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