Let’s talk about why being the best at everything could be your downfall and how you could be enabling everyone on your team to not succeed. In this episode of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula Podcast, I talk about my own enabling behaviors in the workplace that I eventually turned around to make me a more successful manager and a less stressed one.

Being an enabler in the restaurant business is you providing your employees and peers with excuses for why they don’t have to do their jobs. It means they never get written up and suffer the consequences from not doing their jobs because you will just do it for them.

As an enabler, I was so good at doing everyone’s job at the same time, they didn’t have to be. And it got so bad, that I finally noticed that when I would physically bus a table, even when it was slow, my servers would look at me with disgust that I didn’t do my job!

Managers would sit back at the manager meetings and let me take on every project I could and offer no help. And when I finally couldn’t keep up, they would say sarcastic things or get upset because I didn’t do my job.

Wait! Didn’t do my job? How did everything become “my job?” Oh, it was me. I did it. I enabled people not to have to do anything, which then made everything my job. 

In this podcast I cover what I learned, including:

1. When to pitch in on line employee tasks and when to direct
2. How to delegate and handle manager tasks because you cannot live life with the philosophy of “if you want something done right, you need to do it yourself.”

Listen into learn the three changes any enabling owner or manager should make in their management style:

• Implement systems for everything you do in your restaurant.
• Edit your open-door management policy and how easily access you when you have to get things done.
• Hold your team accountable! Train them on what the job is, how to do it, how well it should be done and by when.

It’s OK to be the best at what you do. It’s just not OK to be the only person who does anything.

This podcast episode is your intervention to stop being an enabler and start viewing your systems and tasks as your framework to success. You’ll understand that you must train your team to your expectations, coach them and ultimately hold them accountable even if it means they quit or get fired.

This lesson has stuck with me throughout my career. And since 2003, I’ve conducted this very intervention with the owners and managers I work with daily. If you need help changing, it would probably be a good idea for you to hop on a discovery call with me. I will be more than happy to help.

Sponsor

This episode is being brought to you by Repeat Returns. If you’re a restaurant owner of a medium to high-volume independent restaurant, multi-unit or franchise operator and you’re looking for a proven and realistic solution to attract, grow, and retain customers... then you really need to visit Repeat Returns. Repeat Returns is a modern marketing platform created by a restaurant owner for restaurant owners... It studies each customer’s habits and patterns, predicts the most profitable outcome for your restaurant every single day, and deploys the marketing to make that happen. You never lift a finger. Click here to see if Repeat Returns is right for you.

Rate, Review, & Subscribe

Please rate and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you happen to listen to podcasts. By leaving us a review, other restaurant pros seeking out this information are able to find it. I read the reviews and hearing how this information has benefited you, does wonders for me. Also, if you find any of the discussions helpful, share them! The more restaurant pros who have access to them the better we become as an industry.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• 3 Principles of Restaurant Success