Hospitality Is Teachable

Why hospitality isn't about innate personality traits—and what it has to do with empowerment.

This week, I interviewed Jaymie Lao on the Boss Barista podcast. I’ve known Jaymie for several years; she was employee #1 at Go Get Em Tiger, which is an offshoot of a well-known coffee shop in Los Angeles called G&B.

Two things struck me from our conversation. One: Jaymie remembered, with surprising clarity, brief conversations she had had with her bosses, some from years before. I thought that was a wonderful detail—I’m a sucker for stories about interactions that seem small at the time, but which echo for years to come. It felt like there was a hopeful message nested in that idea, that if brief conversations can have a half-life that resonates for years, so too can positive affirmations and other transformative moments in our lives.

And two—on reflection, I buried the lede in this interview. At Go Get Em Tiger, Jaymie worked as the director of cafe experiences, and she mentioned that one of her jobs was to ensure consistency throughout the stores. You might think consistency means getting the same latte and customer service experience across all of a chain’s locations, but Jaymie hit on something deeper:

…it was clear to me that I cared a lot about making sure that there was consistency across all stores in terms of the service, the culture, those things were just paramount to me…

I had said in so many ways, in almost all of my performance reviews, that I wanted to be able to replicate the style of service that we do at the store everywhere, because I think it doesn’t require specific humans to do it. It doesn’t require this configuration of me, this person, this person, this person … to execute the best service possible. I think we can teach people to do that. I wanted to believe that, and so I was like, “Let’s do it. I’m ready to like, take that challenge…”

I firmly believe that those new people could do exactly what we were doing, but we needed to coach them into it.

For Jaymie, consistency among stores didn’t just mean a uniform experience as a customer—but rather, a uniform experience as a barista. She thought deeply about how to foster new hires, and how to teach them about Go Get Em Tiger’s approach to service without feeling alienated.

Fundamentally, that comes down to one key idea: Hospitality can be taught.

Most people assume that a person is either friendly, or they’re not. In turn, we assume that a capacity for hospitality is innate, and do little to teach or empower people to provide a positive experience for customers and guests. While I do think some folks won’t find happiness in a customer service position, I do think most hospitality skills can be taught, and aren’t down to immutable personality traits.

These reflections reminded me of a past encounter of my own. In the summer of 2012, I went to Barista Camp. (Yes, that’s a ridiculous sentence.) Over three days, we took seminars on topics like milk steaming and espresso. One of the required seminars was an hour-long session on customer service.

I still remember that one participant stood up and told a story about a group of cyclists who visited their coffee shop every weekend after a long bike ride. The barista knew most of the cyclists well. At one point, one of the cyclists ordered a coffee but then realized he had forgotten his wallet. “I can’t give this to you,” the barista had replied. He shared this story earnestly, asking the group what he should have done in that moment.

Immediately, most of the other attendees said something like, “Why didn’t you just give him the drink?” or, “If you knew him, and you knew he’d be back, he could have paid another time—or you could have just given him, a loyal customer, a free drink.”

I don’t disagree with this assessment: If a customer forgets their wallet, they’re getting a free drink and that’s fine. But I only realized later why this barista didn’t do that: because they didn’t feel empowered to do so. They thought if they gave away the drink, they’d get in trouble.

Now, in 2022, I think about what that barista would have done differently if Jaymie had been their boss. I think this interaction speaks to how teachable hospitality is, and how much hospitality requires feeling in control of the space around you. This interaction, if shared without any other context, would paint the barista as a stickler for rules, someone strict and ungenerous. In a different light—one where we acknowledge the power of modeling good service, and empowering others to make decisions—it’s clear that the barista didn’t have the tools to make the hospitable decision.

Hospitality can come naturally to some, but for many, it requires being given permission. Permission to make decisions, to assess a situation, to respond to the rhythms and flows of a particular space—to feel trusted in your place of work. Thinking back on this story almost a decade after the fact reminds me that we still need to actively prioritize teaching hospitality—and to allow baristas the freedom to be as kind to those around them as they wish to be.

Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash

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