01:13:24.578)What's the frequency for the senior leadership?

Deirdre Auld (01:13:38.807)there's a lot of collaboration and so that we don't miss each other on those spaces.

Joshua Sharkey (01:13:42.542)And are there like responsibilities they have or is there objectives of this meeting that like are that where there's continuity between all of them? Are they supposed to come with metrics or like how how how does it work?

Deirdre Auld (01:13:52.278)Yeah, not actually not in these in one-on-ones with the senior leadership team, but yes, in terms of for our other management teams, like they have metrics that we're looking at, like Ted creates some of them and then the general managers create some of the other ones, like looking at, you know, even for example, we recently made it pivot on how we review like comps and voids. And so like having them show up with that data to look at the breakdown is important to help paint the picture of like.

where we went wrong, where we went right for the week and how we adjust it for the week moving forward.

Joshua Sharkey (01:14:23.79)Okay. Gotcha. Very helpful. Thank you. I think we're I think we're all in. Well, I I by the way, I might be in Boston in a month or two.

Deirdre Auld (01:14:31.342)So I wanted to let you know. Let me know. We'd love to host you.

Joshua Sharkey (01:14:34.902)Yeah, we have never actually never been. So I will have to I'll have to come. And and again, just thank you. Thanks for taking some time. I really I really really appreciate it.

Deirdre Auld (01:14:42.732)you Josh. I'm so excited and the podcast has been super fun to listen to. I mean, outside of our time. Really excited what you're doing and I love that you are giving invoice to so many industry folks.

Joshua Sharkey (01:14:52.334)I appreciate that. Well that's what we're trying to do and just and also, you know, have fun. All right. Thanks, Dutra.

Deirdre Auld (01:14:56.546)Yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

Joshua Sharkey (01:15:01.954)Thanks so much for listening to the show. If you liked this episode or any other ones, you can actually check out more of this at getmes.com slash josh. That's G-E-T-M-E-E-Z slash J-O-S-H. I have my podcast there, the Mees Podcast, plus some other shows and interviews. Starting to write some stories and blog posts, some recipes, recaps, things like that. So I think you'll enjoy it. Again, it's getme's dot com slash josh, G-E-T-M-E-E.

Double EZ.com slash J-O-S-H. Thank you very much. Very grateful for all of you.

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