Under pressure you need to become your most authentic self. - John Eckbert - Five Guys

This week with John Eckbert, CEO & Co-Founder of Five Guys Europe.

They launched on 4th July 2013 with the first Five Guys in Europe, in Covent Garden, growing to currently 260 Restaurants in UK, Germany, France and Spain with 43 new ones to be opened this year: (https://fiveguys.co.uk/, https://fiveguys.de/, https://fiveguys.es/, https://fiveguys.fr/).

Five Guys Europe is a 50:50 joint venture between the Murrell Family, the owners of the Five Guys Brand out of USA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Guys and Sir Charles Dunstone, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dunstone, currently turning 600 Mio. Pounds in sales with almost 9.000 Employees in the 4 European countries operating.

In this episode John talks with us about his journey from an US Banker in Florida to the leader of one of the fastest growing restaurant brands in Europe and how he and his partner where afraid that nobody will come on the day of their first opening. During the interview it becomes clear that John builds his leadership on strong human connections.

Our main learnings from this conversation are:

1. Faith is the Flipside of Doubt. In the midst of uncertainty, there is room for doubt.


2. “Fast Track” your ideas. So many ideas fail on the white board. Follow through.


3. Listen well. Behave in a very local way. Connect with your guests.


4. You can taste the passion in the product. Don’t dilute it.


5. Build the Business on Values, Burgers & Fries.


6. Ask yourself: how far can we push that talent?


7. Our purpose as human being is connection. We exist to connect.


8. It’s all about the people. It’s always human.


9. Reflect all the glory to the Grill. Give the credit to the people who deserve it.


10. You can smell the fear. Mostly from being not authentic.


11. Under pressure you need to become your most authentic self.

Tune in and listen to a great leader who believes in human connection as a privilege: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-eckbert-56166215/
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Recorded on 3rd April 2024 via Zoom in London, UK (John Eckbert) – Bandarawella, Sri Lanka (Mario C. Bauer) – Amsterdam, Netherlands (Florian Schneider).