Hey, everybody. Ryan Gromfin here. Author, speaker,
chef, restaurateur, founder of TheRestaurantBoss.com,
as well as Clickbacon.com, and ScaleMyRestaurant.com.
Now, has this never happened to you
has an employee ever walked into your office
or pulled you aside and said, hey, can we talk later? And you say, sure, no problem.
And they say, you know I've been working here for six months
or I've been working it for a year and I haven't had a raise yet,
I really think it's time. My performance has been great.
What do you think? Can I get a raise?
Something like that.
And in your head, you're nearly passing out. It's like a cartoon. You're like…
your jaw drops to the floor, your eyes get big and in your head,
you're thinking, you're one of the worst employees I've got.
I'm seriously about to fire you. I was probably going to fire you tonight,
and now here you are asking for a raise.
That used to happen to me before.
I hope that's never happened to you,
but I feel like it has because I talk to a lot of people who say that has happened.
What causes that to happen?
What causes such a big
space between where we think our employees are and
where they think they are?
A lot of this stems from passive-aggressive behavior.
From being passive, from backing off
and then waiting until it's so big that you just overreact,
right? Perfect examples of this would be
if someone didn't clean something properly or
left something out on the counter in the morning you come in.
You take a picture of it and text it to them.
That is passive-aggressive behavior, that is avoiding conflict.
If they didn't do something on a checklist,
you just circle it and highlight it or put a post-it note on it
and wait for them to come in and see it.
You put post-it notes in the walk and for things that aren't labeled properly.
You know what I'm talking about.
This is passive-aggressive behavior.
Now I know why we do it. We do it to avoid conflict.
Nobody wants conflict and I get that,
but the challenge is when we avoid
little tiny conflicts,
the issue gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger to a
point where either an employee who has some serious behavioral challenges
is looking for a raise,
or you just lose it one day and snap.
The thing about conflict is it's okay if we do it right.
It's not even conflict, it's just honesty. It's just the reality.
If someone isn't doing something well or if someone made a mistake,
let them know. It's okay to offer constructive criticism.
It's okay to offer criticism
so long as we're doing it in a constructive manner,
so long as we're doing it in a manner
where you're being positive
and you're encouraging better behavior
and never being mean.
You often hear me say, you can be strict
but you can never be mean.
There's one more big issue with
passive-aggressive behavior that I want to address right now,
but first, I want to talk to you about dish soap.
This is Dawn Professional,
and it's the same dish soap brand we use at home.
It's also the number one dish brand in the United States.
This is spic-and-span and it's made by the same people that make
Dawn Professional.
These are brands that you're likely familiar with,
as well as Swiffer, Mr. Clean, Febreze, and many, many others.
The reason I'm telling you this is,
you may not be familiar with the fact that Procter & Gamble professional
makes versions of these brands and many others
for use in your restaurant.
Now whether you have one restaurant, ten restaurants
or a hundred restaurants;
you know the importance of keeping your restaurant
clean and safe for your guests and your employees,
but with everything you have going on,
it's easy to just buy cleaning products
that are either the cheapest or private-label because
your sales rep recommended them.
The challenge is, you don't know if their best interest
matches your best interest.
You don't know if they're recommending and giving you the products that you
actually need,
or if they're giving you the products that help them meet
their profits and their sales quota.
Cleaning and disinfection are more important now
than ever before.
Don't take shortcuts, don't sell yourself short.
I've chosen to partner with P&G Professional
because they provide products for an exceptional clean.
What's easier and more simple
than using products that you already know and trust?
The only thing better than that is products that your employees
already know, use, and trust.
Keeping your guests and employees safe
and free from outbreaks is more important now than ever.
P&G Professional
has a line of products that are easy to use and available to you
to help you keep every surface in your restaurant clean and safe.
I want to encourage you to go ahead and click on the link that we've provided for you,
either in the video,
below it to the right or to the left and sign up for some exclusive
restaurant savings on products you
and your team already know and trust.
We'll keep your restaurant clean and safe.
This is more important now than ever.
Plus, if you have any questions,
you could hop on the phone or chat with a professional,
a representative at P&G Professional to make sure that
your needs are currently being met,
and here are some of their recommendations.
So go ahead, click on that, link sign up for those savings.
Get on the phone with someone at P&G Professional
and what do you say, let's get back to the rest of that video.
So, the biggest issue
with passive-aggressive with passive-aggressive conflict is that
we miss out on the most important learning lesson possible.
When people change their behavior,
it's mostly because they don't want to disappoint
someone else more than they don't want to disappoint themselves.
Often people will treat themselves worse than they treat others.
Think about the kind of words that you say about yourself,
think about how negative and how mean you are to yourself.
You say things to yourself that you would never say to anyone else.
We don't want to lose the respect of people we respect.
We don't want to disappoint people that we respect.
Now, I'm going to put a link up here about how to earn respect because
this doesn't really work if you don't have your staff's respect,
but assuming you have your staff's respect.
the more passive-aggressive you are the less respect you're going to have.
So we probably have to watch that video up there somewhere,
but the point is when we send that text message
of a picture of something they left that on the counter, instead of just
going up to them face to face and addressing it and not making a big deal
about it but being honest, we have now flipped the switch.
Instead of that honest conversation saying,
“Hey, Steve, I noticed last night, you left this out.
When you leave this out, it goes bad, we have to throw it out.
That's cost the restaurant money. Plus, we have to re-prep it.
You can see how this is really a challenge and how we have
to be much more careful at night
to make sure we put all this food away, right?”
What do you think we can do better next time to make sure this never happens
and then thank them for their time,
right? That's part of my five-step feedback formula.
I think we can put a link up here or down there for you on that,
but when you do that, they respect you.
They understand that you care about them,
they understand that you're being a team player that they made a mistake,
but when you take a picture of it and
send it to them at 7 o'clock in the morning when you
come in or 8:00 in the morning and they close that night;
they are now pissed off, they're angry at you.
Even though this was their fault, you afflicted.
They're angry at you, they're mad at you, you're bothering them on their time off,
you're annoying, you are micromanaging.
I love micromanaging, but not in this video, etc., etc., etc.
I think you can see how we have flipped it. So now,
instead of you having some power over the employee
in a positive way, you have now angered the employee,
they're losing respect for you,
even though this was their issue and their fault. I understand that,
but it doesn't matter.
Step up to the plate, own the situation,
be a boss and take on conflict head-on.
It won't even be a conflict, but address issues head-on.
Use the five-step feedback formula. I have it somewhere in a video.
Like I said, we'll put the link up there for you, but do not
be passive-aggressive.
Do not avoid conversations.
Do not say,
I'm just going to send this text message, I'm just going to put this post it up,
I'm just going to circle this on a checklist,
instead of having that one-on-one powerful respectful
conversation with your staff.
It will go much further
if you build the skills to have that conversation.
I hope you enjoyed this week's video
and I look forward to bringing you another one just like this next week.
Have an absolutely wonderful day and go be a boss.
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Remember, systems create freedom,
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Manage systems, develop people, and be awesome.