Q. What factors do you consider when making a hire?
I truly believe that a lot of
it is gut instinct. Did the person come to the interview with a clean fresh shirt and
no body art? You do get a
feel for, ‘Yeah, I think that he
or she would fit in here or
wouldn’t.’
Part of that is gut instinct.
You can only ask so many
questions, and after that,
based upon the type of
answer and your gut feel, a
lot of it is based upon that.
Don’t lower your standards.
Don’t hire the guy who has
two earrings and slouches
down in the chair.
It clearly starts with the belief from my position as
the leader of this company
that I will not lower my standards as we open more of
these stores. I will do everything I can to convince the
management team in each
store how very important it
is to have the right people
talking to our guests on a
daily basis.
Q. How do you help your
managers be effective?
All of our managers wear
shirts and ties. We start that
way. We never ask a single
employee to do anything that
we as managers wouldn’t do
ourselves. It’s something you
work at every day.
People are pretty bright
nowadays. They can sense if
they are liked and respected
or [if] they are just treated
like a number.
You have to show dignity
and genuine respect for
everybody and genuinely try
to include them and explain
why it’s important. Not just
giving orders, but explain
yourself in detail.
They want to understand,
‘Why am I doing this?’ They
don’t want to just be told to
do something. They want to
know why.
There’s a lot of bright young
kids out there that come up
with ideas, and we don’t have
all the answers. So we are
always looking for a better
way of doing something. I’ve
encouraged my store-level
managers to talk to their
employees on an ongoing
basis and listen to their ideas
and their complaints. If you
don’t, you’re going to lose
them anyway.
HOW TO REACH: John’s Incredible Pizza Co. Inc., (949) 916-2000 or www.johnspizza.com