Have you ever had to deal with a lazy manager
or a lazy employee in your restaurant?
Well, I've got a couple of tips coming up to help you deal with that right now
Hey, everybody. Ryan Gromfin here – author, speaker,
chef, restaurateur, founder of TheRestaurantBoss.com,
as well as Clickbacon.com,
and ScaleMyRestaurant.com.
Before we get into the video here,
I want to quickly thank the fine folks at Guardia drain lock
for sponsoring this video.
There will be more information on them coming up here at the end,
but for now,
let's talk about those lazy managers or lazy employees in your restaurant,
or what we think is lazy behavior. See,
I don't necessarily believe in lazy behavior.
I think there's two factors that contribute to what we're perceiving as lazy.
Very quickly, the first is either a total lack of this skill needed.
They don't have the skill to complete the job
or it's a total lack of motivation or priority,
not necessarily motivation,
it could be a lack of prioritizing the task.
But first, let's look at what I think is maybe more
important than both of those,
which is, have you clearly
defined the task at hand?
Have you clearly delivered the task in a way
that the manager or the employee
is crystal clear and completely and totally understands
what the outcome is supposed to be,
what the expectation is supposed to be,
when it's supposed to be completed, etc. etc.?
A lot of times I find that when
managers or employees aren't doing what they're asked to do,
we can perceive that as lazy behavior,
but in reality, it wasn't clearly presented.
The task wasn't clearly presented. So moving forward,
let's assume that the task was very,
very clearly presented.
The outcome, the expectation, the deadlines were all crystal clear,
and yet they still didn't do what they were supposed to do
or don't do what they're supposed to do on a very regular basis.
First, total lack of skill.
If I were to ask you to build a rocket ship to take me to the moon,
what are the chances you're going to be successful in that?
Probably very small, unless you're some kind of
a space aeronautical engineer scientist person, right?
I know I love space and I couldn't build a rocket ship,
I couldn't design a rocket ship that could get someone to the moon.
So if you were to assign that task to me,
no matter how motivated I was,
no matter how much money you offered me,
no matter what you wanted to give me as a bonus for completing it,
no matter how much you yelled at me,
no matter how much you encouraged me;
it's not going to happen. It's just not going to happen.
Now on a more realistic example in your restaurant,
maybe you've asked your manager
to enforce or to create and enforce a cellphone policy,
no more cell phones in the restaurant, and yet they don't do it,
they don't turn it into you, they don't write it, they don't enforce it.
You think to yourself, well, that's not a lack of skill,
anyone can do that, but can they?
Have they ever written policies before?
Are they good on the computer?
Are they confident enough in their spelling and grammar?
Again, have they ever written a policy before?
Do they even know what the policy should be?
See, a lot of times we're just assuming they have the skill,
we're assuming that because we hired someone who's got
10 years of management experience
or they've been a manager before that they know how to do this,
but chances are and this isn't anything against a lot of managers out there,
a lot of managers have never written policies.
They've been given policies, but then,
they're asked to write a policy and they don't know what to do.
So then, they go onto Google and they do some research and they
try to cut and paste some stuff from here and there,
but it's it doesn't look good, it's not right.
And then, now we're asking them to train and enforce on that policy,
but again, like I think a lot of times, it's just a complete lack of skill,
they just don't have the skills to do that.
Now let's assume that they do have the skills to do that,
that they've done this in the past for you,
but they're still not performing on things that they should know how to.
Well then, that's what I call a total lack of motivation, and again,
I should maybe use the word a lack of prioritization,
but what I mean by this is in their head,
they're just prioritizing that what they're doing
now is more important than what they should be doing,
what you're asking them to be doing.
An example is, maybe you have a manager who you want to be on the floor
but is spending too much time in the office.
What's happening there is either a lack of skill,
either they're not comfortable on the floor,
they don't like being on the floor,
they don't like interacting with the guests even though they say they did,
they're not good at that, that's a lack of skill, they're not comfortable with it,
or maybe what's happening is in their head,
they're prioritizing in that moment that they would rather
be in the office on social media
pushing papers from one side of the desk,
pretending to be busy than out on the floor.
They've just reprioritized things.
Even though you've put a priority on them being on the floor,
in their head, they would rather be doing the other things.
Now, this is where your job is to step in.
You often hear me say,
your job is to manage systems and develop people.
Well, let's assume that the systems have been developed.
We have to manage those systems,
but now what I need you to do is to develop your people.
We have to motivate them, we have to encourage them,
we have to develop them into the kind of person
that doesn't prioritize social media over being on the floor.
We have to find out what it is that they
want and tell them stories and teach them how
what they want isn't going to be achievable.
They're not going to get that unless they're doing all these other things.
That's where your job as a leader, not a manager.
Managers manage systems,
leaders develop people.
This is where your job as the leader comes into play,
where you now have to develop the person,
you have to develop the employee,
you have to develop the manager
to make sure that they are prioritizing
things properly based on their goals, not your goals.
No one cares about your goals.
If you think your team cares about your goals, you're wrong.
They may say they do and they might this much,
they care about their goals.
And the only way their goals are going to take precedence over your goals
is if their goals and your goals are aligned.
So you better figure out a way to make sure that
your managers goals and your goals are aligned because if
your managers succeed and your restaurants succeed,
chances are your goals, you're going to succeed,
you're going to reach your goals.
So spend more time helping your managers reach their goals
so you can reach your goals,
but the point is, I want you to eliminate
that word lazy from your vocabulary
and I want you to start breaking it down further and ask yourself the question –
I don't think this employee was really lazy,
there's a really good chance I didn't
describe the task clear enough.
And then, if we assume that we did and they're still not doing it,
then it's either a total lack of skill or a total lack of
prioritization that you have to now step in and fix.
One of the most preventable and most
expensive things that you're going to have
problems with new your restaurant is going to be plumbing,
either clogged drains,
backed up water sewage smell on your restaurant,
fruit flies, jackhammering the concrete being on the second or third floor,
then having a leak go below. We've all had that experience,
I'm sure you have that experience now.
You've spent money on that, it's cost you money,
it's a fear of yours.
Well, I found these things. They're called Guardian drain locks
and they are awesome.
You go ahead and you install these in your floor sink
and they lock in place once you screw them down.
Only you have the screw for that, the key.
No one else can just pull that little
plate out and shove things down in there.
That's what used to happen in our restaurant all the time
and it cost us all kinds of money to get it fixed,
but a guy in a chain restaurant,
a general manager in a chain restaurant who was responsible for his P&L
saw how much money they were spending on snaking
drains and fixing plumbing,
and every time the plumbing got fixed,
the plumber said it's because of all the stuff that's down there.
So he came up with this idea, he invented them,
and now I want to tell you about him because they're awesome.
I've got clients using them, they love them.
We've done this once before and the response has been phenomenal.
So go ahead and get yourself some Guardian Drain Locks.
Check it out. The link is going to be above here in this video
or below in the comments.
Guardian Drain Locks,
they're going to save you thousands of dollars a year, you're going to love them.
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Remember, systems create freedom,
freedom creates value and value creates scale.
Manage systems, develop people, and be awesome.