Five Benefits of Losing Your Star Players

My team is undergoing a tremendous amount of change as several of our long-term, star players are moving on to other opportunities both in and outside the organization. For several years the composition of my team has remained relatively stable but now we’re entering a new phase of growth, which is both scary and exciting. It seems like each day I’m having the old Abbott and Costello “Who’s on first?”conversation with my managers, as we try to sort out who’s going, who’s staying, and how we’re getting our work done.

It’s easy to get discouraged when top performers leave your team. The immediate reaction is often to look at all the challenges that lay ahead — How do we replace the intellectual capital that’s walking out the door? Who is going to cover the work while we hire replacements? Will the new hires be able to match the productivity and contributions of the previous employees? All those questions swirl through your mind as you ponder the endless hours you’re going to have to invest in recruiting, interviewing, hiring, and training new team members.

Rather than being discouraged, I’m energized and looking forward to the future because the long-term benefits outweigh the short-term difficulties. Here’s five benefits I see to losing top performers:

1. It proves you’re doing something right. Huh? Doesn’t it mean that something must be wrong with your leadership or team dynamics if you’re losing your top people? Well, if you’re a toxic leader and your team’s morale and performance is in the tank, then yes, there’s something wrong. But if you’re doing a good job of leading it means you’re hiring the right talent and developing them to high performance. I take a little pride in knowing that other leaders see the immense talent I have on my team and they want to hire them away.

2. Your team is better off for their contributions. The contributions of my star players have helped raise the level of professionalism, productivity, and capability of my team over the last several years. They have redefined what “normal” performance looks like and we’ll be looking to existing team members and our new hires to reach that same level. We are better off for having them on our team and I believe they are better off for having been on our team.

3. It provides a chance for existing team members to step up. Losing valuable contributors is an opportunity for other team members to step up their game, either by moving into higher levels of responsibility or by taking on short-term duties to cover the gap. When you have several high-performers on a team, it’s easy for other valuable team members to get buried on the depth-chart (to use a football metaphor). Losing a star player allows second-team players to step into the limelight and prove their capabilities.

4. You can bring in new blood. Having long-term, high-performers on your team brings stability and continuity. However, stability and continuity can easily become routine and complacency if you aren’t careful. Hiring new people brings fresh perspective, a jolt of energy, and a willingness to try new things you haven’t done before. Teams are living organisms and living entities are always growing and changing. I see this as a new era to bring in a fresh crop of star players that will raise our performance to even higher levels.

5. It facilitates needed change. Bringing in new team members is a great time to address broader changes in your business. You have new people who aren’t conditioned to existing work processes, systems, or ways of running your business. They aren’t yet infected with the “that’s the way we’ve always done it around here”virus that tends to infiltrate groups that stay together for a long time. It’s a time to capitalize on the strengths and ideas of new team members to help you take your business to new heights.

Losing high-performers is never easy but it doesn’t have to be devastating. I’m grateful to have worked with star players that are moving on to other challenges and I’m excited about developing a new wave of top performers that will lead us in the years ahead. It’s time for change…Bring it!

Counter-Offers Are a Sucker’s Play

By Kris Dunn · 03.15.2013

Retention is important for organizations.

Paying substantially more for the talent that’s currently sitting in your office is a total sucker’s play. Don’t confuse the two.

Let’s break this down a little bit. You found that diamond in the rough. You hired them, nurtured them and grew them to the point where they’re relevant in your industry, their profession, etc. Or maybe you just bought them from someone else at a price you considered at the time to be fair, right?

Either way, after a couple of years with you, they have more value on the open market. That means people are going to ping them and see if they can strip them away to another company. At which point many managers and companies start freaking out, even in reaction to the potential of a slightly above-average talent leaving the company to go to work for a competitor.

It all comes down to replacement cost. Can you find another cog to fill the gap with? If you can, you don’t freak out and you don’t counter with a raise that gets into the 20% range to save the referenced employee with another offer in hand.

In the Talent game, there are really two types of employees that warrant a counter-offer when they’ve told you they’re getting ready to accept an offer from another company:

Great Creators = the people who create what you sell, and I mean truly create. In a lot of companies, those are software developers. Good creators in any type of company that produces products and services are worth ten of their peers.

True Rainmakers = not salespeople in general, but people who have the ability to bring in business in a way that an average salesperson can’t. Generally, these people have networks that have been formulated in a way that’s different from the average sales pro. Normal sales pros bitch about the quality of the leads. True Rainmakers never seem to give a flip about the leads marketing is producing. Hmm.

Not everyone who creates or sells for a living is special. In fact, most are average. BUT – when you find a top tier creator or rainmaker, they are different. They can drive results for your company in ways that others can’t.

That’s why they’re the only people you should counter when they appear to be seriously considering another job. Everyone else’s replacement cost is too low to freak out about.  Accounting, Marketing, HR, Operations, Customer Service – you only save people in these areas if they qualify somehow as a creator or a rainmaker. Few will qualify.

Four final thoughts about retention and counter-offers:

1. You should pay people aggressively/fairly and provide career paths so talent can grow and get theirs at your company in at time frame that’s fair. I’m not talking about playing hardball when you pay people at the 17th percentile.

2.  You create a culture over time related to how you handle resignations and counters. If you always go into save mode, there are a lot of people who play games. If it’s crickets when even a solid player brings their notice, you’re going to stop “I’m taking another offer” games.

3.  Your tendency to freak out over average people resigning means you haven’t institutionalized knowledge transfer and operational soundness. The knowledge is in the average person’s head and nowhere else, thus your freakoutedness (that’ a word, I just made it up).

4.  For a great primer on who Creators and Rainmakers are and who is replaceable, look to the New England Patriots. Their creators are Tom Brady and Bill Belichcik, and everyone else (and they mean everyone) is replaceable. The goal should be to have our stuff together as organizations to the point where we can replicate great results with different talent – while protecting the creators/rainmakers.

Retention and counter-offers.  Don’t confuse the two.  Counters are a sucker’s play in most cases. If they’re not, we’ve got to look at our organization to find the answers why.

http://fistfuloftalent.com/2013/03/counter-offers-are-a-suckers-play.html

Give em’ the Pickle …

My very first restaurant job was washing dishes at Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor in Portland, Oregon. At that time Marriott owned the brand, and I was a Marriott employee, but we all “worked for Farrell’s”. Being in Portland we had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Farrell and his wife Mona in for a quick bite. He was, and is an incredible man.

After that I had the pleasure of working for Mr. Farrell at Pacific Coast Restaurants in Portland. He was the CEO and the face of PCR. At every new unit opening [and we had many as the company was growing like gang busters], and two times a year, Mr. Farrell gave his “Pickle Speech”. I saw it countless times, and never grew tired of hearing it.

The basis for the “Pickle Speech” was a guest that was in a Farrell’s and was being charged for a side of pickles by the server. The guest told the server that they always get the pickles, but the server insisted on charging for the side. Well, the guest left, and wrote Mr. Farrell a letter to tell their story. Bottom line … Give em’ the Pickle!

Every business in the world has pickles to give away. Something little to make your customers know you care, and make them customers for life.

As I look back, his wisdom and teachings were so vital to not only me, but thousands of employees that heard the speech, and lived it out in his stores.

At a time when great service is often set aside for profits and cost controls, I reflect on these principles and realize they really cost very little to do. On the flip side, they are very expensive with lost business if you don’t.

What are these four simple principles for giving away Pickles?

1.       Connect with customers and guests. Ask yourself, how I would want to be treated, and then do it!

2.       Anticipate your customer’s needs. Stay one step ahead of them. What are they needing, and put it into place.

3.       Look for ways to delight your customers. Surprise them, and ask how we can exceed their expectations.

4.       Inspire yourself and others. Seeing with your heart. Ask yourself, am I willing to do whatever it takes to make a difference?

So what do giving away pickles have to do with Gecko Hospitality? Plenty! We strive day in and day out to give pickles away. Not only to our clients, but to our candidates as well. A thank you note, a small trinket of thanks, a text or e-mail of encouragement. We want to make a difference in all the folks we come in contact with. You [clients and candidates] are our lifeblood and we value and need you.

Thank you for choosing Gecko Hospitality! Ready for some pickles? 

Kevin Kalstad – Gecko Hospitality

Any job in the hospitality industry can lead to a better career. There are very few ‘dead end’ jobs. Everyone is a job seeker at any given time, at any stage of the learning curve. We all have the opportunity to develop leadership skills. Each problem is an opportunity to learn our problem solving and opportunity development skills.

Leadership development is vital, but many people who are just starting fail in their first attempts because they lack the skills and knowledge needed to succeed. Both success, and failure are behavior habits. When a leader fails, they learn, study more, seek help, and try again. Often, people who are just learning to become managers become discouraged. The myth that some people are born leaders, or have a knack for leadership has kept many talented leaders from developing careers as restaurant mangers.

Controlling the elements of failure + Cause and Effect = Success

Many leaders fail because their plan is not congruent, realistic, and effective. The effective leader is willing to watch the day to day aspects of a business and measure their effectiveness based on results. The distant leader makes assumptions and tracks their success and failures – after it is too late.

Successful leaders share some common behaviors.

1. Listening

They have developed the art of listening. You can learn more about a person, problem, or situation by listening to people. Understanding what a person wants, or needs, can often reveal the solution to a seemingly unrelated problem.

2. Identifying Need

One of the easiest ways to gain control of a situation is by learning to identify what someone needs, then creating a solution that meets the needs. There are always multiple solutions to a problem. Finding the solution that meets your boss’ needs is a vital aspect of career development.

3. Finding Opportunities

The opportunities a successful person looks for are those that will meet the needs of their managers. Selling your ideas doesn’t depend on identifying an opportunity. It is more important to ‘sell the idea’ by identifying how it will solve your boss’ needs. For example, more training is necessary to reducing the time between ordering a meal and placing it on a table. This causes a problem for most restaurant mangers because it effects the bottom line, reducing revenue, and making it look like they are a failure.

However, your general manager is only focused on the bottom line and only sees career development as another expense. Selling the idea of training requires outlining the long term cost savings, return on investment (ROI), and how the general manger will be able to present this ROI as his/her personal success.

Ideas not coupled with action never become bigger than the brain cells they occupy – Arnold Glasgow

Many people would love to be a General manager, or restaurant manager but twill never reach this goes. They have the education and the experience, but they lack a fundamental aspect of the job which limits their ability to succeed – The ability to execute a critical leadership plan.

The first step to becoming a great manager is to learn what great management looks like. Knowledge is power. Learning everything about the job, at your workplace and others, is vital to developing the leader within yourself. Without stretching beyond what is currently ‘the norm’ the best you can hope for is to repeat the mistakes of the past.

When asking the average university graduate to describe a great manager they will give an endless account of the tasks that must be completed to manage a restaurant. They are well versed in the ‘day to day’ running of an establishment. Unfortunately, a manager makes or breaks their career on results.

The average person can run a restaurant but when asking them what they want to happen in the next week, month, or year – what will be the results of their business then they are mute. In fact, many people I talk to forget to list ‘still be in business’ as one of their goals.

The goal of Critical Leadership is to help managers assess their awareness of effective execution and how they can create a strategy which will help them land their dream job. One of the best ways to learn the art of critical leadership is to apply the principles to your job seeker strategy. Don’t be another person who just puts a resume ‘out there’ and hopes something will happen. Very few ‘top managers’ land their job by luck of the draw. Instead they implement a plan.

Success is a habit. The more you practice the more you succeed. The more you succeed the easier it is to make future plans succeed, and to sell future plans to the general manager and decision makers.

Experience is necessary. There are many ways to gain this experience. We’ve mentioned volunteering to help your current restaurant manager or general managers. After helping with a few projects and ‘getting your feet wet’ it is time to apply some of the principles learned in future projects.

If there is no opportunity to practice within your restaurant then try to find volunteer positions within related industries. Experience is only the beginning. The top managers need to sell their ideas, track results and goals, create benchmarks, and to present the final results in their best light. Once you can do the job then learn how to do the paper work. Corporations run on paperwork. After charting a few projects and creating case studies for them, then it is time to sharpen your presentation skills.

Continue through our series of career development articles. We are building a full course in restaurant management skills designed to help you prepare a portfolio that will ‘sell’ your skills to the hospitality industry. Please take time to contact us and find out how we can further your restaurant management career.

One of the obstacles to career development is the ability to turn plans into executable strategies. Colleges and universities spend years teaching managers ‘what’ they need to know to run a restaurant. They have a poor track record at giving budding restaurant managers the skills needed to turn those ideas into ‘real’ plans that can be executed in the real world.

Coming up through the ranks gives a restaurant manager a solid understanding of the obstacles and problems which arise when trying to direct a team and bring everyone on board to the manager’s ideas so that their plans can be executed easily and cost effectively.

The restaurant manager who is seeking a job in a high profile restaurant, or wants attract a management headhunter, needs to be able to blend both the ‘know how’ and the ‘knowledge’ into a strategy of success.

Job seekers need to do both, but they also need to present their skills in a way that a human resources manager can easily translate a resume into a set of measurable skills. One way to do this is to learn the Art of Execution and then use the skills learned here to create a resume that ‘solves problems’ instead of one that just lists past experience.

How to Become a Restaurant Manager

•           Establish a mindset of execution. People waste most of their day doing mundane tasks that do not generate a reward whether it be creation, financial, or social. People need to learn how to focus on tasks that meet the goal, and reduce the time spent on, or delegate those which are inconsequential.

•           More important, they need to learn how to do this without the ‘labour’ force feeling being treated like they are the low man on the totem pole. A pyramid is more stable than a flag pole. When the leader focuses more on people, the lower they are, then the performance increases. When looking at ‘input’ and ‘cost’ view the goal as a pyramid. Turn the pyramid over so it is a funnel to see how the rewards return to the ‘head’.

•           Be a leader. Let people choose their own destiny, but hold them accountable. Let them choose whether they want to participate and make things happen, or sit back and complete the mundane jobs. Once they choose, support them where they are. Like Morpheus in The Matrix who asked ‘The red or blue pill,’ every strategy needs one person who can influence the destiny of the entire team.

The introduction to these three skills can be learned in any performance coaching book. Once a person knows how to be a leader, they need to be able to manage others and encourage them to ‘get onboard’ with their plans. Show the HR manager that you are able to create, sell, and execute a plan successfully and you are one more step closer to your dream job.

The first step to building a high profile career, and fast tracking your restaurant manager career then you need to understand what a goal is. This doesn’t mean a personal goal, a short term goal, or a career goal. You need to understand what a corporate goal is. You need to understand how to identify a goal, outline obstacles, and explain the goal in a way that the board members and decision members will be able to understand what is needed.

The most important aspect of a corporate goal is the ability to explain the benefits and how the goal will positively effect the bottom line. If the decision makers cannot present your ideas to investors, the bank, or board member in a way that quiets any objections then the odds are good that the plan will never get off the ground.

What is a Corporate  Goal?

A goal can be anything you want to achieve. It is very rare that any plan will have a singular goal.  It is also important to prioritize and ‘problem solve’ in the early stages of the planning process. Not all goals are all worth chasing. Studying the ‘Art of Execution’ will help you understand what is necessary to planning and executing a plan.

There are some very defined elements to the art of execution that need to be adhered to if you want to change behavior patterns and learn how to turn your dreams into a tangible reality.

•           Avoid emotional based goals. The goal must be tangible when you finish or else you won’t be able to measure success. If the goal is not ‘real’ then the tasks needed to create a strategy will also be insubstantial. They will be swallowed up in the day to day ‘real’ jobs.

•           Eliminate goals that you cannot describe verbally and communicate effectively.

•           Eliminate goals that do not have benchmarks and milestones. Can you accomplish X by a certain date? If not, strike that goal from the list.

•           Scratch off solo goals. No one is an island. No one can build an empire single handed, or it isn’t an empire. You need to have input from others. You cannot do all the work alone. Once you have help you need to learn how to identify achievers and understand how to reward them so they will perform better.

Once you understand how to make plans it is important to practice execution. Once you can identify the different elements of a well designed plan it is necessary to study the Law of Execution. Many people are excellent planners. Sometimes they take months, even years, creating we well developed plan. Unfortunately, their plans never come to fruition because they lack the skills needed to turn their ideas on paper into tangible applications in the real world.

By: Marty Tarabar, CPC

I attended a conference recently, and had the opportunity to listen to the keynote speaker. He spoke about how his family, a well to do family in Memphis, adopted a homeless boy.  The boy came from a broken family, his mother, a crack cocaine addict, had given up taken care of him.

The family helped with his schooling, hired a private tutor and encouraged him in his efforts to try out for sports.  He studied hard, practiced at sports and was accepted in to college where he became a first team, freshman all American. He finished his college career and was picked in the first round of the NFL draft. In his first year, he came in second in the voting for the Associated Press  NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year Award.

Sounds like a Hollywood movie, right?  Well the speaker was Sean Tuohy. He and his wife Leigh Anne adopted Michael Oher in 2004 and he was drafted in the first round by the Baltimore Ravens in 2009. The movie:  The Blind Side which starred Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw.

Sean talked a little bit about how his family was able to change Michael’s life, his successes on the football field and a little about the movie. But Sean talked mostly about how this all came about. It all started with just two words. TURN AROUND!

The family was driving home on a dark, cold and rainy night. Sean and Leigh Anne saw someone walking alongside the road, without a jacket, soaking wet. The children told Leigh Anne and Sean they knew the boy’s name was Michael and he went to their school.

Many cars passed Michael along the road that night, Sean passed him as well, but when Leigh Anne heard the boy went to the same school as her children, she said “TURN AROUND”.  Those two words changed the Tuohy’s and Michael Oher’s life forever.

So how does this relate to your employees, or your managers?

Without the Tuohy’s intervention, Michael would have ended up on the streets, in a gang, and involved in drugs or worse.  Leigh Anne and Sean made a difference.

Who works at your restaurant?  What are their stories and what help can you give them?  Do they need that little extra attention to make them a stand out employee? Can they be your next assistant manager or help open your next new restaurant?

TURN AROUND, talk to your staff, the time commitment you make to them now will pay back tremendous dividends.  There is an A-list of former McDonald’s employees: Romney VP running mate Paul Ryan singers; Pink, Seal, Macy Gray, Olympic athlete; Carl Lewis, actors; James Franco, Sharon Stone and Jay Leno and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

TURN AROUND pay attention to your staff now, or someone else will. One of the main reasons employees leave a position has very little to do with the work, it’s usually about how they are treated or respected as people.

TURN AROUND make a difference in your employees and managers today.  If not, they will be calling a recruiter like me, tomorrow, to find them a new restaurant management position.

You have goals and dreams. The creative strategy took years to develop. You have a strong focus on the goals, but nothing happens. Dreams crash, not in a quick dive, but slowly they are eroded by the day to day tasks that eat the time needed to execute your goals.

The problem is what we term as the ‘whirlwind’ or tornado. This is a continual, ravenous, insatiable vortex that draws everything inside but produces nothing. It involves all those daily tasks which drain our energy.

This is one of the most devastating obstacles to the ambitious performance minded professional. They watch other people succeed while their goals quietly fade from their bucket list. Not because they are lazy, not because they hire the wrong people.

The problem lies in the fact that the goals are forward looking and all the data, numbers, plans are backward focused. They report what has been done and accomplished. The numbers, strategies, and perspectives never deal with the day to day activities which destroy our goals.

The art of execution is one aspect of success that must be conquered if you want to reach your goals.

What is a goal?

A goal can be anything you want to achieve. This doesn’t mean that goals are all worth chasing. There are some very defined elements to the art of execution that need to be adhered to if you want to change behavior patterns and learn how to turn your dreams into a tangible reality.

1. Avoid emotional based goals. The goal must be tangible when you finish or else you won’t be able to measure success. If the goal is not ‘real’ then the tasks needed to create a strategy will also be insubstantial. They will be swallowed up in the day to day ‘real’ jobs.
2. Eliminate goals that you cannot describe verbally and communicate effectively.
3. Eliminate goals that do not have benchmarks and milestones. Can you accomplish X by a certain date? If not, strike that goal from the list.
4. Scratch off solo goals. No one is an island. No one can build an empire single handed, or it isn’t an empire. You need to have input from others. You cannot do all the work alone. Once you have help you need to learn how to identify achievers and understand how to reward tem so they will perform better.
5. Establish a mindset of execution. People waste most of their day doing mundane tasks that do not generate a reward whether it be creation, financial, or social. People need to learn how to focus on tasks that meet the goal, and reduce the time spent on, or delegate those which are inconsequential.
6. More important, they need to learn how to do this without the ‘labour’ force feeling being treated like they are the low man on the totem pole. A pyramid is more stable than a flag pole. When the leader focuses more on people, the lower they are, then the performance increases. When looking at ‘input’ and ‘cost’ view the goal as a pyramid. Turn the pyramid over so it is a funnel to see how the rewards return to the ‘head’.
7. Be a leader. Let people choose their own destiny, but hold them accountable. Let them choose whether they want to participate and make things happen, or sit back and complete the mundane jobs. Once they choose, support them where they are. Like Morpheus in The Matrix who asked ‘The red or blue pill’, every strategy needs one person who can influence the destiny of the entire team.

The business case for gender-balanced leadership

For some 20 years, companies have been running women’s leadership development programs a lot like sensitivity seminars, to develop awareness in both women and men that business women are, well, “different” and to help women understand how best to integrate into the existing business culture.

The good news is that these efforts, combined with education and encouragement, have helped put women on 15% of the boards of the Fortune 500. More good news is that studies show that companies with about 30% gender diversity on their boards actually outperform those with no women by a wide margin measured through multiple metrics (e.g., an 84% return on sales).

The bad news is that 15% is paltry for the Fortune 500, and it looks like midcap firms’ leadership teams may be even less gender diverse. Worse news is that progress is slowing at exactly the time we need women’s strong leadership skills in upper management more than ever; and women — especially young, highly educated women — are bailing out of the system. They’re not all leaving the workforce to have babies either — many of the best and brightest are going to start entrepreneurial ventures.

This puts business leaders interested in recruiting and developing the next generation of leadership in quite a bind. On the one hand, we have an economy — in need of powerful up-and-comers — struggling to right itself into productivity, ethics, sustainability and profitability. On the other hand, we have an up-and-coming, educated, appropriately skilled resource in plentiful supply (representing over half the workforce) who is choosing to opt out of the system.

You see the danger ahead, don’t you? We’ve identified talent pool key to our economic success who’s not making it into leadership positions where they can deploy that positive impact, and thus our leadership class is becoming systematically weakened at the very time we most need to strengthen it.

This isn’t new news — the seminal research on this subject was published by McKinsey in 2007 — but discussion and action on this subject in the U.S. is far behind Europe and even developing nations. Are we asleep at the switch? As importantly, why are so many women taking the path of least resistance?

As many women entrepreneurs tell me, “Why should I put up with a culture that doesn’t meet my needs and let me shine? I know I’m good. I’ll go make money for myself.” And then — thanks to the Internet — they do, along with many creative-thinking, industrious young men. When I talk to women both in and outside corporations about why they have left, or are tempted to leave, corporate culture is most frequently cited as the barrier to bringing more women into leadership.

Corporate attempts to support “women’s leadership programs” are often seen as a burden — another job on top of the one they already have and the family they value. But as importantly, many women’s development programs are viewed as attempts to “fix them,” which leads many to conclude they’re just round pegs being stuffed into square holes and might as well leave, taking their talent and potential with them.

It’s easy for a corporation to throw up its (metaphorical) hands and say, “It’s our culture, we can’t change,” but I submit that there’s simply too much at stake now not to change. And this change isn’t only for social justice reasons – there are hard metrics to motivate it too. Change isn’t hard when you understand what you have to lose and what you have to gain. After all, what would your financials look like with an 84% increase in return on sales or a 46% increase in return on equity?

I believe, after scanning almost 100 research studies on the subject, that by bringing more women into leadership, their mere presence in balanced numbers (i.e., 30% or more), with men will strengthen the capabilities of any organization’s leadership culture. This phenomenon, The Woman Effect, has already been validated through the research above and has the power to revitalize our economic engines to spur yet another wave of phenomenal growth.

However, to activate The Woman Effect in our economy, we’ve got to do it in our companies; and to activate it in our companies, we’ve got to stop running sensitivity seminars to adapt the women to the existing culture. We’ve got to take on the challenge of systemically adapting our culture to bring out the strengths of both female and male leaders, working together. This is a core strategic investment in profitability and sustainability, even more strategic than implementing a new ERP system.

The good news is that many of the same change management practices we use to implement technology can help us adjust to gender-partnered leadership. My colleagues and I will be running some change management pilot programs to do this and I’ll report back here. Go ahead and get started. You won’t be alone!

By Dana Theus on April 9th, 2012