Walk new hires through the decision-making process. When there’s a
decision to be made, I say,
‘You’re going to need to
decide the course of action
here.’
Clearly let them know the
business objective or the results
expected: ‘You need to accomplish these things. You need to
have an EBITDA of 10 percent
on this’ — whatever it is.
‘If I were sitting there making
this decision, this is what I
would look at, this is who I
would talk to, this is how I
would structure it, and this is
what I would make as my decision to do this. It doesn’t mean
you have to, but this is how I
would approach it.’
Then I would say, ‘You should
go talk to these other constituents who are involved in
this project. Maybe it’s your subordinates, maybe it’s your colleagues, maybe it’s a vendor,
maybe it’s a guest, maybe it’s a
customer. Try to enroll your
constituents and get the support
and guidance from those folks.’
Then I would say, ‘If you are
completely comfortable and
you know what to do and it’s
going to be no issue, then go do
it. If you’re not, come back, and
we’ll go back through it to
make sure it’s refined to a point
where you feel comfortable and
you can go away and execute.’
They see the options. They
see how to attack the problem. I helped them to understand the implications that
are beyond their functional
area of control and helped
them understand every option
has pros and cons.
Protect your brand. First of all,
you have to protect it. In other
words, once you establish it,
you need to make sure that
the key elements are followed.
You don’t want deviations in
the field.
We have field people that are
in the restaurants, and they do
the typical site visits. When we
find that they’re not following
culture, we give them information and say, ‘Look, if you do
this, this will improve your
business.’
We don’t like to invoke the
contract or, ‘This is the Rockets
way’ as much as, ‘If you do this,
your business will be enhanced.
You need to do this because the
guests really love it, and it will
improve your business.’
The benefit ultimately is that
their sales will be higher. The
indirect benefit is it reinforces
the brand and the culture.
HOW TO REACH: The Johnny Rockets Group Inc., (949) 643-6100 or www.johnnyrockets.com
