Getting Off to a Great Start

This e-newsletter tends to go to successful people: people who remember what it was like to be a manager for the first time. There is a good chance that you were never more focused on management practices and making a difference than you were the first time you were given responsibility. When people begin their management careers, in the best case, they acquire habits that lead to a lifetime of success. Others develop habits that become career-limiting. When I work with management teams, strengthening them to accomplish what had previously been impossible, I reinforce the positive habits and show people how to eliminate habits that are getting in their way.

That’s why I smiled when Barry Shuster, the Editor of Restaurant Startup and Growth, asked me to write an article for their April issue called “Make Your First-Time Manager Read This, A Dozen Things That Will Help You Get Off To A Great Start As A Restaurant Manager”. This article called for me to lay out many of the fundamentals of management that I have espoused throughout my career.

If you do not have a copy of the magazine, you can read it at restaurantowner.com. It’s usually a membership-only site protected by a password, but, for the next 30 days, restaurantowner.com has generously allowed recipients of the Surrender e-newsletter to access the article “in front” of the password at no charge. Click here to read the full article.

I suggest you use it as part of your process of maximizing mentoring and training in your organization as you continue implementing plans and taking in action every day.

Things you can do:

1. Read the article in Restaurant Startup and Growth or on restaurantowner.com

2. Review training and mentoring messages you send to both your new and veteran managers. Are they fostering habits that lead to career-long success?

3. If you realize that any of those training and mentoring messages are working against you, make a resolution to substitute them with more productive techniques.

4. Specifically identify and define those improved techniques.

5. Resolve to hold yourself accountable by designating someone in your organization to evaluate whether these enhancements are truly being made on a daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly basis.

When you identify what you are going to do differently in the future with your management team, email me and share your thoughts. If you are having trouble getting started on your own, email me right now and I will help.