Hello Dear Readers!
In my last blog I discussed how I went about dealing with some first impression issues. After making an incognito visit to a restaurant that would soon be under my leadership, I decided that a meeting with the existing management team was necessary. As I said before at that point they knew I was coming but they had no idea I had already visited the restaurant. My experience has shown me that even more so than your staff, you new team of managers will be chomping at the bit to give you their perspective on...well everything. Just like with the crew, the information you'll get will be a combination of their frustrations, manipulations and implications that everything that is wrong with the restaurant was the fault of the person you've just replaced.
This was certainly the case when I met with the management team. We met at one of the other stores and I told them that I just wanted to meet them. I tasked them with one simple task. Give the names of the five worst employees. Jane the assistant manager was hesitant to name names. Luckily the shift lead Anna Mae was more than happy to put together a kill list. She gleefully gave me names along with a laundry list of infractions that ranged from chronic tardiness to sex and blow on the premises. Anna Mae told me that she was already getting ready to fire some of these people because, "I don't put up with that shit". Jane meekly nodded her head and agreed with Anna Mae's input. I gave them no reaction and I asked if they had anything else to say. Jane told me she was feeling the pressure of having to do the schedules, luckily good ol Anna Mae was there to help her. There were also issues with deposits and she was unsure if she was doing the inventory right. Anna Mae wanted to know when she could get a raise, she also let me know that she had about fifty hours of overtime and that the last GM had been planning to promote her.
I thanked them for coming and told them we would talk again after my training was over and I was there officially. Now I am quite sure that they left feeling secure in their jobs, and that their agendas had been well served. Here is the reality; Most issues you will have in your restaurant can all be traced back to one person, the GM! the next level of accountability goes to your management team. If you are the new GM it is your job to figure out what management decisions led to these issues. Once you identify the root cause, create a solution. If you are an operator and you have service issue, high guest complaints, food quality issues, the first place you need to look to fix it is a mirror!
Yes there were several crews issues I noted during my visit but the first question I ask is why the managers haven't addressed and corrected these issues. By meeting with my managers before talking to one crew person, what I am actually determining is if I have the right team in place to right the ship. All too often managers know about and even participate in unethical behavior. Sometimes they instigate it! Bottom line that first meet is crucial to assessing not only their strengths and weaknesses, you also get to learn the things they don't want you to know.
Take Jane and Anna Mae. It was obvious to me that both of these managers knew what was going on in that restaurant. The only questions I had was how much were they involved. Here is what I learned about them from what they didn't say Jane is not a very confidant manager. She ceded control of schedules to a junior manager who should not have been doing them. She lacked the ability to control labor cost since she didn't do anything about her shift leaders highly unnecessary overtime. In addition she was unable to articulate why the crew she put on the list deserved to be fired. The cherry on her cake, she was the manager that was standing outside when I visited the restaurant! Anna Mae on the other hand was a completely different story. Anna Mae had tons of confidence and bravado. She was also able to tell me in detail why she wanted the people on her list fired. Or course Anna Mae was robbing the company blind, not just in unneeded overtime but actual cash deposits. It was also clear that she loved having power but could care less about guests or crew.
The reason I spend so much time discussing the managers should be obvious. YOU CANNOT BUILD A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS WITHOUT A STRONG MANAGEMENT TEAM!!!!! I can't stress this enough, when you are in a situation where your restaurant has significant opportunities for improvement in service, sales etc , you will achieve very little long lasting change without fixing the people issues first. Before you can fix your crew you have to start with your management team. If you're asking why it's simple. If your team doesn't share your vision, you will only have the business you want when you are physically in the building! They both had to go. Since firing your entire management team isn't the best course of action I started with letting go of one. It was a tough decision since they both had earned those pink slips. In the end I decided that low rent embezzlement trumped incompetence so I kissed Anna Mae goodbye.
The tricky thing about trying to turn around a restaurant with lots of issues is the fact that you cant tackle the issues one at a time. Without knowing it you have your own circus act and your talent is juggling. The good thing is that many of the plated have a cause and effect to them. The very act of letting go of the manager that the crew assumed was safe sends a very clear message. at this point I'm ready to have a talk with my team....but wait here comes the twist. The powers that be decide that instead of firing Jane we are going to transfer her to the store I trained in and I would get one of their shift leads.
This development showed me a couple of things right away. The first is dearth of quality managers, the second is the rampant nepotism the ran free in the company. Notice that I haven't really begun to reshape my crew. Before I can do that I'll have to handle issues that make reaching my operational goals much harder to attain. More importantly dear readers you will run into these issues at some point in your career. Next blog I will give you some tips on how to deal with them in a positive way....until then.
No comments:
Post a Comment