Let’s take a vacation from focusing on issues (aka “opportunities”) you might have at your restaurants and ask you, “What’s your latest victory?”
Does anything come to mind quickly?
Hopefully – after a day spent dealing with the competition, immigration, workforce issues, egg prices, renewing your insurance, and retaining and motivating your work force – you’re not going home without appreciating that you’re successful, you’re really good at running restaurants, and you’re getting even better all the time.
While negativity bias – paying more attention to things that don’t go well – actually helps protect us and serves as a useful part of our survival mechanism, paying attention to your successes unlocks even greater successes.
So focus on your successes right now.
Identify That Victory
When teamwork, insight, planning, commitment, accountability, and having the right people working at their place of highest use come together, one success builds on another.
Identifying your victories – like improving guest experience, culinary, profitability, marketing, messaging, and raising up the people in your organization so you can take a break – gives you ways to do more by re-running the same playbook.
Which Are You?
But some people may find it hard to come up with a recent victory. Or, even worse, they look around at the top people in their organization and can’t think of any of their recent victories, either.
That shows you have either the wrong people, the wrong strategy, or a lack of accountability. And that’s something you have to change now – because the restaurant business isn’t likely to get easier any time soon.
If this sounds like you, call me now!
Most people, as they read, will think of some things that have gone great lately. Like with my different clients who have enjoyed single-digit sales increases in a tough market, new culinary that their customers begged for, one of the smoothest restaurant openings I have ever seen, or multiple great locations becoming available after years of positioning themselves as the right concept for the market.
The through-line remains the same: right people, right strategy, and the correct structure and accountability.
Use Those Lessons
The best operators create breakthroughs by taking what they learn from victories and applying those lessons to other areas.
You have your own little business school operating in your restaurant company.
So what are some of your biggest victories? For me it’s when I return to a client’s organization after many years and see that people are still consistent and successful with best practices from the top restaurant companies in America – best practices we installed to enhance operations and improve results.
That reminds me how much I help people rise to where they want to be. You can identify a corresponding lesson in your organization.
Find it.
