Your view may not always be the best…..another leadership road hazard!

This leadership hazard can be best described in the story of the happy beach swimmer. If you are on one of those crowded Southern California beaches with your friend soaking up the rays you have a limited view of things going on around you. The people next to you, the kids playing in the surf….the immediate dangers seem well within your control.

Down the beach a way their sits a lifeguard tower….Now the lifeguard has a much different view of the beach. Not only can they see you, the people next to you, and the kids playing in the surf, they can also see people swimming in the water, surfboards coming in fast, cars coming down the beach. They definitely have a “bigger” picture of the dangers you could be facing. They can even see people nearing danger and be in the water quickly to protect you from strong tides and undertows.

Now look out a little farther in the water up higher and you will see the Beach Patrol helicopter. Think about their view for a minute. They see you, the people next to you, the kids playing in the surf, surfboards, cars, sharks, and boats and their picture gets even “bigger” than you and the lifeguard combined. More advanced warning of impending doom to keep you safe.

So to avoid this leadership hazard in your business you need only to know that your view of the business hazards aren’t only what you can see but what those around and above you can see as well. In most cases just recognizing who has a better view of the business and accepting help can be a very successful leadership tactic.

If you are a server, in most cases, your view is limited to the scope of your tables.
If you are a department manager, your view is that of your shift or team
If you are a General Manager, you can see the whole business across all departments
If you are an Owner an even bigger perspective
If you are a Multi-Unit operator or Consultant you have numerous businesses to see and your view grows even larger
If you are a CEO, you see sometimes 100’s of operations giving you a clear view of different operating styles, results, and approaches.

If you are looking to avoid the dangers of the beach, sometimes you just have to find the highest vantage point. Don’t be afraid to look up and ask those above you what they see. Better safe than sorry!

Shake that Coke machine!

Maybe you are there, maybe you have been there, maybe you are on your way there but when I was much younger, a food server, married, wife going to school, not much money, I had to go to the Laundromat weekly. I saved all my quarters from my tips to do my wash. As I narrowed down the load of clothes that had to be done I would have a couple of quarters left over and in the back corner of the room sat a Coke machine. The thought of a cold can of Coke just seem to hit the spot.

I walk up, drop my two quarters in, push the big red button and wait for the sound of the tumbling can through the mechanism and the loud thud of the can hitting the delivery chute. I can already picture myself tapping the top of the can lightly to settle the bubbles so when I open it there is no spray of sticky soda everywhere.

But instead, nothing…..no coke, no coins in the return slot, no out of that selection pick something else…just nothing. I am pissed to say the least.

Over at the desk I see the young operator with his legs propped up on the desk in his laundry supervisory posture. You probably already know where this is going.

“Hey man, your coke machine ate my money!”

“Sorry dude, we don’t own those machines. There is a number on the front of the machine you can call to report the money you lost, but good luck with that.”

I head back over to that Coke machine even more pissed, ready to take out my anger on that inanimate bad boy. I shake that machine, rocking it back and forth; waiting for it to dislodge my 50 cent can of pleasure! Nothing…I shove my hand around the flap hoping to get my fingers around the can that I own. Again, nothing, more anger….I am in a bad mood, ready to light up whoever comes in contact with me.

This ever happen to you?

-Ever had a guest come to your restaurant and pay you money for their meal and you didn’t deliver exactly what they ordered?
-Ever had a server or manager act indifferent towards a guest when they missed a few of the service steps?
>-Have you ever fallen short of handling a guest situation 100% because you were tired, just not in the game that day?

Well, you are the Coke machine, I am your guest, you took my 50 cents, and I want what I want and I want it now. Get ready for the next step; I am fixing to SHAKE you till I get my Coke or worse, until I get my money back.

It’s a tough economy, less money to go around, and the money I spend with you may be all I have. Don’t make me mad, just let me pay you, and give me my Coke. I did pay for it!

Nobody cares about my future!

What do you do if you have a boss that isn’t engaging your strengths, recognizing your true value, giving you the direction you need to move forward, or in general being the true leader that you would be if you were doing his job? Yeah, ok. I wish I had a nickel for every time someone got caught in the trap of not taking responsibility for their own career advancement. Waiting for your boss to figure it out and create an environment conducive to your future?

”So, how's that working for you?”

If your answer to the above question is “Not so well” then do something different.
- Recognize that the only person who will get you anywhere is you. Stop being a victim to your own lack of success.
- Get engaged and do something about it. Stop complaining that the boss isn’t doing their job.

So, what's your area of responsibility in your current position? Is it service, hiring, training, food quality, food or beverage costs, cleanliness? Surely, you've been assigned a specific area of responsibility.

Is your area of responsibility performing at its optimum level? Is it an example of how your department should be executing?

If your answer is yes – then go help another department or area. Engage that leader and help them get to an exceptional level of execution. Do it to help, not to prove wrong. Assist, bust your butt, do whatever you can to get someone else winning the way you are and expect nothing in return. Get them promoted! The more people waving your flag saying how great you are, the better.

If your answer is no – well, there's your problem! If you can’t get your own area right, why would you expect your boss to do anything different? Get a coach, find a mentor, read, research, engage your team, and do whatever it takes to get your team pumping out the results that are expected.

Initiative is one of the most important qualities I look for in an exceptional leader. You have to be able to engage yourself first before you can expect someone else to engage you. I would much rather try to get a horse to slow down then keep kicking it to run!

And don’t get me wrong, I am not telling you to go it alone…..if you don’t have the answers, ask for help and keep asking until you find someone willing to help. If people keep telling you no when you ask for help, you are asking the wrong people.

You haven’t asked me yet.

You might as well quit!

So you are the Manager, General Manager, Area Director or Multi-Unit Supervisor in the restaurant industry. When questioned about what your job description may be the answers that I hear most often are….

-Protect the image and standards
-Deliver a great product to every guest, every day
-Ensure the financial success and long term viability of the business

Similar to the canned responses that you might hear when you ask a police officer why he or she does what they do, “to protect and serve”. I hate that answer.

However when you ask these same people what they love about their jobs they will tell you….

-Teaching the employees and managers how to be successful
-The interaction with the guests and providing them with a great experience
-The pace, atmosphere, energy, and competition

So the difference between their job description and what they love to do are not aligned. The one thing that I do know is that if you aren’t doing something you love, it becomes mundane, repetitive, and well hell you end up not doing it very well. So you might as well quit. I know someone famous said if you find a job that you love it will never seem like work! So how do you combat the gap between the job and what you love? Well align them!

What exactly is it you are teaching that creates your love for the job?-The standards, specs, and service expectations!
When you are engaged with the guest, what actually are you doing?-You are validating that the overall value and experience are being delivered by your people because the standards, specs, and expectations are being met!
Why do you love the pace, atmosphere, energy, and competition so much?-Because you get a chance to deliver the standards, specs, and service expectations better than anyone else!

So, if you find yourself bored with the day to day operations like, follow up, order taking, line checks, and repetitive processes that happen everyday in the restaurant business either quit and go do something else you love or realize that those processes are exactly what make this job so great. Be the basics of the business and the restaurant business is alive and in living color!

Funny thing happened on my way to work

So I am headed to one of my restaurants and I am reflecting on why I can’t seem to make the headway fast enough to make this the best operation in the industry. I think to myself, “Self, you have been doing the same thing you always do in these situations and it works, what is happening here?”

Being the introspective fellow I am I mull it over and over and over. Can’t find it in that big ole noggin of mine. Then the revelation comes, I’ll just ask. So one by one I talk to the managers, the hourlies, and heck anyone I can pose with the question, “What am I doing wrong here?” Slowly but surely I begin to hear the same notion…”Andy, we are doing our best too and that isn’t good enough!”

Uh oh….I don’t know what to do, they don’t know what to do…now we are in big trouble. So all my vast years of mentoring, coaching, debate, and thought provoking leadership leads me to this, “I better start at the beginning and see where I went wrong.”

Question: Do we have enough food coming in to the building?
Answer: We have been struggling with that issue. Our orders don’t seem consistent and we have to shop locally to keep up with what we are short on.
Diagnosis: No one knows the ordering system process and I hadn’t bothered to check and make sure they knew how to order, I assumed

Question: Do we know how to make the food that matches the recipes and the pictures?
Answer: Well Andy we are making it just like the last guy showed us, right?
Diagnosis: Food Quality has eroded over time with the lack of follow up and training and I was silently approving of the plates I saw every time I visited, I assumed they were going over this

Question: Do we have enough people and do they know how to serve the guest?
Answer: We have the most tenured staff writing our schedules and they do a pretty good job of getting people in here and we really don’t get that many guest complaints
Diagnosis: Trouble here, the inmates are running the asylum and the standard of guest service is being measured by how many people are upset versus how many are happy. I assumed everyone knew what to do with the guest.

I have fallen into the leadership trap of ASSUMPTION. I assumed that the institutional knowledge that existed would keep the business running strong. I assumed that the management knew exactly what to do and were just performing poorly. I assumed that everyone knew exactly how important the guest was and took care of them with high expectations.

Yeah, Yeah, I know, assuming makes an “ass” out of “u” and “me”

Cure: Back to the Basics of what we serve, who we serve, and who serves it. Bring your team together, honestly communicate where you as the leader went wrong, and start over.

People don’t wake up and think to themselves, “Boy I am going to do a really crappy job today” they just get led that way. Learn from my mistake. There are only three kinds of people in the world:

Don’t know – teach them (this is most of them!)
Don’t care – move on, nothing to see here!
Can’t do – move on but even in my experience in the business, I can count the people that belong in this category on one hand….

Clarity, Content, Coaching.....

We all have dreams, aspirations, and desires to be something larger than current life. Whether it is personal or professional, we want to be more for ourselves and those around us.

Getting a handle on those dreams, holding them high and setting a course for making them come true seems to be where many of us begin to grind to a painful halt. That creates a sense of failure and causes aspirations to be shelved labeled as too big, unachievable, or simply….out of reach.

There is nothing better than the sense of fulfillment when one of these grandiose ideas comes into reality. You can only imagine how someone like Barack Obama must feel when he gets a quiet moment to sit back, reflect, and smile, yes smile about his dream coming true. He dreamed he could be President and with a lot of help he achieved it. It is the kind of smile you can actually FEEL.

How do people like you, me, and Barack achieve these kinds of dreams? We need help. Someone to guide, direct, and channel those thoughts and help us to create a strategic path. There are never too many dreams, just not enough plans. This is where your Coach can come into play. They listen, record, learn, and understand what it is you want to achieve and then work with you to establish a specific, time lined path to success. They drive you to believe, hold you accountable to achieve, and their success is grounded in arriving at your biggest outcomes! Coaches live to help others achieve what they have always wanted to do and don’t feel complete until YOU have done everything you thought possible.

Some call them mentors, some call them friends, some call them Coaches. Whatever you call them find someone to help you write down your dreams and let them help you bring them to life so that you too can FEEL your next smile.

Leadership - Born or Created?

Now here is an age old debatable topic, “Is great leadership born or created?”

I understand why some believe great leaders are born as it just seems that some of the best managers, leaders, and owners that I have come to know over the years just seem to “get it”. No matter what the situation, they seem to know the proper response, get the social cues, can adapt to quickly changing emotional issues and tie it all together with great business decisions to finish off their own brand of top notch leadership.

Now for my answer……they are CREATED! I believe it is simply a matter of environmental genetics. Great leadership is taught by role modeling, coaching, business experiences, and the daily addition of wisdom and maturity. Listed below are some simple tactics (not all of them) for developing your own leadership skills and being recognized by those around you as one of the greatest!

Find a mentor – Who is the person you most admire currently? Contact them directly and share your desire to learn from them. Anyone that you admire that much will surely put you under their wing and help you along the path that you desire. Identify the values or behaviors that you most admire about your mentor and have them help you on a path that will add those behaviors to your leadership style.

360 degree evaluations – Talk to the people that currently work with and for you. Tell them about your desire to be an exceptional leader and that you need their feedback to improve your leadership. Now develop some questions that will best elicit the responses you seek. How about some to get you started:

1. What’s it like to work for or with me?
2. Do I provide you with opportunities and coaching to improve your own talents?
3. If there was one thing I should keep doing, what would it be?
4. If there was one thing I should stop doing, what would it be?

As you listen for the responses, SHUT UP, take notes, and listen as if your own mentor was giving you this feedback. Your peer or subordinate has a perspective and their perspective is reality…no matter whether you think they are right or wrong. And last, actually do something with the information you learn and change or improve from the feedback. Others will see you make the changes and be much more likely to share honestly with you the next time you need direct feedback.

Read, Read, and then read some more – Just an hour in your local bookstore or online bookstore searching through the business section, self-help, or management section and you are bound (no pun intended), to find some books that strike your current focus or thoughts. Do you hate reading? Try CDs for those long car rides or iPod downloads for your workouts. Need some titles? Ask you mentor about some titles that have stimulated them the most. Think of reading business and leadership books the same as a doctor reading the current medical journals. You have to stay current and constantly “Sharpening the Saw” as Steven Covey says. Hey, maybe you just found your first author to check out!

Engage in social networking – post your questions and thoughts on social networking sites to get others to give you some quick feedback. I have met some of the smartest people on these sites and many have helped me to solve some of my toughest issues.

Leadership isn’t born, it is created! The best news is that tomorrow is another day to improve your skills, engage those around you, and be the best leader you can be to your co-workers and employees.