Four Critical Steps to Overcoming Group Think in Your Restaurant

The success of your independent restaurant company is a byproduct of your experiences and beliefs. And that’s good news, because your P&L shows above-average industry profits, your mystery shoppers give you high scores, and streams of guests come into your dining rooms every day. You may view that success as a kind of validation of your beliefs.

 

Why it is Important to Challenge Your Own Beliefs

But wait! Your beliefs can also create a blind spot for your organization. If you want to maximize your net worth and flexibility, identify which of the tenets you operate with is outdated, misinformed, or flat-out wrong. By updating your thinking about the independent restaurant company you own — and leaving behind the useless, outdated beliefs holding you back — you’ll have a more accurate world view that lets you leave the competition behind.

As you go down this path, you may learn to trust outside information even when, at first, you do not believe it. I am thinking about some of my clients — one of whom thought they understood their competitive set, but we determined they had their eye on operations where they shared a guest but did not compete.

One of my clients knew for sure the way they had successfully managed their organization for 10 years was the best. However, with our help, they were able to change their management philosophy and structure to create a superior way of leading their people, living their lives, and building new units.

Another insisted they knew who their target guest was but, upon further review, we were able to identify a different set of guests who were aching to buy from them, if only they had the right message.

Still another believed that a single leader focus was the key to their success, but, when we examined this, we found out that routines could be delegated to many people — and that doing this was the essence to creating growth as well as freedom for the owner.

How to Update Your Thinking

1. Assemble your management team and compile your core beliefs about your business, your guests, your employees, your segment, and your market.
2. Examine each of them to see where the group-think of your organization may be missing something or may not be based on reality.
3. Once you renew these perspectives on your business, get into action with this new information.
4. Enjoy the fact that what used to be difficult, frustrating, and impossible becomes exciting, stimulating, and real.