Thursday, May 31, 2007

A Guest Experience That Cannot be Copied or Cloned - By Peter McAlpine

Some Implications for the Hotel Industry
Does nobody see anything obsolete about the tendency of hotels to copy each other's guest experience, while the chains clone theirs throughout the hotel group? It's high time to move on from this practice. I would like hotels to understand that they can create a far more loving and caring guest experience that cannot be copied; one that increases the happiness and well-being of the staff and guests; and which puts the pervasive SOP/Customer Satisfaction (SOP/CS) guest experience in the shadows. This article explains why it is superior and why it cannot be replicated.

There are, however, some major implications for the hotel industry that the SOP/CS culture diehards and hotel groups that clone their SOP/CS guest experience will not like. Although they may not realize it yet, the time will come when the hotels and hotel groups that learn how to create it will reap the benefits over those that prefer to stick stubbornly to the well-worn path.

The scenario nowadays is basically this. When a new independent hotel opens, it uses many of the P&Ps, systems, and operational manuals 'borrowed' from the chain hotel groups. Similarly, when a chain hotel group opens or takes over another hotel, the corporate office fills it with basically the same P&Ps, systems and operating manuals used in all of the other hundreds of properties in the brand or Group. The result is a guest experience that is so similar wherever you go, especially in chain hotels where standardization and uniformity are treasured. This may be 'normal', but does nobody realize that the thinking behind it is now obsolete and that it merely confines you within the town limits of Normalville where every hotel's guest experience is basically the same?

Worse still, to facilitate the guest experience cloning process, the new hotels also install the same old Human Resources Department concept, which defies all pesticides and witches' cauldrons, and refuses to die. With the HR Department comes the service training, courtesy of the same Wonder Care customer satisfaction programme that has been doing the rounds in the Group for years with the occasional update. Cloneable customer satisfaction continues to 'rule, OK!', even if nobody dares to use these words anymore.

This approach has been great for the shareholders and financiers, but very uninspiring for the guests and staff as the guest experience basically stays the same. On the one hand, it enables the chains to open many new hotels each day or week very quickly and efficiently. But as long as the concept of service remains embedded in the SOP/CS culture mentality (100% efficiency in the SOPs), a hotel's service concept can be copied very easily by any hotel anywhere.

It must have occurred to people that with this cloneable concept of service, you eventually hit the ceiling of progress. Once every employee is performing the SOPs at 100% efficiency, how do you improve the guest experience except by focusing on the material aspects of a guest's stay. You can only become a maximum of 100% efficient, and you cannot use the same old concept to move to a higher level of guest experience. You cannot reach the stars on rocket fuel technology.

You can, however, change all this by creating a higher level of guest experience that cannot be reached by the SOP/CS culture hotels and which cannot be copied. The way to create a guest experience that cannot be copied is to completely change the focus and balance of the guest experience. You cannot create it with current thinking, which is very limiting.

Instead of basing the guest experience on performing the SOPs as close to 100% efficiency as you can, flavoured with a few dollops of that Wonder Care programme, hotels should base the experience on the main spiritual values and elements of service, namely, love, warmth, care (from the heart and not the SOP/CS kind), empathy, intuition, creativity, and mystery. When the focus is on creating a guest experience infused with these spiritual values and elements, you actually create something that cannot be copied or cloned, unlike the SOP/CS guest experience.

You have to change the emphasis from 100% focus on the standards to creating a guest experience in which the standards are saturated with love, warmth, care, empathy, intuition, creativity, and mystery. The more you saturate it with each one, the more the guest experience evolves. I find that these 7 create the synergy to take the service continuously to higher levels of guest experience. There is no ceiling unlike in the SOP/CS service culture, and this is one part of the beauty of it. The whole guest experience changes and can change in many ways.

This will sound laughable and idealistic in an industry where left-brain thinking still predominates, but the catalyst of this new guest experience is love. Assuming that you know how to do it correctly, the more you deepen the employees in this core value alone, the greater becomes the desire to want to show love to the guests; and as this spirit increases, the manner in which it is shown changes, and the guest experience changes. The spirit impacts the whole guest experience.

This is not theory. I have observed it happen several times. I started off in the hotel industry copying the SOP/CS guest experience like seemingly everyone else, but I always felt that something was missing. Eventually, I worked out that it is the spiritual element that is missing. Then I found a way to work through the heart to infuse the SOP/CS guest experience with love, care, warmth, and empathy to start off with before moving beyond this. I observed how the guest experience changed, and it even changed differently in different departments. People applied the spirit of love in a different way when creating the guest experience, and the synergy of the employees in one department created a different guest experience than in another department.

Then I observed how the same kind of guest experience differed greatly not just in different hotels, but also in different countries because of cultural influences. The SOPs were the same, but even with the same workshop content and the same extensive follow-up deepening programme in the 7 core values & elements, the guest experience turned out differently. By 'differently' I mean that the guest experience was stronger in certain core values and elements and so the staff did things differently. The emotional level also varied. Sometimes the guest experience was incredibly strong in love, care, and warmth, and sometimes less, but stronger in creativity, empathy, or mystery, for example. It could not be replicated because the spirit of love was at a different level. The spirit created affected everything.

So far I have just mentioned the effect of developing one core value, namely, love. Let's now add empathy. When you develop empathy, you change the guest experience further, and distance it even further from the SOP/CS guest experience, which in comparison becomes the relation everyone is embarrassed to talk about.

Empathy is an important quality to develop in the employees because the guest experience of tomorrow will require employees to be able to read and understand the guests intuitively, and to show that they are in-tune with them. In regard to the guest experience, empathy is a feeling an employee has of a guest's true emotions to a point where the employee can relate to that guest by sensing true feelings that run deeper than those portrayed on the surface. People often hide their true feelings with a mask, but an employee strong in empathy can sense the truth behind the mask and will act compassionately to help them express themselves, thus making them feel at ease and not so desperately alone. It is as though the employee truly understands, and indeed may do through personal firsthand experience.

When you develop empathy in the employees so that they are highly sensitive to the emotions and feelings of the guests and then act compassionately, considerately, and with understanding, the guest experience becomes truly wonderful - especially when you develop empathy by touching the heart and in combination with certain other core values and music.

The guest experience changes according to the development of empathy in the employees. The deepening programme will help the employees to increase their susceptibility to the emotion, as well as their desire to show it, but every employee will develop differently and practise it to a different degree. While the emotional level of empathy in the hotel will increase with the deepening programme, the intensity will differ between hotels, thereby resulting in more differences in the guest experience.

You can change the guest experience even more by developing the power of intuition of the employees. Why hotels don't develop this in the employees is a mystery to me. Everyone is born with intuition. Intuition enables us to have those moments of insight when we see a situation clearly and know precisely what to do. It creates those 'gut feelings' about a person or situation that turn out to be true. Unfortunately, many of us have been conditioned to distrust or ignore these direct experiences of clarity and insight, and to look at the facts instead.

Developing the intuition of the employees supports the development of empathy, and is a very important part of service at the level of creating truly memorable experiences and beyond because it increases the employee's feeling about the guests, and enables them to know what they should do to make each guest happy. By developing their intuition and by encouraging employees to use it, to act upon their feelings, and to show empathy with compassion, they will create more varied memorable experiences.

To summarize this, you can change the guest experience by the way you develop each of the 7 spiritual values and elements of the guest experience. When you develop one core value, it impacts the others, and this in turn creates a different guest experience. They are all interrelated. For example, the more you develop the intuition of the employees, the more it will impact the way they show empathy and the degree to which they want to show empathy. The more you develop love, the greater the effect you will have on the way empathy is shown and intuition is used. And so on.

When you add the element of mystery, the guest experience becomes even more impossible to clone. Mystery is an element that is seemingly little known in the hotel industry, but one day I am sure that it will be a normal feature. In short, mystery is when you leave even first-time guests asking themselves, 'How did she know ... that this is my favourite drink / fruit / food / music / etc. / or that I wanted to buy a Gucci handbag / that I want to go on a desert safari?' I haven't told her or anyone yet.' (There are ways!)

Mystery is something chain hotels will find very hard to create because you cannot make an SOP for it, and as soon as you try to standardize it, the mystery vanishes. The same actually applies to the other 6 core values and elements once you try to standardize them with SOPs and P&Ps. This point should not be taken lightly. Some of the current ways to create a guest experience will not work at the higher levels.

The level of mystery depends to a large extent on how the employees are deepened in the other core values because those other core values create the spirit and desire in the employees to want to create a guest experience filled with mystery. You can hand a hotel a list of 10 ways to create mystery, but the level of mystery created will depend on the synergy of all the core values being developed, and the level each individual employee has reached as a result of the deepening programme. Again, love is the catalyst that creates a truly memorable guest experience with mystery.

Let's add another of the core values, namely, care (genuine care from the heart as opposed to SOP/CS care), and the guest experience becomes even more impossible to copy or clone. In the SOP/CS culture caring service is mainly about providing guests with what they want and need in a material sense. Most hotels focus on ways to care for the guests and they have numerous manuals on how to do this; even going to the extent in one hotel group of having an SOP on how to smile. Generally, these manuals are full of procedures and standards that are written in a cold and emotionless language, seemingly by people from whose heart the spirit of loving and caring hospitality had been banished long ago.

In contrast, caring service at the level of creating a truly memorable guest experience is much deeper and closely linked to love. Truly caring service stems from love for fellow human beings and a genuine desire from the heart to make other people happy. How to develop this spirit of love goes beyond the article, but the spirit is very different from SOP/CS culture caring service where caring service usually feels like it is being provided because it is a duty to do so.

The more this core value is developed in the employees, the greater the impact it will have on the guest experience. The spiritual level of care in the guest experience is directly related to the degree to which the employees are deepened in love and empathy, and definitely not by training or techniques that increase or redefine efficiency. In turn, the more each of these core values is developed, the more they will impact the creativity and mystery in the guest experience because the more they are developed, the greater becomes the desire to be creative and to create mystery.

Everyone develops at a different speed. Some employees are so moved by the spirit and deepening programme that they are soon creating a guest experience that is infused with love, care, warmth, empathy, intuition, creativity and mystery. Others develop more slowly. Different departments develop at different speeds as well. Hotels as a whole follow the same pattern.

The guest experience cannot be copied because to a large extent it is created by the spirit of love, and this will vary from hotel to hotel. As the spirit grows, the experience will change. With deepening, the levels of love, care, warmth, empathy, intuition, creativity, and mystery increase, and as they increase the staff do different things for the guests, which they did not do before. The increase in emotion can be compared to turning up a dimmer switch to make a light brighter. Unlike in the SOP/CS culture, there is no limit to how far the dimmer switch can be turned.

This is what makes the guest experience grow and change in different ways. It is no longer restricted by the SOP manuals. With the gradual development of the core values and elements, the guest experience not only feels different, but new and different things also happen. Once a guest experiences it, s/he will never be happy again with an SOP/CS culture hotel.

Apart from the obvious financial benefits of moving on from the cloneable SOP/CS culture, there is another enormous benefit of creating such a guest experience, namely the health benefits of a truly memorable guest experience that is infused with love, care, warmth, empathy, intuition, creativity, and mystery.

Heart research over the years has proved that health starts with love, and that love can reduce stress. Research also shows that emotions work much faster and are more powerful for our well-being than thoughts; and also that the heart is much more important than the brain to overall health and well-being. The heart's dominance inside the body is now clearly demonstrated. Thinking clearly with your brain is useful, but feeling positively from your heart provides an amazing boost to health and creativity.

Showing and experiencing love, or briefly re-experiencing a cherished memory, creates synchronization in your heart rhythm in mere seconds. This increases the release of healthy, energizing hormones, while at the same time decreasing levels of damaging stress hormones. At the same time your immune system is strengthened, blood pressure decreases, and health and focus increase.

Feelings of compassion, love, care, and appreciation produce a smoothly rolling coherent heart rhythm. A different heart rhythm leads to other chemical and electrical - even neurological - reactions in the body.

When people experience love, they not only feel happy and joyful, but they also produce, for example, the hormone that prevents aging, and which gives us feelings of youthful vitality. Also, a loving body absorbs less cholesterol, thereby preventing arteries from clogging, and blood pressure stabilizes. Positive feelings, like love, generate health. Creating a truly memorable guest experience infused with the spirit of love is not only going to make hotels more money, but it will improve the health of the employees and guests. Surely the Sales and Marketing people can make use of this.

But there's more. Studies show that the electromagnetic field of the heart can be measured from between two and three metres from the body. If someone has a coherent heart rhythm, it has a demonstrably positive effect on other people in close proximity to him or her.

The implications of this for the hotel industry are very big, I feel. For a start, it makes completely obsolete the chain hotel approach to creating an essentially similar and uniform guest experience throughout a brand or the group. Why would anyone want to continue doing this?

It would be a great shame if the owners of the huge land and underwater hotel projects in the UAE, for example, spent a fortune creating a unique design and a multitude of facilities for their projects, and then installed an SOP/CS culture. What a waste of money and loss of revenue that would be, especially if a competitor group decided to break its traditional ties with Normalville!

In this concept of guest experience there is really no chance for uniformity and standardization anymore. Even with the same SOPs, the guest experience will be different in warmth and appearance in every hotel - sometimes with the comparative warmth of a 500 watt bulb, sometimes 3,000 watts, and sometimes even 10,000 watts or more. There is no limit either. The disturbing point for traditionalists is that if you try to create it by shackling the 7 core values and elements with the SOP/CS structure, the more you will discover that you cannot create the experience. The winds of change can indeed be frightening!

The area of competition for hotels will become the spiritual aspect of the guest experience; not the material grandeur of a property. The hotels and hotel groups that will become preferred will be those which have the more effective approach to developing the core spiritual values in the employees and guest experience; which have the more effective deepening programme; and which are willing to align all of the hotel's systems and procedures with the nature of the new guest experience. The traditional Human Resources Department will have to succumb to the witches' cauldrons, of course.

The SOP/CS culture will surely die at the 4-star and 5-star level because more and more hotels will try to create an alternative guest experience based on the experience described above. Independent hotels and small luxury resort groups will adopt it, and then the chain hotels will become undesirable in comparison. Why on earth would anyone want to stay at a hotel with an SOP/CS culture when you can stay at a hotel where the staff create a personalized memorable experience infused with love, care, warmth, and empathy, with intuition, creativity, and mystery, and where the warmth is so great and can be increased continuously? Incidentally, other spiritual values are actually developed too, such as compassion, but I cannot go into those here.

The ability to create such a guest experience will also surely become a major factor for choosing a management company. This kind of experience cannot be created in the key card manner of the SOP/CS culture. Hotels and hotel groups will have to experiment and this will take time. I have been doing this for over two years and I am still learning and discovering new ideas and ways.

A year from now hotels will wish they had started now. The speed at which they learn will be directly related to their willingness to break away from ideas and approaches that have become synonymous with organizational development and staff training & development in the age of the SOP/CS culture.

Hotels and hotel groups that don't like change will like irrelevance even less as the hotel industry changes direction and their shareholder value declines. I believe that in the future people will choose a hotel, especially at the 4-star and 5-star levels, according to the infusion in the hotel's guest experience of the 7 spiritual values and elements above. This will be where the money will be made. Meanwhile, ... the SOP/CS culture diehards will do just that.

About the Author
Peter McAlpine is the Senior Consultant at Renaissance Consulting Ltd. in Bangkok. The company specializes in pre-opening 5-star city hotels and resorts at the level of creating truly memorable experiences; upgrading customer service to this level; and inspiring hotel staff.

Contact

Renaissance Consulting Ltd.
99/192 Mubahn Place and Park,
Soi 90, Tanon Pracha Uthit,
Ampheur Prasamuthchedi,
Samuthprakarn, Thailand
Tel/Fax: +66-2-461-5164; +66-7-054-8813
E-mail: info@renaissanceconsultingltd.com

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

The Employment Interview - How Hard Can It Be.

By Dr. Rick Johnson
Monday, 28th May 2007


Interviewing a new job candidate sounds easy; After all you are in control; You have something to offer; You can select anyone you choose to select - Right?

That sounds good but in reality interviewing a person to fill a job opening is one of the more difficult tasks you may face as a manager. It does require specific skills to do it right and increase your chance of hiring the ideal person for the job; the person that will stay and fit in with the culture of your company.

That being said, I personally don’t know of one company that has a formal program to train their managers on how to conduct an interview. Interview training is much the same as training managers how to conduct a performance review. It is a rarity to find a company that actually does it. Recruitment, retention, interviewing and performance reviews are not just a “Human Resource” (HR) thing. They are a basic responsibility of all managers.

You can interview candidates for hours, do profile testing and have multiple team interviews and still not know for sure if they are the right person for the job and the right fit for the company. An effective job interview is one that will allow the employer to select an employee who will not only be able to perform the job, but who will stay on the job for an extended period of time. Turnover which requires rehiring and retraining are expensive for a company.

The Questions

Asking the right questions is not as easy as it sounds but questions that determine skill level and experience are fairly straightforward. The more difficult objective for any manager conducting an interview is to select the applicant who will fit in, work well in a team environment, be a contributor, enjoy, respect and promote the company’s image.

Selecting an individual that can not only do the job but one that will be so happy working for the company that they will stay can be a real challenge. Facing that challenge requires asking the right questions.

Let’s explore the interview process in more detail utilizing excerpts from CEO Strategists “Lead Wolf Interview Guide”

AN INTERVIEW IS:

A FACE-TO-FACE ORAL COMMUNICATION:

1. Between an applicant and an interview team
2. Initiated for a specific purpose
3. Focused on very specific subjects

Please note – individual one on one interviews in addition to and subsequent to team interviews are acceptable and sometimes preferred after identifying the final candidates.

SPECIFIC INTERVIEW OBJECTIVES:


1. To clarify data on the application form - - looking for apparent inconsistencies, time gaps or other missing information.
2. To obtain additional information not contained in the application.
3. To test to a degree, the applicant’s truthfulness regarding information on the application.
4. To obtain information from the candidate which will help appraise his personality, character, motivation and skills/knowledge.
5. To inform the candidate about the job, its requirements and the company.

CONDUCTING THE INTERVIEW

After you have conducted the necessary introductions and addressed work history, begin to focus more on probing for data you need to assess from the candidate in reference to the specific job requirements.

Avoid asking questions which can be answered yes or no. Ask open-ended questions which call for lengthier answers, for answers which give candidate’s opinion. If your questions begin with HOW, WHEN, WHY, they’re probably open-ended. Don’t ask leading questions which suggest a particular answer; the candidate will give you the answer he thinks you’re looking for.

Regarding work history, for example, try leading with a question like, “Tell me about your job at the XYZ Company”. The way he answers this question will indicate what he considers important. If he is slow to get going, ask him WHAT he LIKED and DISLIKED about the job; WHY he was interested in that job when he took it.

Then you can probe more deeply into:


1. Level and complexity of work
2. Extent of responsibilities
3. Motivation
4. Attitude and feelings
5. Effectiveness on prior jobs
6. Achievements
7. Interpersonal relationships
8. Level of accountability & authority

Here are some useful questions to ask in these areas. Don’t go down the list asking everyone in order. That would seem like an interrogation …. But these questions do suggest some useful approaches:

Level and Complexity of Work

“What did your job at XYZ Company consist of?”
“Could you describe a typical day at work?”
“What sort of things took up most of your time on this job?”
“What kind of decisions did you typically make on this job?”

Extent of Job Responsibilities

“Explain how you fit into that organization.”
“Tell me a little bit about your former boss.”
“What were his/her responsibilities?”
“How much contact did you typically have with your boss?”
“Describe some of your interactions with your boss.”
“Were you empowered to get your job done? How?”
“What kind of decisions did your boss expect you to make?”

Motivation

“How did you get into that field originally?”
“What attracts you to this industry?”
“When did you first think of leaving your former job?”
“Why did you decide to make a change?”
“What were some of the things that you really liked about that job?”
“What were some of the things that you liked about that company?”
“Describe the best boss you have ever worked for.”
“Describe the worst boss you ever worked for.”
“What is the worst thing a former boss ever did to you?”
“What is the best thing a former boss ever did?

Attitudes and Feelings

“What did you like best about your last job?”
“What kinds of things did you dislike?”
“What was most satisfying about your last job?”
“Did you like your boss?”
“How did you feel about the company as a whole?”
“What was the one thing you really liked about the company?”
“If you could have changed one thing – what is it?”
“How would you describe the culture of the company you worked at?”
“How much of a challenge was your former job?” How?”
“Do you feel you met your personal goals at your job, personally?”

Job Effectiveness

“Did you receive any awards or commendations?”
“To what extent were you able to increase your earnings?”
“What aspects of the job challenged you the most?”
“What did your boss say during your last performance review with regard to job specifics?”
“Did you agree with your boss’s assessment of your performance?”

Academic Achievements

“How well did you do in school – GPA?”
“What were the courses you did the best in?” Why?”
“What courses did you have trouble with? Why?”
“What courses did you get the most out of?”
“How have you applied any of the academics to your real world job performance?”
“How do you feel about the school you attended?”
“What did you like the most about school?”

Personal Goals & Objectives

This should include a discussion about what the applicant is aiming toward in terms of both the immediate job opening and their long range objectives. This is often a good way to develop insight concerning their ambitions and motivation.

“Could you explain exactly what you are looking for in a job change at this time?”
“If you had the opportunity, how would you write the job description for this job?”
“What values/standards would you desire in the company you would like to end your career at.”
“If you had to start all over again would you still be doing this type of work?

Outside Interests

A person has more freedom of choice in outside activities so these can be particularly revealing. Note how varied or restricted the outside activities are.

Note whether they are solitary in nature, family in nature or group type activities. Solitary activities might indicate that a person may be a loner. Extensive group activities could indicate an outgoing nature and an aptitude for leadership. Extensive participation in sports could indicate a high energy level and good physical health.

It could also indicate an ability to work closely with others in a team environment. Of course, all these observations can be backed up with personality profile testing. There are numerous tests available that can be used.

“Tell me about how you spend your free time.”
“What sorts of things interest you outside of work?”
“What takes up most of your free time?”
“What kind of things do you like to do best?”
“What activities outside of work give you the most satisfaction?”
“How did you get interested in…..?”
“Do you participate in any type of sports?”
“Did you play organized sports in school?” Intramural?”

Personal References

Don’t rule out references that are personal friends or family. Although a candidate is highly unlikely to put someone down as a reference that won’t say glowing things about them, sometimes they are not all plants. This is particularly true for young workers who have only one or two work references.

Personal references become necessary in these cases. However, try to uncover some names of other people and former work associates that are not on the reference list. Call them and ask about the candidate. These people are likely to give a reference that is less biased.

“Tell me about some of your co-workers and how they performed their job.”
“What about other supervisors at your last job. Who were they? How did you interact with them?”
“Who is the one person you didn’t get along well with at your former job?”
“Which family member do you have the most difficulty understanding?”
“What kind of reference would they give you?”
“Do you mind if we call them?”

Let’s face it. Conducting an interview and hiring the right person is no easy task. Getting the wrong person on board can be a very expensive and damaging proposition. This isn’t something to take lightly or just leave up to the Human Resource department.

Obviously, if you have an HR department, they will pay a very important specific role. But, the final hiring decision is generally left up to the manager of the department where the new employee will work. Train your managers on how to conduct an effective interview and what is involved in the selection process.

Remember, in spite of all the support from HR, in spite of all the testing that is available, in spite of the numerous team interviews and opinions, getting the right person in any given situation is still a gamble. However, you can dramatically improve your odds for success through preparation and training.

Rick Johnson, expert speaker, wholesale distribution’s “Leadership Strategist”, founder of CEO Strategist, LLC a firm that helps clients create and maintain competitive advantage. Need a speaker for your next event, E-mail rick@ceostrategist.com. Don’t forget to check out the Lead Wolf Series that can help you put more profit into your business.
www.ceostrategist.com

Monday, May 28, 2007

Foodservice Design - The Simplest Kitchen On Earth - By Lee Simon

Last summer, my family and I spent a week vacationing in the Rocky Mountain resort town of Breckenridge, Colorado. After a long day's journey, my children, then six and two years of age, were exhausted. They woke early, tolerated two planes that carried them half way across the United States, and then finally endured a ninety minute car ride before we reached our destination. We quickly dropped off our luggage and immediately left in search of somewhere to eat. We needed something simple and quick. The kids were fading fast.

Witness to an Operations Miracle
We found a local restaurant on main street called Rasta Pasta. They had a variety of pasta dishes. The restaurant is small, about 60 seats, but the menu seemed to offer a few dishes that were kid friendly and we were not in the mood for a restaurant scavenger hunt. Just as we had finished reviewing the menu posted outside, it started to rain. We headed inside and were seated in the restaurant which was a little less than one-third full at the time. But with the rain came an onslaught of patrons. By my estimation, there were about thirty people who were seated at the same time. I began to cringe.

There I was with a tired family in a small restaurant. Thirty patrons seated simultaneously. A very small kitchen. Only two servers were on the floor. For those of you with hospitality experience, you can appreciate the mental math that was going through my head. I could not figure out how they were going to pull this off, and to be honest I did not give them very good odds of doing so. I braced for the worst, keeping the kids entertained to the best of my ability, and then hoped for the best as I watched the two servers go to work.

Our salads and garlic bread arrived quickly, as they were prepared in advance. That helped to keep the grumbling tummies in order for a few minutes. With the kids content, my attention began to shift more towards the actions of the two servers and two cooks. The servers moved through the restaurant with incredible precision, while the cooks were busy but not out of control. My attention bounced from family to restaurant staff, back and forth. Within just ten minutes, our food had arrived. I thought we were fortunate to get our meals first, but when I scanned the restaurant, nearly every patron already had their entrée. It truly was an operational miracle, or was it?

Dissecting a Miracle
When our server had delivered food to all of her tables, she checked back to ask us 'so, how is everything. Is there anything I can get you?' My response caught her off guard. 'That was a thing of beauty,' I told her. I then had to explain my hospitality background and congratulate her and the rest of the restaurant's staff on their recently completed performance. And a fine performance it was. Thirty people fed in just over ten minutes in an a la carte, full service restaurant.

Before leaving, I took a closer look at the 'kitchen.' This was the piece of the puzzle that pushed my astonishment over the top. The entire equipment package consisted of two countertop six burner ranges, a single six-foot refrigerated preparation table, and a conveyor toaster. That was it. End of story. Being the sick, hospitality geek that I am, I arranged a time to return the following day to the restaurant, during off-peak hours, and interview the manager to find out just how they did it. I wanted to know how they made it work.

The interview was great and incredibly enlightening, because the system was so simple. They had implemented terrific menu planning and cross utilization of product. They had developed a menu of hot entrées that could all be prepared in a similar manner - by sauté on the range. They prepared cold entrée salads from the same refrigerated preparation table used to support the hot a la carte station. The salads were pre-made and the garlic bread was run constantly. With just three pieces of cooking equipment and a refrigerator on the line, they were able to offer incredible service.

And not to be overlooked, I believed that the attitude of the staff played an essential role in the restaurant's ability to perform. Let me give you one quick example. During my interview with the restaurant manager, I asked what they did when the single conveyor toaster went down. How would they produce their garlic bread? He said that they were pretty fortunate. The toaster was extremely reliable and did not go down much - maybe once or twice in a season. Usually, he shared, damage to the toaster was a result of an impatient server poking the conveyor to try and get their bread out quickly and, in the process, destroying one of the heating elements. 'What would you do then?' I asked as a follow up question. I was then informed by the manager that there were three simple steps to remedy the situation. First, he would berate the server (half jokingly, half seriously) for being so impatient. Second, he would take an unused sheet pan and throw it on top of the back burners, which were raised, on one of the countertop ranges. Finally, when the shift was over, he would spend thirty minutes unsuccessfully trying to find the element he ordered before season for an event such as this before giving up and calling a service technician to repair the unit. I think you see what I mean by attitude playing an important role. The staff all took their jobs seriously enough, but not too seriously.

Lessons from the Miracle
So what can we learn from this dining experience? Plenty. But there are two primary lessons that I derived. Let's start with the menu planning. The restaurant featured a menu and an equipment mix, despite being limited, that worked well together in total harmony. Both cooks could work on hot or cold entrées at the same time. The method of production was similar for most dishes. The cross utilization of food ingredients had been well conceived. When the menu and the equipment mix are not in harmony, seamless production is a near impossibility.

The next lesson has to do with the planning process as well - planning and design of the restaurant. What helped their success was thinking through the operation during the initial restaurant planning process, but not over-thinking. Some of the clients I have worked with in the past insist that the kitchen will 'never work' unless they have every single piece of equipment they can conceive in exactly the right place. I am not sure I agree with this, as kitchens always evolve, and often do so between the time the design is completed and the time the restaurant opens. Then, I have had other clients that have not thought through their operation enough before engaging in the planning and design of their facilities. This is not good either. I do not mean to sound like Goldie Locks, but the level of planning needs to be just right. Think through the operation, but don't over-think. Keep things simple and logical. Whether in a quick service environment or a five star luxury resort, just the right amount of planning will increase the likelihood for success exponentially.

About the author
Lee Simon is an award winning foodservice designer with The General Group. Lee is also the author of The Restaurant Dream?, a new book offering an inside look at restaurant development from concept to reality. As a practicing designer, Lee uses his operational experience on a daily basis to assist his clients with the planning of new and renovated foodservice facilities. His past projects, located domestically and internationally, include all types of foodservice operations. For questions or information, log on to www.thegeneralgroup.com or e-mail info@thegeneralgroup.com.

Be sure to check out Lee's new book The Restaurant Dream?

Friday, May 25, 2007

The Difference Between a Leader and a Manager

By Dr. Rick Johnson
Wednesday, 23rd May 2007

Make no mistake - to maximize your own effectiveness you have to be able to function both as a leader and as a manager.

The trick is to know precisely when to go into the manager mode and when to become that servant type leader. I once read a quote on the difference between a manager and a leader that stated:

"A Manager "does the thing right" and a Leader "does the right thing."

How Do You Become a Who?

I don’t know who said that but it is quite a simplification. First of all, a manager doesn’t always do the thing right and conversely leaders don’t always do the right thing.

Oh sure, most leaders do the right thing most of the time, but what the “right thing is can cause quite a debate and who gets to decide what the right thing really is?

And who decides who and what is actually right. How does one get to become a who?

Doing the Right Thing

Doing the right thing doesn’t sound very complex for a person of character and integrity but think about this for a second.

During my ten years as a turn-a-round specialists there were several occasions when I had to sacrifice the jobs of many to save a company and the jobs of others. Was that the right thing to do in the eyes of those that lost their job, their income, their security?

If you were the wife, the husband or the child of one of those employees that were sacrificed for the sake of survival of the company would you think that it was “the right” thing to do? We are not talking about malcontents, under performers and employees with issues. We’re talking about pure innocent sacrifice here.

All of a sudden, “the right thing” gets a little more complicated. That’s why I quit being a Turn-A-Round specialist after ten years. I got tired of being the “Darth Vadar of Distribution”.

Leaders Inspire Others to Greatness

True leaders inspire others to greatness. In spite of what may seem the contrary, being a true leader in times of sacrifice and turbulence is even more important than in normal times?

However, it’s equally important to adapt to the role of manager as well when sacrifice is necessary. I often talk about compassion as both a strength and a weakness when it comes to individual leadership models. I have met numerous CEOs that boast of long tenure employees.

However, there are some that earn that tenure simply due to the compassion of ownership. Certainly compassion for people is a strength but it can become a weakness if it stands in the way of accountability and maximizing the effectiveness of the organization.

The Balance of Compassion and Performance

So how does an effective leader balance compassion with performance and accountability? A leader must demonstrate the need for maximizing performance to the team. This is communicated more by action than words. Tolerance for the lack of excellence or sub par performance sends a distinct message. The wrong message.

A leader must lead by example whereas a manager uses direction and enforcement of policy and procedure to accomplish specific tasks. Of course, a manager must also be able to lead as well.

Sound confusing? It is……… There is a fine line between leadership and management. A line that is often shifting according to circumstance. If you are going to maximize growth and profitability in your organization that means that every manager must become an effective leader.

A leader encourages, leads by example, cares about the team and gives regular feedback. People need to be recognized and praised. A leader influences and inspires others to believe in themselves and to follow a vision for the future.

Communication is essential, knowing when to go into the manager mode and become less a servant is also necessary. This mode should be the exception but it does exist for even the greatest leaders and it is necessary at times. In fact, a true test of an effective leader is knowing when to go into the manager mode. Effective communication can stir emotions and emotions can become a powerful motivator.

Confidence, Self Esteem or Ego?

We all have egos but effective leaders control their own egos and understand how to utilize their understanding of people to inspire peak performance. They are confident and have high self esteem without demonstrating arrogance. Leadership can not be ego driven but good leaders command a presence when they walk into the room.

They are not only compassionate but they are passionate about success and they make every effort to coach and mentor their team. However, a leader can't afford to waste too much time in the minutiae of the team. In fact a functioning team will solve many of its own problems and they are expected to. This happens when the right people are on the team.

Leaders lead by example, they delegate and empower people. They also seem to have a keen sense about selecting and developing the right people. That in itself is a key difference in transcending from being just a manager to becoming an effective leader.

Selecting the right people with potential to excel and then developing those people through the coaching and mentoring process to achieve greatness is a primary responsibility of leadership. Effective leaders know precisely when to coach, when to mentor and when to manage.

So what’s the Difference?

In reality if you are going to be responsible for the actions and results of others it just isn’t good enough to be only a manager. Effectively, managing is about leadership. Personally, I believe to be really effective, there is no difference. An effective leader must be a good manager and a good manager effectively must be a good leader.

The results will speak for themselves in the long run...

E-mail rick@ceostrategist.com if you would like a copy of the “Lead Wolf Leadership Creed”.

Rick Johnson, expert speaker, wholesale distribution’s “Leadership Strategist”, founder of CEO Strategist, LLC a firm that helps clients create and maintain competitive advantage. Need a speaker for your next event, E-mail rick@ceostrategist.com. Don’t forget to check out the Lead Wolf Series that can help you put more profit into your business.www.ceostrategist.com