Adam Lamb:

Welcome to another episode of Turning the Table, sponsored by

Adam Lamb:

Benchmark 60, Turning the table as the most progressive weekly podcast for

Adam Lamb:

today's food and beverage industry, featuring staff centric operating

Adam Lamb:

solutions for restaurants in the hashtag new hospitality culture.

Adam Lamb:

My name is Adam Lamb and I'm a career coach for chefs and

Adam Lamb:

hospitality professionals.

Adam Lamb:

This episode is one 15.

Adam Lamb:

How do you put the pieces back together?

Adam Lamb:

We ask that you share the show with someone you care about who can find this.

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Useful and leave a review.

Adam Lamb:

And I'd like to welcome my co-host, Jim Taylor, Benchmark 60 morning Adam.

Adam Lamb:

How are you Jim?

Adam Lamb:

How are you Ben?

Jim Taylor:

I'm good.

Adam Lamb:

And I'm glad, I'm glad to hear you finally got some rest, cuz

Adam Lamb:

you've been running the candle at both ends with the new child and Yeah.

Adam Lamb:

You know, running the business and everything and I thought we

Adam Lamb:

would start with some listener mail that we got That's, Yeah,

Adam Lamb:

it's pretty potent stuff so.

Adam Lamb:

The male goes like, Hi, I came across your podcast this morning while looking for

Adam Lamb:

some hope in the hospitality industry.

Adam Lamb:

First off, that's a really powerful, that's a really powerful first, mm-hmm.

Adam Lamb:

statement, you know, looking for hope in the hospitality industry.

Adam Lamb:

I love the hospitality industry so much.

Adam Lamb:

I've been in it about every position in the restaurant business.

Adam Lamb:

Your most recent podcast made me feel vindicated after feeling defeated,

Adam Lamb:

something I don't feel very often.

Adam Lamb:

I stepped into a situation where blank.

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Her direct report has treated the team so poorly that everyone is ready.

Adam Lamb:

I was beginning to think that maybe my expectations were too high.

Adam Lamb:

I don't mean of the staff.

Adam Lamb:

I mean expectations for upper management to just care a little bit about the

Adam Lamb:

employees and about training staff to succeed at their jobs mostly.

Adam Lamb:

I just really wanted to thank you guys for doing a podcast that speaks

Adam Lamb:

so openly about the mental health issues and the restaurant industry

Adam Lamb:

and retention of good employees and the importance of good management.

Adam Lamb:

Wishing you all the best.

Adam Lamb:

So first off we wanted to say thank you very much.

Adam Lamb:

Mm-hmm.

Adam Lamb:

, it's kind of a courageous email to.

Adam Lamb:

Because Jim, I know right before the show we were talking about, both of

Adam Lamb:

us have actually been in this similar situation, and I think that, yeah, if

Adam Lamb:

you've been in the industry long enough, you will run into this situation while

Adam Lamb:

you're you know, either have to clean up a mess that someone has left or

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to be kind of wedged in the middle of the situation where you see obviously

Adam Lamb:

a deficit in, in leadership such that the staff has been kind of traumatized.

Adam Lamb:

And that person is probably still on staff somewhere very often.

Adam Lamb:

You direct reports.

Adam Lamb:

So there's a lot of there's a lot of needles to thread in this conversation,

Adam Lamb:

so I just wanted to first start by saying or asking you, have you ever

Adam Lamb:

been in a situation where you had to walk into an operation that had

Adam Lamb:

clearly been mismanaged or misled?

Adam Lamb:

And what were a couple of the first things that you did while you were.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah, I, I

Jim Taylor:

mean it's, there's lots of scenarios that, and I think we need to

Jim Taylor:

address the fact that, you know, sometimes as in in management positions, we go

Jim Taylor:

into a scenario where, you know, we could either think it's been mismanaged or the

Jim Taylor:

team thinks that it's been mismanaged.

Jim Taylor:

Right?

Jim Taylor:

And I think what we're trying to chat about today is those scenarios

Jim Taylor:

where the team feels like it's been mismanaged because everybody's got

Jim Taylor:

opinion on how on operations should run.

Jim Taylor:

Right.

Jim Taylor:

. You know, I think there's a couple of scenarios that I was involved

Jim Taylor:

in in my operations career where, you know, you start a new position

Jim Taylor:

and the team comes forward and just says this, you know, things need to

Jim Taylor:

change or we need help, or, you know, we're happy there's someone new here.

Jim Taylor:

You know, whether you know them or not.

Jim Taylor:

And you know, I think that my approach to trying to work through and navigate those

Jim Taylor:

types of situations was always just based.

Jim Taylor:

, nothing matters more than making sure that the team is comfortable

Jim Taylor:

and feels supported and happy coming to work every day.

Jim Taylor:

Mm-hmm.

Jim Taylor:

and I, I think that that's, you know, more, more apparent now than ever

Jim Taylor:

with, there's places that are already tight for staff and losing more

Jim Taylor:

people, you know, isn't an option.

Jim Taylor:

So, you know, I think, yeah, I've been in that situation a few times and it's

Jim Taylor:

never easy to work through because it doesn't hap, it doesn't change overnight.

Jim Taylor:

It doesn't, Those wounds don't heal over.

Jim Taylor:

You know, I think you mentioned you've been involved in some of that before

Adam Lamb:

too.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah.

Adam Lamb:

And I guess that's a great point that you're making.

Adam Lamb:

You know, how do you make a differentiation between say, you know,

Adam Lamb:

they often say the squeaky wheel gets the grease, so there might be a couple team

Adam Lamb:

members who you might not necessarily feel familiar with yet that are very

Adam Lamb:

often the first ones to kind of like talk.

Adam Lamb:

Meetings and say, Hey, you know, we really need help.

Adam Lamb:

We need this, we need that.

Adam Lamb:

And it's hard to differentiate whether or not that's the truth

Adam Lamb:

or that that's just their opinion.

Adam Lamb:

Do, do you know what I mean?

Jim Taylor:

For sure.

Jim Taylor:

And, and, yeah, it's, it's interesting to go through that process and

Jim Taylor:

trying to differentiate, like you said, between the person who's just.

Jim Taylor:

Vocal and the person who genuinely cares about, about the rest of

Jim Taylor:

the team and change and, and, you know, moving the business forward.

Jim Taylor:

Right.

Jim Taylor:

And, you know, I think that this is something that we talk

Jim Taylor:

about pretty much every week.

Jim Taylor:

You talk about it in your business.

Jim Taylor:

I talk about it in my business and just trying to find ways to do a better job

Jim Taylor:

of protecting the employee experience and the career experience in hospitality.

Jim Taylor:

Right.

Jim Taylor:

And, and in this case, this is exactly a, a, you know, applaud her for

Jim Taylor:

sending through that comment because she's speaking about the exact same

Jim Taylor:

thing, but from her experience.

Adam Lamb:

So let's, let's take the listener's position that she's been

Adam Lamb:

around the operation enough to know that there's, you know, that people

Adam Lamb:

are walking around with their, their heads down, their shoulders bowed, that

Adam Lamb:

there's not a lot of pride in the team.

Adam Lamb:

That there's, you know, clearly a lack of, you know, You know, it's not, It's

Adam Lamb:

not for nothing that we say Retention is the new cool, because very often

Adam Lamb:

you can look at the statistics and know whether or not someone's been

Adam Lamb:

managing an operation well enough.

Adam Lamb:

And I've been known to say once or twice that you know, you can

Adam Lamb:

tell a good chef by his leaving.

Adam Lamb:

Meaning that once he, he or she leaves and you take stock of where the team

Adam Lamb:

is, both emotionally and operationally, you can very often make a very clear

Adam Lamb:

distinction about whether or not they were really good at their job or not.

Adam Lamb:

Because let's face it, some people are very charismatic and

Adam Lamb:

very personally forceful and they can keep an operation running.

Adam Lamb:

Mm-hmm.

Adam Lamb:

although probably not to what we would consider to be the best form of,

Adam Lamb:

you know, Efficiency or productivity.

Adam Lamb:

But you know, once that person is gone and they're out of that situation,

Adam Lamb:

then there's nothing kind of holding all those people together other

Adam Lamb:

than, you know, I guess in a certain situation would be either fear.

Adam Lamb:

But let's, let's say she's pretty clear about what's been going on mm-hmm.

Adam Lamb:

and yet that person that was responsible for that is still in

Adam Lamb:

the management structure somewhere.

Adam Lamb:

How does she even start to have a convers.

Adam Lamb:

First off with, with her direct report and a, not make them wrong for what

Adam Lamb:

they did because that's probably the start of a very short conversation,

Adam Lamb:

but to be able to look at the operation holistically and neutrally such that

Adam Lamb:

they can come to some type of consensus about what it would look like to move

Adam Lamb:

the team forward in a cohesive manner.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah.

Jim Taylor:

You know, we, we were having this discussion with a, an operations

Jim Taylor:

team the other day about, You know, looking at the business in terms of the

Jim Taylor:

feedback that's come forward, the ideas that have come forward, the concerns that

Jim Taylor:

have come forward and actually trying to paint a picture of what would the perfect

Jim Taylor:

operation look like and, and be really objective about the feedback that they're

Jim Taylor:

receiving and try to, you know, create.

Jim Taylor:

Specific you know, ideas and things that we can work on every day in order to

Jim Taylor:

get to that perfect operation, you know?

Jim Taylor:

Mm-hmm.

Jim Taylor:

and remove, you know, the, there, I always found that when I was in that

Jim Taylor:

mid-level management type position, my job was to filter information filter.

Jim Taylor:

You know, negative feedback, constructive criticism from the upper levels of

Jim Taylor:

management that maybe, you know, and not their own fault, sometimes slightly

Jim Taylor:

disconnected with exactly what's going on.

Jim Taylor:

Right.

Jim Taylor:

My job was to filter at some of that so that the team didn't feel it.

Jim Taylor:

Hmm.

Jim Taylor:

Right.

Jim Taylor:

And then, you know, like I said, really work on what does the perfect

Jim Taylor:

scenario look like every day, and work with the team on the, you know,

Jim Taylor:

in the field, on the ground every day to try to build towards that.

Jim Taylor:

Because it's, it's so tricky when the person or the people in the senior

Jim Taylor:

levels of leadership have one idea about what's going on and then sort of

Adam Lamb:

gets filtered down, right?

Adam Lamb:

Yeah.

Adam Lamb:

I have some pretty specific experience around this that we'll get

Adam Lamb:

to in a, in a second with a story.

Adam Lamb:

But ultimately it comes down to if I'm hearing it correctly,

Adam Lamb:

wanting to protect the team.

Adam Lamb:

And I also get that the team may not necessarily be aware

Adam Lamb:

of those efforts to protect.

Adam Lamb:

And I say this because I always felt that it was important for me to own

Adam Lamb:

the company line no matter what it was, because it's way too easy to go

Adam Lamb:

into an operation, say as well, the general manager wants to do this or

Adam Lamb:

upper level wants to do that, da da, da, and always kind of pushing off

Adam Lamb:

responsibility about what there is to do off to some unseen or unheard.

Adam Lamb:

entity.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah.

Adam Lamb:

Because I wanted to save my ass in front of my associates and not want to look bad.

Adam Lamb:

Mm-hmm.

Adam Lamb:

yet I also got that, that's pretty much a victim conversation because there's no

Adam Lamb:

way I can ever influence what's going on.

Adam Lamb:

And pretty soon they're gonna start looking at me going like, Well

Adam Lamb:

dude, if you can't protect us, then what the hell you here for?

Adam Lamb:

Right.

Adam Lamb:

So sometimes it means owning that, that that bad news.

Adam Lamb:

As a decision that I was involved in.

Adam Lamb:

Mm-hmm.

Adam Lamb:

, But I remember clearly plenty of conversations that I had with upper

Adam Lamb:

management, hr regional directors about specific staff members that

Adam Lamb:

those staff members never ever know and nor do I need to go there and,

Adam Lamb:

you know, You know, Hey, look at me.

Adam Lamb:

Look what I did.

Adam Lamb:

Because , that's to the opposite side of mm-hmm.

Adam Lamb:

, like making it all about hubris and me.

Adam Lamb:

And I've always wanted to make sure that there was a clear

Adam Lamb:

line of rateable performance.

Adam Lamb:

Like, what are the standards and are you living up to those standards or not?

Adam Lamb:

And so that meant that I couldn't manage by, by personality, whether

Adam Lamb:

I was, you know, winning one for the team or taking one for the team.

Adam Lamb:

Does that, does that resonate?

Adam Lamb:

. Yeah.

Jim Taylor:

Yeah, for sure.

Jim Taylor:

And I think the, you know, the things that we're talking about right now

Jim Taylor:

about protecting the team and about, you know, filtering information or

Jim Taylor:

how you, you know, what types of conversations you're having about

Jim Taylor:

the operation or the, the individuals working in it, you know, this stuff

Jim Taylor:

applies to every level of the business.

Jim Taylor:

And I know I, I, you know, I speak for both of us when I see that we've

Jim Taylor:

been, we've both experienced all those different levels of management

Jim Taylor:

and leadership and, you know, in, in lots of different environments.

Jim Taylor:

So, I mean, myself, I'm not I'm fully comfortable saying that this applies

Jim Taylor:

to every single level of management.

Jim Taylor:

That it's about the team.

Jim Taylor:

It's about making sure we deliver messages in a positive as positive way as possible.

Jim Taylor:

That, you know, everything that we go through in the industry, especially right

Jim Taylor:

now with the labor shortages, has to be.

Jim Taylor:

People centric.

Jim Taylor:

It has to be people focused.

Jim Taylor:

Cuz if it's not, it's only gonna get

Adam Lamb:

harder.

Adam Lamb:

I I love the questions that are starting to come up in

Adam Lamb:

some posts that I'm reading.

Adam Lamb:

People advocating you know deeper sense of mentorship as opposed to leadership.

Adam Lamb:

And, you know, one of the first questions is, you know, how can

Adam Lamb:

I, what can I do to make your job?

Adam Lamb:

. And I, I know that that's a tricky question and I know that some operators

Adam Lamb:

don't want to ask that because either they've never had it easy and don't

Adam Lamb:

necessarily feel responsibility to like, make anyone else's life easy.

Adam Lamb:

But I keep coming back to this idea of what it would be like to actually be

Adam Lamb:

in the operation by myself, . Because, because that's all that's left.

Adam Lamb:

And so I think speaking to our listeners quandary.

Adam Lamb:

It's like when you go to speak to your direct reports and saying,

Adam Lamb:

Okay, so what kind of operation do you see that's possible?

Adam Lamb:

And, you know, I don't want to necessarily have to make a call around to the other

Adam Lamb:

departments because I'm short bus boys and, and I need somebody on the floor.

Adam Lamb:

Mm-hmm.

Adam Lamb:

. And so painting a picture of what the possibilities are probably

Adam Lamb:

lends itself to a bigger conversation about, okay, so if that's what's

Adam Lamb:

possible, what do we actually need to.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah.

Adam Lamb:

What support do we need?

Adam Lamb:

Right?

Adam Lamb:

Yeah.

Adam Lamb:

Right.

Adam Lamb:

And you know, there's another part to this entire conversation that,

Adam Lamb:

that I'll get to in a minute.

Adam Lamb:

But this is one of the reasons why you and I talk so consistently about values.

Adam Lamb:

Mm-hmm.

Adam Lamb:

and standards.

Adam Lamb:

Not necessarily as.

Adam Lamb:

From an organizational standpoint, but from an individual's standpoint, you know,

Adam Lamb:

this person as a hospitality professional.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah.

Adam Lamb:

Next week we're gonna be lucky enough to have been able to wrangle Jensen Cum.

Adam Lamb:

Onto the show, which is always a gas.

Adam Lamb:

And the topic of the show is what do you stand for?

Adam Lamb:

So in a lot of my coaching, that's exactly where we need to

Adam Lamb:

start, is what do you stand for?

Adam Lamb:

What's important to you?

Adam Lamb:

What are those incorruptible values that you have?

Adam Lamb:

And then how do you match that with an employer?

Adam Lamb:

So now this particular associate is in this position where she probably feels

Adam Lamb:

like her hands are tied a little bit.

Adam Lamb:

She stated quite clearly that, you know, she's been coming home

Adam Lamb:

and feeling kind of defeated.

Adam Lamb:

Mm-hmm.

Adam Lamb:

which is a feeling that I know very well.

Adam Lamb:

And just say, I'm sorry that you're going through that right now.

Adam Lamb:

, and there are a couple ways in which you can turn this, not necessarily to your

Adam Lamb:

advantage, but your team's advantage.

Adam Lamb:

But the only way that that's actually gonna work is if you're

Adam Lamb:

focused entirely on the team and what you can do to so assist them.

Adam Lamb:

And it may be as simple as, , you know, having more shift meetings, you know?

Adam Lamb:

Mm-hmm.

Adam Lamb:

and saying, Listen, times are tough.

Adam Lamb:

During Covid I had several meetings a day with shift personnel and

Adam Lamb:

there was very little information that I could share, cuz none of us

Adam Lamb:

knew what the hell was going on.

Adam Lamb:

Mm-hmm.

Adam Lamb:

, and yet the job still needed to be d.

Adam Lamb:

So I think that, , like putting yourself out there as a barometer for what's

Adam Lamb:

happening in the operation and in the community is important because where

Adam Lamb:

else are they gonna get that information?

Adam Lamb:

And even if you don't have the answers mm-hmm.

Adam Lamb:

that you ask the questions.

Adam Lamb:

Because very often what we're finding is that one of the very top reasons

Adam Lamb:

that people leave an organization is because of communication or lack thereof.

Adam Lamb:

So.

Adam Lamb:

What would you suggest as far as like trying to hold this team

Adam Lamb:

together for the short term?

Adam Lamb:

Like what, what do those conversations sound like?

Adam Lamb:

Well, in,

Jim Taylor:

in that level, you know, where this individual is at, they're

Jim Taylor:

in a, it seems to me like they're in a, in a mid-level management mm-hmm.

Jim Taylor:

position, right?

Jim Taylor:

Yep.

Jim Taylor:

And one of the hardest things that I was found in that position

Jim Taylor:

is the, the balance between.

Jim Taylor:

I'm reporting to somebody whether I agree with what they, the direction

Jim Taylor:

they wanna see the business go or not.

Jim Taylor:

And then there's all of these people that are relying on me every day.

Jim Taylor:

You know, deliver for them.

Jim Taylor:

Mm-hmm.

Jim Taylor:

and, you know, that only gets harder when you know you're in a position like

Jim Taylor:

she's describing where she's feeling defeated and that type of thing.

Jim Taylor:

And, you know, me personally, the way that I always tried to, to work

Jim Taylor:

through those situations cuz they happen and mm-hmm , they come up.

Jim Taylor:

Was that, you know, to recognize that my wins were the team's wins.

Jim Taylor:

Right?

Jim Taylor:

If an employee had a great day and I had anything to do with that, or I, I

Jim Taylor:

talked them through it, or we worked on something together, we provided

Jim Taylor:

training or development or mentorship for them, then that was a win for me.

Jim Taylor:

You know, and, and I sort of tried to feed off of that type of stuff.

Jim Taylor:

because looking.

Jim Taylor:

In a scenario, like she's talking about looking upwards

Jim Taylor:

for that motivation apparent.

Jim Taylor:

It's not happening right now.

Jim Taylor:

Right, Right.

Jim Taylor:

So there needs to be other ways to stay, you know, stay, stay focused, and stay

Jim Taylor:

centered and stay, you know, with your, with your eye on the price kind of thing.

Jim Taylor:

Right.

Jim Taylor:

And I think in that scenario, that's really tricky in that position where

Jim Taylor:

you've got, you know, that mid-level type

Adam Lamb:

responsibility.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah.

Adam Lamb:

I think.

Adam Lamb:

And this is not the first time that this type of conversation has come up for

Adam Lamb:

us especially since the show started.

Adam Lamb:

And unfortunately for some folks when the disconnect is so

Adam Lamb:

significant and the polarities are so far apart, then it becomes a time

Adam Lamb:

of really thinking about yourself.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah, About your, your own mental health, your own physical health,

Adam Lamb:

your own emotional health.

Adam Lamb:

And it may be necessary to seek that type of.

Adam Lamb:

Congruent employment elsewhere.

Adam Lamb:

Mm-hmm.

Adam Lamb:

. And I hate to say that because I, I even spoke to a chef the other

Adam Lamb:

night where, I asked him, what does he really like about being there

Adam Lamb:

at this particular organization?

Adam Lamb:

And his answer was, he would feel guilty leaving his team.

Adam Lamb:

So he never really, he never really gave me a positive, but what was, what

Adam Lamb:

was present for him was this feeling of like, guilt and maybe shame about

Adam Lamb:

the fact that he, he's, you know, done the good, done the good job.

Adam Lamb:

Brought this team together.

Adam Lamb:

He's had family members bring other family members there to work with him.

Adam Lamb:

Yet his first emotion was not wanting to leave because he felt guilty.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah.

Adam Lamb:

And I so resonate with that, especially after a time spent really coming from

Adam Lamb:

your heart and building a team because you know that that's what's best for them.

Adam Lamb:

And their own emotional security or emotional.

Adam Lamb:

But at some point, man, you, you have to be clear-eyed about the

Adam Lamb:

fact that, that you've gone about as far as you can and, Yeah.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah.

Adam Lamb:

Just a quick story.

Adam Lamb:

I took over a I was asked to, I'm sorry.

Adam Lamb:

I was gonna apply for a particular position at a, at a retirement

Adam Lamb:

community here in Asheville.

Adam Lamb:

And at the time, the person that was in the.

Adam Lamb:

Position currently wasn't leaving for a while, so I was asked to go in and do

Adam Lamb:

an assessment of the culinary operation.

Adam Lamb:

So after about a week, I spoke to everybody involved and it was clear

Adam Lamb:

that there was some really let's say unproductive behavior going on.

Adam Lamb:

So the chef and the food and beverage director who shared

Adam Lamb:

an office space didn't.

Adam Lamb:

Rest of the organization to know if there was any dysfunction in their department.

Adam Lamb:

So very often they'd say, Okay, understand the problem, we're gonna take care of

Adam Lamb:

it, and it would never go any further.

Adam Lamb:

As a consequence, none of the sta, none of the staff felt comfortable

Adam Lamb:

going to human resources, which is there for a particular function, and

Adam Lamb:

none of the problems ever got solved.

Adam Lamb:

So these two individuals were kind of codependent with one.

Adam Lamb:

and they ran the department so tight that it was a Chinese fire

Adam Lamb:

drill every day and people were just walking around with their heads bow.

Adam Lamb:

I mean it was really sad.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah.

Adam Lamb:

The way everybody was.

Adam Lamb:

And about a week after I put my assessment in, I got a text from the

Adam Lamb:

chef saying, Haha, I got a new job.

Adam Lamb:

And bailed on the tire operation.

Adam Lamb:

So I was asked, Hey, can you come in and bridge us from chef to.

Adam Lamb:

Hmm.

Adam Lamb:

Just to let you know, food and beverage director position

Adam Lamb:

is we found somebody for that.

Adam Lamb:

So I'm like, fine.

Adam Lamb:

And then about three weeks later they told me that that person had ghosted

Adam Lamb:

them and I ended up doing both jobs.

Adam Lamb:

So they said, Hey, do you wanna stay here and do the job anyway?

Adam Lamb:

And I said, Sure.

Adam Lamb:

Formally, and this organization had grown from, you know, basically a

Adam Lamb:

hundred residents to 650 residents in the space of about six.

Adam Lamb:

So they were operating it as a kind of mom and pop, yet it was large enough,

Adam Lamb:

a hundred people in the department.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah.

Adam Lamb:

But there had to be certain structures in place that didn't exist before.

Adam Lamb:

So there was no standardized job classifications.

Adam Lamb:

There was no standardized pay.

Adam Lamb:

Everybody pays was going all over the place.

Adam Lamb:

So for me, the first thing that was going in there and just getting

Adam Lamb:

everybody around a table and saying, Okay, so these are the issues.

Adam Lamb:

This is kind of like the line of.

Adam Lamb:

And this is what we can get done.

Adam Lamb:

And it took long time to get, say, job classifications done, because everybody

Adam Lamb:

wants to have their two sense in.

Adam Lamb:

But during that process somehow I lost the faith of my direct report.

Adam Lamb:

She started shopping outside the organization for someone to take my

Adam Lamb:

position and then not telling me about it.

Adam Lamb:

But the point being is that once I lost her confidence, then it was virtually

Adam Lamb:

impossible for me to move the operation.

Adam Lamb:

One of the most important things that we were able to introduce

Adam Lamb:

and, and still happens, there is a complete second day orientation.

Adam Lamb:

So, an orientation period might be something that's easily doable.

Adam Lamb:

You don't, necess don't necessarily need a lot of buy-in from

Adam Lamb:

everybody to make that happen.

Adam Lamb:

But from the standpoint of the new hires, they knew exactly where they were

Adam Lamb:

gonna slot in and what was expected.

Adam Lamb:

and how they could move through the organization.

Adam Lamb:

And those three things were really, really important for people to just

Adam Lamb:

kind of like, not worry about where they were and what was possible.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah.

Adam Lamb:

And that's why I say, you know, this is a great time for everyone in the industry to

Adam Lamb:

really consider what's important to them.

Adam Lamb:

You know, what's kind of in volatile, like things that they're not gonna give up.

Adam Lamb:

Like, I need transparency, vulnerability, and honesty.

Adam Lamb:

. Yep.

Adam Lamb:

And you.

Adam Lamb:

Remembering that you're not the one that's, you know, yes,

Adam Lamb:

they're interviewing you, but you're also interviewing them.

Adam Lamb:

So maybe stick around and talk to a few people, you know, as the shift

Adam Lamb:

ends and talk to some employees that are still working there.

Adam Lamb:

And they're platforms out there, employment platforms

Adam Lamb:

that have reviews of employers.

Adam Lamb:

And so these are all kind of part and parcel of the, of the coaching moving

Adam Lamb:

forward as people start to figure out where they most want to be and, and,

Adam Lamb:

and looking for the organizations that are gonna take them there.

Adam Lamb:

That's the one piece, like being very, very clear about what you stand for and

Adam Lamb:

where you're gonna go to, to be able to be incongruence with that, and then finding

Adam Lamb:

yourself in a situation where, Jim, like you said, it could always be that it's

Adam Lamb:

been just a rough couple years, right?

Adam Lamb:

? Sure.

Adam Lamb:

It doesn't, doesn't necessarily always need to be mismanagement

Adam Lamb:

or poor leadership.

Adam Lamb:

It could be the supply chain has been broken.

Adam Lamb:

It could have been covid, it could have been a bunch of different things, and now

Adam Lamb:

you're, you're presented with a situation where you've got anywhere from 10 to

Adam Lamb:

30 to 50 to a hundred people who are looking to you to bring them all together.

Adam Lamb:

And again, what's step number one,

Jim Taylor:

Yeah, I think, I think we're on the same page that step

Jim Taylor:

number one is talk to your people.

Jim Taylor:

Step number one is check in.

Jim Taylor:

Step number one is, you know, ask people what they need and

Jim Taylor:

ask yourself what you need.

Jim Taylor:

You know, you made a comment a few minutes ago that I feel like I can't

Jim Taylor:

not touch on, and that was the, I feel guilty if I leave my team.

Jim Taylor:

Yes.

Jim Taylor:

Right.

Jim Taylor:

We, we talk about retention being the new cool all the time.

Jim Taylor:

Stick around out of guilt, that's not cool.

Jim Taylor:

Stick around out of fear.

Jim Taylor:

That's not cool.

Jim Taylor:

You know, stick around because it aligns with values.

Jim Taylor:

Stick align because you, or stick around because you feel

Jim Taylor:

protected by your employer.

Jim Taylor:

Stick around because you know you're passionate about the mission.

Jim Taylor:

That's the, the part of retention that's cool.

Jim Taylor:

Right.

Jim Taylor:

You know, I think that we need to, that goes for both employees making sure that

Jim Taylor:

they are aligned with the values and the mission of the organization they work for.

Jim Taylor:

And that goes for.

Jim Taylor:

People who run the organization, making sure that they're doing what

Jim Taylor:

they can to protect their people so they don't feel guilty staying, I

Jim Taylor:

mean, that's not good for anybody,

Adam Lamb:

right?

Adam Lamb:

Aaron Fish is just chiming in, good friend of ours.

Adam Lamb:

Transparency and honesty, It seems obvious, but it's not always there.

Adam Lamb:

And mm-hmm.

Adam Lamb:

yeah, this idea of over-communication I, I don't think can be understated.

Adam Lamb:

And yet you might have some people in your team who are.

Adam Lamb:

Like, dude, that's just a bunch of words.

Adam Lamb:

Like really, where's the action?

Adam Lamb:

And unless we're throwing ourselves into the breach of a particular operation,

Adam Lamb:

it's very hard for people to, I should say, it's hard to gain their trust and

Adam Lamb:

confidence if you're not willing to jump in and do the things that are the most.

Adam Lamb:

You know, uncomfortable for you.

Adam Lamb:

And you know, I'm a big fan of mopping.

Adam Lamb:

I love a good mopping

Adam Lamb:

. Jim Taylor: I didn't know that about you.

Adam Lamb:

No, I, listen,

Adam Lamb:

it's good to know.

Adam Lamb:

It's kind of kind of the the movie with Jim Carey about meeting

Adam Lamb:

God and he's just, you know, a janitor mopping this perennial floor.

Adam Lamb:

There is something to be said about manual labor, especially

Adam Lamb:

in times of great change.

Adam Lamb:

You know, there may not be a whole lot that you can.

Adam Lamb:

Operationally to change things, but if you're willing to roll up your elbows

Adam Lamb:

and grab a mop or do whatever that looks like, it's it's empowering to your staff.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah.

Adam Lamb:

And at the same time, you're going through this discovery process

Adam Lamb:

about what's important to you.

Adam Lamb:

You know, you could also be doing that with your staff, and it may

Adam Lamb:

be that that means some of your staff leave and that's okay.

Adam Lamb:

People leaving an organization can be a, an incredibly positive act and

Adam Lamb:

reinvigorate the organization with people who are coming in with a

Adam Lamb:

much more enthusiastic attitude.

Adam Lamb:

And I, I liken it to, you know, infecting the organism with positivity, right?

Adam Lamb:

? Yeah.

Adam Lamb:

You get enough people in there of the same mind connected to the same thing.

Adam Lamb:

Again, this can be done through, you know, really great hiring processes

Adam Lamb:

and, and really in depth conversations with potential staff members.

Adam Lamb:

But it could very well be that you start bringing in staff members

Adam Lamb:

that are more aligned to how you view running an operation.

Adam Lamb:

And after a while they start infecting everyone around them.

Adam Lamb:

. Yeah.

Jim Taylor:

That, that mopping thing, I mean, I have, again, I

Jim Taylor:

have to go back and comment on that.

Jim Taylor:

I can't be without . I can't, I can't let you get away with that one.

Jim Taylor:

Okay.

Jim Taylor:

For one, If I ever have a chance to come to your house, I'm gonna expect

Jim Taylor:

that you have really clean floors.

Jim Taylor:

Yeah, you gotta but that, you know, to me, that that speaks to a certain

Jim Taylor:

approach around the, you know, the whole concept of servant leadership, right?

Jim Taylor:

You're doing something that you don't have to do that nobody expects you to do, but

Jim Taylor:

it's gonna make your team's life easier.

Jim Taylor:

And sometimes it's the simplest things.

Jim Taylor:

You know, the one that, and for anybody who might listen to this that ever

Jim Taylor:

worked with me, the one that I, the thing I always tried to do was and

Jim Taylor:

another partner of ours, Doug New Hill, Kim and I were talking about this

Jim Taylor:

yesterday, taking tray trays full of dirty dishes away from staff and just

Jim Taylor:

taking them to the dish area so that they can spend time with their customer.

Jim Taylor:

That was, I always used to find it so funny, the look that I would get if I

Jim Taylor:

took a tray of dirty dishes away from an.

Jim Taylor:

They would look at me like, What are you doing?

Jim Taylor:

What planet are you from?

Jim Taylor:

You know, and, and it wasn't anything really serious that was going, you know,

Jim Taylor:

change their day dramatically, but it just made their life a little bit easier.

Jim Taylor:

So that was something I always tried to do.

Jim Taylor:

I don't like mopping, so that was never my, my go to

Jim Taylor:

. Adam Lamb: No, but I mean, you bring up

Jim Taylor:

that you're talking about, you know, all of a sudden they feel that arm get really.

Jim Taylor:

They're not expecting that and the trade disappears in their head.

Jim Taylor:

Like, what?

Jim Taylor:

Yeah, they gotta turn around.

Jim Taylor:

And I, I feel it's necessary to kind of hammer this point.

Jim Taylor:

None of this stuff costs money, right?

Jim Taylor:

And none of this, none of this costs any time getting it approved

Jim Taylor:

by upper management, right?

Jim Taylor:

And it could be that you start a relationship with a staff

Jim Taylor:

member that extends beyond this particular location and employment.

Jim Taylor:

It could be that you start.

Jim Taylor:

You know, pulling together a cadre of people who really respect you and will

Jim Taylor:

follow you to the wall, as they say.

Jim Taylor:

Yeah.

Jim Taylor:

Yeah.

Jim Taylor:

And you know, they, they're waiting for your call three months later.

Jim Taylor:

Hey, I've landed on my feet.

Jim Taylor:

Here we go.

Jim Taylor:

And are you ready to make a move?

Jim Taylor:

A hundred percent.

Jim Taylor:

And you know what, the funny thing about it that I always was, I shouldn't,

Jim Taylor:

you know, this might be the wrong word, but I was always entertained

Jim Taylor:

mildly by the conversation that that.

Jim Taylor:

You know, and Aaron Fish is now saying his was jumping in the dish,

Jim Taylor:

in the dish area to help clean that up or mopping or grabbing the tray.

Jim Taylor:

You know, it wasn't about, I, I can't tell you how many times I had

Jim Taylor:

to explain to staff, I'm not doing this because you didn't do it right.

Jim Taylor:

I'm doing this because, So you don't have to, Right, right.

Jim Taylor:

I'm not mopping cuz the floor's dirty and I'm annoyed that you're not doing it.

Jim Taylor:

I'm mopping.

Jim Taylor:

So you don't.

Jim Taylor:

I'm trying to help make your day easier.

Jim Taylor:

I'm trying to help make your job easier.

Jim Taylor:

Right, Right.

Jim Taylor:

It's different.

Jim Taylor:

There's a difference there.

Adam Lamb:

Well, and after, and after a staff has been beat down and thought

Adam Lamb:

that everything was an indictment on their work performance, to have somebody

Adam Lamb:

come in that just wants to help might be an initial shock, and to be able

Adam Lamb:

to have that second, Hey, listen, if I'm, you know, busting your tables or

Adam Lamb:

whatever, it's not because you can't get to it, it's because I want to make your.

Adam Lamb:

And so you don't have to, right?

Adam Lamb:

And Doug's just chime in, sail, nailed it.

Adam Lamb:

You know, bend an extra arm, leg, even brain if you need to.

Adam Lamb:

Whatever you can do to alleviate their stress and smile while you're doing it.

Adam Lamb:

And to Doug's point, I haven't always been really good about smiling while I'm

Adam Lamb:

doing it because I'm feeling the pressure, like they're feeling the pressure.

Adam Lamb:

And I might be, you know, dripping down for that second, you know, and making more

Adam Lamb:

of a point of buzzing around the dining.

Adam Lamb:

Grabbing trays or busing tables so that my staff can actually

Adam Lamb:

reset those tables, reset those tables, and take care of the guest.

Adam Lamb:

And it's not always intu as intuitive as, as as doing the dirtiest job.

Adam Lamb:

Sometimes it's looking and see where the greatest need is.

Adam Lamb:

Absolutely.

Jim Taylor:

But it's all about protecting your people.

Jim Taylor:

Yeah.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah.

Adam Lamb:

And you know, to just to.

Adam Lamb:

Again, kind of hit hammer the nail.

Adam Lamb:

You know, Benchmark 60 and its productivity metric is one of the best

Adam Lamb:

ways to protect staff, especially if they know that you're actually doing it.

Adam Lamb:

Because again, there are some things that you're gonna be doing

Adam Lamb:

as a manager that's not necessarily important to share with your staff.

Adam Lamb:

But if your staff knows that you are actually deploying a technology that

Adam Lamb:

will protect their workload such.

Adam Lamb:

The opportunities for them to be overworked, become less and less.

Adam Lamb:

And not only that gives us an opportunity to staff the restaurant appropriately.

Adam Lamb:

That's gonna go a long way into making sure that that staff feels

Adam Lamb:

comfortable, protected, and, you know, they're not gonna jump ship to

Adam Lamb:

a quarter or 50 cents because they probably can't find that anywhere else.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah.

Jim Taylor:

Yeah.

Jim Taylor:

I mean, we, we've had lots of interesting discussion with,

Jim Taylor:

with restaurant operators lately.

Jim Taylor:

, there's so much conversation happening about work life balance.

Jim Taylor:

Mm.

Jim Taylor:

Great.

Jim Taylor:

Resignation, work from home, all these different things.

Jim Taylor:

Most of that conversation is on the life side of the conversation, but that

Jim Taylor:

workload thing that you're talking about is, is focusing on the work part of it.

Jim Taylor:

Mm-hmm.

Jim Taylor:

, because it's, it's kind of a loss if you go on vacation, you know, let's

Jim Taylor:

say there's an unlimited vacation.

Jim Taylor:

, which is awesome, but every time you go on vacation, you come back to work and

Jim Taylor:

you're stressed the minute you get back,

Adam Lamb:

right?

Adam Lamb:

Because everything's just been piled up on your desk, , right?

Adam Lamb:

If we can

Jim Taylor:

prevent that through managing workload and looking at things

Jim Taylor:

differently that way, it's gonna make the employee experience that much

Jim Taylor:

better and, you know, improve retention.

Jim Taylor:

Yeah.

Jim Taylor:

So that's a, that's a discussion for

Adam Lamb:

another day though.

Adam Lamb:

Another day and chiming in Jemma's focus has always been the lobby and bathrooms.

Adam Lamb:

Because as a customer, that's my first point of contact.

Adam Lamb:

And yes, it doesn't really matter whose name is on the checklist, , to go in

Adam Lamb:

there and to make sure that not only that it's getting done, but that you might.

Adam Lamb:

Actually do something to alleviate someone else's rounds.

Adam Lamb:

And I'm really grateful for all our friends and listeners,

Adam Lamb:

Aaron Fish, Doug Jemiah.

Adam Lamb:

We actually had a first time listener Lathan, Sandy Gumby from From

Adam Lamb:

Africa, Cape Town, South Africa.

Adam Lamb:

So the message is getting out there.

Adam Lamb:

Like our listener who wrote into us, Please dm.

Adam Lamb:

Either Jim or I send us an email.

Adam Lamb:

We'd love to know what's going on and how we can provide content

Adam Lamb:

that's really going to serve you.

Adam Lamb:

Because this show is all about solutions.

Adam Lamb:

Yet, we know that sometimes you can't talk about a solution until

Adam Lamb:

you can identify the problem.

Adam Lamb:

So thank you very much for joining us for this episode of Benchmark,

Adam Lamb:

Our sixties, Turning the Table, and just some programming notes.

Adam Lamb:

So next week we're gonna have Jensen Cummings.

Adam Lamb:

We're also gonna have Michelle Moreno and and Kelly feathering

Adam Lamb:

him is has confirmed.

Adam Lamb:

Second episode with us for the ABCs.

Adam Lamb:

So we're really looking forward to that.

Adam Lamb:

So we've got a busy November, December, just like you guys and we're all in

Adam Lamb:

this together, so thank you very much.