How We See It

A Better Business Doctrine

Every doctrine has to start somewhere. Even this one.

Want to boost your repeat business, get tons of free referrals, acquire bunches of new customers and get lots of positive buzz for free? There’s a pretty simple way to do it that doesn’t have to cost you a whole lot. Can you guess what it is?

Simple: Purge your company of assholes.

In fact, let me share item #1 in my Better Business Doctrine with you real quick. Are you ready? Here we go: Read more

17 Leadership Best Practices

We’ve been talking a lot lately about Leadership so here are my top 17 hottest best practices.

1. One-On-Ones: The best tool that gets the best results for our clients is the 5-minute, “One-On-One” utilized with EVERY employee, EVERY day. We Coach them to pick one employee every day to sit down and have a one-on-one conversation with. This isn’t a “gotcha” event as much as it is a “what can I do for you to help you achieve your goals” event. You learn tons when they begin to share what their own personal goals are – or aren’t! Then when you go through your entire staff – start over!
   
   
2. Employee Roundtables: These aren’t your usual staff meetings. Employees meet once a month/quarter with the owner or highest level field manager available. No unit managers are allowed. Open and frank discussions of the culture ensue and the level of engagement during the meetings is phenomenal.
   
   
3. 360 Feedback: This isn’t only for managers it’s for employees as well. This type of evaluation needs to be incorporated in any ongoing evaluation process you have.
   
   
4. Staff First, Guests Second: Never treat a guest better than you do an employee.
   
   
5. Hire “A” Level Talent: Hold out for it period! It will be worth it when you do.
   
   
6. Fire “C” & “D” Level Talent: You will never have “A” level talent if you force them to work with less talented individuals. “B” level talent can be grown into “A” level talent, but “C” & “D” level talent cannot. Get rid of them now before they cost your business even more.
   
   
7. Grow your business: You will have to focus on growth in order to pay more, do more and offer more that guests and “A” level talent will demand – not just now, but in the not-too-distant future, like tomorrow!
   
   
8. Grow Your People: Talent Management has to be the most important decisions you make every day. Understand that you must also challenge your staff to do more that matches their interests, skills and talent or you will lose them. Don’t have a position for them? Re-define one!
   
   
9. Grow Yourself: How can you be a better leader if you are not constantly engaging yourself in new learning? New processes? New perspectives? New ways of thinking? The amount of knowledge in the world is doubling every 2.5 years and even that pace is increasing. Can you afford to be left behind?
   
   
10. Develop Core Values: Sit down with all stakeholders and do this today! This will determine everything else you need to do and how you will do it.
    
    
11. Create the Best Culture: You have a culture already. What is it like? Does it achieve the performance level you need? The proper culture is the only thing that will directly improve the performance of your staff and ultimately the business.
    
    
12. Walk the Walk: Your staff has to have trust in your ability to lead. The best way to do this is to establish your intent up front then exhibit the ability to manage the business properly and efficiently. This means not just executing 100% of an :every guest, every table, every day” mentality, but understanding that the difference between managing and leading is that managers do things right, while leaders do the right things.
    
    
13. Measure Results: Anecdotal evidence isn’t enough. You have to know if a change effort is working or not and how well, given the current strategy and resources. What does success really look like?
    
    
14. Coaching At The Point Of Action: This is the only way to ensure high performance at all levels. It is also the only place where actual engagement with the employee or guest can make biggest impact.
    
    
15. Strategy First: This has to be your mantra for every area of your business. You must understand that the proper strategy has to be in place first. Tactics are always determined by the strategy, not the other way around. Would you start out on a journey to someplace you have never been before without a map?
    
    
16. Make It Fun: If you want it to stick! See my previous post on how Fun creates Results.
    
    
17. Transparency: Talk openly and freely about the issues and solution strategies of your business with staff. Talk about everything from electric bills to staffing issues so that they understand the “why” of your “how” to do the “what”.

To find out what we can do to help you drive the true effects of a well developed Leadership program, give us a call at 888-9988-SHG (744) (744) for a free consultation.

Big Fat Lie #1

This is the first of many posts from me on the lies or myths that exist in our business and what the truth of the matter is. It will also highlight the problems caused by the lie inside the culture of your operation and what the solution for that problem is. I would greatly appreciate your comments.

Big Fat Lie: People don’t like change.

The Truth: People DO like change. People do NOT like being changed!

The Problem: Leadership that tells employees what to do instead of engaging them to the level necessary in order for the employee to want to change on their own. Because in order for you to get someone to change their behavior – they have to WANT to change.

The Solution: Talk to your staffs about the need for change and the resulting success you could be enjoying if you did. Get their input into the change strategy and you will soon be able to move mountains!

Seth On Coachability

Now when Seth starts talking about Coaching, isn’t it time you got off your butt and started moving yourself – and your business – to the next level?

Check it out here..

Talking Is In Again!

An article in the April 2007 issue of the Harvard Business Review discusses one of the biggest challenges in managing and growing a 21st century business — namely getting business stakeholders (employees, clients, partners, and vendors) — to actually do/deliver upon what they promise. The article has a number of incredibly salient points for the modern restaurant owner/operator, including:

‘There is a prejudice amongst “action-oriented” managers/entrepreneurs for “doing” versus “talking.” While a laudable mindset, the reality of a knowledge economy is that much of the doing IS actually talking. Meetings, both formal and informal, in-person and on the telephone, are much of the work of the modern manager. Critically, the quality of a modern organization can be measured by the degree to which these meetings translate into action items, or promises, that are actually delivered upon. Great organizations create internal dynamics whereby promises are made in meetings and then delivered/executed upon in the field. Poor and mediocre organizations, in context, are weak in both defining the mission-critical promises and in their actual fulfillment.

“Talking” is the action we take when we Coach Staff to deliver a better guest experience, maintain standards or just simply execute the brand on an every guest, every table, every day basis. This is also the action we take when we work to develop better relationships with staff, guests, vendors and other stakeholders in our businesses.

So the question becomes, how well and how often are you talking to the people who are most important to your success?

High Turnover Stems From Short-Sighted Hiring Practices

Pleasant Prairie, WI (PRWEB) September 27, 2006 — Meeting an employee’s personal needs is more critical to job satisfaction than ever, according to a nationwide survey of recruiting professionals conducted by eBullpen, creators of the TalentPen candidate collection and matching system. The survey, released today, shows that worker loyalty is more precarious than ever — 46 percent of new hires leave their jobs within the first year, and only 49 percent remain after two years. A whitepaper summarizing the survey findings is available for download at http://www.talentpen.com/read_the_whitepapers.html.

“It’s never seemed more daunting to recruit and maintain a committed, content workforce,” the paper says. “Baby Boomers are now facing tiered-retirement schemes, as employers face a dearth of skilled workers. In this ‘buyer’s market,’ younger skilled workers can pick and choose their job options and loyalty isn’t high.”

While 75 percent of respondents named quality of hire and retention as the two most important HR metrics, 59 percent of those surveyed believe that less than half of all candidates interviewed are qualified. Additionally, more than half of the respondents marked personality as critical for a good hire. Yet more than 80 percent are spending their money on standard criminal and/or reference background checks, while significantly less measure personality fit.

“It’s no longer enough to find a candidate who is qualified for a position,” explains Michael Sproul, president of TalentPen. “Many other factors play into the overall success of a hire; companies need to connect with a candidate as an individual before expecting them to give back. In a sense, retention begins before the hire.”

The whitepaper offers suggestions to employers, including the development of “talent pools” and active communication with prospects. Personality assessments are also cited as key measurements for how an employee fits a company’s culture, which directly impacts their loyalty. Employers who don’t follow this advice will pay a high price, reports the paper. Conservative industry estimates put the cost of turnover at 1.5 times that of salary, with some companies reporting a six-fold expenditure above salary when hidden costs such as “chain reaction” turnover and lost productivity are factored in.

Most recruiting professionals who responded to the survey were from companies with between 100-1,000 employees. More than a quarter of these respondents were from service companies; other industries represented include healthcare, manufacturing, education, and financial services.

TalentPen, a web-based candidate collection and matching system, measures candidates’ personalities, job preferences and qualifications, then collects them into private talent pools and matches them to employers with appropriate cultures. Candidates don’t apply for a specific job, but instead complete personality profiles and are placed into expandable talent networks.

The same personality methods used by TalentPen were recently featured in Inc. magazine’s August issue. “The New Science of Hiring,” a cover article, compared modern scientific hiring options to older hit-and-miss tactics. Writer Stephanie Clifford wrote that personality fit cannot be determined by traditional job interviews.

Top Ten Tips For Creating Angry Employees

By Mr Angry.

I’m somewhat of an expert on anger. I think I’ve had good teachers, which is to say, I’ve worked for some very bad managers who were absolute masters in the art of infuriating their employees. I’ve decided to distill all the worst anger-instilling behavior I’ve witnessed over the years into a top ten list – the things that absolutely guarantee an angry workforce.

This is not intended as a how-to guide for wannabe satanic managers. I did briefly consider that this might be akin to distributing a bomb-making recipe (very dangerous information in the wrong hands) but I actually believe most bad managers aren’t deliberately bad. They are far more likely to be ignorant of how destructive their actions are. As Hanlon’s Razor states: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

So please, anyone in doubt, this is top 10 list of things NOT to do. So here are my top 10 tips for guaranteeing an angry workforce:

1. Don’t communicate – That’s right, don’t tell ‘em anything. Why do they need to know? They’re not the all-powerful manager – you are. Here’s a tip: if you aren’t communicating, your staff are filling in the gaps themselves. And they rarely put the most positive spin on things. Case in point: in one job the IT manager went on a trip to the branch office in India without telling anyone what he was doing. As a joke, I said he was going to outsource the whole department.

Everyone believed me. I assured everyone it was a joke and I had no reason to think we were being outsourced and everyone calmed down. Then he came back and still didn’t tell anyone the purpose of the trip or what he did while he was there. Then I started to think he really was outsourcing us.

2. Encourage a culture of blame – Things go wrong from time to time, that’s unavoidable. But if you spend more energy fixing the blame than you do fixing the problem people will know not to make mistakes again. Actually if you make people think your first reaction to discovering a problem is to look for someone to blame, they’ll stop coming to you with problems. And then you’ll never find out about problems until things are totally and irretrievably screwed.

3. Don’t recognize achievements – if you congratulate people for doing a good job they’ll expect pay raises and that will ruin your budget. Actually, recognizing achievements can create more positive feelings in a workplace than money but still, they’ll get all uppity if you congratulate them for a job well done.

4. Impose arbitrary rules – There’s no end to how far you can take this one. The rule can be no talking to co-workers, limits on software, hardware and/or peripherals available or even no drinking coffee at the desk. The important thing is not to waver from arbitrary rules no matter how logical the counter-argument made by employees. Change one rule and they’ll think they can change any rule they can build a compelling case for.

5. Play favorites – Some people are just more likeable than others. Everyone tells you to treat staff equally but how will your favorites know you like them more unless you give them preferential treatment? And besides, what’s the worst that could happen? The rest of the staff get resentful? You don’t like them anyway, maybe they’ll stay the hell away from you.

6. Be inconsistent – Even arbitrary rules can be made worse by enforcing them inconsistently. If staff don’t know how you’re going to react to a given situation, they’ll never relax. And relaxed staff are unproductive staff. Probably. Best not to take the risk.

7. Be secretive – This is not exactly the same as not communicating. Being secretive is making it obvious that something is happening but not telling staff exactly what. It’s even better if you tell them there’s a big secret that you can’t tell them the details. Combine this with playing favorites for extra effect – make it obvious you’ve told your personal pet but forbid them from telling anyone else.

8. Be unresponsive – Don’t respond to email. Stare in the general direction of your staff with a peeved expression but don’t say anything. Respond to any questions or (god forbid) small talk from staff with a grunt. Agree to meeting requests then don’t show up. This will let staff know exactly where they stand and exactly how powerful you are.

9. Refuse to listen – When staff come to you with important issues, brush them off. If you listen once they’ll expect you to listen all the time. How they think their concerns can have any effect on managing the department is anybody’s guess. They’re probably just complaining that they think your favorite never does any work. And you wouldn’t play favorites with anyone who’d exploit that favored position, would you?

10. Refuse to change – Sometimes staff will go to the trouble of presenting a case for changing your way of doing things. Sometimes that case will seem compelling. Sometimes you will be tempted to think about changing because it seems like the best thing to do. Banish that thought from your head! Are these schmucks managers? How could a non-manager possibly be smarter than a manager? Make sure to mark them down in their next annual review.

These are not the only ways to make staff angry but they are methods I’ve seen successfully employed many times over the years. Sometimes very successfully. So successfully that sometimes I formed the obviously mistaken impression that the manager concerned was a deranged psychopath. It’s a consistent disappointment to me that all the best staff quit when faced with managers like this. Where do they get off making logical choices to protect their own well-being? And how do quality staff always manage to find another workplace where they aren’t subjected to such negative behavior?

Don’t people like a challenge any more?