Connections

I absolutely love the five non exec roles I have – they provide challenge, critical thinking, comradeship and a sense of achievement- and I feel blessed to have them. Even with these roles though, I have had a sense that something has been missing in my working life since merging Elliotts with Fleet Street Communications more than a year ago. I didn’t really know what this was and couldn’t articulate it.

Then I had a chat with my brilliant ex-Chairman Steve Wilkins, talked to my business coach, Sharman Hague, and spent some time at The Findhorn Foundation, a spiritual centre near Inverness. What has come through loud and clear is my need to connect people with one another. This brings me huge joy and deep personal satisfaction. Of course, I have done this all my working life but I hadn’t realised quite how critical it was to my wellbeing. Or how much I had missed it during Covid. Or appreciated ?how, not being able to connect people because of Covid, led to feeling so low at the start of lockdown 3. ?It doesn’t matter if it’s one on one or groups of people, being able to connect others is part of who I am.

I know I am not alone in feeling this. Hospitality is full of those who want to connect. At its most basic most customers who come out to eat want to have some form of connection with those that serve them. And those that serve them are good at their jobs because they also like this sense of connection. Hospitality is an emotional experience – it’s not just about the food, the service or the environment. It’s about all these elements coming together so that guests feel better when they leave than when they arrived. Its human instinct and human emotion.

It’s a sector too whose leaders tend, on the whole, to enjoy meeting others. That’s probably why this crisis has hit many so hard on both a professional and a personal level

Ages ago, at an industry event, I introduced the CEOs of the 3 leading coffee chains in the UK, to one another. I remember feeling slightly uncomfortable as I did so thinking they would all laugh and say ’Thanks but no thanks, we already know one another well’. They didn’t though because, whilst they had all been at the same events at the same time in the past, they were always surrounded by other people – most of whom wanted to press a business card in their hands and say their piece. They had never really had the opportunity to talk amongst themselves without being disturbed. I learnt a valuable lesson about making assumptions that day.

It’s not always that easy either connecting suppliers to operators. I was once asked by the organiser of a sector lunch if I would introduce the CEO of a potato products company to the CEO of a multi-site operator. I thought the supplier knew the rules and wouldn’t do the usual business card trick. Not a chance. When I introduced him, his opening gambit was ‘Hi Richard, where do you get your chips from?’. Another important lesson on assumptions.

So, connecting people can be a bit hit and miss. When it works though, and you can introduce people purposefully to one other who genuinely see the benefit in talking, then it’s really wonderful. One on one connections can only really be made when there is a great deal of trust, understanding and genuine motivation. With group connections they work when there is a shared sense of purpose amongst like-minded people and those introducing clear out of the way, don’t seek personal benefit and understand it’s not their show.

This need to connect others is one of the main reasons I am looking forward so much to the multi club conference next week. It will just be fantastic to see so many people again who I haven’t seen in so long and to connect them to others - hopefully.?