Elizabeth Meltz on Effective Operations, Leadership, & Culture in the Restaurant Industry

#53. This week, we're joined by a distinguished entrepreneur, activist, public speaker, mediator, chef, and a key figure in the hospitality industry, Elizabeth Meltz. Elizabeth shines not only through her involvement on the boards of various organizations championing the hospitality sector and women's empowerment but also as the founder of EM PATH, a company dedicated to refining leadership, culture, and management in hospitality and beyond.

With over a decade of experience with the Batali and Bastianich group, along with pivotal roles at B&B Hospitality, Eataly, and Dig In, she has deeply influenced sustainability, environmental health, and food safety within the hospitality realm.

This episode takes you through a thoughtful conversation about what defines exceptional leadership, the challenges of leadership in the restaurant sector, and her ambitions for advancing leadership education within hospitality. We discuss her impactful journey, from delivering a TED talk to establishing Women in Hospitality United during a period of significant turmoil, and her efforts in creating organizations that broadly support the hospitality industry.

From our first in-person meeting in New York, where we discovered the depths of her background, to an exchange of impactful books (which we'll detail in the notes), this discussion is packed with educational insights, inspiring stories, and enjoyable moments.

Geared towards professionals in the field and enthusiasts passionate about leadership, communication, and hospitality, this episode offers a comprehensive look at the industry through the eyes of a visionary.

Where to find Elizabeth Meltz: 

• LinkedIn

Where to find host Josh Sharkey:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• TikTok
• Twitter

Books Mentioned in This Episode: 

1. High Output Management By Andrew Grove
2. One Minute Manager By Ken Blanchard
3. The Art of Gathering By Priya Parker
4. Thanks for the Feedback By Douglas Stone
5. You're Not Listening By Kate Murphy
6. Why Won't You Apologize By Harriet Lerner
7. Radical Candor By Kim Scott
8. Endurance By Alfred Lansing
9. Five Days at Memorial By Sheri Fink
10. Elon Musk By Walter Isaacson
11. Ben Franklin By Walter Isaacson

In this episode, we cover:

(04:10) Elizabeth's background in the restaurant industry
(07:44) Elizabeth's role in creating food safety procedures
(11:24) Oyster Sunday & Drive Change
(13:48) Elizabeth's Superpower & EM PATH
(22:42) Mediation in all its forms
(30:29) DISC Assessments
(35:45) Circle keeping
(41:59) Making team success your KPI
(52:25) OKRs
(59:37) Women In Hospitality United
(1:04:39) Elizabeth's experience with TED Talks

Transcript

[00:00:00] Josh Sharkey: 

You're listening to season two of 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 going to 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.

[00:00:24] 

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.

[00:00:44] 

My guest today is an entrepreneur. She's an activist. She's a public speaker. She's a mediator. She's a chef. She's a hospitality professional. She's on the board of a number of amazing organizations supporting the hospitality industry and supporting women. She recently founded a company called EM PATH, which is solving the leadership, culture, and management problems for not just hospitality companies, but definitely has a focus on hospitality companies.

[00:01:12] 

She also is the co founder of Women in Hospitality United, which supports, you guessed it, women. I actually specifically remember when she first launched this project and organized some incredible female professionals at Haven's Kitchen here in New York City. She spent about 11 years, I think, 11 or 12 years for the Batali and Bastianich group.

[00:01:35] 

And she has all these roles throughout her career at B&B Hospitality, Eataly, Dig In, and a number of places where she's doing things that revolve around sustainability, you know, and environmental health, food safety, things like that. So I was super curious, like, what does that actually mean? And how do you sort of implement that into organizations?

[00:01:54] 

We met in person in New York at our office. And it was just such a pleasure to one, get to know Elizabeth because it was the first time we got to meet in person and learn about her background. And most importantly, we just spent most of the time talking about what it means to be a great leader, what typically happens in restaurants that causes us to not be as great of a leader or a leadership team as we could be.

[00:02:19] 

Why the hospitality industry in general maybe has not had as much leadership education as we should. and why she's hopefully helping to change that. We also talked a bit about how she ended up giving a TED talk many years ago, and what that was like, what it was like to found a company like Women in Hospitality United during a very tumultuous time.

[00:02:41] 

And generally just, you know, all of her experiences around building a number of really incredible organizations that are supporting the hospitality industry at large. I learned a lot. We swapped a whole bunch of books that we are most definitely going to read, which we'll share in the notes. And generally speaking, it was a really informative, educational, and just enjoyable experience.

[00:03:03] 

So as always, I hope that you enjoy the conversation.

[00:03:14] 

So welcome back, even though now we are officially live again. I don't know if we recorded because I screwed something up and our little recorder didn't have batteries. But anyways, 

[00:03:24] Elizabeth Meltz: 

We're good. 

[00:03:25] Josh Sharkey: 

And we were saying some things off air that 

[00:03:28] Elizabeth Meltz: 

A lot of mea culpa is coming from you. Yes. 

[00:03:30] Josh Sharkey: 

No one should hear illegally, but welcome again, uh, in case this didn't get recorded.

[00:03:37] 

I want to say one more time that, uh, like I said, I've been following your career for a while. I really just love everything that you've been doing. But when I heard that you were launching EM PATH, I was like, holy shit, I want to learn about this. And that's why you're here today, among other reasons. So can you just do the obligatory, tell everybody about your brand?

[00:03:54] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Yes. I just don't know how far back to go. 

[00:03:56] Josh Sharkey: 

Well, you might not need to go back to like Rome when you were cooking in little restaurants Italiana, like that kind of stuff. 

[00:04:03] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Did your research. Yeah. That's easy.

[00:04:05] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Yeah. 

[00:04:06] Josh Sharkey: 

But you know, you went to, after that, you went to work for a B&B Hospitality. Yes. Yeah. 

[00:04:10] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Yeah. I mean. Going back just a tiny bit, I was like an art history major, fell in love with food, Italian wine, and culture.

[00:04:17] 

And ended up cooking in Italy for a little bit, and 

[00:04:19] Josh Sharkey: 

Isn't that the same trajectory of Mario? Sort of, actually, 

[00:04:25] Elizabeth Meltz: 

I was born in Jersey, he was not, but he went to Rutgers, so there's some Jersey connect there too. But, I just, once I found food, I was like, it doesn't matter where I go, and you mentioned like, publishing, whatever, but You know, I was at Del Posto, which was Mario, Lydia, and Joe's first sort of joint venture, and it had Mark Ladner as the executive chef, who was sort of a celebrity chef in and of his own right, and it just had a lot of eyes on it.

[00:04:50] 

And I was working in the kitchen, and there was just so much, and at the time I spoke, my Italian was excellent. There was so much I would see, like, that wasn't translated well on the menu, or I would, you know, I watched one of the sous chefs who was in charge of payroll, somebody came up to him and was like, I forgot to clock out today, and he did the, like, obligatory, like, Pressed the receipt thing, took a scrap piece of paper and wrote like Johnny 5 pm.

[00:05:11] 

and like stuffed in his pocket. And I was like, that guy's never getting paid. And so I said, let me take let me take the payroll from there. Let me take the ordering from there. Let me take this menu printing and created this kitchen manager position. From there, it was the time in New York where the health department grading was becoming a thing and sustainability was becoming a bigger thing.

[00:05:31] Josh Sharkey: 

What year was that? 

[00:05:33] Elizabeth Meltz: 

2008 I want to say. 

[00:05:34] Josh Sharkey: 

Oh, wow. 

[00:05:34] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Yeah. I started there in 2006. So let's say by the time I was like really fully into the kitchen manager role and health department grading and, and Mark was very forward thinking and sustainability. We were composting for anybody was, and so that we did such a good job at it, of it at Del Posto.

[00:05:50] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Mario was like, let's do it at Otto, Lupa, etc. It became a corporate position. 

[00:05:54] Josh Sharkey: 

Very cool. I remember Mario walking past my window when I lived on Bleecker Street. Oh yeah. Walking to, yeah, I think it was at Pó at the time. Or maybe it was, no, it was ba, it was Babbo. 

[00:06:05] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Or Lupa. 'cause you lived near Lupa. Well, yeah, everything was right around there.

[00:06:08] Josh Sharkey:  

Lupa. Yeah, Babo. So we, we know about B&B hospitality and then you went from there to 

[00:06:13] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Yeah. Just kind of stopped like that was the end . 

[00:06:15] Josh Sharkey: 

Well you started with some fast casual. 

[00:06:17] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Yes, correct. So, and, and I think one of the questions you had originally noted was like, what is environmental health? And it's sort of, this made up.

[00:06:24] 

name I use to categorize food safety, sustainability, facilities, workplace safety, everything sort of started to fall under that umbrella. And it's almost like it's, it's operations deeply, but it's almost like HR adjacent too, because you're worried about people's wellness, right? Whether they're going to get sick, whether they're going to fall, whether they're going to hurt, whether they're using things that are safe or not.

[00:06:45] 

So it became sort of a catchall for like, wellbeing.

[00:06:49] Josh Sharkey: 

And then did you carry that on to, and so, yeah, it was going into the second question that will maybe sort of add some color to some of the other things that you're doing is you have these roles like throughout your career that were like, you know, the head of sustainability or food safety or environmental health and they're all kind of, they all feel like the same

[00:07:09] 

theme. Did you learn what you learned at B&B and then say, I'm going to go to other places and do similar things? Or is it people reaching out and asking you to help? 

[00:07:18] Elizabeth Meltz: 

A little bit of both. I think, you know, it was the first of its kind, kind of hybrid role. Certainly not, not the first director of food safety or not the first director of food safety.

[00:07:27] 

Sustainability, but like putting them all together and sort of acknowledging that restaurants might want to focus on this or might want to make this part of their ethos. Dig, I think at the time was particularly looking for someone for food safety. And I was like, I'm not going to do just that. I want to do X, Y, and Z.

[00:07:41] 

And the position just grows. Once you see it work, it just grows. 

[00:07:44] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. So, but they, they brought you on specifically for food safety. So was that building HACCP plans? What does that, what does that mean as a role? I mean, 

[00:07:52] Elizabeth Meltz: 

um, you know, they were just, They were at like 18 restaurants going on 40, and they could just see that, yeah, I think it was, wasn't quite on the heels of Chipotle, but it definitely, you know, that was in it, fresh in everybody's mind.

[00:08:04] 

And they were like, we don't want to be that. And so they were looking to get ahead of scaling and continuing to be safe. 

[00:08:10] Josh Sharkey: 

And what did you do to, to solve that? 

[00:08:12] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Yeah. I mean, 

[00:08:14] Josh Sharkey: 

And maybe just for background, I think everybody probably knows Dig, it was probably Dig In when you were there, maybe. Really good food, actually.

[00:08:19] 

And they produce, you know, on site all the time. I think they have commissaries, too, right? 

[00:08:24] Elizabeth Meltz: 

They just wound down the commissary, like, literally a month ago. But yes, they had a commissary. 

[00:08:28] Josh Sharkey: 

A lot of daily production. Yes. In the kitchen. What I loved about Dig was that they, they hired a bunch of really, I remember I had buddies.

[00:08:34] 

Chris, a friend of mine, Chris, and um, Maybe I just won't call it his last name, but you know, they, when they hired him, I was like, wow, they're hiring like serious chefs to run these kitchens. Yeah. I always thought that was, that was such a smart move that they had these, these fast casual restaurants, but they were very, very culinary forward.

[00:08:49] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Yes, they were definitely food focused. It was very interesting. Misses a little bit off topic, but this, I, this idea of the unicorn, like, can you get a chef who can run and a manager and a chef sort of in the same, And they, they really tried and actually don't know what they're doing now, but. 

[00:09:03] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, they're out there too, but there's not, there's not a lot of those.

[00:09:07] Elizabeth Meltz: 

They're few and far between. Yeah. 

[00:09:08] Josh Sharkey: 

So anyway, so, so they hired you for food safety. What do you do to implement food safety measures outside of obviously just SOPs? 

[00:09:16] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Okay, so I feel very strongly, I'm, I'm sort of out of the food safety game now, but. Only, I mean, in so much that you really have to stay current on like regulations and things.

[00:09:25] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Some of the basic principles remain the same. I feel very strongly, particularly in New York, that the health department has a list of 7,000 things. 2,000 of them are direct threats to public health. So my approach has always been, this is something the health department is going to bang you on, and it's something that's unsafe, right?

[00:09:47] 

And we want to protect public health. And this is something the health department is going to get you on. It's not going to affect the public health as much. It might contribute to other things. And so you, you sort of win the respect of the team by actually like picking your battles, which is hard in food safety because it's a science, but there's still a way to do it.

[00:10:03] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. 

[00:10:04] Elizabeth Meltz: 

We did mock inspections. We did grading. We compare, you know, little competitions and sort of, and again, when you add the sustainability and say, You know, we're going to use this so, and not this so, it all kind of works together. It's all about habit and operations. 

[00:10:19] Josh Sharkey: 

So two sevenths of the regulations are 

[00:10:22] Elizabeth Meltz: 

I just made that number up.

[00:10:23] Josh Sharkey: 

But some, some fraction of them actually, of the regulatory things that are required are actually,

[00:10:30] Elizabeth Meltz: 

They’re conducive, right? If you, the, it's a, it's like a slippery slope, right? If you're doing X, then it could easily lead to Y. I'm by no means advocating that you don't comply with the health department.

[00:10:41] 

I can just hear some of my friends in the space crying. 

[00:10:44] Josh Sharkey: In the same way where that we're not doctors, we are not health inspectors or anything said here. 

[00:10:49] Elizabeth Meltz: 

It's more, Understanding where a line cook who's banging out, you know, a hundred meals an hour is coming from and saying this one is a, is a deal breaker.

[00:10:59] 

You can't do that. You cannot cut raw chicken 

on that same salad cutting board. But, you know, if you put the wet cloth under the cutting board and forget to move it, we'll survive. 

[00:11:09] Josh Sharkey: 

Cool. Okay. Well, we're going to talk a bunch about EM PATH today, and I also wanted to learn more about women in hospitality, you know, because I just don't know a lot about it, but before we get there, so, you know, you were at Dig, you were at Tacombi, you were also involved with a couple organizations.

[00:11:24] Josh Sharkey: 

Drive change. And, and Oyster Sunday is an organization. It's more of a consulting agency. By the way, they are super sharp. I love them. Can you talk about those two and how you're involved? 

[00:11:33] Elizabeth Meltz: 

I'm on the advisory board of Oyster Sunday. I mean, they are a consultancy. They sort of take, you know, all of, all of these small restaurants or hotels or anything that's out there that, that might not be able to afford an in house marketing or operations, or even just like some support opening.

[00:11:48] Elizabeth Meltz: 

They do it all. They're like you, you said it, they're like the smartest Women out there, smartest people out there. And I'm just part of the advisory team, help, you know. 

[00:11:58] Josh Sharkey: 

What does that mean? 

[00:11:59] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Mostly it's meant sending them a lot of good people, either as clients or as employees, and just being a thought partner.

[00:12:06] 

You know, like, we're thinking of doing this, we're thinking of going this direction, what do you think? 

[00:12:10] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. So what is like the cadence of meeting with someone like that? 

[00:12:13] Elizabeth Meltz: 

We started out with quarterly advisory meetings, and now it's more just one offs, talking to the founder, talking to the team. When they have something they need.

[00:12:21] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, cool. And then Drive Change, I think probably a lot of people know about that, but how are you involved with Drive Change? 

[00:12:26] Elizabeth Meltz: 

I’m on the board of Drive Change, who just won the Brooklyn, one of the Brooklyn Spark prizes, which was very exciting. You know, working with formerly incarcerated youth, teaching them hospitality skills, and, you know, re entering them into the workforce.

[00:12:39] 

That's awesome. And how is that different from, like, CCAP? 

[00:12:44] Elizabeth Meltz: 

CCAP is for youth. I'm not an expert on it, but I, this, our thing is people who have been impacted by the justice system, particularly formerly incarcerated youth. So, I think we def, I'm not positive how we define it, but, you know

[00:12:56] Elizabeth Meltz: 

people who, might not otherwise be able to be integrated into society because their childhood has essentially been robbed.

[00:13:03] Josh Sharkey: 

I'm curious how restaurants can be more active in helping, you know, with organizations like Drive Change. 

[00:13:10] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Yeah, I mean, you can, you can be a host restaurant, you can partner with them to take on graduates, you can donate, you know, we always need money. show up at some of the projects and events that we do.

[00:13:22] 

There's also, I mean, obviously I'm partial to Drive Change, but there's Emma's Torch, there's Food and Finance High School, there's Hot Bread Kitchen, a lot of people working in this sort of adjacent space of either with, you know, migrants or. 

[00:13:35] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, cool. It's interesting how you found yourself in the world of so many of those things.

[00:13:39] 

I mean, not everybody who starts cooking starts, you know, running or at least being on the board and advising all these different organizations that are. How did that happen? 

[00:13:48] Elizabeth Meltz: 

I don't know. It's like my superpower. I'm like 

[00:13:51] Josh Sharkey: 

What is it? If you had to define your superpower, what is it? 

[00:13:54] Elizabeth Meltz: 

I think it's good listening skills plus a lack of fear of asking the hard questions.

[00:14:02] 

You know, I think I wrote in my notes at one point, I think it's Glennon Doyle who says we can do hard things. I'm, my new thing is like, we can have hard conversations. 

[00:14:12] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. 

[00:14:12] Elizabeth Meltz: 

I mean, you and I sort of just had one before this started, right? Like, I'm not. Yeah. I'm not afraid. 

[00:14:17] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. I love hard conversations.

[00:14:19] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Well, not everybody does. 

[00:14:23] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. Yeah. It's, there's so much anxiety to it, you know? I have a sense that we're going to talk about that with what your new venture is. EM PATH, what is it, and why did you start it? 

[00:14:36] Elizabeth Meltz: 

As we've identified, I keep taking on these roles that are like people focused, but operation focused and sort of becoming this kind of, um, catch all for HR adjacent type stuff.

[00:14:48] 

You know, feel good stuff. And I found in years of operations and in restaurants that people get into the field because they love food or they love service, and they end up managing people because they It doesn't matter if you're selling widgets or serving food or cooking food, people make the operations run.

[00:15:07] 

And they're often not equipped, not interested, not good at it, or just, you know, wasn't, were never taught. And so you start to see like people being forced into this work that, that they weren't necessarily cut out for. And that's where a lot of the conflict or. 

[00:15:22] Josh Sharkey: 

It's so crazy how little managerial and leadership

[00:15:28] 

guidance we get as, especially in the kitchen, you know, and, and we're leading these huge teams with very complex operations, you know, dangerous equipment, and also a lot on the line. And it's an everyday thing. And it's crazy that like, there's just almost no leadership and management training. 

[00:15:47] Elizabeth Meltz: 

No, it's like, I know what I liked that my last boss did, and I know what I didn't like.

[00:15:51] 

And so those are, those are my guide rails. Yeah. 

[00:15:53] Josh Sharkey: 

And it's not like we're, you know, I think in other, in other industries, maybe, I don't want to, I don't want to short sell, you know, what we do as, as, as leaders in the kitchen, you know, as, as a chef, sous chef, what have you, but we're not like researching leadership books and, and things like that when we're, you know, when we're running a kitchen, we're thinking about like, what's the, you know, What's a new dish I can create?

[00:16:16] 

How do I innovate? Am I cooking to be there on time? The last thing on our mind, at least when I was, you know, I cooked for 20 plus years, I don't think I ever once thought like, Hmm, how can I be a better leader in a kitchen? And it's not even in the zeitgeist of what we, of what Where did you cook? I mean, that was what I did for most of my career.

[00:16:32] 

So I worked at Oceana for many years and worked for Bouley and for Gray Kunz at Café Gray. 

[00:16:38] Elizabeth Meltz: 

I trailed at Oceana and they like, Put me in the corner, 

[00:16:41] Josh Sharkey: 

The newer office. Oh. Oh, 

[00:16:43] Elizabeth Meltz: 

This is years ago. This, when I, when I worked at Orile, I worked alternating five and six day weeks because Oh, yeah, yeah, because you could do that.

[00:16:48] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Then what year was that? 2003, 2004. 

[00:16:50] Josh Sharkey: 

Oh yeah. I was at Oceania in 2000, 2001 ish. Then I was, I went to Jean George for a very short stint because I got a job opportunity in Italy. So I went, uh, took in, in, in Northern Italy, and then I came back and worked for Floyd Cardoz at Tabla for a long time. Oh. And then Bouley, and then Cafe Gray, and then started opening orange.

[00:17:09] Elizabeth Meltz: 

I was such a diehard that I trailed on my one or two days off. Yes. Because that's what you did back then. Yeah, of course. And in Oceania, they stuck me in the corner next to the guy scaling fish and gave me like a bucket of thyme leaves to pick. And I was just like caught like fish scales hitting me in the side of the head and just fingers bloody with thyme.

[00:17:27] Josh Sharkey: 

I used to go in in the mornings before my shift would start and just butcher fish. Because there's, we got every kind of fish you could ever think of and you need to learn how to butcher, you know, all these random. Yes. Get whole, you know, whole groupers and whole, it's just awesome. 

[00:17:41] Elizabeth Meltz: 

So a little mocked on them really.

[00:17:42] Josh Sharkey: 

But back to the, So the point is like, there's just no, it just wasn't a conversation. 

[00:17:47] Elizabeth Meltz: 

No. 

[00:17:48] Josh Sharkey: 

Of, you know, how do you become a better leader? Ironically, that's probably one of the most important things. As soon as you, you stop being a line cook or a chef de bartier or a tournant, and you're managing, that's one of the most important things.

[00:18:01] 

Yes. And we don't learn any of that. No. And we're terrible at it. 

[00:18:05] Elizabeth Meltz: 

I mean, most people are not natural born. I mean, I make it, I differentiate between manager and leader. 

[00:18:11] Josh Sharkey: 

And very different. Yes. You're right. Yeah, being really, you know, you can be, if you're very organized and can communicate well, you can be a really good manager.

[00:18:18] 

Yes. Which is not the same thing as being a good leader. Correct. 

[00:18:20] Elizabeth Meltz: 

And you can be an amazing leader and people will follow you into a burning building and then once again in the burning building they're like, I don't know what to do, right? So not that leaders are leading people into fire, but like, 

[00:18:30] 

you can really inspire people but not be able to manage them.

[00:18:33] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. I don't remember who said, somebody very smart said, being a great leader means getting people to follow you even if just because they're curious. 

[00:18:41] Elizabeth Meltz: 

There's also a really great, uh, Ted Talk, it's only like five or seven minutes long about really, it's the first follower, not the leader. Have you seen this?

[00:18:49] 

You will love this. It's, it's a guy like dancing crazy at a concert, outside concert. And it's, and he really goes through how it's actually the first person who joins him that makes the lone crazy a leader. Because otherwise he's just alone crazy dancing by himself. Yeah. But when somebody follows him, then everybody joins in.

[00:19:07] 

I'll send it to you. You'll. Yeah. Appreciate. 

[00:19:09] Josh Sharkey: 

That's so interesting. I didn't even think about it. Like you can't be a leader without followers. Okay, so EM PATH, all this to say yes, 

[00:19:17] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Just constantly seeing people not equipped or uninterested or unable to manage and also over and over again, really well intentioned founders who would project their intention and then look at what was actually happening on the front lines.

[00:19:34] 

or in the field and, and the intention wasn't landing. It wasn't, they weren't having the impact that the intention was supposed to. Just like people were still unhappy or disgruntled or, or just things weren't moving the way they wanted and I created EM PATH to sort of bridge that gap. 

[00:19:48] Josh Sharkey: 

How do you do that?

[00:19:49] Elizabeth Meltz: 

You know, in a lot of different ways and it's, it has a couple of different components and I'm not sure exactly which ones are going to be the ones that stick. I don't work only in hospitality, but it is my baby. And I think it's where it's needed the most, but it has to do, you know, some of the things I do are culture audits.

[00:20:04] 

So you see a lot of like engagement surveys where people like click the numbers. I do individual one on ones with all, for example, directors, GM, chefs. I ask them a series of the same questions. So to remove as much bias as I can, I am a human, but take notes. And then, and then I, put it all together, and present it, ideally to, to more than just the CEO founder, but to a leadership team.

[00:20:28] 

And then together, because people, as a consultant, if you come in from the outside and say, you should do this, this, and this, people aren't bought in. But if you say, these are the sort of problems or issues I've identified, how can we solve them, and everybody has a stake in that solution, you find that people are much more engaged, and the solutions stick.

[00:20:45] Josh Sharkey: 

What's the catalyst for a restaurant or business to start working with EM PATH? 

[00:20:49] Elizabeth Meltz: 

You know, it depends. I feel like truthfully, if people know me, they're like, Oh, you need that thing Elizabeth does, which is not a sales pitch that I can really market. But a lot of it has, as you know, our industry is big networking and, and so that happens sometimes.

[00:21:06] 

It happens also when there's a conflict, you know, an example of a CEO founder and a COO, they hired. And he was like, I don't know if this is the guy, I'm not really sure, I'm, I'm not sure what's going on here. And we did a series of mediated conversations, where in the end they decide, they both decided to part ways in totally amicably, and, and it worked out well for everyone, and, and that, I'm sure you're gonna ask questions about mediation, that's, the, the idea is not, is not to come to an agreement that necessarily everyone's happy with, or, or that you would think would be the thing people would be happy with, it's to, anyway.

[00:21:40] 

And so, from there, it was like, oh, well, I've seen it. I see that this works here. Can you, can we have conversations here or there or whatever? Or what else can we uncover by? 

[00:21:48] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious if you, you know, I don't know how many of those scenarios you've been in where there's a founder and a COO or something, or a chief of staff or something, and the founder is like, I'm not sure if this is the right person.

[00:22:00] 

Are there examples of when they are proven wrong? Like, no, this is the right person. 

[00:22:05] Elizabeth Meltz: 

I don't have enough experience actually mediating those conversations. I would say this was a very forward thinking founder who was like, I could be wrong. My sense is that maybe this isn't working, but I don't know. And so it was open to that.

[00:22:15] 

I would hope so. You know, the thing about mediation is you come to the table. You just have to come in good faith, right? Like I do a lot of community mediation, which is like for free people. There's things called alternative dispute resolution centers in each borough. And anybody can call. My upstairs neighbor tap dances every night and the board won't do anything about it.

[00:22:37] 

Can you mediate this conversation? And as long as both people will come to the table. 

[00:22:42] Josh Sharkey: 

What? 

[00:22:44] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Oh, I'm not even joking. I have I've mediated conversations where it's a landlord and like a 20 year old woman who just like can't wants her security deposit back and like they're disagreeing on whether she should get it or not.

[00:22:57] 

And the landlord shows up and says, I have a lease. I don't know why I'm here. You are here. Which means which tells me I You came in good faith. You're like, you showed up. And by the end the guy's like, well, I have a signed lease, I have a signed lease. And then she tells her story and there's like some nuance to it and whatever.

[00:23:13] 

In the end, they split the difference. It's incredible when people hear each other what happens. 

[00:23:19] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, I had a very similar with my lease in Brooklyn many, many, many years ago. I wish I had mediation. What is that called again? The 

[00:23:25] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Alternative Dispute Resolution Center. The one that I did my training on, I highly recommend is New York Peace Institute.

[00:23:30] Josh Sharkey: 

I can't believe that exists. I had no idea. 

[00:23:33] Elizabeth Meltz: 

You get former partner, like relationship partners who like are, have some outstanding cat vet bills. Yeah. And they want to solve it amicably and it's not, they're not sure. I'm not, this is a real thing. Yeah. They weren't sure who was actually responsible for the cat getting injured and who should pay for it.

[00:23:50] 

But you know, you just have to, it just has to be good faith show up. Wow. 

[00:23:54] Josh Sharkey: 

And is it subsidized by the state or the city? 

[00:23:56] Elizabeth Meltz: 

No, it's a nonprofit. So it's actually, that's a good question. I'm a positive. That's insane. Yeah. 

[00:24:01] 

New York Peace Institute there, their motto is let me, let us get in the middle.

[00:24:05] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. I love that. And so how did you find out about that and start, did you get involved with that? 

[00:24:10] Elizabeth Meltz: 

So I, another interesting fact about me is that I am a step mom and I've been in my children's life since they were two and four, which means I've been in my partner's ex wife's life since for a very long time.

[00:24:22] 

The children are now 16 and 18.

[00:24:24] 

And very early on, she and I, to both of our credits, decided like what's in the best interest of the children is that we get along. We, we more than get along. We're my partner and his ex wife. got divorced because they don't get along and they don't, right? They don't want to be married anymore.

[00:24:42] 

So I found myself constantly sort of in this triangle of mediating and making, and, and look, I love my partner, but he does some stuff sometimes where I'm like, that's not right. You know, so I really doesn't. Yeah. But I, I really found myself in sort of a neutral position between the two of them, to the extent possible.

[00:25:01] 

Like, I wouldn't suggest people mediate any conflict that they, that they have this kind of bias with, but it was so obvious that this was a strong suit of mine that I, I went to New York Peace Institute's Basic mediation certification, which is five days, 40 hours, then I took their advance, then I took divorce mediation, which is very different and I don't recommend.

[00:25:19] 

It's much more like, what do you have? What do you have? How can we split it? It's not like, how do you feel about it? 

[00:25:24] Josh Sharkey: 

That doesn’t sound fun.

[00:25:25] Elizabeth Meltz: 

It's more fun than divorce court, right? That's true. Than getting lawyers involved, but um. I'm about to take an elder mediation, which I'm really interested in because I think, you know, a lot of the questions I get from my friends are like, my grandmother, I think she's got Alzheimer's.

[00:25:40] 

The, my mom and the siblings are fighting over her estate and one of them is being really nasty and, you know, so yes, it's, it's a thing. 

[00:25:49] Josh Sharkey: 

Are there common threads of, I mean, we all have cognitive biases and human nature is such that there are certain, you know, arguments that just innately happen, but are you, do you see any patterns that, that equate to, oh yeah, this is going to work or this is not?

[00:26:07] Elizabeth Meltz: 

My job is to not, is to, to make sure I don't see those things right. You come, oh, really? Why? Yeah. You as a mediator, you are a neutral party. You are there to facilitate the conversation. You're not there to judge, help them. They come to a conclusion. Great. They don't come to a conclusion. Great. They wanna do more.

[00:26:22] 

Great. They want a written agreement. They want a verbal agreement. They wanna scream at each other. Right? Because one of the things you see is people use foul language and, and a mediator's like, Ooh, can we not talk like that? It's like, yeah, that's maybe how they talk. Sounds 

[00:26:35] Josh Sharkey: 

Sounds a lot like therapy. 

[00:26:35] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Um, therapy I think of as like going, which I do a lot of also, going back and sort of figuring out why you are what you are.

[00:26:44] 

My job is literally to help them hear each other. And when you hear sort of me repeat it back, you hear it in someone else's voice. You've been hearing that person. This is a person who's caused you harm or conflict or pain, and now you're sort of hearing it in another voice. You're feeling validated at the same time because you're hearing your own words.

[00:27:02] 

Yeah. It's, it's incredible. 

[00:27:04] Josh Sharkey: 

That does sound like therapy. At least the therapy, and we're in couples therapy with my wife and we do individual therapy and so much of it is like, What are the vulnerability loops that we have that we can catch and how do we find objectivity in things, you know, outside of the, you know, acknowledging the emotion, but still finding objectivity and like that, I feel like that has to happen, you know, in some regard for mediation too.

[00:27:27] Elizabeth Meltz: 

We try really hard to remain unbiased. I mean, there are certainly some cases that I mediated where I'm like, dude, this guy's bullying you and you know, you should ask for more, but that's not my place. 

[00:27:38] Josh Sharkey: 

So what are the tactics? Are you just like asking a lot of questions to get them to the 

[00:27:42] Elizabeth Meltz: 

questions, reflection, you know, parroting, paraphrasing, reframing.

[00:27:46] 

So you're like, that really sucked. It's like, it sounds like, you know, You were hurt by that, right? Like Yeah. Really just allowing not only you to hear your own words, but the other person Yeah. 

[00:27:56] Josh Sharkey: 

It happens in so many things. It happens in, I see it in the therapy that in the couples therapy and just also just the way that, like my wife and I try to talk and I'm in a CEO group and we do a similar thing.

[00:28:06] 

Mm-Hmm? with our like moderator. It's like a coach. Yeah. Where we listen, so someone's talking and then we would repeat back. It's like what I heard was Yes, Juda. And you're just ex like saying what I heard is that right? Yes. Have you heard of Cube Conversations, by the way? No. I'll send you this, it's really, I wish I could remember, it's an acronym, but it's basically, you know, finding common ground, understanding, and then, you know, creating next steps, but you start with like, here's what I've, here's what I heard.

[00:28:32] 

Is that right? Is that, is that what you were? And then you need to like, no, it's not that, it's kind of. 

[00:28:36] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Correct. That's exactly what it is. 

[00:28:38] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. I remember looking on EM PATH's site. There's like four or five services that are all kind of like pointing towards similar things, like mediation, facilitation. 

[00:28:48] Elizabeth Meltz: 

The only other thing, sorry to cut you off, when you were talking about mediation, one of the things that we do see, we don't see patterns of like things that do work, don't work, you never know what you're going to get, but what we focus on is positions and interests.

[00:28:58] 

And the famous story about that is like two kids are fighting over an orange, you know, and And the mom or the dad's instinct is to cut it in half. But, and their position is they both want the orange. I want the orange, I want the orange. But when you do, why do you want the orange? Well, I want the juice because I'm thirsty.

[00:29:13]

I want the skin because I'm, I'm doing a science project, right? When you start to ask what you, what you assume is the problem is not always the problem. And what, what they're saying is their position, I need the orange, you know, is different than what their interest is, which is actually, I want the skin or I want the juice.

[00:29:27] 

So that's a lot of what we do is we take what. the person is saying they want or need, and really start to dig underneath. 

[00:29:35] Josh Sharkey: 

And do you have to steer conversations? So, I mean, I find often when there's arguments, it's because both people are talking over each other, and both people want to be heard, and don't feel understand, and that just hits a vicious loop.

[00:29:49] Elizabeth Meltz: 

So we start with uninterrupted time. So whoever brings the case, you know, to the institute, you would start. I, you know, Emily, Looked at me funny and I felt bad and whatever. And you know, okay, it sounds like Emily, you know, by the way she looked at you really upset you. Then we get, Emily says, Well, I wasn't even looking at him.

[00:30:09] 

I was, you know, whatever. Oh, it sounds like you don't understand how he feels. Whatever. 

[00:30:13] Josh Sharkey: 

This happened at my house this morning. My daughter was like, Stone, stop looking at me. I was like, Pearl, people can look at you. Yes. 

[00:30:21] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Different. But I've been there. Yes. My 16 year old is constantly saying, What? What? I'm like, I just glanced in your direction.

[00:30:27] 

I'm so sorry. 

[00:30:29] Josh Sharkey: 

All right. Well, I have a note here that I want to ask about because I have no idea what it is. And I didn't bother to read it. Oh, the disc assessment. Yes. Yes. Right here. What is a DISC assessment? 

[00:30:36] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Sounds like an acronym. I want to make sure I got this right. It is. It actually is, it stands for Dominant, Influential, Steady, and Conscientious, which is the most antiquated.

[00:30:48] 

It's not a very, like the idea of calling someone dominant is a little, um, it's a personal assessment tool and it's used to help with teamwork, communication, productivity. I really like it because it creates a sort of impersonal. Language with which to discuss difference. No one personality, the D I S R C, is better than the other.

[00:31:11] 

They're just different. 

[00:31:12] Josh Sharkey: 

They're different traits. 

[00:31:13] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Yes, so they're based on people focus or task focus, fast paced or slow paced. I always like to say in restaurants, I say more like reflective and active because I'm yet to meet a person in restaurants who's like slow, technically slow paced. But so what happens is you get someone who's I, you know, you're a founder.

[00:31:30] 

I don't, I don't know for sure. You actually have some C qualities as far as I can tell, cause you seem very conscientious. You like everything to be, I'm an 

[00:31:36] Josh Sharkey: 

ENTJA if that's helpful. 

[00:31:39] Elizabeth Meltz: 

I don't know that because a lot of founders are D they're task focused and fast paced. I want to get it done. Whereas, you know, why aren't we, whatever.

[00:31:47] 

So you can see in any given sort of. room of people, why there might be conflict. And it's not because you don't like me or whatever, it's because you are a fast paced task person and I am a slow paced people person. People focused, I shouldn't say, because you could also be a people person. Anyway, it just allows, and then you can do all these fun heat maps that say like, if the four of you are in a team, This is where there might be tension.

[00:32:11] 

Of course, like anything else, you find that some of the really polar opposites actually complement each other. Yeah, 

[00:32:16] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. So Yeah, our co-founder, Mary Lee, is like almost polar opposite to me in The Myers Briggs. Yeah. But they seem similar to The Myers Briggs. 

[00:32:26] Elizabeth Meltz: 

They're all a version of the same thing, right?

[00:32:28] 

There's Yeah. It's just, there's, yeah. 

[00:32:31] Josh Sharkey: 

They all sort of had the same angle, right? Yeah. Character assessments of, like, how you think and operate and how does that impact other 

[00:32:37] Elizabeth Meltz: 

And people love learning about themselves. 

[00:32:38] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it really does. You know, we, we just had an offsite in Miami, like I was telling you about, and Sarah, who's our head of CS and Customer Success and, in support and implementation.

[00:32:49] 

She's also just this amazing people person, high EQ, and she ran a Myers Briggs exercise for all of us and just sort of, you know, broke everybody up into their categories. And it obviously we're all on spectrums for any of these. I'm assuming with discs, it's the same thing. It's a spectrum. You're not fully one or the other.

[00:33:05] 

But seeing, you know, hey, you all are more like this, and you think like this, and you, and, and when you're talking to an INTJ, it's going to be the, and it's like, wow, you know what, now I know why we get into arguments. 

[00:33:15] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Exactly, but, but it's not personal. Yeah, exactly. The great thing about DISC is they also do your natural style and your adapted style, and your natural style is basically, if I, if we were both to leave this room and you just, just left you here, that's sort of how you show up in the world.

[00:33:28] 

Your adapted style is how you show up. When you feel like you need to adapt when there's other people around. And when you take it in the work context, your adapted style is how you feel you need to show up to be successful at work. And so you can see sometimes people are just they are what they are and that's amazing.

[00:33:43] 

Sometimes they're really adapting. They're spending a lot of energy to try to be someone else to be successful at that job. 

[00:33:48] Josh Sharkey: 

Oh, that's interesting. 

[00:33:49] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Sometimes it works for them. And sometimes they leave the end of the day and they're exhausted. 

[00:33:54] Josh Sharkey: 

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[00:35:04] 

Yeah, that makes so much sense. How did you assess that? 

[00:35:07] Elizabeth Meltz: 

I mean, you can see it on, there's like a little wheel and it says your natural style and your adapted style. 

[00:35:11] Josh Sharkey: 

Is that just questions you're asking them to understand? 

[00:35:13] Elizabeth Meltz: 

So the assessment itself is, it's like 10, 15 minutes. It's incredible how accurate it is.

[00:35:18] 

And it's like four words and you have to pick which one you're most like and which one you're least like. And apparently we're most honest when we're talking about what we're less like. So I think it uses that for your natural style. And it just, it, I very rarely meet someone who's like, this is all wrong.

[00:35:33] 

Very rarely. It's pretty spot on.

[00:35:35] Josh Sharkey: 

I want to check that out. 

[00:35:36] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Yeah. I can send you one. 

[00:35:38] Josh Sharkey: 

Thank you. Okay. So I have a note here about something called a trained circle keeper. What is that? 

[00:35:45] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Okay. 

[00:35:45] Josh Sharkey: 

What is a trained circle keeper? 

[00:35:47] Elizabeth Meltz: 

So as a disclaimer, circle keeping is, is an indigenous practice that dates 

way back before us.

[00:35:54] 

And I do not claim to be an expert, but what it. 

[00:35:57] Josh Sharkey: 

Indigenous to Native Americans? 

[00:35:59] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Yes, as a way to process, facilitate community conversation. It is a form of restorative justice. And if you know anything about restorative justice, the idea is here in America in particular, when someone commits a crime or harm, our approach is you and you alone are responsible for that crime.

[00:36:17] 

You chose to do it. You perpetrated it and you are going to be held responsible. Restorative justice says, well, there's a lot of. you know, societal and institutional and cultural factors that act on people. And it allows more than just the perpetrator to take a little bit of responsibility, accountability, and, and involvement in the process of justice.

[00:36:38] 

Circle keeping is great because it's, I mean, I went to a training with Kay Pranis, who's known to be like the, she's like the celebrity, Circle keeping she is amazing. It's set up so that, you know, there's a talking piece and whoever has the piece is talking and you can pass, but no one else is speaking otherwise.

[00:36:54] Elizabeth Meltz: 

And, and it's the circle format really allows for non hierarchical, it facilitates, you know, deep listening and it's pretty magical. When I did the training, I was like, I think I've joined a cult, like, it is so transformative. 

[00:37:10] Josh Sharkey: 

How does this become representative in something that you implement into, for example, in a restaurant, you know, leadership?

[00:37:15] Elizabeth Meltz: 

So interesting, my friend at the Marlowe Collective has actually been running her management. meetings as circles. So, it really, you know, I know there were some questions about facilitation. Also, with facilitation, you're like, you're trying your best to make sure everyone's heard, and you're herding the cats, and you're, you're kind of, you're trying to hit some bullet points, and, but also make sure that the quieter people are heard.

[00:37:37] 

With, uh, Circle keeping, everybody gets it, it just, the circle, the thing goes around. It goes around as many times as it needs to, but everybody has a chance to speak and you all understand that. As opposed to a facilitator being like, I haven't heard from you, Emily, do you have anything to add? So, both of them have their value and circle keeping I think takes a lot.

[00:37:54] 

Actually, you'd be surprised how quickly people open up, but it can take a lot longer. It's not as, right? Yeah. 

[00:38:00] Josh Sharkey: 

And what is an example of how it's used? I mean, in a leadership setting or a company setting, what are they doing? 

[00:38:06] Elizabeth Meltz: 

I was going to tell you, it's used in sentencing circles. So if someone has committed a crime, the victim of the crime, the family, the, you know, every part of the community can be, again, in, I don't necessarily use it in hospitality, I just think it's another tool in the toolbox of like how people, if necessary, you know, it would be another step after mediation if there was more people involved, if you really needed to.

[00:38:32] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, I love the premise though. It's incredible. You know, it's funny, now I feel like a broken record because I say this all the time. I have this like, it's a really dumb acronym, but I say to myself, stay THIN, and THIN is essentially like Everything that happens with my team, for example, and it trickles down to the leaders on my team.

[00:38:49] Elizabeth Meltz: 

I think I heard this in your Margin Edge interview. 

[00:38:51] Josh Sharkey:

Yeah I just, I say it to myself all the time as well because I still to this day have trouble abiding by it. But you know, it's either like, if something went wrong with one of my teammates, either I didn't train them well, didn't give them the tools they need, I didn't hire them for the right role.

[00:39:06] 

I haven't inspired them or motivated them the right way. Thousand percent. Or I haven't nurtured them the way that they need to be nurtured. And so often things go wrong and I jump right to like the thing that they did wrong and Yes. And not like, Hmm, I wonder how I'm implicit in this. And I'm 

[00:39:22] Elizabeth Meltz: 

So I find that a lot with founders, they're really unable to say, how did I not set this person up for success?

[00:39:29] 

There's, and again, this all, again, it's not necessarily restorative justice, but it's, it's, it's all the same theme, which is that person, Didn't do the thing I needed them to do, I don't know why. As opposed to, wow, what role did I 

play? And yeah, you know. 

[00:39:43] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. 

[00:39:43] Elizabeth Meltz: 

That's one of the questions I ask when I do a culture audit.

[00:39:45] 

Do you have the tools you need, you know, to do your job? 

[00:39:48] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. The hardest one is the hiring one. Did you hire the wrong person for the wrong role? Because it's difficult. That's also not their fault usually, you know, but there's not nearly as much you can do about it. 

[00:39:57] Elizabeth Meltz: 

No. Well, except learn from it, right? Do a post mortem and be like, what, what was the mistake we made?

[00:40:02] 

What did we miss? 

[00:40:03] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. Yeah. Do you help with that? What are some of the biggest challenges you've seen with a team member that needs to be let go or you need to figure out if they need to be let go? 

[00:40:14] Elizabeth Meltz: 

The first thing that has to happen is the person has to understand what is expected of them. So, I think that's one, again, it's, it's one of those miscommunications of like, the person either thinks they're doing their job, or they think they're doing the thing that's expected of them, and no one's actually said, no, you're, you know, this is what I'm expecting of you.

[00:40:31] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Then you hold them accountable. Once it's clear, I'm okay with you saying, you're not doing the thing that I made very clear is the thing you're supposed to do. But then, of course, you follow HR guidelines, you know, write them up, whatever, you know, coaching. There's a lot of like, Sense of people being disposable.

[00:40:46]

Well, they didn't they didn't do their job. Like let's replace them. 

[00:40:50] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, it's true It's a lot more work 

[00:40:52] Elizabeth Meltz: 

It’s a lot of that's what I mean Those people get into food because they want to cook and they want to serve whatever and now they're like you're telling me I got a coach this guy because he doesn't know what his expectations are.

[00:41:01] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah You know, I haven't been in a kitchen as a cook in a very long time, but it was just thinking back so endemic of every single kitchen, by the way, of, you did this wrong, what the, you know, what the fuck? And it's like, wait a second, where's the recipe? How explicit is the recipe? Did you actually, you know, check to see if this person understands how to make it and why?

[00:41:20] Josh Sharkey: 

And do they have the skill sets before you just start yelling at them? And we didn't have any of that. We were just like, it was wrong and make it over. And almost like, uh, 

[00:41:29] Elizabeth Meltz: 

If you didn't get it thrown at you. 

[00:41:30] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. Yeah. Almost like a pride in, in like being able to say you didn't make it right. And my, you know, and it's like not realizing an aggregate of, you know, of all of us like, Oh, well actually that's a reflection of us.

[00:41:42] Elizabeth Meltz: 

It’s funny you say that I never made this connection, but one of the things I hated when I was a line cook was sous chefs who came in and just pointed out everything that was wrong. And I remember thinking. It's so easy. Anybody can come in and point out everything was wrong. Yeah. And I never made the connection that really it's like, how did I not teach you how to do this right?

[00:41:57] 

Where did I fail? What tool don't you have? 

[00:41:59] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. You know, the, the easiest way to sort of, to think about it is your team success is your KPI of if you're a good leader. 

[00:42:09] Elizabeth Meltz: 

That is a good. 

[00:42:09] Josh Sharkey: 

And if they're not successful, that's a direct reflection on you. 

[00:42:13] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Yes. 

[00:42:14] Josh Sharkey: 

It's funny whenever I hear leaders saying, Oh, my team is overwhelmed or they're, they screwed this up.

[00:42:18] 

I'm like, Yeah. Yeah. You know, that you're actually like telling me the things that you're doing. 

[00:42:23] Elizabeth Meltz: 

You're overwhelming them or you're not moving something off their plate. That needs to be, yeah. 

[00:42:26] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. It's, and it's, there's an analogy I give to a lot of my team that haven't been in kitchens when, you know, something's going wrong and, and it's go, well, you know, the team messed this up or this didn't happen.

[00:42:36] 

It's like, if you're in a restaurant. And you order a medium rare steak and it comes out well done. You can't just tell the customer, oh yeah, my cook isn't trained well, they screwed it up. It's like, no, no, this is, this is not what you ordered. No one cares about like, you know, what's happening on the back end.

[00:42:53] 

It's like, this is, this is the product you have.

[00:42:54] Elizabeth Meltz: 

My thing is like, when somebody fails or makes a mistake, the default is never, I guess they just suck, or I guess they just don't care, right? If we can move away from that. And that comes a lot from workplace safety accident investigation. So like, I burnt myself on this sheet tray.

[00:43:12] 

Why? Because the sheet tray was hot and it was on the metro shelf. Why? Because we don't have enough room. for cooling racks, right? That's the cause, not because you're a, you know, a jerk who is, that's everything. The cook wasn't paying attention or they were lazy. No, usually it's a structural or other. Yeah.

[00:43:30] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. And I love the five whys for things because they might not have been paying attention, but you still create in some sort of environment where if they're not paying attention, something bad can happen. And that's your job is to create, you know, an environment where that. Right. 

[00:43:43] Elizabeth Meltz: 

And your job is to get to the root cause and the root cause is not that person just sucks.

[00:43:46] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. So now I'm thinking about sort of other frameworks that you might use or, or books that you, I mean, I love like High Output Management by Andy Grove is like when I, I try to reread often. High Output Management

[00:43:58] Josh Sharkey: 

Oh, that's a great book. Yeah. I'll send it to you. That's one of my, one of my favorites.

[00:44:01]  

Andy Grove. I'll send you a link. One Minute Managers was a really great one. I mean, there's so many good ones, but is there any that you really like or that you recommend? 

[00:44:08] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Well, first of all, interesting. Cause I think offline before we started, you were talking about. having a purpose or whatever. So one of the things that isn't quite in this genre, but really is important to me, is The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker, which talks about having a purpose and intention and allowing intention to be your bouncer, right?

[00:44:27] 

So not everybody, I think there's like this all inclusive sort of feeling, but really how do you create spaces that are, you know, safe 

[00:44:33] Josh Sharkey: 

Mm hmm. 

[00:44:34] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Thoughtful. One of my favorites is, Thank You for the Feedback, which talks about, you know, why less about giving feedback and more about receiving it. I don't know if this is interesting.

[00:44:43] Elizabeth Meltz: 

I find this fascinating. There's three reasons people struggle to receive feedback. Truth triggers, relationship triggers, and identity triggers. So truth is just like, I mean, I'm exaggerating, but that can is blue. No, it's like, just simply not. I can't, I can't hear that feedback because it's just not true.

[00:44:59] 

Relationship trigger is like, you know, who are you to give me parenting advice? Your kids are a mess. And identity trigger is like, you're telling me something that I did something that's sort of like anti women and I identify as a feminist and I can't hear it. And what happens is if I can say, You know what, his kid's RMS, but the feedback he gave me is actually still relevant, right?

[00:45:21] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Sort of decoupling those two, they both may be true, but I'm not hearing the feedback because I blocked it out because of that. 

[00:45:28] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. 

[00:45:28] Elizabeth Meltz: 

So that's really interesting. 

[00:45:30] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, I feel like there's, there's also a fourth, which is like deflecting because you, I don't know why we do it, but you know, when someone gives you a compliment and you're like, no, no, no, no.

[00:45:41] 

Like that happens so often. I do that all the time, but like, why don't you? 

[00:45:44] Elizabeth Meltz: 

It’s so funny. I have, we did this exercise in third grade where we sat at a desk and you had to turn to the person at the desk behind you and give them a compliment and they had to accept it. So it was just like, your sweater is pretty.

[00:45:55] 

Thank you. And then you turned around, but I will never forget it because, you know, you're always, Oh, this thing I just, you know, I found it in the back of my closet. Right. We just can't. 

[00:46:03] Josh Sharkey: 

It's for some reason. 

[00:46:04] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Feedback. I feel like that. Yeah. 

[00:46:05] Josh Sharkey: 

Well, it's yeah. I mean, it's positive feedback. It's a compliment. But like, so often for some reason, humans are really like, Challenged with just saying thank you to feedback.

[00:46:14] Elizabeth Meltz: 

And it's into, I mean, I don't think, to a certain extent, it's dismissive to the compliment giver who's like, 

[00:46:19] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, exactly. No, exactly. You're, you're, you're, you're dismissing them by, by doing it. 

[00:46:24] Elizabeth Meltz: 

There's also like, You're Not Listening, which is another great book. Why Won't You Just Apologize? A lot of these are like mediation, sort of like how you hear people and Radical Candor is also another one that I love.

[00:46:34] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:46:35] Josh Sharkey: 

I mean, that's a great one. How often do you, do you read? Are you an avid reader? 

[00:46:39] Elizabeth Meltz: 

I'm a pretty avid reader. I, it's funny, you sound like you read a lot of these kind of books. I also, like I just read The Endurance, which is about Shackleton's voyage in Antarctica. Have you read that? 

[00:46:51] Josh Sharkey: 

No. 

[00:46:51] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Fascinating.

[00:46:52] Josh Sharkey: 

You're going to have to remember to ask me about these. 

[00:46:54] Elizabeth Meltz: 

And before that I read Five Days at Memorial, which is a book about a New Orleans hospital during Katrina. Yeah. And. sort of the decisions that doctors had to make as far as like, you know, you have no water, no power, no sewage. The heliport is, you know, three flights down and four flights up, and you have to carry them all by hand, sometimes pumping oxygen manually.

[00:47:16] 

How do you decide how to prior, how to triage? Who gets to go first? And sort of decisions that were made, you know, that were the best. they thought were the best of the time and sort of the fallout from that is fascinating. 

[00:47:28] Josh Sharkey: 

You know, I love history books for that reason, just because there's so much we can learn.

[00:47:32] 

I mean, I do love like all of the, I mean, there's hundreds of these like, you know, business or philosophy books or stoicism, but like, but I read mostly like, History, or historical fiction. Yes. So right now You should read those two. Yeah, I will. I just got done reading Isaacson's book on Elon for the third time, and now I'm reading Isaacson's book on Ben Franklin, which is a really, really great one.

[00:47:55] Josh Sharkey: 

I like to reread books a lot. I do not. So for some reason, like I reread, I read Sid Hartha every year. 

[00:48:00] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Oh, that's a good one to reread. 

[00:48:02] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, in Genghis Khan I try to read. I think it's partly because I'm terrible at remembering things. Yeah. I get so mad, like, I'll read a book and like, what was the thing that the 

[00:48:10] Elizabeth Meltz: 

And I think that's because of phones. I think we have no short term memory anymore. 

[00:48:14] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, I, I actually, there's a, this, I actually don't have her on the, on the show, I think, this woman who teaches, she actually teaches the LSATs, how to take the LSATs, but really what she's teaching is how to remember things. Yeah. And so much of the art of memory and learning is not like actually memorizing, but the state of our brain at that time.

[00:48:34] 

Yeah. So like the intonation of how we say something and the energy that we have when we're saying it. Yep. And so I'm trying to like deploy that into, into, into reading now. So I'll like read. Uh, a paragraph or a, a chapter and then recite back what I, like my sort of extrapolation of what I think it meant.

[00:48:51] 

And I'll say it. 

[00:48:52] Elizabeth Meltz: 

You have two young children. When are you doing all this? 

[00:48:54] Josh Sharkey: 

At night. Well, the only way I go to bed at night, I can't fall asleep unless I, while I'm reading. Now I bought a Kindle last year cause I was, I had a book light. My wife's like, dude, turn off that fucking light. So now I have a Kindle, which is great because I can just, you know, I'll have another idea for a book and just add it to the Kindle, you know.

[00:49:11] Elizabeth Meltz: 

I like the feel of turning the pages.  

[00:49:13] Josh Sharkey: 

I do too. But at night, I can't really, you know, I can't really like do it. So I'm going to ask you for those, for those books before we. 

[00:49:20] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Yeah, absolutely. 

[00:49:22] Josh Sharkey: 

So we talked a lot about some of the things that you're doing at EM PATH with facilitation, mediation, the disc assessment, things like that.

[00:49:29] 

Are there things just in terms of being accretive to the audience here of restaurant operators? Like, are there, are there things that you can think of that just you could, you know, Talk about or recommend that immediately would have an impact for leaders on ways they can just help the have a more productive team, better culture.

[00:49:45] 

I know that there's no simple solution to any of this, but even just sort of thought, you know, thought exercises or is it just higher EM PATH? 

[00:49:56] Elizabeth Meltz: 

I mean, it. The founder has to come to the table with a want, you know, like some of the, the founder tips are like, have the founder have as few direct reports as possible.

[00:50:06] 

That usually is, you know, do you have a lot of direct reports? Too many, way too many.

[00:50:10] Josh Sharkey: 

I'm trying to solve that. 

[00:50:11] Elizabeth Meltz: 

You know, have really clear, I hate to say really clear job descriptions because then people go down the road, the like rabbit hole of like these extremely detailed. So less job descriptions so much as like roles and responsibilities clear about what, what lane swim lanes as my friend, Jackie, who was an amazing HR consultant, if anybody needs anybody, but you know, she calls them swim lanes.

[00:50:32] 

Like this is your, 

[00:50:34] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. 

[00:50:35] Elizabeth Meltz: 

That can help, but it really, and this is the other thing I say, which I think is one of the things that makes it hard for me to market what I do, is I don't know what the problems are until I get in. Right, I can go in and be like, you're, clearly communication is your issue, and then you get in there and it's like, no, we have too many fucking meetings.

[00:50:51] 

Like, I'm overwhelmed, right? Also, sometimes you hear that, then you do a meeting audit, which is another thing I'll do, and they don't have that many meetings. Yeah. But there's a f feeling like they're overwhelmed. So what's right? It's, yeah, it's particular. Yeah. 

[00:51:03] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. Like thinking that 

[00:51:06] Elizabeth Meltz: 

particular to the company.

[00:51:07] Josh Sharkey: 

Have you ever heard of the, the a method of hiring? I started deploying this like a year ago and it like changed so much of how I think about hiring. And it reminded me of that because basically the way you. Typically hire is, you know, here's the job description and let's go find people that have experience doing that.

[00:51:24] 

And then who feels the best and that's who you hire. And the A method is, I mean, it's a, it's a couple of things. One, there's, there's a number of phases to it and there's a scorecard and then there's a bit of a weighted matrix to measure sort of the score as well as other things. But the most important thing is that the way that you look at the hire is not hiring for the role that you're hiring for, but what is the specific result?

[00:51:47] 

That you're trying to achieve. Okay. And then you just have to find all of the questions that you would ask that would help you understand could that person drive that result. So let's just say that they're, it's a sales leader and you wanna go from 4 million in revenue to 15 million in revenue. Yeah.

[00:52:02] 

That's their job. Like, that's what you're hiring for. Yes. Not are you, you know, like there's obviously all the soft skills and things that you have to, you have to hire for, but like, how do you solve for that? And how do you, you know, you know, prove that out. And then everything that you, that you ask is relative to that.

[00:52:15] 

KPI, I'm a big believer in. You know, as a great leader, you have to, you have to have very clear KPIs. Yeah. Like what does it mean to be successful and how do you measure that? Yes. Because then you can know we both have the Are you a fan of OKRs?

[00:52:25] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Yeah. Yeah. I hate OKRs. 

[00:52:28] Josh Sharkey: 

Well, so here's the thing I'll say about OKRs and I'm writing this whole piece on them because I've tried them a lot in a lot of places.

[00:52:36] 

There's a very specific time and place for an OKR. And most of the time people are not ready. OKRs are a lot like going keto. It's like if you go keto, you either have to be 100% 

[00:52:50] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Yeah. 

[00:52:50] Josh Sharkey: 

You know, on a keto diet because you can't be in between No. 

[00:52:53] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Otherwise you’re just eating heavy cream. Yeah. You go acid, you know, 

[00:52:55] Josh Sharkey: 

ketoacidosis and it's, it's danger.

[00:52:56] 

It's actually really dangerous. You know, it's either you have to be like, I'm going to be a hundred percent keto or not. Okay. Ours are very similar. 

[00:53:02]

One, you have to be in a place of the business where you can very clearly define what is the objective. Yes. Because it's very dangerous if you define something and you actually don't, you're, you could pivot.

[00:53:13] 

Yes. In any minute. And that might be okay. And you don't want to, you know, prescribe something that's, you know, going to be somewhat waterfall. Agreed. And obviously you have to have enough, like, Systems in place and leadership that actually people can, you know, have a sort of a, you know, a top down. Yes.

[00:53:30] 

Most of the time it's failed, but, you know, we've now tried, we're on our, on our third run at meez and I did a bunch prior at, you know, at other companies. And I find that the most important thing outside of like the number one thing is you have to choose the right objective. And that's basically everything.

[00:53:48] 

How you prepare for how you'll actually operate as a company to manage the process of OKRs is the most important thing outside of that. How are we going to, Culturally every day, every week, you know, relate to these 

[00:54:02] Elizabeth Meltz: 

and not get distracted and not get distracted. 

[00:54:03] Josh Sharkey: 

But the beauty of them is it drives so much focus.

[00:54:06] 

Yes. You know, my team gets so excited once we, you know, we, we do it, you know, every six months, so we don't do a quarterly when we do it every six months. And we sort of go into a hole for a while to plan it out. We'll do a SWOT analysis and then use that SWOT analysis to understand like, okay. Of the, you know, we'll do a stack ranking of like, what are the most important strengths or weaknesses or opportunities.

[00:54:27] 

And then from that, we will sort of decide what is the, okay. What is our objective for the next six months? And the great thing about it is that everybody knows this is what we're doing, but more importantly, we're not doing anything else except for that. 

[00:54:39] Elizabeth Meltz: 

But that's the, that's where people fail, I think.

[00:54:42] 

They're like, well, this is what we're doing, but we also have to do all these other things. And it just, it's like scope creep. 

[00:54:46] Josh Sharkey: 

And exactly. And that's, yeah, that's where it always fails. And if you don't have some agreement and process of how you're going to make sure that that doesn't happen. 

[00:54:54] Elizabeth Meltz: 

I think that comes from the founder.

[00:54:56] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:54:57] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Or the CEO, I should say. Yeah. 

[00:54:59] Josh Sharkey: 

Yes. Yeah. A hundred percent. And it, you know, so I, I mean, like most founders, I'm always thinking, I always have ideas. I always have things I want to, but now I've, I've had to create systems for the team knowing to call me out and say, Hey, wait a second, that's not part of it.

[00:55:16] 

But I do more now as I sort of, I have a sort of on the side, I have 20 percent of my work that is future thinking things. Cause that's the other danger of OKRs is OKRs are great, but they can't be the only thing at all times because if someone isn't thinking about five years from now, Especially in technology, you're, you know, you're not gonna, you know, you're not going to survive.

[00:55:40] 

I love them, but they are incredibly difficult to do well. Sometimes it's like, yeah, it's like, there is this sort of question, is the juice worth the squeeze? Because it's so much work for, but I think if you get it right, it's good, but most of the time it's not. No. So you mentioned a whole bunch of books.

[00:55:55] 

You mentioned a couple, like a couple frameworks. Is there, before we move on, because I want to ask you about women in hospitality, because I don't, I couldn't find any information on it. 

[00:56:03] Elizabeth Meltz: 

I did, actually.

[00:56:04] Josh Sharkey: 

I mean I went to the website, I saw, but I wanted to learn a little bit more. 

[00:56:07] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Well, there's a reason for that, which I'll tell you.

[00:56:09] Josh Sharkey: 

Before we end, on like just, so I get, I get the, the premise of EM PATH and you're helping, I mean, not just restaurants, but generally, you know, mostly restaurants and, and, and generally like leadership teams. How can, like, how can people learn more and, and who would be an ideal kind of candidate to reach out to, to learn more about EM PATH?

[00:56:28] Elizabeth Meltz: 

To date, my sweet spot has been either founder, like multiple founder led organizations, so people who like came together because they had something in common, an idea, and then, you know, as so often happens, they're like, Ooh, I didn't know this about you, whatever, so helping them sort of navigate the conflict and move forward or not move forward, depending.

[00:56:47] Elizabeth Meltz: 

But in general, companies, small to mid sized companies that are scaling. So, you know, it depends on what scale means to that company. Obviously, if you're Eataly, going from one Eataly to two is like another restaurant going from five to twenty. I've always worked at companies, Tacombi, Dig, Eataly, that were in that process.

[00:57:04] 

And what you see is, as companies grow, particularly companies that are New York based and moving out of New York, although I assume it's the same if you started in Chicago, is that you, if it's founder led, the founder can walk to every location and then one day they've got a place in Miami. And so how do you keep that culture?

[00:57:20] 

How do you keep that connection when you've expanded outside of a place that you can walk to all of them? 

[00:57:26] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. 

[00:57:26] Elizabeth Meltz: 

So, you know, the answer is, Well intentioned founder CEOs or just CEOs or anybody high up who says we can be better. I can see that we're trying to do this. It's not translating. What's wrong?

[00:57:40] 

Where's the conflict? Where's the rub? How can we fix it? 

[00:57:43] Josh Sharkey: 

I love that you're sort of thinking about how do you scale as an organization. 

[00:57:47] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Well, that's where culture, that's where culture gets in danger. You know, if the five of us are just sitting in a room, like the culture is pretty healthy, even if you have a couple restaurants or a couple businesses you can walk to, but as soon as you start spreading out, I'm, you know, I'm impressed that you do it sort of virtually.

[00:58:01] 

It's hard. 

[00:58:02] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, it's really hard. When I think about it as it relates to food, we have, there's very similar challenges when you're trying to scale. The vision of your food, in addition to the vision of your business. Yes. There's a lot of parallels because, you know, when you start to scale, often restaurants will simplify, dumb down, you know, cookie cutter type things because it's easier because the easier thing to do is to, is to just remove some of the, you know, the things that, that were really.

[00:58:30] Elizabeth Meltz: 

The nuance that made it. Yes. 

[00:58:32] Josh Sharkey: 

And that nuance is actually what made you really special. And the great. Businesses are the ones that figure out how to scale that nuance, you know, and it's so hard, you know, but when you do it right, it's such a, it's funny. I just posted this thing from this investor, Bill Ackman, very famous hedge fund investor, and he's one of the majority investors in a bunch of restaurants, RBI group and Chipotle.

[00:58:56] 

And, you know, he said something really poignant that I was like, wow, that's, that's really smart. That, that the biggest moat in defensibility of a business in, in, in the restaurant space is if you have scale and you've been able to scale the, you know, the quality. Yeah. Because I mean, you can, I won't call out when there are restaurants that have a thousand locations and, you know, it's not the same as it was when it was one.

[00:59:21] 

Yeah. And the same thing is with culture, you know, it's, it's really, really hard. Yes. 

[00:59:24] Elizabeth Meltz: 

And I, I mean, to a certain extent, I blame some venture capitalists for that, right? They invest, they want their money back, they want to sell. And so the, whoever came up with the idea is now forced to grow, grow, grow, right?

[00:59:35] 

You dilute the brand as you expand. 

[00:59:37] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. Well, that's why you're here. Okay. So women in hospitality united. 

[00:59:42] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Yes. 

[00:59:43] Josh Sharkey: 

Did you start this thing?

[00:59:43] Elizabeth Meltz: 

So, you know, in keeping with the sort of people focused, restorative justice, whatever, in 2018, when I was working for Mario, who I worked for for 11 years, and, you know, the shit hit the fan, and it became very evident that he had assaulted, well, at the time, actually, I didn't know that, that it was, full fledged assault, but, and I thought, God, you know, I've been working for this guy 11 years, and I wouldn't say the whole time, but in the last five years, my corporate role, I worked pretty closely with him, and I thought, you know, was I a victim?

[01:00:16] 

Was I, was I a, an aid to a perpetrator? Did being a woman so close to somebody who was behaving this way, did it, did it make other people feel like, oh, he must be safe and sort of allow him to, and I just, I was like, I can't be the only one who feels this way. So I sent out an email, at the time, Time's Up was a big thing in Hollywood.

[01:00:34]

And I said, what does Time's Up look like for women in hospitality? And about 45 of us got together at Haven's Kitchen and it was kind of a shit show, right? Like, you had people in there who were like, 

[01:00:49] Josh Sharkey: 

Oh my God, I remember hearing about this, the Haven's Kitchen. 

[01:00:51] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Yeah. And some people were like, I've hung out with Mario a thousand times.

[01:00:54] 

If you don't know how to, like, avoid. being grabbed, that's your problem. And some people were like, I'm really fucking traumatized because my entire life has been crying in the walk in because somebody, et cetera, et cetera. And at the time I was like, well, that was, Whoa, and a friend of mine said, let's just do a couple more and see.

[01:01:10] 

And so we, we honed in and I think the second one we tried to bring some good intent, some well intentioned men into the mix and the verdict from that was like, no, no, no, not yet. And then after that, it was like, it developed some themes and we did, you know, poor guys. They were great, but it just was like, we were like, you know, you don't belong yet, which goes back to Priya Parker and sort of having an idea of what, and then a lot of It's so funny.

[01:01:33] Josh Sharkey: 

Kerry Diamond recommended the same book. 

[01:01:35] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Oh, yeah. That makes sense. 

[01:01:37] Josh Sharkey: 

What was it called? The Art of Gathering. The Art of Gathering. Yeah. Anyways. 

[01:01:40] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Oh my God, I remember she's just That makes sense, right? And a lot of it was facilitation, like throwing a bunch of post its up at the wall and sort of getting what people thought was an issue in the industry.

[01:01:48] 

Anyway, after like four or five of these meetings, I was like, okay, Oh, actually we said, we're going to do a solution sprint, which is, yeah, I'm sure, you know, like a design sprint or whatever, but we're going to sort of, we're going to pull the community, ask them for what they think the problems are, assemble teams around it, and then hack those problems, you know, and everybody said, great, and what about the organization?

[01:02:09] 

And I was like, What organization? Well, like Women in Hospitality, this group that's been meeting over and over again. So we sort of accidentally, my co founder Liz Murray and originally Erin Fairbanks, who has moved on sort of out of hospitality, but we ended up founding a non profit. And so we did, we did a listening tour.

[01:02:25] 

We did a lot of meetups. So there's sort of spaces to facilitate conversation. We did another series of sprints. And then the pandemic happened. And I think some of us were willing to. throw in the towel, just, you know. And Liz actually said, you know what, nobody's doing anything right now, let's just give it a minute.

[01:02:43] 

And during the pandemic, as had it happened before, but more than ever, all these other women's organizations in the space were reaching out. JBF, James Beard Foundation, Le Dame, you know, Chad Project, like, it just was incredible. And they were like, how do we do this so that we're not duplicating work? So we're not siloed, but we're not cannibalizing, like, why am I working on a mentorship program when James Beard has mentorship on lock?

[01:03:06] 

And so from there we created, which is, which is launching this year, More Coalition, Movement to Organize Restaurant Equity, founded by James Beard Foundation, regarding her, which is an organization out of L.A., and Women in Hospitality, which will now be the founding, will be more, Women in Hospitality, was born of an idea of gathering all these things together, and so now we don't need us anymore.

[01:03:28] 

Our first members include Chad, Drive Change, you know, sort of for the workforce development part, Southern Smoke, it's It's been pretty incredible and and the idea is as long as you are working to make a more sustainable and not in the like You know, green. 

[01:03:44] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, I got you. 

[01:03:45] Elizabeth Meltz: 

But, you know, an industry that works for everybody, it doesn't matter sort of how you're doing it.

[01:03:49] Elizabeth Meltz: 

It's based on the model of ACT UP, which was to deal with the AIDS crisis. And if you're M.O. was to handcuff yourself to the building and that was working to solve the AIDS crisis, or yours was to go to Washington and advocate for policy, as long as we're all working towards the same thing. It's a, you know, a rising tide lifting all boats.

[01:04:06] 

So part of the reason you can't probably can't find it is it's really morphing into this other thing that is going to be a coalition of organizations. 

[01:04:13] Josh Sharkey: 

That's great. And is it like a Will it become like a parent company of a bunch of these things? 

[01:04:19] Elizabeth Meltz: 

It itself will just serve to bring these organizations together and move towards, right?

[01:04:24] 

Sharing resources, right? That's the other thing is you're like, I can't believe so and so is doing that. I had no idea. I wouldn't have spent all this time or, or geographically speaking, like somebody's doing something really well in New York. Well, who's doing it in Texas where they need that same thing and sort of how you've, how we can all un silo.

[01:04:39] Josh Sharkey: 

I love that. Well, We're gonna move on from that because I asked you something before that I was just very curious about, which was prepping for a TED Talk, which you did, I don't know when that TED Talk was. How many years ago was it? 

[01:04:51] Elizabeth Meltz: 

2010 maybe? Okay, so, you know. 14 years ago?

[01:04:55] 

Yes. 

[01:04:56] Josh Sharkey: 

13 years ago. How Did you come about doing a TED Talk and how did you prep for it?

[01:05:01] 

And how did it, like, how did it feel? What did it feel to do a TED Talk? 

[01:05:04] Elizabeth Meltz: 

I didn't know, I don't know if TED was a big thing back then, but I definitely had no idea what I was getting into. I just, it seemed like a bunch of keynote speakers, and like, I don't know, they were like, you have ten minutes, and then I got there and like, real legit people were, and I was like, eh.

[01:05:18] 

John Frazier was tapped to be the speaker because Meatless Monday was one of the sponsors and they were interested in just sort of at least representing that part and he had to drop out. He, I don't, I tell everybody this story. I've never, I don't think I've actually met him. I'm like, thank you, John Frazier, wherever you are, if I ever meet you.

[01:05:35] 

And they, so they called me, they called Mario and Mario was like, well, this will do it. And I had just offered you. I had no idea what I was getting into. I put together like literally a bunch of PowerPoint slides. White background with like boxes and text and like I mean if you've seen it I end with a picture of my dog because I was like she's listened to me practice this whole time And it's funny because the, the person running it after it was all over said, when I got your slides, I was like, we've really, we messed up.

[01:06:04] 

Oh, she said that to you? Yes, yeah, yeah. She was like, she was like, I mean, the slides were literally like a 13 year old that made them. I didn't, I was youngish in my career. I really didn't know what I was getting into. People have like animation. One of the guys was a doctor, like it was, and I, and I, I think I was just too naive to know.

[01:06:22] 

I don't think I even really registered. But I, I think the personality and sort of the vulnerability and authenticity carried it through and it was a success, but to this day I haven't watched it, I can't stand the sound of my own voice. Oh my gosh. I used to say on an answering machine we don't say that anymore.

[01:06:36] 

Yeah. Nobody knows what that is. 

[01:06:38] Josh Sharkey: 

That's so funny. You know, I actually just remembered, I had a similar thing happen to me. I used to own this, these restaurants called Bark, Bark Hot Dogs, and it was in Brooklyn in a minute. And we catered this event called the Brooklyn Tech something, I forget what it was.

[01:06:53] 

And it was like 300 some odd people in this like, someplace in Brooklyn. And we catered the thing and they said, Oh, can you come talk about starting a business in Brooklyn as well as part of the event. It's like, sure. And so we, like, I was actually cooking the food, you know, in the restaurant and then came there and I was like, I'll just come up and, and talk and off the cuff.

[01:07:10] 

Yeah. And they're like, here, you know, you stand, you, you know, come over here, you'll be, you'll be next. And I was like, who's, who's talking? And it, this 300 some odd people, it was more than that. I was like, it was at, it was at least 300, you know, some odd people in this, in this room. And Jony Ive was talking.

[01:07:25] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Exactly. 

[01:07:26] Josh Sharkey: 

The des like the, you know, the lead designer of Apple was there talking about design and ux. Thank god I didn't even know. What I couldn't, I didn't, it didn't register until right as I was, as he was done, cause I wasn't really paying attention, I was talking to my team and then he was finishing up and he's like, thank you very much.

[01:07:44] 

And there was all these questions. And then I got up there. I had nothing. I was just going to talk. So I got up there and I was like, Jony Ive , huh? Let's give it up for Jony Ive. Yes. And, but I ended up just sort of just talking, telling my story and it was fine and because it was so different from what, from what they had, but sometimes it's better to just not be prepared.

[01:08:03] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Yeah. I think I would have been way, I mean, I was nervous, but I, that's just because it was public speaking. But I think if I had realized what I was actually getting into, it would It probably would've, I don't know if I would've tanked, but it would've been really stressful. 

[01:08:14] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, well I hope you do another TED Talk.

[01:08:16] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Well, are they still a thing? Do people still do them? Yeah, 

[01:08:19] Josh Sharkey: 

I think so. I just saw, I mean, I don't know, I think it was last year, Gadara did a TED Talk. So, yeah, I think so. Okay, how are you different today from five years ago? I think about this a lot because I'm, I always, I had this other premise, it's like on my wall as well, I have a lot of things in my office, just as reminders, and if I'm not embarrassed by things that I did five years ago, then I feel like I haven't grown enough.

[01:08:49] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Yes. 

[01:08:49] Josh Sharkey: 

I'm curious how you feel like you've changed or grown. 

[01:08:52] Elizabeth Meltz: 

It’s funny because as we talked about before, there, there was, I knew something about you that I had already decided that that was a person, however many years ago, which you can cut out if you want. But I feel very strongly that if we hold people accountable for the person, you know, people will call me for a reference for somebody that worked at Eataly.

[01:09:09] 

I'm like, I haven't worked with that person in 15 years. 

[01:09:11] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. 

[01:09:11] Elizabeth Meltz: 

If they are still that same person, like it would not be fair for me to make any, unless they were exceptional at the time, but some of us were immature. I mean, five years. Jeez.

[01:09:22] Josh Sharkey: 

Are there tangible things that are, you know, objectively different about you 

today than five years ago?

[01:09:28] Elizabeth Meltz: 

I mean, how deep do you want to go? Let's do it. I work a lot on, I'm what my therapist would call hypervigilant. I'm constantly assessing and gathering data, which actually makes me very good at what I do. But I'm, I'm constantly assessing, like, am I safe or not? And, and as you, I'm sure you know from sounds like from your reading, like, Um, The amygdala hijacks you and then all of a sudden you're, and so I'm really, and I, I have that response to things that now I say to myself, are you unsafe?

[01:09:56] 

Somebody might be mad at you, doesn't mean you're unsafe, right? So really a lot of like work on, on just instead of being a little bit paranoid and hypervigilant and then, and then that's a little bit where the mediation, I do a little bit of triangulation and like, well maybe Emily knows if Josh is mad at me, so I'll just check in with Emily.

[01:10:14] 

I am like, it's a very, it's. It's not intentional, but it's very strategic. And so I've really worked on like, why are you asking Emily that question? Or why is your brain telling you that you're in danger? 

[01:10:26] Josh Sharkey: 

And yeah, we suffer far more in imagination than in reality. 

[01:10:30] Elizabeth Meltz: 

But your body responds to that imagination anyway.

[01:10:33] 

And so I'm sure you've like, there's a lot of somatic responses that happen that convinced me that like, And, and so I really work a lot on, like, 

[01:10:40] Josh Sharkey: 

What do you think that comes from, that, that feeling of being? 

[01:10:43] Elizabeth Meltz: 

I don't know. I'm, we can ask my therapist. I think, I, I don't know. 

[01:10:49] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm sure there's a, there's a combination of a bunch of things.

[01:10:52] 

Yes. I have a similar, similar, more like, you know, I'm constantly thinking that everything will crumble. Yep. I have a feeling it's probably because my childhood, my father passed away when I was very young. Oh, I'm sorry. I mean, 20 some odd years ago. But, but, um, you know, if we're trying to process why, why we do these things and 

[01:11:08] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Catastrophizing a little bit.

[01:11:10] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. And it is that thing of like, oh yeah, things are not right and I need to find out why. And it's so hard to say, you know what? 

[01:11:17] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Yeah. I mean, that being said also, and I joke about this with some of my friends, a lot of us got into hospitality to like, Get drunk and make bad decisions, like, I've, you know, I've definitely, like you said, done some things that I'm either embarrassed about, whatever, I think, I certainly still make mistakes, but some of the more egregious sort of embarrassing things, I think, are behind me.

[01:11:35] Josh Sharkey: 

That's good. 

[01:11:35] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Yeah. 

[01:11:35] Josh Sharkey: 

I hope the same. I hope the same. Yeah. 

[01:11:38] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Sounds like it. 

[01:11:39] Josh Sharkey: 

This is great. 

[01:11:40] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Yeah. This is lovely. 

[01:11:41] Josh Sharkey: 

Thank you so much.

[01:11:42] Elizabeth Meltz:  

Except for the microphone. It felt like we were just having a chat. 

[01:11:43] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. I know. You know what? I love hearing that. Yeah. I hope we get more often. That's hopefully the point, though.

[01:11:48] Josh Sharkey: 

Thank you for coming. 

[01:11:49] Elizabeth Meltz: 

Thanks for having me. 

[01:11:52] Josh Sharkey: 

Thanks for tuning into The meez Podcast. The music from the show is a remix of the song Art Mirror by an old friend, hip hop artist, Fresh Daily. For show notes and more, visit getmee's. com forward slash podcast. That's G E T M E E Z dot com forward slash podcast.

[01:12:09] 

If you enjoyed the show, I'd love it if you can share it with fellow entrepreneurs and culinary pros, and give us a five star rating wherever you listen to your podcasts. Keep innovating, don't settle, make today a little bit better than yesterday, and remember, it's impossible for us to learn what we think we already know.

[01:12:23] 

See you next time.