November 20, 2008
Normally this time of year brings a warming trend (although not this year in many places) and yard work. Flowers and weeds start to spring up. How do you get rid of your weeds?
Often, how you tend your garden is how you run your restaurant.
Say what?
When weeds appear in the yard, you get the weed-whacker out. What stands tallest? The weeds. Instead of pulling them out one by one, you chop down anything in sight -- good, bad, or indifferent. After all, it’s much less work.
Or is it? What grows back quickly? Weeds. What multiplies even faster? Weeds. Why? The roots are still intact.
The same happens in the restaurant industry. When a “weed” employee is allowed to continue working for you, their attitude spreads. If you make a rule to try and stop their behavior, everyone is impacted and morale suffers -- similar to you taking the weed-whacker to the yard. You ignore negative or unproductive behavior -- nothing changes. You work with the person -- nothing changes. Little by little, more weeds creep into your operation.
What is the answer? Pull the weeds! Get rid of them. If you have no weeds in your yard and have fertilized to create a healthy lawn, it’s hard for the weeds to appear, let alone survive. Do the same with your staff -- pull the weeds, fertilize the good employees (reward, recognize, give incentives to), and they’ll help keep out and choke out any weeds that may appear on your staff.
While it might appear this is more work for you, it’s only short-term. Pulling all the weeds from your yard is more difficult than using the weed-whacker. But with the weed-whacker, over time you spend far more effort and energy as the weeds keep coming and multiply. Get rid of them one time and enjoy the fruits of your labor.
Pull the weeds and succeed!
