This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast. I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories, of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, I attempt to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing. If you know a leader whom you would like to see celebrated on the show, please send me a message on LinkedIn with their name.
What if the secret to a business that lasts is not a clever strategy, but treating hospitality as a way of serving people, your guests and your staff alike?
Paulo De Tarso opened his first coffee shop in New York at 15 or 16, started again from the bottom as a dishwasher and worked his way up through the ranks of the restaurant world. He fell in love with hospitality because of how loyal people are when you look after them well. Years later he opened Margot in London, with 72 people on the payroll and a restaurant that was full at night and empty at lunch.
Paulo and Sumit explore what he did when the pressure hit: how he and his partner went door to door, invited neighbours and concierges in for lunch, and let word of mouth do the work. They talk about failure as part of the journey, why curiosity matters more than being right, and why bad service is so often a leadership problem rather than a people problem.
They also go into where technology helps and where it does not, why guests still need to be greeted and acknowledged by a human, and what Paulo expects from himself and his team as non-negotiables. He makes the case for mentoring, for training people properly and for giving young people leaders worth following.
You can find Paulo at the links below
In the interview, Paulo shares
- “Failure is part of your journey. If life was happy every day, you wouldn’t be learning anything.”
- “Don’t be afraid of asking a question. You get it wrong, but now you know, and now you can move on.”
- “I still believe that word of mouth is the most powerful PR there is.”
- “When you’re truly successful, I believe that’s when your local community is coming after you.”
- “If your staff don’t have passion, maybe your recruitment needs to improve. Maybe it is your fault that you’re not training and motivating people well enough.”
- “In the restaurant world, we are only as good as our last service.”
- “I used to say to my team, ‘You give me 50%, I’ll give you 50%, and together we’re a good team.’”
- “You need to be served by a human. You need to be acknowledged by a human.”
- “There are a lot of wonderful young people out there who are willing to learn. They don’t go into hospitality because they’ve had so many poor leaders.”
- “If every restaurant and every hotel is educating and looking after their staff, the world will be a better place.”
Leave a Reply