13. The Algorithm of Happiness with Joey Gibbons

Joey Gibbons is on a mission to make people happy. As CEO of Gibbons Whistler, happiness has been core to his hospitality company persisting through the pandemic. Hear Joey’s algorithm for happiness and how it can be a game-changer in any industry.

Transcript

David Morris  00:09

Welcome to season two of the HiPER Leadership Podcast. I am your host David Morris, CEO and founder of HiPER Solutions. At HiPER Solutions, our mission is to bring positive change to the world. Leaders today are faced with unprecedented change, and yet even the best leaders have had to toss out their traditional playbook and think outside the box. Our intent with the HiPER Leadership Podcast is to share best practices so that you, our listeners, can gain some actionable and practical approaches to your next big-bet endeavor. Today, my guest is Joey Gibbons, CEO of Gibbons Whistler, the Gibbons brand is synonymous with Whistler, and now encompasses multiple iconic bars, a festivals and events division, a craft brewery and distillery, and most recently, an experiential travel company, aptly named Gibbons Life. And thanks for joining, Joey, when you and I originally met, was it at YPO in Singapore?

Joey Gibbons  01:10

Yeah, that's right. We were in Singapore YPO. And you spoke about your process in various leaders and I was interested in and filled out that form because I think at the time, I was struggling with who I was as a leader, and how I could do a better job connecting with what I was thinking to what I wanted to have happen, at a stage in my career where I was trying to understand type of people that I could work with to get what I had going on inside my mind to become a reality. And you touched on a few of those pieces in your presentation, which was what attracted me to connect with you.

David Morris  01:51

Well, I'm glad you did. And what was really fascinating Joey, as we had multiple discussions, and you went through our insight tool, was really seeing this motivation around adventure, novelty, and newness. It also can tend to have a lot of creativity and almost work of an independent agent. What I was so intrigued by is: you had all these ideas, you had different ventures, some of which were unrelated, but ultimately, how that ultimately leads to transformation. I want to zero in on the last couple months. We are months into the pandemic. And here you are running bars, festivals, restaurants, many in your shoes would have just asked for government money and help, but you leaned in and what you've done is remarkable. Can you help the audience understand what really happened over the last month or two and culminating in a week where your profits were higher than a week last year? How does that happen, Joey?

Joey Gibbons  02:56

Yeah, no, I think it's, um, you know, been through a few of these downturns now, in my career, the first one in ‘01 and another one in '08 and now this one. And I think for me, what I find is when the organization starts to go and starts to grow, we got up to close to 600-700 people, and we had 21 different business entities, you know, it just starts to go and it creates a life of its own. So, I find that when all of a sudden, the business was able to pause, and I was essentially the only employee in early March, because everything we were shut down here in British Columbia and Canada, we were shut right down. And so, it was an opportunity for me to really dive in and, you know, take control of being able to digitalize the business that mean that I had wanted to do for a long time, but everything was moving so fast all the time, I didn't know how to stop it and implement that, that shift and that change. So just getting the space to be able to, to do that. And then and then really start working with each of our leaders. And just, yeah, I think going at things with much more intention, we always, you know, always think business is pretty simple, you create a clear goal or an outcome, a North Star, and then develop some process working backwards to achieving that and then connect with the right people who are committed each day and you know, set a few objectives each day that are going to put you in the best chance to fulfill that process and achieve that goal. So, we just put some, some goals in place and, you know, really brought things back to the basics, from when I threw my first parties in high school and really just around, you know, again, our core purpose is making people happy. So, we just got, we just dove right in and looked to measure our team's happiness and guest happiness in real time. And just we knew that if we focused on day one on, really the team's mental strength, you know, just as long as their mental happiness was in a good position and their physical well-being was in a good position, again, not knowing at that time how COVID was gonna impact us. And then, also, we're there for them financially, letting them understand that we're there, we're not going to let any of them down. And I think just by staying connected with them through a real uncertainty, on a one-by-one basis, I didn't allow for any blanket communication, because I recognize that each one of those 700 people just had a different perspective of what this pandemic was, and a different level of fear and different level of uncertainty, so we took an individualized approach, which really, we want to do to all of our guests now as well, going forward. So, I think by doing that, we gained a lot of really nice connections with each person, and over a couple of months, and, you know, we promised them that we would open up right away and as soon as we could, and we're gonna be the safest at doing it and be the example for others to follow. And we were able to do that, and we've attracted a lot of people and we're the first to get everybody back to work, fully paid, get all their bonuses paid back and get them back on a bonus program already, while other people are still trying to figure out how to open their door. So, it's, I think, just getting back to the basics and, you know, in our business, in hospitality, which is really serving people on the guest side and on the team member side. And just really listening and, and obsessing around people's happiness and having good days. Pretty easy then for the revenue, happiness and profitability, happiness to fall into place.

David Morris  06:20

You make it sound so simple. Yet, if we really zero in, what was the craziest idea, the craziest idea that either you or someone else came up with that you tripled down on? That allowed you to, I mean, you had half the capacity, you have half the capacity of these venues. Yet at greater profit than a year ago. Okay. What was it? Like everything you just mentioned, right that's great, we learned that in school, right? What was the thing you did that was like totally out of the box that others literally said you were nuts? 

Joey Gibbons  06:55

Well, I think immediately in March, you know, when we were ordered to shut down, I think what people thought I was nuts is that we were going to connect with every single person individually. The stuff that seems so simple when I say this was you know, there was resistance on my own team to doing that. “Really, we're going to touch base on individual level, why don't we just send a blanket email?” My guess is most people sent blanket emails. But we just took the time. So as simple as that is, I think that that was a lot of work to do that. And then every Tuesday, I just held a meeting on zoom, and allowed for people to answer or to ask questions through a survey that we have the suggestion box, and people would write their questions in. And I literally sat there on Tuesday, and we had over 100 people there on that first Tuesday, you know, asking anonymous questions that came through that were you know, mean, and it was like, you know, “This isn't all just about you and your family, Joey, like, we depend on this business as well.” And so, I just read every question truthfully, you know, and I've always been a leader who leads just through truth. And I think it's just being real and connecting with each person and letting them know that I'm scared too. Now, I don't know what this is going to bring. But I promise if we are there for each other, and we communicate with each other that you can believe me that my intention is to get things going again. And I told them, I had to think about it too, because maybe the best thing for me to do wasn't to open business again. Maybe the best thing for me to do was to just reduce what we did in the business world, but quickly found that I actually, you know, I really love what I do, and I couldn't wait to get back open again. I wasn't good pausing for too long. I don't know if, David, if it was anything. One thing I did start to do was just force myself, I kind of ignored a lot of the technology stuff over the last several years, I always thought it was just the human-to-human interactions that was most important. And so, I've learned over the last six months, how valuable using technology is to connect with people and some of the software that's out there. It's just unbelievable. A good friend of mine, actually, that has a business in a similar space to me. He said when I was asking him about some of this technology, he said, he goes “Listen, Joey, every time I hum and haw about technology, I just forced myself to do it now.” Try not to lock myself into long contracts, but just get involved, learn from it and keep going. It really improves the business.

David Morris  09:14

And of the technology. What was the thing that you think contributed most to the profit growth? Obviously, your costs were lower than a year ago. But there was something that still drove solid revenues to be up, profit-wise, week over week a year ago just curious sorta what you think the best decision was, that you made?

Joey Gibbons  09:38 

Well, probably profitability is one thing, but it was actually revenue, right? So we had, you know, part of our mandate was that we could, each of our venues, each of our, you know, restaurants and bars, and even nightclubs. I mean, most people haven't opened the nightclub, but we decided to open them and just figure out how to open them following the health authority’s best practices, so we had to convert dance bars into sports bars, for instance. And instead of putting 50 people in an area, there would be six in a small area. And we just had to figure out how to give the guest something, you know, an experience within that area that they would, first of all be safe and our teams would be safe, our guests would be safe. Really, for me, it was less around the revenue or profitability that would happen in that space. And more, it was around keeping the team and keeping the team happy and keeping them engaged, and they were quite excited to get back as well. I think a big part of when you digitalize that if you can book your table ahead of time, so you can book your experience ahead of time, what you can then do through you know, AI and through just comes down to logistics. You're not dependent upon people showing up and then putting people into your rooms, you're actually able to work with people ahead of time and book your rooms. Much simpler. It kind of makes me feel silly, I'm sure I'm sure I wasn't as operating as well as we should have last year, you know, in hindsight, as well. And I think a big part of that is, you know, complacency. Over time, you get the businesses doing well, it's great year over year, you get this growth, but I think sometimes when you can start from nothing again and look at it for the first time, you can put process in play that allows for us to be much better. I'd also say one thing that we dove into was just, I dove in and watched our meeting rhythms that took place inside our business and, and did a lot of coaching with our teams and practiced meetings, something super simple, but just got into these pre-meetings with the leaders of the meetings. And I was finding that our meetings, managers were showing up to those meetings and just going through them, as opposed to going into each meeting with intention. So going into each meeting with pieces of information that, when our managers came into those meetings, they were going to walk out of those meetings with clear intention, things that they get, like nuggets of information that they could utilize to improve their team happiness, or their guests’ happiness, their revenue happiness or profitability happiness, and that was a big game-changer for us. So really, accountability amongst the leaders in our group to bring clear intention to their meetings that could you know, have an impact. And then having the managers rate those meetings afterwards, holding our leaders accountable to nine out of 10 meetings. Yeah, I think that was some big moves. Also, you know, we said to ourselves, listen, if team happiness is important, if it's really important, if we truly believe that having a happy team coming to work, each day is happy. And it's obvious to me, right, because if you've got a happy team inside a room, a restaurant or a bar or a nightclub, festivals, any area that hosts groups of people, if the environment is positive, like if you walk into a restaurant, and there's a positive environment, you stick around longer, or you come back to it, if it's a negative environment, the vibes not very good, you go away, and you don't go back to it. And the team is who brings that environment. I mean, it's just bricks and mortar, it's walls and carpet and some pictures on the wall. So, it's really the team that brings that positivity. So, if that's something that's really important, you got to measure it, you got to measure it in real time. So that's where I started really diving into technology and holding myself accountable to real-time information. And so, we got that working for us, right now we get real time information on that team's happiness, and it doesn't take much to throw the team off a little bit. And quite often, [from] things that aren't true. And so, the faster we get back on track, the more of a chance we have. And then same with guest happiness, you know, we used to talk about how important it was for the guests to be happy and, and we were one of these companies that didn't even stay on top of our reviews. And so, then I started learning these digital programs that are out there, that essentially in real-time will pull all of the data from now until it's you know, since review started. Today, I get an email that comes right to me if get a one out of five stars. And it's funny how many of those one or five stars weren't even in our place. These are people who are giving us one out of five stars, and they were at some other place with a similar name, not even in the same province. And so that's a huge part of driving five-star culture. If you want five-star culture, you got to pay attention to what's going on and listen to your guests and create that accountability.

David Morris  14:14

That is fabulous. And it's been part of your, sort of mission from the beginning. All around the happiness. On the measuring, was there a particular discovery when you were doing the real-time monitoring of happiness that surprised you? Whether it be from the guest’s standpoint or employees where all of a sudden it was just a spike high or low that allowed you to, now, put that into the process going forward?

Joey Gibbons  14:42

I think it comes down to a mindset. You know, I think what I learned when we agreed as a group that we were going to hold ourselves accountable to five-star culture, right, because for our business, the reviews, I always would ignore them for a long time. I would say you know, “I don't really care what those people's opinions are, I know, I know where my intention lies, I know that these most people are having a good time.” And just kind of taking on that. There's a really good book I read called Hug Your Haters. It speaks to a lot of this stuff. The biggest piece was that all of a sudden, we, you know, we hired these various platforms, we hired something called review tracker, and then another one we've got called podium, so there's two different forms out there. And so, we get this real time information on these guests’ experiences. And so, someone would come in, and it would be a two out of five. And so, I would see this review that would come through and I couldn't believe it. I know that we don't give two-star culture, we get five-star culture. And so, I would address the team. And they would justify it. So immediately, the team, like I was doing in the past was justifying the two as opposed to, like, almost created like, this is emergency you guys this is someone actually had a two-star experience. Like we got to take this seriously. Let's dive right in. I think that was the biggest piece, it was a mindset. And now, just in working with this only after about a month, the whole team recognizes how important in my opinion, the customer is always right. You can get into this big debate on whether or not they're right. Right. But they are always right. Because they're if their opinion gets posted online, and you haven't given a response, then that's the reality. I mean, that's what everyone's reading, in my opinion, we got to address it and listen to it and fix it and do better.

David Morris  16:26

Very applicable to various industries. You know, one of the things I was thinking a little bit about before our conversation today, Joey, is the discovery about how energized you get by adventure novelty newness. I remember reaching out to you at the beginning of the pandemic, and I don't think I've ever heard you so energized.

Joey Gibbons  16:48

I think you knew because you've been inside my brain. So, you knew that I would be didn't you?

David Morris  16:52

I had a hunch. I mean, think that I'm curious about, you know, as we transition into the trait here, because you know, as we think about our audience, our audience is looking to invest in and even recruit at times, leaders that can drive breakthrough change. And it was an indicator, we did have a hunch that you'd be energized by this. The thing I'm sort of curious about is that adventure, novelty, and newness that has gotten you involved in different industries, you know, real estate, entertainment, other related businesses, even TV show you were on, all these different things all around, you know, an overarching mission. The thing I'm trying to understand a little bit is the challenge that that has posed for you in terms of bringing people along. Is it lonely?

Joey Gibbons  17:38

Is it lonely? I think for me, I've always been I've always been enjoyed lonely, you know, I ski almost every day, I live in Whistler and live in the mountains, and I go up the mountain and listen to books and go ski touring in the back country by myself. I think I enjoy lonely I enjoy learning I enjoy. Even when I ran all these big clubs in Toronto, and you know, these areas, I was always a bit behind the scenes by myself, like I really gained my happiness by just seeing it all work. Seeing the team be happy, seeing the guests be happy, seeing the authorities be happy, neighbors, everyone just kind of putting it all together. I think I've always enjoyed lonely, even when people come up to my cabin, or whatever in the summertime, I'd rather have a lot of people show up so I can kind of slide off to myself and just let everybody else kinda be happy. So, I think that's something that's, I've been fine with the whole time. Sometimes I think that, even though it may seem like we're in a bunch of different pieces, like there's a bunch of different pieces there, in my mind, they're all very connected. It's all part of the algorithm. It's all part of the equation. I mean, for me, when I started when I was in high school, whenever I had my birthdays, I liked having my birthday party, I really enjoyed seeing people have fun at my birthday party. And then my parents had a garage and I threw parties at it. And I went to university and I threw parties there. Then I recognized kids became old enough to go to the bars and that bars were competing with me and I went to a bar and thought it was pretty cool, and I wanted to run it. So, I got a job at the bottom and worked my way up and ran the bar, so and then I got back to Whistler and my dad happened to own a bar and begged for the opportunity. He was a practicing lawyer, and so I kind of worked my way in to figure out a way to run his bar. And I think it was always around like, I didn't think oh, I'm gonna be a businessman or anything like that. I thought I just really enjoyed that. And then I think once I started having a family, I recognized like how can I continue to grow business, I really enjoyed the complexities of business and growing, growing an organization. But, maybe at the start, my happiness came from like the people that were entertained inside our business. And quite quickly I recognized the value of people and leading people in the community of our team. And so, I shifted to you know, if I could just if they're all happy, then the customers are taken care of. So that was a lot of fun. And then just recently I've recognized the impact on community. I've recognized, “Well, if I've got several businesses in town, I can actually have an impact on this community.” What I've learned, you can use business to do a greater good within the community, to create jobs and to give back to various organizations. I think when I looked at what we do with our business, I felt, well, I could stay in Whistler, bring people from around the world into our experiences, connect them to the products, we didn't own the products at that time, but I knew if I bought a brewery and distillery, we could connect them to our own products. And then if the experience was good, I wondered if I could put those products out around the world, people could then feel like they were able to consume their experience when they got home, similar to when you go to if you go to Italy, and you go and have this nice wine experience, you go home and you order the bottle of wine, so you can reminisce and tell your friends about the experience. I wondered if we could do that in Whistler. And so, we've just got focused doing that. So, although it seems maybe like, we got these various projects on the go, in my crazy mind, they're all they're all quite, quite connected.

David Morris  20:52 

It is. And that's why, you know, this consistent pattern of inconsistency seems to lead to some type of theme, what remains is the biggest challenge in bringing people along? Because to take the company to a multibillion-dollar enterprise long-term, we got to scale community, to your point, and these teams. What have you found has just been the biggest challenge that you're making good progress on, but still is a challenge in terms of bringing along [a] leadership team on this quest?

Joey Gibbons  21:25

That's why I was interested in how my brain works and the work that you do. And I've been reading a lot about it. And you know, and what, someone that's a visionary or quite often an entrepreneur that a lot of people think that we're crazy, or that we're nuts, or all over the place or whatnot, one of my forumites in YPO, he runs a much bigger company than me, and he would use this psychologist to help hire his senior executives. And so, I've asked myself, I wonder if anyone could hire me, because I couldn't connect with people. I connect them personally and socially, no problem. But like these ideas that I had, people look like me and I was crazy all the time. You know, this guy put me through a series of tests like you haven't. And it's simply an ability to recognize patterns. And I think that for us who are maybe entrepreneurial, or visionary or whatnot are wired in a certain way to, we were able to see, if this first piece happens, then the second piece will happen, then this third piece, then this fourth piece, and 5th piece and 6th piece, and the further along that you can see that, I think what I have the ability to do is then or what I have the inability to do is I get really excited on where we're going and it becomes clear to me and I go back and start telling people kind of work backwards and start telling people to get step one and step two done. They don't know where it's going. So, for me, it's about hiring people who are able to trust what it is that I'm saying and have the patience to work with me and sort of dissect what it is that I'm saying in a way that they're comfortable to understand it. And so, I think that's been my biggest, I wouldn't say frustration, but my biggest challenge, maybe frustration is figuring that piece out for me becoming a better communicator. So, because I could have the best idea in the world, but if I can't get anybody on board at this stage with you know this many people inside our group, you know I've got no chance. That's where a lot of the, say challenge, but that is the work. At this stage, that is the work.

David Morris  23:22

Without it, you would get bored. So, I know you always need another challenge, I guess closing on that note, what is the next chapter? When we revisit you in a couple years? What will you be proud to have been able to pull off?

Joey Gibbons  23:32

For me in two or three years, as an organization, we call it our G way, we call it bringing people from around the world into our experiences, connecting them to our products and having the products out into the world. I think in a couple years from now, we're able to have that continuing to double my business every three years, like we've always done to stay on that trajectory. And having a four-and-a-half-star service. We just like really started that with our reviews. I want to stay committed to 90% happiness from our team, our engagement, our team. World-class is 75% from what I understand, but I want to be at 90% I think we can work that hard to get there. I want to be there at that level for our teams and for our guests. It's just so obvious, it's a much more pleasant environment when you've got a happy team and you've got happy guests. It's just way more fun to go to work. It's way more fun to be within our community. So, I want to be able to tell you that I'm right there doing that alongside my team at that stage. And then like I say, the revenue and the profit side of things, it's pretty easy for that to fall into place. Once those two, the people-side of it's done.

David Morris  24:48

Yeah, it's interesting to see how these principles develop over time, you hone them and then sometimes proactively leading with it then leads to the right outcome. (Laughs) The reordering of some of these and just like which thing you focus on first and second can make all the difference.

Joey Gibbons  25:06

You know, what Bill Gates said about Warren Buffett is, he's the best guy I've ever seen at understanding what's right, and understanding what's wrong. And to simplify things even more, if we can just make decisions that are right. And not decisions that are wrong. We can double our business every year. Right? It's just a matter of that level of consistency, and that level of accountability and through experience, things become clearer and clearer. So yeah, I think each time there's a pandemic, like I shouldn't say each time there's a pandemic, I hope there's never another one in my lifetime, because it's a horrible situation for everyone. But I think every time there's a reflection point like this, when there's a shift in the economy, and you're forced to bring things to zero, ask ourselves, how we want to show up what we want to be doing. For me, it just comes down to happiness, it comes down to that's the environment I'm looking for. And I've always been a servant of other people and making other people happy. Really focus on that, and like I say, things fall into place. I remember my dad asked me the first time I was going to take over his business, he said, “What are you going to do, you’re a 24-year-old kid, you don't know anything, what are you going to do?” And I said, “I think if we just make people happy,” like people were just not happy, they were just not being nice to each other within his business at that stage. You know, listen, I also started in the nightclub business, it's not super hard to fix that industry. Like when I first showed up at my first nightclub, that university that I ended up taking over as a manager. They had hired all the football players were working there, and these guys would beat the customers up. And I thought to myself, “Well, it doesn't make too much sense. If you know, you punch your customer in the face, that's really not great customer service” seems quite obvious, within about a week, got rid of all of the big football players and hired small people. And people thought I was crazy. And I said, Well, if there's no one to beat up the customers, if we hire a team of people that are you know, making sure you have the security and those type of things, then my hunch is that if less people, if less customers are getting punched in the face, we'll probably get a bit busier, we quite quickly filled up. And were lined up after that and had a lot of success. So, I think it's a lot of those little pieces, but fear of change, for most people, is something that scares them. And then they said to me, “Well, what happens if a big guy comes in here?” And I said, “And what?” And he said, “Well, what happens if a big guy comes here and wants to pick a fight?” And I said, “Well, you know, phone the police like fighting, you can't assault people. And you just you can't do that. Let's not create an environment where that's okay.” I remember just right there thinking to myself, “Oh, man, this is a lot of opportunity here.”

David Morris  27:48

As investors and board members are seeking game-changing leaders, I think we really touched on several points for them to evaluate in the hiring process. Is there any final thought you would have on that, if you are bringing in a CEO to lead a big transformation, in light of everything we discussed, that key thing you'd be looking for, as you evaluate that individual?

Joey Gibbons  28:13

I think it's the cheesy things that I read in the textbooks back in a long time ago are so true. You know, I think it's cheesy, but it does come down to the basics, I think it's really aligning on the on the values, you know, it's and living those values and, and truly, collectively agreeing on a North Star, a direction that you want to take the company and, and then I think that the right CEO, the right leader gets and believes in where the company needs to get to, and then understands the process to get there. And then wants to lead a group of individuals there every single day with those values. There [are] very few people who have the ability to you know, obsess over getting that right and working harder. And you got to just, the CEOs that I see out there who are successful at leading these businesses, I mean, just work so hard all the time. They obsess around it, like anything, and those, but I think when you really see the magic, when I see other CEOs out there who are connecting well in their business, they just, they really understand who they are, they really understand where they're going and they stick to their truth. I think I read somewhere that genius is one's ability to live their truth and just be able to be who it is they are and who they want to be. And I think when you can find a group of people who align on with that truth and are able to just come to work together and collaborate on a way to get towards a destination or a goal, it's quite beautiful. And just a few companies out there that I watched, they do that and I'm trying to try to do everything I can to get there, I guess.

David Morris  29:55

Well, thank you, Joey. It was great talking with you today. We look forward to following up and seeing all the success over the coming years.

Joey Gibbons  30:04

Thanks, David. Well, thanks for including me on your show and for all your support with what we've got going on here, up in Canada and Whistler, so appreciate it.

David Morris  30:12

Thank you. And to our HiPER leadership listeners, thank you for your continued support and feedback. Stay tuned this season for many more HiPER leadership achievements. If you haven't done so already, please subscribe to the HiPER Leadership Podcast on Apple podcasts. And if you have a big change program you're leading, visit our website to learn more about how we help align teams and stakeholders for excellence at HiPERSolutions.com.