FROM THE CULTURE is a podcast that explores the inner workings of organizational culture that enable companies to thrive, teams to win, and brands to succeed. If culture eats strategy for breakfast, then this is the most important conversation in business that you aren\u2019t having.<\/p>\n
Listen<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n In most cases, for most QSRs, the backstage of the organization\u2014its culture\u2014is not optimized. They have policies and processes, detailed steps of what to do, but their cultural conventions stop there. But culture is more than what we do; it\u2019s an operating system that is anchored by shared perspectives. Therefore, a culture that operates on rules and regulations only, falls short of its potential. Will Guidara, the Michelin-star restaurateur of Eleven Madison Park fame, believes in the idea of unreasonable hospitality, which is the grounding conviction that powers the behaviors of the organization. It\u2019s an open kitchen because the backstage and the front stage are connected by a commitment to unreasonable hospitality. That\u2019s the boundary that curates the company culture and, therefore, its practices and policies follow suit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n That holds for non-Michelin restaurants, also. Take Domino\u2019s, for example. The pizza giant found itself in a slump. Sales were down and public perception of the brand had soured. So, what did the company do? It decided to optimize the backstage of the organization and center everything they did on transparency\u2014inviting people in who had lost trust in the company. They installed webcams so people can see their pizza being prepared. They created a tracker, so you knew exactly where your pizza was in the process and when to expect it at your door\u2014long before food delivery services offered this convenience and years before Uber car service came to market. The result of this cultural optimization completely turned the company around and catapulted their dominance as well as their stock price.<\/p>\n This idea of front stage and backstage is not relegated to the food industry only; it applies to organizations more broadly. TED is a good example of this. The non-profit organization, famous for its TED talks<\/a>, is anchored on the premise of discovering and sharing ideas that drive meaningful change. This belief informs everything the organization does, from the hero event in Vancouver each year to the talks it shares online and the local TEDx events it franchises with people and institutions who share the same belief. Even their partners and sponsors, they, too, are bought into this belief and guarded by this boundary; thus, every touch point of TED feels like\u2026TED. The backstage and the front stage is consistent. After giving three TEDx talks myself<\/a>, I know this firsthand. Everyone involved is committed to presenting ideas worth sharing.<\/p>\n How does your organization fare against this open kitchen idea? What are the ideological boundaries of the organization that connect the front stage and the backstage? If your organization was an open kitchen; how good would the performance be? This line of thinking offers leaders an opportunity for leaders to not only address their cultural challenges but also drive greater business realities. If we want the front stage to flourish, we should consider optimizing the backstage first.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n