Lee Sanders walks into a Johnny Rockets, past the neon signs and stainless steel fixtures, and slides into a red vinyl chair. He orders his typical tuna salad, half orders of onion rings and french fries, and a vanilla malt.
The CEO of The Johnny Rockets Group Inc. eats at his restaurant about twice a week. But this time, he’s in Istanbul. And next week, he could visit Taiwan, Kuwait or Germany, or even the flagship ’50s-style diner in Hollywood.
Sanders’ challenge is making sure the experience is consistent regardless of which of his 250-plus locations he visits. Since its inception in 1986, the chain has sprawled across 11 countries and picked up 3,000 employees.
The first step to a consistent experience is securing energetic employees that sync with the Rockets philosophy. Sanders reins in their passion with cultural guidelines to maintain consistency. He makes those expectations and policies clear and holds employees to them, only opening the avenue to fun if they’re getting their jobs done.
“As the boss, it’s your job to make sure you have the right people, that they understand what their assignments are, and that you pave the way or empower them to do their jobs correctly,” he says.
Sanders keeps employees on track by looking beyond the big-picture metrics and talking to individuals. And when they need correction, he customizes his management style for his managers.
“My job is to get work done, make it as enjoyable for them as is possible and get the shareholders return,” Sanders says. “And assuming all those things can come into juxtaposition, we can have a happy shareholder, happy workers and happy guests in the stores.”
Find the fit
At Johnny Rockets, servers put ‘service with a smile’ into action by squirting ketchup into smiley face shapes on guests’ plates and dancing to songs on the jukebox. So naturally, passion and energy are musts.
The keys to finding employees with those traits are conducting multiple interviews and clearly communicating your expectations.
Sanders uses team interviews to vet candidates, involving the manager and several colleagues. To uncover passion, Sanders asks questions like “What do you get excited about?” and “What makes you jump out of bed every morning?” Then the interviewers compare notes to see if passion is a consistent trait.
He uses the same approach to find franchisees in other countries. He starts by assessing their experience and then, more importantly, whether they share his philosophy.
“You start with basic things, ‘Tell me about yourself,’ and then, ‘If you were in this situation, what would you do?’” he says. “So it goes from the concrete to the abstract. ‘Is the guest always right? OK, why do you believe that? How do you implement that?’”
But besides discovering what the candidate can offer, the interview should also explain what you expect from them. So it’s important to lay out the rules upfront.
“My job is to let them know that the passion for the business is expected,” Sanders says. “You know, ‘Look, this is the way we like to run our business. We would like to have some fun, we’d like for you to be passionate about our business, we’d like for you to work hard for our shareholder. Be sure this is what you want, because we’re not going to lower our standards to meet your expectations.’”
Then rely on your managers to help make the call. The “multitude of assessment experience” from the group interviews will judge candidates’ willingness to uphold those expectations better than you alone could.
