How We See It

Measuring Front-Line Results

Why aren’t we measuring the impact of staff by how well they engage guests and create loyalty? Why are insanely subjective metrics for attitude and teamwork used? (The only team in a restaurant is the management team. Just because a group of people engage in team-like behaviors doesn’t make them a team.) There’s also no such thing as a bad station or bad shift – only bad servers. I’d rather they fight for the loyalty of every single guest.

Focusing solely on sales metrics as the final arbiter of determining a front-line employee’s value, is short-sighted and helps to create a culture of treating the guest like nothing more than a transaction. Are you sure you want to sacrifice LTV for the price of one more slice of apple pie?

Thoughts?

Are You Entitled?

RestaurantWorx: Phoebe Damrosch

Phoebe was the first female head captain at Thomas Keller’s prestigious New York restaurant Per Se. Here she describes the experience of entering the dining-and-hospitality field, then  learning to deliver world-class service to some of the world’s most discerning customers. Her book Service Included also describes her experience at Per Se.

An Outline For Creating A High Performance, Hospitality Culture

All businesses have a culture that either supports or detracts from the execution of their businesses strategy for building success. It happens either by design or by default. Which is yours? Read more

Shift Happens – New Version

The ‘Shift Happens’ video was updated and I didn’t know it until today. This is one awesome video and I use it in most of our presentations.

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.

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?

Changing Culture – Changing Rewards

An organization’s culture can be defined as “What it’s like to work around here.” Its dimensions include the following:

• What the organization expects from its people and how it communicates those expectations.
• How the organization does its work?
• Whether there are major class distinctions between employee groups (e.g. management vs. line employees) or if the work environment is more egalitarian.
• How and by whom decisions are made.
• How work is organized-by functions, business lines or customers.
• The level of employee involvement and to what degree employees are encouraged to take risks.
• Whether employees are encouraged to compete with one another or to support one another.
• The meaning of success in the organization.

SOURCE: Sibson & Company Personnel Journal, April 1995, Vol. 74, No. 4, p. 32.

How do you start to change your culture?

You must first understand your current culture before attempting to change it. This may seem obvious, but many companies skip this step–and pay for it later.