Can a bartender be an example for innovation

[Music]

i’m a very curious person by nature

and so we are when we’re kids and being

curious i observe a lot

and observing i think a lot

i think because i analyze

and if you take a bit further

i think about ourselves i think about

how we behave

what we do and why we do that and lately

i start to think about

how we live through whatever you do

about six years ago i was having a

business conversation with a partner

and it was very difficult for him to

understand what i want from him

so i had a piece of paper in my hand

and i asked him to perform something for

me

and now i would like you to ask you the

same thing grab the paper

fold it into and tear it for me

this experiment i have been doing for

the last five years from mexico city

to novosibirks and to be honest with you

i have done

pretty much around 8 000 people now

looking around i’m sure we’re over 8

000 people do you mind showing me how

you tore the paper in two

has anyone did a bit different than i

have done

there you go one rinse so

why is this important let’s talk about

the numbers

8 000 people it’s a fairly big number if

you take into the consideration

that a psychological experiment having

thousand five to two thousand people

it’s already a big number i have done

with more than eight 000 people

i haven’t noted down every single one of

them

therefore i cannot give you an exact

pattern of how do we behave in this case

but i can tell you that 90 percent of

the people have stole the paper

exactly as i did in two

there were that’s seven to eight percent

who has done something extremely

uh different which store the people

randomly into

they were about one to 1.5 percent of

the people

who have been hesitant to perform but

not looking into the eye

into the eyes they have followed what

they wanted

and they were only like one to 0.5

people who stopped and they asked me

zolly

how would you like me to throw these

people into

in the servicing industry service

experiment

and i work in the servicing industry if

you look at the sheer number of the bars

in the world

in 2008 we had around two million

out of these three million people two

million bars we decided to open

our own place called boutique bar

boutique

it was one of its kind at least in our

heads

one of its kind because we knew we’re

going to do something different here

we knew we’re going to be different but

why is that why is the difference why we

thought we were different

the difference between us and the rest

it’s hardly notable we have a lot of

spirits in the bar

we have a lot of own recipes we have a

lot of recipes taken from others

so it doesn’t make that big difference

but still the difference was there it

was so powerful what we did

on those four years that in 2012 we have

been elected in the world’s

50 best bar being one of the best in the

50s

so what happens there what was our

secret you may wonder

our secret is very simple attention and

being in now

not many of you know but fairly lot

no worries that i’ve been born in

transylvania my family moved over to

hungary in 1990 with two suitcases

that fact hasn’t striked me till i read

the first article

that actually wrote down that we moved

over

in 1994 i decided to go to university

being in university my family didn’t

have too much money

so i had to work and i chose to work in

in in a catering industry because i

wanted to job with no responsibility and

i wanted to be flexible

this thing has moved me forward to

barcelona

and to london i lived and worked in

barcelona and london as well

in these two places they started to

unknowingly reform my thinking

of the whole catering business they

started to teach me

how to sell

issues important in our case yes if i

would ask you something

let’s suppose we grab one of the product

of

a balance a bar a cocktail how much

does adapt in over experience a cocktail

in percentage

anyone i would say 10 percent

yes a cocktail would add up only ten

percent in other experience that you

experience in the bar

restaurant uh or whichever place you

decide to go

so what is the 90 i may ask you

the 90s percent it’s something

that we perform every single day the 90

is what we put around the product

in our own place in boutique

we do perform a system a system

that every single person starts to work

with us has to go through

it’s nothing new it has been done before

it has been used by many others

it’s called the apprentice system in our

case everyone who starts to work with

that it has to go through this one year

more or less depends on the quality of

the person in this one year

they have to learn everything about the

bar they’re not allowed to talk to

customers

unless they would say my colleague would

go in a second

what they do throughout this one year

they learn

the drinks they dream learn the spirits

they learn techniques

they learn how to talk they learn how to

behave and they learn many other things

that would add up to the thing that we

call

90 percent when

they start to work with us we ask one

questions

are you prepared to work with us

they say yes so we offer them a certain

amount of money for the effort

and their time and then we ask another

question what is that you would bring

into our system what is that you would

give to us

and obviously everyone’s surprised but

they give a lot

like i said they give time they give

they give us

they fail they give out this their

knowledge

they give us everything sweats tears

everything

that would incorporate in that one year

to become a bartender

now if you think about this

in this time throughout the covet

throughout the pandemia

that’s a lot to put together a team a

team

that is in many cases fragile

it takes a lot of time so

would you you might ask me are you still

with your team

and i would say yes there was no

question whatsoever in our case

that we want to have the team together

we want to sacrifice to them

because they have been sacrificing

sacrificing for us so we want them

to be around us there was out of

question that’ll let anyone go

throughout this whole time for us is

still important to grow

for us it’s really important to learn

for us is still important to develop

as a professional and as a human as well

i would like to ask you another thing do

you still have the piece of paper that i

gave you before

do you mind if i ask you to tear in two

pieces

is there any question thank you very

much

i would like you to remember one thing

no matter what you do and no matter what

you have

the most important thing is how you make

other feel

because that they would remember and

also

if you fold and if you see a piece of

paper of someone else

make sure that you use all your

knowledge and all your experience

in order to perform the job well thank

you very much

you