Blaine Hurst, former CEO of Panera Bread, has an extensive 40 year long career working with the likes of Boston Market and Papa John’s. Now as an advisor, Blaine believes that a strategic mindset is developed rather than inherent. Blaine helps restaurateurs to develop the ability to see what needs improvement and how to execute such improvement.

Here are a few highlights from this episode:

What things should restaurant owners be doing to prepare for the looming recession?

“You can’t control everything so control what you can. However, prepare for destruction before it occurs. Create a resilient organization and a culture of dissatisfaction. This means we are never satisfied and it is never good enough. This is not just how a CEO should think but how every individual should think. If not, you will not be prepares.”

Having worked with large brands, how do you keep your finger on the pulse of so many locations of large complicated businesses?

“There are a couple of factors. The more restaurants you have, the more units you have, particularly multi unit retail or restaurants. More units means the bigger the challenge because you want people to tell you the truth in reviews but it’s getting filtered. So, how do you get direct feedback with consumers at scale? I think the number one thing is you have to purposely build feedback loops and systems that provide feedback constantly about all all experiences.“

How would you describe your coined “culture of dissatisfaction”?

“It’s where we’re getting better all the time. We’re never satisfied. We’re always working. We’re always striving. We’re trying to build resiliency against disruption.”