Tableside Talks: Ted Hawkins of the Coda Group
Photo caption: Ted Hawkins, Partner and Director of Operations at the Coda Group. Photo credit: Emily Kan
We’re excited to welcome Ted Hawkins, Partner and Director of Operations at the Coda Group, to Tableside Talks, where we ask current industry leaders three questions about leading in hospitality.
After growing up in Manhattan and Honolulu, Ted began his hospitality career working in various restaurants on Waikiki Beach. Ted’s journey then led him to Boston University’s (BU) School of Hospitality Administration, and while there, he joined Chef Barbara Lynch at No. 9 Park as Assistant General Manager. In 2016, Ted opened SRV as the General Manager and Wine Director.
After earning his MBA from BU in 2019, he became Operations Manager at Cushman Concepts in 2020. By summer 2021, Ted returned to The Coda Group as a partner and Director of Operations, overseeing The Salty Pig, SRV, and new ventures Gufo and Baleia.
Ted is passionate about the importance of team service, offering value to guests, and creating small moments that keep guests coming back.
Welcome in, Ted!
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Cassie Francisco (Tableside): Ted, what was the most impactful piece of advice you received about leadership?
Ted Hawkins: A lot of my management and leadership thoughts are based around athletics. I grew up playing sports and, especially in restaurants, our style of work is very applicable towards coaches and player relationships.
The piece of advice is that players win games and coaches lose them. As a leader in a hospitality environment, you might make some really great decisions and implement some amazing processes, but at the end of the day, the team as a whole—really your players or your staff—are the ones who are enacting it. And so to me, it's super important to always be thinking about what your staff has achieved.
Coaches losing is another key aspect to this. The pre-planning and the motivation that goes into a night of service or the success of a business is predicated on the large and small decisions that are made along the way.
Anytime we have a staff member who doesn't perform the way that we would like them to or makes a misstep, the first question should always be, “were they set up for success?” That shows really good leadership. It doesn't mean that we don't hold our people accountable, but it's important to recognize the role we play in our staff's ability to succeed.
I have another one. It's really, really simple. Admit to your mistakes. This was something that was said to me early on because I was making a lot of mistakes, and I still do. But I think that leadership is all about confidence and honesty.
The true sign of confidence and leadership is having the ability to test out new things and admit when you’re wrong. You're not always going to be right. So make mistakes, say you made mistakes, learn from them. Take them head on because it's important to humanize the leadership experience with [your] team.
Cassie: I love that. Thank you for sharing that. I love the connection between athletics and leadership. I think there are so many good parallels and lessons that you can draw. For the next question, what's one thing you would want people outside the industry to know about hospitality leadership?
Ted: Most of my career has been in independently owned and operated restaurant groups, anywhere between two to nine restaurants. We get a lot of applications and resumes for folks with more corporate restaurant backgrounds. Conventionalism would say those people aren't a good fit for your restaurant. But I actually think the opposite.
If someone is able to work for those companies, especially with longevity, they have proven themselves to be able to get through a long training process that is very, very regimented. There's a certain level of professionalism that's brought to the training process and the day-to-day operations. So I always say to interview.
That's a long prelude to the answer to the question—restaurant leadership is the combination of what other industries would have multiple different teams for. On any given day, a leader in hospitality is working on finance, HR; they're very operations focused. So a lot of times, people with hospitality backgrounds might not seem to have the cookie cutter resume for a different industry, but I would always recommend to at least interview [them]. I find that in other industries, it really pays off to be an area expert in one single thing. “I am a spreadsheets guy.” “I am a salesperson.” But in hospitality, you can't just be one thing. You have to be everything, a Jack or Jane of all trades, if you will.
And not only is that important to being successful in hospitality, but I also think it's so applicable to all other industries, as well. Anybody who works in hospitality is dealing with customer service on a tactile and daily basis. That type of pressure and ability to exceed expectations over and over again—sometimes with 200, 300, 400 guests on a single night—is super valuable in most other industries.
Cassie: Yeah, that's great. They can do anything! If you could say one thing to someone just starting out in the hospitality industry and leadership, what would you say?
Ted: Authenticity is super important. Most of my missteps in my career have been when I have decided to attempt to be somebody else. People sense when you're being inauthentic. And that doesn't mean that if your authentic self is to be a curmudgeon, any negative trait, you should always be that. You should obviously be a very positive version of yourself. But it is important to bring your authentic self to leadership. All the times that I've seen success in my career in leadership has been when I'm being my most authentic and free self as a leader.
On the other side of that, I would say be creative. Our industry has the ability for folks to really dive into projects. And what I've been noticing recently, both with our managers and with applicants, is that there's an emphasis on people wanting to learn more, which is great. But a lot of times, the thought process is, “I want to learn more. You're going to teach me more.” That will be part of the relationship, but really, the learnings that stick out in my career thus far have always been projects that started with a vague directive, like, “let's increase our wine sales,” or “let's redefine how we do our RTOs (request time off) because we're not staffing the restaurant correctly.” Taking a problem and then working through it on my own (and with a mentor) creates the best outcomes.
Take the chance. Be creative. Take on projects. Because that's where the learning is going to happen. It's not going to happen with someone saying, “This is exactly what I would do, you go do exactly what I would do.” It's more of a dialogue. That also comes with making mistakes, but I think that you're better suited to learn and get as much as you possibly can out of your employment professional development-wise, if you take risks and get yourself out of your comfort zone.
Cassie: Yeah, that's awesome. And that authenticity and creativity piece almost go hand-in-hand. If you follow your creativity in a project, you can bring yourself to it and be authentically you throughout the process.
Ted: And you might fall on your face, but that's totally cool too. As long as you were falling on your face and going a hundred percent and you had good reasons for why you ended up falling on your face. That's not time wasted. That's where all the learning is going to happen.
The old narrative of, “join on with this group and they're gonna show me how to do all these things, so that maybe one day I'll have my own restaurant, my own business.” There will be some of that, but really where the development is going to come in is from taking risks, taking on a project, seeing it all the way through, bringing together various different stakeholders to accomplish a task, and being the project manager…that's where all the learning is going to happen.
Cassie: Great, all right, so to end on a little bit of a silly note, if you will, there's only one condiment in your refrigerator. What is it, Ted, and why?
Ted: Sriracha. I put it on everything. And the fact that we have some sort of shortage is heartbreaking. But I would say outside of that, Chalula would be my secondary go-to.
And harkening back to my Japanese heritage, I also really love soy sauce. Soy sauce with something else…you can make a hundred different sauces. Soy sauce would be a shout out to my mom. Hopefully she watches this!
Cassie: I love that. Thank you, Ted, for joining us today and answering some questions about leadership and sharing your insights on what it's like to lead in hospitality.
