WHY do restaurants have white tablecloths?
My favorite way of getting from point A to B in the city is walking if the point B can be reached in 30 minutes. I like to use this time for self-reflection and education. My recent discovery of how to entertain myself during these up to 30 minutes is podcasts. And my favorite one — surprise, surprise — is The Tim Ferris Show. There is one particular episode I would like to share here with you because it has strengthened my belief that asking WHY is the key. Also in marketing.
This one episode I would like to refer to is the conversation between Tim Ferris and Nick Kokonas. Nick is the co-owner and co-founder of The Alinea Group of restaurants, which includes Alinea — named the Best Restaurant in America and Best Restaurant in The World by different organizations and lists. He is also the founder and CEO of Tock, Inc - a reservations and CRM system for restaurants with more than 2.5M diners and clients in more than 20 countries. Successful guy huh?
“If you’re taught in 1992, if I went and got an MBA, I would’ve been taught a certain kind of management that six years later with the internet would’ve gotten blown up. So, for me, I always ask the why question. I just look at some things and go, “Why is that? Why does it work that way?” Oftentimes, the people most entrenched in a system have no idea why. They’re like the third or fourth generation of a person within that system and they have no idea why a school bell rings in the morning, for example. Or why a bartender is washing the dishes. Often, I don’t know the real answer, but I come up with alternative ones at least that suit my narrative, I guess.”
If you are a CEO, you can’t be an expert in every field you need to take care of inside the company. Even if you have been studying a specific field several years ago, things must have changed dramatically. This is what happens in nearly every field nowadays. And if you are a CEO, you should be a manager of the team in the first place and not an expert in marketing, for example. What you as a company leader can do instead is to ask WHY to people inside and outside the company.
“We wanted to rethink the why again of everything. “Why do you put a candle on a table? Why is a candle romantic?” That’s a question we asked. “Why do we need candles? Why is that romantic? Why do people put a little bud vase on the table? Why shouldn’t that be an edible thing? That’d be cool.”
Asking WHY is one of the most effective ways to come up with the solutions you have never thought off. And I think it is also a way to open up unbiased creativity inside your team when there is no wrong answer possible, there are just ideas. Also, WHY can lead you to the truth. And if the truth is recognized early enough you can avoid mistakes in the future that can cost your company a huge amount of money.
“Well why do fancy restaurants have white tablecloths? They literally call it a white tablecloth restaurant if it’s fancy. Why?” I couldn’t really — I came up with dumb answers. “It feels good. It absorbs a spill,” or whatever it may be. He said, “No, it’s because the table underneath is a piece of shit.” He goes, “And you know that. As soon as you say it, everyone goes, ‘Oh, yeah, I knew that.’ You’ve been at weddings and stuff where you feel under the table and you’re like, ‘Oh, it’s plywood.’ But if you go to a really fancy restaurant and you feel under the table, guess what? Also plywood, just a little thicker.”
WHY can lead you to the truth. And if the truth is recognized early enough you can avoid mistakes in the future that can save your company a huge amount of money.
