The best bacon on Earth

Carmen Berzatto lost his brother to suicide. Mike owned The Beef, a small restaurant in Chicago, and although it is unclear what triggered the event, it is reasonable to assume that it was a combination of a chaotic family context, a long-standing drug addiction and a struggling business that fell short of his grandiose ambitions. Carmen inherited The Beef, which led him to abandon his extremely successful career as a Michelin-star chef in New York. As I write, this is the plot of the #1 trending show on IMDb, ‘The Bear’.

Watching the show felt oddly energizing — besides being an inspiring account on grassroots, chaotic, heartfelt entrepreneurship, it offers such a raw and striking case study on some of the management principles I treasure the most. I will briefly cover the first and most foundational one here.

Give Them The Best Bacon On Earth”

We’ve all heard different versions of Voltaire’s quote “the best is the enemy of the good”. This mantra was omnipresent at AB InBev when I interned there in 2016, the company prizing agility and bias to action over excessive planning and perfectionism. The principle has merit, as perfection is hardly ever attained by anyone or any company, and pursuing it blindly in every detail can lead to paralysis and, ultimately, failure. Additionally, some businesses in some contexts just can’t afford to strive for perfection, they need to be scrappy and ultra fast to even survive — Rappi in Brazil competing fiercely with other delivery apps may be a good example. The Colombian unicorn has raised over $2 billion and I still get push notifications in Spanish and find buttons that don’t work on the app. I worry about the long-term sustainability of these businesses.

The first reason for excellence: the team

“This place could be so different from all the other places we've been at.”

Some would say it is a matter of style or industry, but I would argue that striving for perfection where it matters is universally inspiring, it pushes and unites teams, aligns efforts and creates a positive ripple effect across organizations, leading to sustainable product superiority and ultimate success (and joy).

It also helps attract and retain talent whose values and behaviors are naturally aligned with high performance. Great people take pride in saying they belong to a great organization. When a great product is launched, employees will be their proud first ambassadors. They will invite their similarly great friends to join the movement. And they will work hard to keep up with a tradition of excellence, putting time and energy into their craft and seeking training when appropriate.

Lastly, it is easy to communicate — at The Bear, Chef Sidney conveyed her standards in a beautifully unsophisticated speech to her team explaining that she wanted to give her customers the best bacon on Earth. Her goal was embodied in a Michelin star, and although her uneducated team from Chicago was unlikely to relate to it, they could very well understand what “the best bacon on Earth” meant and were ready to work for it. Surprisingly to some, it may be harder to get to a shared understanding of “just good enough”.

The second reason for excellence: the product

“They are high school teachers, it has been their dream for years and they have been saving up for this”, the restaurant manager describes specific costumers calling his team to “go above and beyond tonight”. Very obviously, investing in improving one’s offering is likely to produce better products and services. What seems less obvious judging by how many companies settle for barely good enough or just flat out terrible is how a relentless and effective pursuit of excellence may pay off.

Greatness in details often drives a disproportionately high perception of quality. This is the weight of a Bentley’s door and the sound it makes when you close it. This is a Michelin-star restaurant’s spotlessly clean forks and the host’s ironed suit. This is Apple’s Shared Audio. Far down the list of cost drivers, up high the list of quality perception drivers. This perception is what entices “love” from customers, which, in turn, creates infinite willingness to pay, gold-standard loyalty and free marketing. This is brand equity, an asset for which few companies account, a wasted opportunity for most.

Sustained product superiority also drivers margins by scaring competition away, while mediocracy invites competition in, making it appear easy to dethrone an incompetent incumbent.

The first reason why not: good

You know the saying “the best is the enemy of the good”. Do you know the saying “good is the enemy of great”? Jim Collins says that the mere existence of “good” is “one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great.” Good schools, good government, good lives prevent us from striving for greatness — it drives complacency by making greatness appear worthless. On The Bear, “this is good” was shouted in resistance to a new aspiration, and, it turns out, we may all be too comfortable to try for something better and greater.

The second reason why not: competition

Too much competition can be blinding. When we are fighting to stay alive, greatness, especially in quality, seems secondary, and it might very well be. What we sometimes fail to see is how striving for excellence can differentiate us. Instead of winning our customers by offering them more than they could ever expect, we commoditize our products into lukewarmness and trap ourselves in a cage of low quality, low margins and ever low aspirations. Is it even worth staying alive in this scenario?

The first way how: clarity

The Bear shows that one doesn’t become great by accident. It takes absolute commitment. To what? To a clear shared vision. To “the best bacon on Earth”. To “every night we make someone’s day.”

The second way how: anticipation

“Don’t make them ask”, says Richie, a recent convert to the mission on The Bear, “anticipation creates luxuriation”. Surprise is the very best way to delight. If all you are doing is meeting expectation, you are not creating joy or driving exceptional quality perception. This is true even for Apple and three-Michelin-star restaurants.

The third way how: consistency

“We can’t operate at a higher level without consistency”, said The Bear’s chef. If surprises drive quality perception, consistency is its very foundation. AB InBev tests their beers over 100 times during production, every time. Consistency doesn’t necessarily mean delivering the same experience over and over, but delivering the same level of experience across the board and across time. If the steak isn’t great for every customer, it is hard to make sure it will be great for any customer.

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I hope 'The Bear' can inspire you to shoot for the "best bacon on Earth" too. If you do, please let me know — I look forward to tasting it!

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In the following days, I will come back to cover other business lessons from the show!