Welcome to the Surrender News/Blog.  Get the latest news, trends, tips and information to help you succeed and thrive in the workplace.

How to Nail Enrolling and Retaining Talented Restaurant Management

Everyone at the recent Texas Restaurant Show in Houston produced by the Texas Restaurant Association wanted to know how to find, keep, and grow managers.  Why? Because it’s vital – especially when operators are forced to fish out of a talent pool that’s even shallower than the kiddie pool at the resort you visit this summer.  I was … Continued

How to Use Your Superpowers to Solve Recurring Restaurant Problems 

Part of our DNA can also become a dilemma.  In the dining room, we have the superpower of peripheral vision: a hyper-awareness when a guest is in peril.  At Brinker International, they call it “GWAP” (guest with a problem). Over time, we learn how to correct the problem without that guest – or the team … Continued

Give Your Restaurant Business More When You Get Away This Summer

One of the most important and underrated aspects of success? Your ability to get away.  Even before we start working together, my clients tend to already be successful beyond their wildest dreams. Together, however, we make their businesses and lives even better.  Birth of the American Vacation The Puritans were not big on vacations. Idle time … Continued

Restaurateurs – Know How to Show Up and Create Fantastic Results 

The most successful restaurant owners I know use three different methods to move initiatives forward. Which one to use? That’s the question. Figuring out the answer to that question demonstrates a leader’s greatest value, since everyone and every issue has its own set of requirements, talents, disciplines, and demands. The best leaders customize their methodology … Continued

When Your Restaurant Journey Requires New Approaches

You’d think that – when I start working with successful multi-unit restaurant companies looking to improve – matching their strengths with what they need would be easy.  But experience tells me that thinking differently, along with new approaches, not old ones, make for successful growth.  Just like the people who establish a concept are not … Continued

Restaurateurs Don’t Fall Into the Trap of Losing Guest Focus

Once, at a client’s weekly operations meeting, I waited and waited to hear someone speak the word “guest.” I heard about production, maintenance, organization, policies, personnel, money, and training. Surely, one of the 10 experienced managers at this mature, legacy-brand, high-volume unit would talk about something they had done for a guest, something they had … Continued

How Top Restaurateurs Look Back to Q1 and Ahead to the Future

Take a look back all the way back to the beginning of the year. With the first quarter just ending, my best clients take stock of what they’ve achieved. Then, they adjust to ensure they have a great 2023 – no matter how they started the year. Did you exceed plan? Did you fail to … Continued