Creating company culture through curiosity, empowerment and communication
Luiz Da Costa joined our team earlier this year as BLC’s Operations Director and brings over twenty years of project management experience with a focus on complex and ambitious planning and development work in the food system. After studying business administration at Universidade Estácio de Sá in Luiz’s hometown of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, he served as executive chef in some of Boston’s finest restaurants before moving into food service management. Focusing on greater impact in his community, Luiz initiated ‘farm to fork’ and ‘food for free’ donation programs at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University where he worked for over a decade.
Over the years, Luiz has managed people from every possible background and developed a hands-on approach to mentoring based on open and honest communication. Most recently Luiz was the Director of Operations for Bon Appétit Management Company at their MIT campus. He is a member of the American Culinary Federation and Research Chefs Association. He has a Global Leadership Management Certification from Harvard University, a Hospitality Management Certification from Cornell University, and a Human Resources Certification from Human Resources Institute.
We chatted with Luiz to better understand what drew him to work with BLC and how he thinks about managing teams. Below are excerpts from the conversation.
Q: What drew you to the work that BLC is doing?
I am intrigued and encouraged by BLC’s vision for the future of land management and how it intersects with communities and agriculture. For me, I like to have a forward-thinking approach when tackling problems and I saw very early on that resonated with the team here.
My professional background has been working with large and complex teams and the scale and focus of BLC is different from my most recent work experiences with big companies and universities. But I have found that the core tenets of my work ethos resonate regardless of the size of my team which is to value curiosity, empowerment and communication.
Q: In your role as Operations Director, how do you think about organizing day-to-day operations?
I think about my work in three buckets: people, strategy and process.
People are the biggest challenge and the biggest asset for almost any company. My job is to be focused on professional development and efficiency—I want to set up each and every team member for success to do their job well.
I think about strategy as creating alignment on how we move the company forward. Half of that work is logistical: what steps do we need to take and how do we organize it? The other half of that work is syncing up our work with our values and vision: is there cultural alignment with the work we are doing?
I also recommend listing out the goals you are trying to achieve and looking at them every day—this could be a Post-it note above your desk or pop-up reminder on your computer screen. This helps with maintaining focus and goal-setting.
Asking yourself two questions can help to identify your process: how are we doing things? Is this working well? Create space to organize how your team approaches problem solving and be proactive in breaking bad habits.
Here is how I identify and tackle challenging situations on teams:
Pay attention to how your team is being affected
What is the group morale?
Is work being done effectively and efficiently?
Is there pushback to deadlines and management requests?
Identify when to step in
Sometimes it can be valuable to let problems run their course and other times managers need to step in quickly to resolve issues head on
Redirect project goals to create a new strategy
Review the scenarios that are leading to problems on the team
Fall back into thinking about people and strategy and rework the process
Q: What are the biggest challenges facing BLC right now?
The COVID pandemic severely changed how businesses around the world organize and manage people and BLC faces those same challenges. In many ways, the pandemic revealed and exposed many issues that already existed in the workplace but we weren’t paying attention to them.
Right now, as a team, we are growing quickly and redesigning how we think about the workplace and asking some big questions: how do we have flexible spaces but maintain structure and consistency for our employees? How do we remove the tendency for managers to micromanage when productivity needs to increase? How do we encourage creativity? How do we prioritize work/life balance and mental health?
These are big open-ended questions and we are early in our discovery to better understand how to tackle them. But we know where we are headed and want to establish a company culture that is collaborative, where everyone feels valued, where we can act on plans that we create and where we don’t work in fear of change or failure.
“My biggest piece of advice to other leaders is to create a culture of teamwork. Create your roadmap, create your plan and work your plan.”
Q: How are you motivating your team?
I have clear guidelines on how I think about team motivation that all center around empowerment. My job as a leader is to set team goals, provide support, communicate the vision, appreciate and value the work being done and create space for professional development.
Here are my steps for team motivation around starting a new project:
Create a clear picture of the goals and vision
Communicate that it’s okay to make mistakes
Sometimes let mistakes happen to allow opportunities to learn– growth comes from failure
Keep communicating the vision clearly so that it’s top of mind throughout the project
Continue to appreciate your team and communicate that appreciation
Work closely together. Check-in early and often
Q: How would you describe your management style? What advice do you have for other leaders building and growing their teams?
I view myself as a facilitator of curiosity. To me, curiosity and excitement can be two of the biggest motivators in and out of the office. I get butterflies before my work day starts not knowing where the day might lead—I want my team to have that same level of enthusiasm.
The challenge as a manager is to balance that excitement with the realities of running a business—how are we implementing our vision? How are we tackling risk management?
My biggest piece of advice to other leaders is to create a culture of teamwork. Create your roadmap, create your plan and work your plan. Sticking with a plan can be one of the hardest parts of team and project management– that doesn’t mean a plan can’t evolve but don’t deviate.
And remember that doing things well takes time and patience.