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Robert Ott
president and CEO, Claim Jumper Restaurants LLC

When Claim Jumper Restaurants LLC
opens a new location, Robert Ott, subject of our May cover story, will be
there. But the president and CEO
won’t just be there to cut the ribbon
and smile for the camera. He may be
busing tables, or you may find him on
the cook’s line. He delves deep into
the operations of each new Claim
Jumper because it provides a great
opportunity to communicate with his
employees and helps him maintain a
solid grasp on the challenges facing
his team.

“You can’t run your business from
behind a desk,” he says. “If someone
brings an idea to me, and they say,
‘Hey, this is something the guests are
asking for,’ if you’re sitting behind a
desk, you may not understand the reason why. But if you’re working with
the managers and talking with the
guests, they bring up examples of
things that need to be changed. Then
you have a deeper understanding of
why this needs to happen and why the
change needs to be made.”

All that face time with employees
can cut into the other responsibilities
of a CEO, but Ott says the benefits
outweigh the extended hours. He visits
stores several times each week, and
his discussions with employees —
from management all the way down to
the hourly workers — have a direct
influence on the direction of the company.

By making himself so accessible, Ott
often finds himself stopped in a hallway
by an employee with something on his
or her mind, but he says the quality
ideas you end up gathering are worth
lengthening your day.

“It can be a little bit disruptive, but it’s
a good kind of disruptive,” Ott says.
“You may see a problem or hear about
a problem that might come to bite you
much harder six weeks or six months
from now. You solved it ahead of time
because that door was open and someone saw something that needed to be
addressed, and you addressed it before
it became a bigger issue.”