High Impact Hospitality
Upgrade Your Purpose, Performance, and Profits
by Chase L. LeBlanc
Founder & CEO, LEADAGERS, LLC™
Published by Thundersnow Publishing at Smashwords
Lakewood, Colorado
© 2010 by Chase L. LeBlanc
All rights reserved.
High Impact Hospitality is also available in print at www.Leadagers.com
Smashwords Edition, Licensing Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
To everyone I have encountered along the way, I have learned something from each of you. Some of you taught me more about myself. Some of you taught me more about yourself.
To Alexa, Kit, and C.J. Always be sunshine-makers, not jellybean-takers!
To Kristi—44 infinity
Thanks
to Sue Collier and her team at Self-Publishing Resources
for
helping to make this book happen, including Kate Deubert,
as well
as Dan Forrest-Bank, who designed this eye-catching book cover.
Thanks
to all my manuscript elves: Kristi LeBlanc, Gwen Mills, Dr. Douglas
Mills,
Lee Jette, John Ryan, and Chuck Holcomb.
Chapter 1: A Fresh-Baked Perspective
Why leadership gets all the sugar. What is a leadager?
The quickest ways to increase your value. Professional self-assessments.
Chapter 3: Blood Bound—My Start
My teenage introduction to restaurants, universally familiar drama.
Chapter 4: Your Start—Your Choice
Can you do what it takes? How to pull your own weight.
Chapter 5: The Practice of Values and the Value of Practice
Prescriptive developmental path for first-time assistant managers. An introduction to a Vivid Victory Vision and my Great Eight.
Chapter 6: The Magic Ls and the Purpose of a Purpose
Intentional alignment and walkin’ the walk. Carrying your own H2O wherever you go.
All managers face equal but opposite “conflictions.”
Chapter 8: Mundane Rain Motivation
How to stay focused for the long haul and why it matters. Finding a main vein. Becoming a connoisseur of systems. Speaking the royal language of money.
Bad things can happen to good assistant managers. Here are a few to keep front ‘n’center.
Chapter 10: Take Ten/Coffee Break
A review of what you should accomplish during your assistant years.
Chapter 11: She’z All Mine Now!
If you become a general manager, here is my mind-saving mantra. Forty odd experiences I encountered (odd, very odd).
First moves for a new general manager. The health of hospitality businesses: Survivors, Strivers, or Thrivers.
Operational recommendations. Motivating and delegating. Mock duty lists and marketing momentum.
Chapter 14: Reality Check, Please
Profitability and the culture of LIFT2.
Chapter 15: Driving the Ownership Dream
If you ever happen to be an owner/operator. An enlightened review of the entanglements and pratfalls of a start-up.
Chapter 16: The Foolish Consistency of a Lizard Brain
“Impulsiveness maimed me and responsibility saved me.” Dealing with the hard and soft skills of management.
Chapter 17: Cornucopia for Owner-Operators
Ownership lessons and takeaways and a little “cattle drive zen.”
Chapter 18: Ahead of the Curve
An “evergreen” tickler file. Ninety-five things to learn before you need them.
Fair warning and best wishes.
Suggested Readings and Resources
I once had a beast of a dog, a 125-pound, all-black German shepherd named Dakota. He was foreboding in the looks department but in reality he was just a big marshmallow. Dakota would frequently do the oddest thing; whenever we were standing close together, he would lean on me. His weight was enough to shift my center of gravity and at times I would have to scramble to regain my footing.
At one of his annual veterinary check-ups, I asked the vet whether this posture was common for big dogs looking to take a load off or if this dog just liked being close to me. The vet told me that it is the nature of dogs to slide up against each other and test the weight of the newcomer. I guess my dog was on instinct autopilot, subtly trying to test the competition in case there was going to be a tussle.
I don’t know if the vet was dealing in facts but I like to use this analogy when speaking about management and leadership. There is always something sliding up next to you trying to test your mettle. You are being constantly tested and assessed by the staff, customers, budget, boss, or competition—even your peers.
This book is about giving you a healthy dose of heft. After almost thirty years in the industry I’m hoping to share the solid footing that comes from hard-won wisdom.
Over time, with hands-on experience, I have come to understand that I prefer to work with authentic, caring, trustworthy, and competent people. People who do not possess these traits generally seem to fail at a higher rate. As such, I devoted much of my career to developing myself and my managers into people who were successful (by my assessment and by those who signed our paychecks) even though most of the time, we heard different music in our heads. I call us leadagers (leed/i/jers), and we are a tribe, a group united by our shared values.
Let’s be clear; not everyone who has worked for me has liked me and certainly not everything I touched turned to gold. However, from the beginning, I was driven to produce more leadagers and leaders, not just more managers or hourly workers. It was somewhere at about the eleven-year mark that I began to realize I excelled in the development of leadagers.
As an owner/operator running a college town hot spot, I got started developing people when I was twenty-one years old. I was learning from my management mistakes before most people get a chance to make ’em. (Check out Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, and look up the 10,000-hour rule of thumb. He basically states that ten years of practice is just about how long it takes to become really good at something.)
It’s not like I ignored any of the million little details that go into running a successful hospitality operation; you have to know the right thing to do to teach the right thing to do. It’s just that developing managers into strong leaders is what I poured my heart into.
I come forward now with this humble effort, targeting the following audiences: (1) assistant managers looking for more traction on their way up the mountain, (2) any level of manager in the service sector (general or multi-unit included) who is trying to improve their plate-spinning abilities, (3) hourly tribemates with ambition, and (4) anyone wishing for a peek into the mind of a “new-style” manager.
Let me be clear: There is no one right way to be successful in this industry or any other, for that matter. This book is an answer to many questions but it is not the answer to all problems.
With that in mind, may my mistakes help you to avoid some pitfalls, my knowledge be a force for good, and my travails tickle your fancy.
(Damn, I loved that dog!)
If you ask a hundred people to define leadership, most will start by giving an example of a historical figure: “Hmmm, you know, like hmmm…Martin Luther King, Gandhi, hmmm...Abraham Lincoln... or Winston Churchill.” They will list superstars who have had superb achievements on the world stage and usually in the fields of politics, religion, or the military. Quotations from the “great leaders” become rally-cry standards, recognizable within two or three beats, as in, “I have a dream….” “Ask not….” “We shall fight….” “Four score and seven….”
So what is leadership? Is it timing, luck, pluck, a function of power, shared values in action, charisma, vision, cunning, influence, cleverness, pure heart/dark heart, clarity of thinking, communication skills, driven by situational transactions or genetically coded behavior? Maybe it’s an artful favor exchange program or just plain, new-fashioned “street cred.” If you were to study great leaders throughout history you’d find that irrespective of how they each powered their accomplishments, it is clear there isn’t a singular approach or even a straightforward way to play the cards from the above deck.
For the sake of continuity in this book, let’s cut through the many years of study and dissection on this subject matter and agree that…
If you are a leader, your actions or ideas are out in front; and for the purpose of our discussion, they must also add value to the organization.
Leaders reveal themselves by doing what they should do, pushing beyond the artificial limitation of “what can I possibly do?”
Leadership can be top-down, bottom-up, or sideways, and no matter the scope or style, great leadership exists on small, medium, and large scales.
Leadership is a role, not a job title. It is not universally listed on the human resource department’s “people-power” vacancies. Rarely, if ever, is one hired as an assistant leader or general leader.
Further, as a leader on our list, your first “job” is to manage yourself toward “betterment.” (Because a crack/crank pipe rolling around under the front seat of your car, not paying your taxes, stealing company funds, DUI arrests, or pornography addictions will surely serve as distractions from your “message.” Perhaps more significantly, it will evermore hurt your credibility, thereby diminishing buy-in and ensuring that you will travel the bumpy road of self-inflicted trauma.)
Between management and leadership, leadership always gets the sugar. “Great leaders” are publicized and romanticized as their reputations grow oversized.
So what of the lonesome manager who with minimal notoriety and in relative obscurity toils away far from the world stage? Imagine the chuckles that would accompany the following introduction: “Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present the manager of the free world.” It just seems to flow better when you say “leader of the free world.” The ironic thing is that if you were the president of the United States, you would actually have to be a superb manager to be successful.
Being a manager is a job title (e.g., department manager, deli manager, line manager, shift manager, general manager, and so on). Most managers’ achievements are unusually modest when they are measured against winning wars, building empires, or curing diseases. And few, if any, have given world-class speeches. (Can you imagine a speech from a classic movie starting off like this? “We shall fight the cost of production ’til our final breath. I have a dream of same store sales up 20 percent over last year. Ask not what your manager can do for you; ask what you can do for your manager.”)
Whether you view the job of manager as being indispensable or reprehensible, you would likely agree that most people working under the job title of “manager” don’t alter the arc of history during the course of a career. However, based on the sheer number of individuals working as a manager, it is obvious that collectively they most assuredly move the dial of progress.
The Origin of “Leadager”
Can you be a leader without being a manager? The answer is yes (that’s called a figurehead). Can you be a manager without being a leader? The answer is yes, if your job does not involve managing people. Can you be a great manager without being at least a decent leader? If your job involves managing people in any way, shape, or form, the answer is no.
It takes a certain kind of manager to apply him- or herself to becoming a great leader. You could be a “natural” and all the aforementioned is part of your flow. Perhaps you have decided to stretch and grow your professional breadth and depth or maybe you have heard you are about to get the boot if you don’t improve your leadership skills.
Most managers do not envision themselves to be world-class leaders although that is entirely possible. If you have a job and a title, you are usually busy going about your duties. If you are a good manager (with a touch—or more—of leadership ability) you can usually make a nice living for yourself.
Let me take a moment to explain why leadership gets all the sugar. In the sporting world, you have certainly heard the glum billionaire owner offer up the excuse of a “lack of leadership in the locker room” after highly paid talent performed poorly on the field of play. What’s up with that? World-class talent, a quad-million dollar paycheck, and a rich tradition—and they can’t do it by themselves?
Bad Team + Great Leader = Better Team
Bad School + Great Leader = Better School
Bad Store + Great Leader = Better Store
Great leadership can quicken the transformation from losers to winners, no matter how you keep score. Great leadership shines a light that can invigorate or rejuvenate. Great leadership can wipe away today’s pain or panic by focusing efforts toward a better tomorrow. Great leadership can bend steel. Hardened hearts that have been hammered to steel by heartbreak are pried open with great leadership. Great leaders get more sugar (money, power, respect, better jobs) because they bring forth the best chance to achieve success from plans, hopes, and dreams.
Truthfully, not all companies want their managers to be great leaders—it depends on the leadership of the company—and not all managers can be great leaders. Some managers might outright dismiss the extra effort and awareness that is required to realize the ultimate combo-platter. But take a moment and think of the scope of your hospitality/service management job. It likely includes driving sales; controlling costs; meeting or exceeding standards; doling out rewards and punishments; communicating up, down, and across; and serving and protecting the organization, among other things. As such, you need to be part shaman-ambassador-coachmaintenance worker-camp counselor-traffic cop, or better yet, all leader-manager. I prefer the term leadager, an excellent manager who is an excellent leader, further detailed as not one at the expense of the other but doing both well.
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Meeting Topics:
• What makes a great manager or leader?
• What are the top 5 things a leader must do?
• What are the top 5 things a manager must do? (Helpful hint: Now you have a top ten daily to-do list.)
• Is managementship a tradecraft?
• What professional characteristics need to be “out in front” and thereby, increasing your chances to cultivate a successful tribe?
• Are you “home-growing” these characteristics?
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As a leadager, you will be practicing the fine art (or is it a science?) of managementship, the highly sought, seldom natural, combination of great management and leadership (best viewed with an old-world sensibility toward craftsmanship or apprenticeship). By comparison, if the “real” job of acting can be considered a “noble craft” then by all rights we must include the job of “running” a real business within the same realm.
Business management gurus of the world have long stated that most business managers have leadership built into their job description. Natural-born leaders will need to be skilled at actually managing business operations if they hope to be successful in a managerial role. Business realities dictate that if you are named to head a department or group, you are expected to lead its direction, manage the resources, and be accountable for results, good or bad (people, performance, profits, culture, legacy, and so on).
So there you have it. I advocate combining leader and manager to illustrate the point that if you are managing people, it is the proper terminology to use. Even though most old school folks will never make a job title out of any part of the word leadership, the fact remains that management and leadership are logistically inseparable. If you desire to be a great leadager (remember, “gets more sugar…”) you will internalize and sanctify this union (speak now or forever hold your piece… of pizza).
There is a common theme among managers in the hospitality/ service organization setting. Faster than most would imagine, a single, career-related question becomes uppermost in one’s mind. The million-dollar question inevitably becomes, “How can I make more money?”
Here is my take on the most common paths to wealth enhancement. If you have an abundance of skills and talent, or you are an entrepreneur at heart, start and run your own successful business (unsuccessful ones don’t pay very well). In lieu of that, however, if you are seeking a substantial increase in your pay, it is most practical to develop leadager skills that are highly valued by the people who provide the high-paying jobs. The goal should be to create an intersection between what they desire and what you can deliver. (Please note that this differs greatly from the common rift between parents and their children…a declaration of childish wants, closely followed by tantrums when satisfaction is deemed to be not immediate enough.)
“Success is not rare—it is common…. It is a matter of adjusting one’s efforts
to obstacles and one’s abilities to a service needed by others. There is no other
possible success. But most people think of it in terms of getting;
success, however, begins in terms of giving.”
—Henry Ford, Sr.
Money-Makin’ Moxie
I maintain that there are seven capabilities in our industry where, at all levels, the demand outstrips the supply. (Relax, mon ami; none of them requires a college degree.) You are not guaranteed anything, particularly not fame and fortune, but if you strengthen your capabilities in the following areas, you will exponentially increase your value in the world of work, or WOW (oh yeah, in real life, too). The following lists the leadership craft—the moxie—that should be paralleling your “hard skills” management development.
1. Increase your value by being a trustee. From hard-knock experience, all kinds of institutions—from businesses to prisons—have had to develop trustee systems, or key carriers, as a necessary support structure. Despite any gray areas of morality one could argue, most people know what trust means to them and generally speaking, the world seeks ethical people in whom we can trust.
Valueless, directionless, or moral-mess employees wreak havoc on an organization. If they happen to occupy a leadership position, it can be a death sentence for the company. Although individual perceptions of “big” or “small” infractions can vary greatly, unethical behavior must have consequences, regardless of the size of the violation. I’m talking about more than the preferred traits that prevent lying, cheating, and stealing. This also goes beyond being one of the “good ones,” dependably looking out for the company’s interests and reliably and consistently working hard.
What is truly ethical does not fall into a gray area. Over time, we all experience the variety of ways people define trust and subsequent expectations. Trust in this context is a broadened definition of character. It is not just what is in your mind or heart; it is entering the fray, consistently coming through and doing the right thing.
The following is my general rule of thumb: As a trustee, your involvement doesn’t make things worse; optimally, your involvement always makes things measurably better (with no threat of prison, besmirched reputations, insolvency, or residual skeletons left in the closet). Can you be trusted to make things better? Much better?
2. Increase your value by being a GOAT. Do you follow through from “say” to “do”? (Hey, that’s catchy.) Passion can fuel a certain type of frenetic energy and perseverance, but business is a never-ending marathon of what’s next, and some people just don’t have the makeup to go the distance once the excitement wanes. Determination is good, but accomplishment is tops.
The discipline that is required to stick to a commitment—nay, attack commitments—in spite of distractions or pitfalls, is rare air indeed. But this is not about the woefully under-aware, blind loyalists. This, mi amigo, is the art of GOATS, which means Go Over Around or Through Stuff (or your “s” word of choice) to meet objectives. As GOATS you have the ability to get things done. Even more important, though, is whether you can get more things done right more often than most other people.
3. Increase your value by being a catalyst. Can you guide diverse groups of people into positively aligned relationships? In your WOW this might be called managing, supervising, coordinating, organizing, leading, or baby-sitting. Whatever it’s called, the broad yet decisive test is not whether you know what to do, but rather, will people follow you when you do it? What is your people-pull quotient?
If you are running a single sidewalk kiosk, then you only have to answer to yourself. But if even one person reports to you, it is important to assess whether you have done enough by asking yourself the following question: Am I worth following? (Do you know what you’re doing? Do you help others to succeed? Can they count on you to do the right thing? Do you set a clear path for victory?)
To get to the bottom of the answers to these questions, ask yourself how credible, influential, impactful, or trustworthy you would be without the authority of your position (your title at work). Could you achieve the same buy-in results without your title and positional authority? Never underestimate the major role positive relationships play in determining business success. Whether it is uniting the tribe, the team, or the neighbors, the value of being able to bring people together to achieve collective goals is indisputable. Are you a practiced and proven catalyst?