If you’re a restaurant owner who wants freedom from your business and to have the financial freedom you work so hard for, you need managers. Not only that, you need managers you trust, who follow your systems, your process, your way.
Yet all too often, the restaurant owners I work with say to me, “David, when do I let this manager go? Is it time?”
As hospitality industry professionals, we want to take care of people. The last thing we want to do, unless you're a little bit weird, is fire somebody. It’s one of the worst things for us because we are built to take care of people. Firing someone causes guilt. Bar and restaurant operators ask, “Is it my fault that I didn't give them the systems in the first place? Is it my fault that I didn't give them the support they needed to succeed?”
To get past the emotional side of managing people, and instead empower operators to hold their teams accountable I teach something I call the ‘Three Strike Approach’ to management. The ‘Three Strike Approach’ is your recipe for understanding when it's time to pull the trigger and fire an underperforming manager.
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First, you have to understand how people learn. There are three main types of learners: auditory, tactile and visual. Auditory learners have to hear it, visual learners need to read it, and tactile learners have to do it.
The best training methods employ a combination of all three learning styles, to ensure you’re meeting the needs of all of your employees. If you truly want to reinforce a process, your training must include auditory, tactile and visual methods for learning.
Here’s a hypothetical situation. Let's say I train you, and I don’t realize that your learning style is different from my training style. Initially, you show me you understand the process and you demonstrate by executing it correctly. But then, I come around the corner a month later, and see you're doing it wrong. Now, my first reaction is to get mad at you for being such a dope. I think, ‘You should know better – I saw you execute it correctly a few weeks ago! I taught you!’
In that scenario, it’s really not your fault. It’s my fault for not training you properly. I didn’t find out whether you were a tactile, visual or auditory learner. I trained you in a certain way that didn’t incorporate all three learning styles. That means you temporarily understood the training, but you didn’t truly absorb it.
And so, my advice to you is this. When you find yourself in the situation above, don’t get mad.
In ‘Three Strikes Management’, the above becomes strike one for the manager. So, what do you do after the first infringement? When you see them doing something wrong, you call them out on it and hold them accountable, which may include a write-up. Then, you retrain them in a different way, using all three learning styles (tactile, visual and auditory). Make them show you over and over how to do it properly. Once you’re sure they understand their retraining, you let them out on their own.
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If a month later they’re still doing it wrong, and you’re ready to fly off the handle, stop. It’s still your fault. You still didn't figure out how to train them properly. This is strike two. You’re still going to hold them accountable, which may include a write-up, and you’re going to retrain them. You’re going to find a way to go through all the different systems and processes, using auditory, tactile and visual methods. The goal is to cement the learning process and make sure the manager gets it.
Now, when you come around the corner a month later, a week later, two days later, and see it’s still being done wrong, that’s strike three. And just like baseball, it’s three strikes and you’re out.
Why? Because if they’re not following the proper methods after two rounds of retraining and demonstrations, you’ve reached the “don’t know vs. don’t care” stage. If they don't know how to do something, it’s our fault as trainers. If they don’t care about doing something right, that’s their fault.
And if they don’t care, there’s the door.
You don’t want managers who don’t care. They will poison the well. But notice I’m not telling you to immediately pull the trigger and say, ‘you're an idiot, you're out!’. That’s not what ‘Three Strikes Management’ is about. In ‘Three Strikes Management’, you coached, trained and held them accountable. You did everything you could as a coach to expect more out of them, drive them to be better and give them the tools to be successful. That's critical.
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The most important part of firing your “don’t care” managers is to have a trained replacement ready. You need to have a system in place where you may have one or two salaried managers and the rest might be hourly. This is your manager in training, or MIT (you can call them a supervisor lead or whatever else you want). The MIT is taught to open and close a restaurant, to follow checklists, to make sure the money gets to the bank, that the guest is taken care of, how to comp things and so on. They’re entry level management, but their true role is to be ready when you fire a “don’t care” manager.
When you create an atmosphere of accountability, your staff will recognize it and hold themselves to higher standards.
If a manager isn’t doing the job as you expect, if they choose not to do the work, then they are slowing you down. They're costing you more money and more headaches. If you're not reaching your financial goals, and you're not able to leave your restaurant, then whoever is holding you back needs to go because they're sabotaging your success.
If you follow ‘Three Strikes Management’, you’re giving your managers the training and support they need to be successful. If they choose to fail, it’s because they don’t care enough to succeed, and firing them should be an easy decision, especially when you have a trained replacement ready to take over that position.
David Scott Peters is an author, restaurant coach and speaker who coaches restaurant operators how to stop being prisoners of their businesses and to finally financial freedom. His first book, Restaurant Prosperity Formula: What Successful Restaurateurs Do, teaches the systems and traits to develop to run a profitable restaurant. Thousands of restaurants have worked with Peters to transform their businesses with his three principles to restaurant success.
David is also a regular presenter at our annual Bar & Restaurant Expo (formerly Nightclub & Bar Show), taking place March 21-23, 2022 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Early bird registration opens soon. Click here to be one of the first to know when registration opens.
For sponsorship opportunities, contact Fadi Alsayegh at [email protected] or Veronica Gonnello at [email protected].
This article has been edited for length and clarity.
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