Don’t sweat the small
stuff

Michael Mack
co-founder and CEO, Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp.

Michael Mack, co-founder and CEO of
Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp., says that
effective plans are fluid and tweaked
along the way. He first sets macro-level
business goals with his executive team
and then creates micro-level outcome
expectations, such as same-store growth
targets that need to be achieved by managers in the next 12 months. He keeps a
pulse on the change process, by reviewing
his team’s progress toward the specific
milestones during weekly executive meetings. Mack, who was featured in July, says
he doesn’t get overly involved with the
plan details unless the implementation
course starts to deviate from the main
business strategy or the milestone check
reveals a lack of progress.

“I’m always involved in decisions involving the critical business profitability drivers like pricing, menus and advertising,
but more often, I’m not involved in all the
details, I’m more of a facilitator,” Mack
says. “It’s more important to spend time
getting clear about where we’re going and
be a little less hung up about how we’re
going to get there because that’s what creates alignment. I want to make sure what
I’m doing is consistent with my values
and the values of the organization.”

As an example, Mack says he’s supportive of a restaurant manager’s decision to
offer menu items that appeal to local diners, but says he’d want to know if the
manager chose to make a major change
from the restaurant’s primary fare, like
diverting from salad as the main item on
the menu.