Many years ago, I spent some time working for the Soho House group. One day the mighty Nick Jones came to the restaurant to meet with the head chef.
During a slightly heated debate the chef asked Nick “do you want to just surround yourself with yes people?”
To which he replied quite calmly “well yes I do actually”.
The chefs gasped. But I knew what he meant.
All leaders have been there. Employing a manager who seemed great at interview, but then revealed an unnerving ability to come up with 10 reasons why a new initiative won’t work within two minutes of hearing it for the first time.
These are the “no people”, the problem finders, the roadblocks. They believe they are demonstrating expertise by focussing on any potential pitfalls in your plan. They’re in every industry and they drive the dynamic element of the business insane.
When we’re recruiting, we look for the “yes and” people. The ones who aren’t afraid to speak truth to power, but in a way that builds upon the initiative with positivity. They move things forward with realism, rather than taking pride in shooting down new ideas.
Get these people in your business and when you tell your restaurant manager you want to rearrange the tables to increase covers by 10% they tell you “yes and we would just need one more shift to cover these new tables for the pre-theatre rush”.
When you tell your head chef that you really want there to be homemade bread on the menu, she replies “yes and I’ll just need a little time to practise and maybe some training as bread isn’t my expertise”.
We don’t just want yes people. If we want our ideas repeated back to us we can speak to the mirror.
The “yes and” people have backbone, initiative and the ability to implement new ideas.
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