Hey, restaurant managers and operators.
Have you ever said that's it? I'm just going to be more of an a**hole.
Hey everybody, Ryan Gromfin here – author, speaker, chef, restaurateur,
and founder of therestaurantboss.com,
as well as clickbacon.com, and scalemyrestaurant.com.
Now if you have managed or owned or operated a restaurant,
kitchen, front of the house long enough,
then you at some point in time have said that's it,
I'm just going to be more of an a**hole today.
Maybe you've never meant it, maybe you've just thought it,
maybe you've said it, maybe you haven't said it, but that
feeling has bubbled up inside of you where you've had enough,
enough of team members coming in late,
enough of them not doing their side work,
not following the recipes, not cleaning properly, calling out sick and then you just
lose it one day.
And you say I’m going to be more of an…
So the challenge is that's not really what you mean and you know that
that's not an effective management tool,
but I think we have to go further back to understand where this feeling
comes from and how we fix that.
The challenge is, at some point in time, you were managed.
You weren't a manager, you were managed.
You worked for a manager or a leader or an operator or someone
who managed you and my guess is,
you didn't like being managed.
Nobody likes being managed.
I had great managers and I hated being managed.
I had terrible manners and managers and I really hated being managed,
but nobody likes being managed.
So we form this theory in our head where we say something like
when I’m a manager, I'm going to be nice.
When I’m a manager, my team's going to like me, my team's going to respect me.
I'm going to be the good manager, the nice manager, whatever.
It is it's sort of like as a parent when you're a kid,
you say when I’m a parent, I'm never going to do that to my kids,
but then sometimes we find ourselves doing that.
But the challenge is,
we go into management and nobody's really taught us how to manage,
nobody's really taught us how to earn your team's respect.
We have theories, we have ideas but we've never really been taught this,
and so we go into it thinking that being nice
is how we're going to earn our team's respect,
being nice is how we're going to be the cool manager,
the manager that people like. Well, the problem is
we also equate nice sometimes with being lenient.
So when someone needs some time off, we give it to them.
When someone had a really busy day and they didn't do something they were supposed to do,
we don't have that conversation because we don't want to be confrontational, right?
And so we let things slip, we let things slide a little bit,
and then we lose control and we say,
that's it, I'm just going to be more of an a**hole.
The problem is, again, like I said we know that's not the right thing to do.
So what I want to talk to you about today is that
you can be nice, you should be nice.
Being nice is saying hello to people,
genuinely caring about them, asking questions,
having an interest in their success, coaching, leading, developing.
Those are all things that we do, that's just human interaction, that's being nice to people.
But nothing about being nice says that you can't hold people accountable.
It's not one or the other.
Nothing about being nice says that you can't be strict.
We think the word strict is mean. Strict does not mean,
strict is strict.
Strict is holding people accountable. Mean is mean.
Calling people's name or calling people names is mean.
Belittling people is mean.
Not allowing people to do things that they should be allowed to do because they follow
the rules, that's mean.
Playing favorites is mean. You can't ever be mean to your team,
but you can be strict.
You can be a nice manager
who is also strict, it's possible, trust me.
So if you feel some of that, if you feel like you've lost control or if you feel like
you want to be mean,
you want to hold your team accountable,
what I ask you to do is to think about
how can I be nice but still strict.
If someone doesn't do something they're supposed to do, just ask them to do it.
You don't have to make a big deal about it.
If someone needs to be confronted about some negative behavior,
just confront them. I have tons of videos about
the feedback model or the five step feedback process,
we'll link it somewhere up here for you so you can look at that, that's a great way
to deliver feedback that you need to deliver but still be nice to people.
So again, I just want you to think about the fact that you can be nice,
you can earn the respect of your team by being nice but still being strict.
Some of the best coaches and best leaders and some of your mentors
have been stripped,
they've expected more out of you than you even believe was possible yourself.
They held you to a higher standard than you even believed was possible yourself,
that is being strict but you can still be nice and do that.
Hey everyone, I want to thank you for watching this video and I want to remind you that systems create freedom,
freedom creates value, and value creates scale.
There's one more thing that I want to let you know about. Right now
we're getting ready to launch our book, it's called ‘Make It Happen’ and
unfortunately, you're probably watching this video in November of 2021
or if you're watching it sometime around there, and we're experiencing
a lot of supply chain challenges, prices are going up, you're
experiencing in your restaurant. Hopefully,
maybe you're watching this video a year or two from now and you're
not experiencing that anymore which would be great, but right now
things are a bit challenging, so we've had to push the release of this book a little bit because
believe it or not, we're having challenges finding someone to print it,
we're having challenges finding people to distribute it,
it's just challenging right now, but by the time you're watching this video,
I hope that our book is released.
We've put a lot of effort into it and I’d love for you to
get the book completely for free.
So if you visit the restaurantboss.com/books
Again, we'll have a link for it up here or below.
We're offering the book for free plus a couple dollars in shipping maybe $7-8-9
dollars in shipping, depending on where you're located
or if you're outside of the United States, the book will be available on Amazon.
It might be a better way for you to get it and get the free shipping from Amazon,
but pay a couple dollars more for the book.
Either way if by the time you're watching this, the book isn't available yet,
you can still go to that same website,
the restaurantboss.com/books and get a free chapter
from the book. We're going to put a picture of it up here if we haven't already so you can see what it looks like.
We're really excited about this and if you've
enjoyed our videos over the past years and maybe
wanted to do some coaching with us but couldn't
afford it or didn't think it was the right time for you or wanted to go through some of our courses
but didn't think it was the right time for you, I think the book will be
a great way for you to go a little deeper with us
with some of our training and some of our philosophies and
what we teach and the success that we've helped with other restauranteurs
and managers and coaches and leaders in the hospitality business
without having to make such a big commitment.
So again, that's the restaurantboss.com/books
Check out ‘Make It Happen’.
I hope you guys make it happen and I look forward to seeing you
next week and bringing you another video just like this. Have an amazing day, bye-bye.