Your team is your biggest asset in your small business. Creating a culture of nurture and trust, letting them feel a sense of ownership and democracy gives back unimaginable rewards! Here’s the story of how we cultivated this sense of belonging in our vegan restaurant.

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Hello, lovely person. Thank you for being here. I’m Susmitha Veganosaurus, and you’re listening to The Feel Good Factor.

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“Oh, go ahead and tell them you’re an owner”, he said, and I started to laugh.
“I’m not an owner, how can I say that?”
“You know what, I’m the owner, and I don’t mind if you say it, so go ahead.”

On the outside, I laughed, hesitated a little, but inside, somewhere subconsciously, I felt happy.

It felt nice to feel a sense of ownership to this business I cared so much about

This was about a month after I joined Carrots, our vegan restaurant. Krishna was the founder, and he requested me to become a part of the team. “I think you’d be a great fit. Would you be interested?”

After thinking about it very, very briefly, I jumped on the opportunity. My intention when I joined the business was to work there for about a year, more or less, and then go out and start something of my own. I was very transparent about it when I joined in.

I’d also said, “I’m going to only be here part-time, physically present.”

My job was related to all the creative and the marketing stuff

There were many facets to my work as a part of the restaurant team. My official title at that time was Countess of Cuisine and Jollification. So basically, I’d come up with recipes along with the chefs, promote events, bring joy overall to the customers, the team, everything, just bring in my energy.

I’d initially committed to being there a couple of times a week, not every single day. And then the rest of it, I said I’d do from home, because when it comes to photography and marketing material and promoting on Facebook (yeah, these were Facebook days), all of that I could do from home.

But as the days went by, I realised I loved being at the restaurant

It was such a nice atmosphere, so much of fun. The team was great, and working with Krishna was great too. Since we were friends, we’d laugh and joke quite a bit, so it was a lot of fun.

I realised my favourite part was to interact with the customers. I’d go up to the tables, talk to them, find out how the food was, you know, take their suggestions, tell them the story about the place, and about our food, explain it to them. I loved having these interactions!

Though that wasn’t strictly a part of my job description, it didn’t matter. I felt right at home from the beginning, and I felt comfortable doing that.

Because I was talking to all these people so much, that’s why the new guests asked me if I was the owner. And that’s why Krishna said, “yeah, go ahead and tell them that. It’s okay, everyone will feel happy.”

They’d feel good that they’re having a conversation with the owner of the business. And of course, he realised I’d feel good saying that because then…

I’d develop a sense of ownership, which I’d already begun to do

It was because of all this, this feeling of ownership, having quite a bit of free rein in the way I work, the way I interacted with people, the team, the customers, everybody…Krishna encouraged all these things…And this is why I got so attached to the place!

I had all the freedom of running the business. If I’d started the business myself, this is how I’d be running it. I had all that freedom without really having put in the initial work of starting the place, investing, getting the licenses, all the bureaucratic work and setting it up. So it was perfect for me!

And that’s why, a few months down the line, I became a partner at the restaurant. I decided it doesn’t make sense going out somewhere else and starting something of my own when I feel like this itself is my own place.

I’ll be honest, if I’d started a vegan restaurant, cafe or any business myself, I wouldn’t have been as open as Krishna was to letting people take on more responsibility like this.

I would’ve tried to control everything, every step of the way, and been afraid to let anyone else claim ownership

As a result of trying to control everything, of course I’d get really tired out and all that. So this was a big lesson for me to learn on how to run a team.

And it wasn’t just with me. He encouraged this culture in the entire team. Not simply letting go of responsibility and telling everyone, “do what you want”, no. But very discerningly picking people and giving them more and more free reign to do things their way.

That had created this beautiful sense of ownership among the whole team – the head chef, me, the senior staff, even all the junior members of the staff.

Everybody had a feeling of belonging in this place, a lot of decisions were made democratically

For a lot of big decisions, votes were taken. We sat together and had these meetings to discuss, to make some decisions. Or at least, take in all inputs before making decisions at the higher level.

So when I took over the restaurant and started running it, I just continued this culture because it made sense. Since this is what I’d learned, that was the only way I knew how to run a business.

And funnily, I didn’t think anything of it initially.

I thought, this is the way to do it. The team’s happy. I’m happy. Things are working well. There’s discipline, there’s partnership, a sense of ownership.

Even if we weren’t there, if any of the owners weren’t around, the team had a great way of running things on their own

There was not too much dependency on our constant presence at the location. Which later I realised was a big blessing, because most people in the restaurant industry or any other conscious business, most people feel like they need to be there, they need to watch constantly, or have this one manager that they can really trust and leave it up to them to do things. So basically this thing that somebody from the senior management has to be there all the time. But we never felt that way.

Of course, the culture of a place, a business or family, anywhere, a culture is something that’s cultivated, and grows and snowballs. It kind of branches out on its own and shapes itself over time.

You just have to give it a little bit of nudge and a little bit of trimming here and there, and then let it take its own shape. This is what happened with our business. There was a trickle-down effect.

Because the owners were giving free rein, trusting the next level and the rest of the team to make decisions, to handle things well on their own, to talk to customers, all of it, because we were doing that, then when those guys became a little bit more senior in the business, they gave the same kind of respect and trust and free rein and guidance and love and care. All of it, they did it for their juniors.

So over the years, that’s the way the team developed.

Our attrition rate was very low compared to what happens in the standard restaurant industry

When we shut down the restaurant in 2021 (eight years since the starting of Carrots), we had people there who’d joined right at the beginning (some even before I joined)! They were there till the end.

And most of our staff had been there for at least five years, with very few new people who already were showing promise. You know, if the restaurant continued on, they’d have been there for several more years.

A few people did leave here and there in the middle, people who had other plans, other ambitions, or maybe if they weren’t the right fit for this team, for whatever reasons, people did slowly leave, but also the core team was getting stronger and stronger over the years.

Being on the inside, we didn’t realise this was something really special we’d created

It’s only when people from the outside, especially ones who worked in the industry, looked in and were amazed at the team, the sense of ownership they had, and the responsibility that they were taking on…when people expressed amazement at that and spoke about the wonderful relationship we all share, the culture of the place, that’s when we realised, “oh yeah, we are something special, something different.”

All this only because we trusted our team more and more, allowed them to make their mistakes, and most of the time, gently guided them to correct the course. Over time it came to the point where we didn’t even have to monitor anything much.

They all self-monitored

Chef Ram was very clever with this. Him and I were running the restaurant together at one point. Like mainly both of us were running it. And he came up with this really nice idea of democratically letting them all monitor each other.

Every week, we’d have this point system. Everybody would give points to each other in different areas of work, and behaviour, and all that. They were all watching each other, giving points. And of course, it was done anonymously.

At the end of the week, or rather at the beginning of the week, every Monday, when we had our team meeting, we’d read out the total points people got, and give away prizes at the end of the month. So it was being done as a team, and really, it was magic!

I’ll admit, we were quite blessed, quite lucky with the kind of people we’d attracted into our team at the restaurant

These boys were humble, responsible, sweet, and very, very willing to learn and grow. So that way, it was quite a blessing.

I won’t say it was just luck us finding them. Nor that these guys were like this because of the work we did or the way we treated them. But yes, you know, every conscious business will luck out at some point. You’ll find some great people.

Even if you find one or two great team members, the way you nurture them, the way you build the culture of the business, that will take care of the rest of the team

It’s a snowball effect. You start out right. You let them feel ownership of their work, of the place, truly care about the business, nurture that caring about the business, and also let them know how much you care about their own growth and their well-being. Take care of them.

Then they themselves will bring their friends, will bring their connections into the business, because they’re like, “I’m so happy here. I want my cousin also to join and be happy here.”

So it’s a combination of initial luck and blessing, and also how well we took advantage of that luck, how much we valued the kind of people we got into our team.

A big part of our business was teaching cooking classes, some at the restaurant, but also to go out and teach at other food businesses, train their chefs, go to different cooking schools and train them, and things like that. So we got to go out and see other businesses, the way they are run, the way the team is. We got to experience that, and it was quite interesting.

I noticed that at a lot of places, senior chefs had huge egos

There was always this clash between them and then another chef. You could clearly see there were divisions within the team. Some of them had loyalties with one chef, some with another, and they’d compete against each other. Always, you could see this ego, this lack of love and respect.

The more I went out to different institutions to teach, the more I realised this was a common thing in the food and beverage industry…

And it did not even exist at our restaurant!

See, we as owners and senior management encouraged the next set of people, nurtured them, truly cared about their growth. To the point that we’re like, “You learn here, you grow here. Finally, if you leave and go somewhere else, we want you to thrive there. So we want this business to be kind of like a university for you, where you’re learning a lot, you’re getting a lot of exposure.”

And because we cared about them and taught them, there was no fear of one chef overtaking the other, none of that existed.

So what happened was, our head chef was really nice to the next two guys, the ones who were immediately junior to him. He was nurturing them and letting them build and grow and all that. And because Ram did that for Mohan and Raju (our next level chefs), they did that for the next ones who came.

They really took the new boys under their wings, and nurtured them, taught them, helped them grow

Nobody was afraid someone else will outshine them and become too big or anything. Everybody had this sense of, “for the greater good of the business.”

There was no ego, at least, not work related ego. That was magic. Like, absolute magic!

The more I went out and saw exactly the way people behave in this industry, the more I appreciated the kind of energy, the vibe that our team had among ourselves.

That was beautiful. And I feel like all of us together had the greater good in our minds. Our goal was to help our business do well and succeed, to make our customers happy, to bring good energy to the place.

Also, our goal was to get along really well with each other, like a family

Like these boys, they’d come from far places up in the north, northeast, leaving their family and everything behind. They’d come here looking for an opportunity to work and grow. They were at ages where honestly they should have been in college or something, enjoying themselves, but they were doing this.

So when they felt this sense of belonging, like they were protected, they were safe, and they were being cared for here, they really liked it and it was nice. That changed the energy they embodied.

And of course, we all know…

The energy, the state of mind in which you’re cooking, that love you put into the food, it’s going to come out on the plate

When the customer eats it, they’re going to feel that love. And often people would comment about this.

I mean they’d love the food, but more than anything else, often guests would comment on the energy, the vibe of the place, how they felt when they came and dined with us.

If you run a conscious business, your team is your most precious asset!

Especially if it’s a small business, and you have at the most 10-15 people in the entire team. There’s a lot of potential to nurture a beautiful relationship among everybody. This opportunity should not be missed, because it’s a ripple effect.

You cultivate this democratic, responsible, trusting, nurturing energy within your organisation, and it’s going to pay off big time

It reduces your responsibility, first of all, the stress. Whether it’s the joys, the wins, or the losses, the mess ups, and the sadness, everything is shared. The burdens, the gifts, everything is shared. All of them are bearing that. It’s beautiful!

And because you have less stress of having to run the day-to-day business, be there all the time constantly, you can step away, be a little silent, go into the background and work on the business. On how to make things better. How to create from the outside. You can look at it. You’ll have the mental bandwidth to do that.

For this, the less we try to control and hold on to everything and micromanage, or be afraid to let somebody else make a mistake, take over, the less we do all this controlling, the more we trust, we nurture, we encourage, and allow people to make mistakes.

Mistakes will happen – it’s not like you give someone responsibility and it’ll always be fine

But when they do happen, you kind of gently guide them. Or sometimes, if strictness is needed, no problem, strictly guide them. But ultimately for their own good, so that it’s for the good of the entire business.

It’s all interlinked. All of it is connected, and this affects your business’ energy. And of course, that affects your customers, the guests, the way they feel, and then your community surrounding the business.

The heart is your team, the core, and then based on the energy of the team is what vibrations go out, ripple out to the rest of the community you’ve built around your business. So take great care. Be very conscious about this.

If you run a business with a small team, give them more and more responsibility, and also teach them to trust and help each other, to support each other

Do it by example. The more you do it by example, they’re going to watch and learn automatically. They won’t even know there’s another way of doing things!

So embrace this. Your team is your biggest asset, and having them take ownership, feel a sense of belonging and ownership, is the secret sauce to running a wonderful, peaceful, joyful business.

Alright, that’s it for today.

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Susmitha Veganosaurus

“I read voraciously, find humour in most things, and I’m most in my element when I’m teaching, writing, and playing with clay. I believe authenticity and kindness are the key to a joyful world. Sign up for my free newsletterwhere I share Life and Business Tips, Vegan Hacks, Holistic Guidance, and more.

Vegan cuisine and holistic business building are my two biggest passions. If you’re looking for guidance with vegan cooking, or want to grow your conscious business with joy and fulfilment, explore ways we can work together here.”

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