Restaurant Managers Must Learn Three Essential Lessons to be Empowered

Let’s talk about how to get the most out of your management team instead of enabling them to do the minimum. In this episode of my podcast, The Restaurant Prosperity Formula, I want to share with you the three lessons you must teach your managers and supervisors that empower them to do their job.

If you're tired of doing everything yourself, you're tired of the excuses and you want things to change, definitely tune into this episode. As a bonus, I'm going to share with you how to ensure your managers are getting things done your way.

No matter who I'm talking with, there is a common theme among many of the calls I have with restaurant owners. They say their managers aren't getting the job done, and they don't know what to do. Because they don’t know what to do, they just end up doing it all themselves.

If you don't even know why you have managers in the first place, let’s assume you’re doing one thing: when you go around fixing what they’ve done wrong or not done to your satisfaction, you're teaching your people you'll fix everything. In fact, you're enabling them to do nothing.

Instead of being their cleanup crew, you have to put yourself in a place of leadership, which is exactly where you belong as the owner. To start to move things in the right direction – away from enablement and away from you doing it all – you must teach your managers three lessons that empower them to get their job done.

Lesson one is what does trying get you. Are you allowing your managers to continue to make excuses? Trying doesn’t get results. Finding solutions gets you results. Trying leads to excuses.

Lesson two is don’t tell me why it can’t be done; tell me how it can be done. There is no “can’t” when it comes to figuring things out. If your managers tell you can’t do something, what they’re really telling you is they “won’t” do something. Same thing for you. Instead of saying you can’t get your managers to do the work, switch the word out and say, “I won’t get my managers to do the work.” Isn't that what you’re ultimately telling me and they’re telling you? Maybe there are legitimate reasons something won’t work, but nothing can be done if you don't explore the possibilities. If you put up a wall and say it can't be done, well, then guess what? It won't be done.

Lesson three is to not let your manager come to you with a problem. They need to come to you with a solution. The level of responsibility affects the level of solution, but the goal is to get your managers to try and figure out a solution to the problem they're facing and ask your permission to use the solution to solve the problem.

There's really two missing pieces for implementing these three lessons into your daily routine, and it's your ability to successfully delegate and hold your management team accountable. See, without successful delegation, it doesn't matter what those lessons are, because ultimately people will excuse it away and won't learn. You'll still fix everything. They'll still come to you with problems, they'll still tell you why it can't be done.

So what you've got to do is put them on a path to success, not only teach them those lessons, but ultimately learn how to successfully delegate and hold them ultimately accountable. Here are the five critical steps to successful delegation.

1. Be specific and clear - what you want done
2. Define success - when it’s completed
3. Let it go - milestones
4. Continued communication - show me
5. Recognition and reward

I give a complete explanation on these five steps in the podcast, so be sure to tune in for the whole picture.

And the next part of empowering your managers and truly removing responsibilities from your own plate is you have to be willing to hold your management team accountable, and that should not be thought of as a negative when done correctly.

To keep things positive, my definition of accountability, when done properly, is change the word to answerability. It's the acknowledgement of responsibility for your obligations, decisions and actions and how you were answerable for the resulting consequences. Again, I break this down in detail and with examples in the podcast. You can always download the transcripts as well.

What I share in this podcast can change your life. If you want restaurant prosperity, freedom from your restaurant and the financial freedom you deserve, then managers play a critical role in achieving that dream.

Click the podcast player above to listen in, or you can watch the video on YouTube, click here to download the latest episode.