How Restaurants Get the Results They Ask For

A lot of restaurateurs forget to ask for the results they want – then feel puzzled when they don’t get those results.

If you suffer from lack of specificity, learn to ask “why” over and over.

Borrow a three-year-old or remember when you raised a three-year-old.

You want people to develop managers, boost service, comb over labor reports, focus on controllables, and take more accurate inventories.

Why, why, why, why, why?

Welcome to the Results Business
 

My most successful clients have systems that attach a result to every activity managers undertake.

They say, “We can punch a quarter point out of meat, dairy, and grocery,” instead of “We will reduce food cost.”

They say, “We will track employee turnover and set a new goal,” instead of “We will work on hiring and retention.”

They say, “We ask employees every day what they did to support the culture, and how that connects to guest count,” instead of “We live our culture.”

They say, “We will tie training and education to productivity or mystery shop scores or survey results,” instead of “We will train and educate our people in a new way,”

I teach connecting every activity to a result.

If you don’t, your business looks like youth sports where they don’t keep score.

(OK, that’s not true; at youth sports, the parents keep score – in their heads.)

You get the idea.

How to Drop Two Points to the Bottom Line

When you ask your managers to identify specific results and timelines associated with their activities, you teach them to think like business people, and understand that the best managers prioritize their time to undertake activities that have the most impact.

Don’t do anything in your business unless you can attach an outcome and a timeline to it. 

I can put two points on the bottom line by finding a quarter point eight times.

And I have done it over and over again.

Make this work for your restaurants. Never allow anyone to take on something without attaching a timeline and a result.

Otherwise, you suffer from a vague condition where everyone knows what to do but no one knows when actual success occurs.

Like that unsolvable game on your phone.

Make the change. Ask people for timelines, responsibilities, and specific results.

You will find that things suddenly take off – and you conquer challenges you have had for years.

Over to you. What vague expectations have you circulated? How will you make them tangible and specific to support achieving results?