At Sizzler USA Inc., Ken Cole is clear about who his team’s most valuable players are — and they don’t have offices at the company’s headquarters. “We call this a home office rather than a corporate office because we believe our money is made out in the field,” Cole says. “We’re the coaches that come
up with ideas to help facilitate, but it’s got to be our people that execute.” Sizzler, which opened its first family steakhouse in Culver City in 1958, now includes more than 200 locations across 16 states, Puerto Rico and, come November, Mexico, with estimated annual revenue of $100 million. Cole, who has helped build a culture based on open and honest communication and a healthy work-fun balance, is both an involved leader and one who encourages involvement from his team members. Smart Business spoke with Sizzler’s president and CEO about building trust, reducing turnover and the benefits of spending some time away from his home office.
Communicate to all levels. The most significant challenge a leader faces is clear, concise communication of what the company’s
goals and objectives are. When you see
companies that are not doing as well as
they should be, that’s usually the No. 1
thing that has broken down. There’s a lack
of trust, and the reason there’s a lack of
trust is because nobody ever hears from or
sees the leadership of the company.
The one trait that all successful business
leaders have is listening and communicating. I look at best practices a lot and visit
different companies in my area of business,
and what’s interesting is that the most successful restaurant companies that I visit
out there share a common thread that
everybody, at all levels, knows what the
goals are, and they buy in to it, and they’re
excited about it. And that comes from communication.
When you see companies that are in turmoil, usually nobody knows what’s going
on. They really don’t know what the end
result or the goals of the organization are.
Encourage commitment. Goal-setting starts at our team-building meeting, where we say,
‘Here are the macro goals that we need to
achieve this year. How will you and your
respective team go about achieving that?’
We spend a lot of time going through that,
and it’s their involvement that sets the
pace, and that builds their commitment to
getting it done.
The old saying is that involvement builds
commitment, so ours is not top-down-type
management, and it’s not top-down-type
goal-setting because they’re in the process,
and many of the goals that we have came
from them and their team members. By
involving them in that process, they feel
way more committed to achieving that
because it was their idea to do it, and
they’re going to work harder and smarter
to make sure it happens.
The long-term benefit is twofold. It certainly builds their trust, and it builds their
commitment, their loyalty to the brand.
They are less apt to look outside for other
opportunities because they feel that their opinion matters, they feel that is their goal
to achieve, and so they feel committed to
that. Once you have trust in an organization and you feel committed to it because
you’re involved, it gives you a lot better job
satisfaction.
Create a fun culture. We’re very serious about results, but we have a lot of fun. Life’s too
short not to have fun. If you’re having fun,
you’re going to do a better job, and it
reduces turnover. When the phone rings
from the headhunters, they’re not necessarily listening because they’re having fun.
A lot of our team members have worked
in other places where there is a top-down
mentality and you have no flexibility in
your schedule, and it is, ‘It’s this way or the
highway.’ When they’re working in an environment like this, where they are having
fun, where we play pranks on one another,
where all of the upper management listens
to their team members and involves their
team members, it’s a better place to work.
It trickles down to your franchisees, it
trickles down to your company managers,
it trickles down to the team members in the
restaurants servicing the guests, and then,
ultimately, we give a better experience to
the consumer.
Maintain culture through communication.
Culture is difficult to maintain, and communication is at the top of everything. I
have to communicate, on a daily basis, the
good, the bad and the ugly.
If you’re not out there, if you’re not visiting with your other team members, with
your direct reports, if you’re not visible in
the business, the culture breaks down. It
starts taking on a life of its own, and you
have a fragmented message.
Communication is the most important
thing that a leader can do. Everybody
wants to be informed and kept informed of
all the news. We have an open-door policy,
and we communicate the good, the bad
and the ugly. We communicate and celebrate if we are meeting and exceeding
budget, and we communicate and talk
about ways we need to improve the next
month if we’re not.
We have several different forums or formats to cascade our information, and even
doing all of those, there’s still a lot that
doesn’t get cascading as deeply as we
would like it, but it’s an ongoing effort, and
it’s more difficult than you would think.
Get out of the office. I usually only spend two or three days a week in the office, and I
spend the rest of the week splitting my
time between visiting company stores and
visiting franchisees. It’s a gut check to see
if our message is getting to the levels we
want it to. When I’m in the restaurants, I’m
talking not just to the managers but to the
employees. Two weeks ago, we hit four
stores, and we met with four or five
employees at every restaurant, just to sit
down with them and say, ‘Hey guys, what
are we doing that’s stupid? If you ran the
company, what would you do differently?’
It’s those ongoing types of communications that make them feel important and,
believe it or not, they’re not afraid to voice
their opinions. Because of that, they feel
that I and my direct reports are very
approachable, and when they get the message, they believe in it, and they trust in it,
and they try to do the right thing.
HOW TO REACH: Sizzler USA Inc., (310) 846-8750 or
www.sizzler.com