Good Morning Friends! Here are my 5 Things to Consider this week!
Culture – Can we have a performance culture AND a caring culture? Not only are we able to have both a caring and a performance culture that simultaneously coexist, we must make sure these two critical elements are more robust and apparent than ever. As we begin to stabilize the company and we refocus on more of the foundational elements of what we do, our teams will look to us for an increased level of empathy and patients then we may have been previously used to. We must balance our approach between demanding the quality of work we train for, combined with an increased understanding that for a good long while, the non-negotiables and basics matter more than ever. We need to set good, clear expectations of what the next weeks and months are going to look like and paint a daily picture of what success means and how to achieve it. Managing for performance is something we’re used to. What we may not be used to is the amount of finesses we’re going to have to use to achieve the expected results. We have to use different levels and different tactics at different times and prioritize the methods we use to motivate our teams. Getting our teams back to work is going to be hard. We’ll need to be caring, stern, empathetic, a boss and a friend all in the same day. A softer, more patient approach combined with setting clear, achievable goals will win the day…and many days to come.
Leadership – Stabilize. A lot has happened in our time away. Habits have formed, people are different and things may never go back exactly the way they were. When our whole world, in a broad sense and our work lives, more narrowly, get shaken up like they have, we have to start back at the foundation to begin to rebuild. Without a strong foundation nothing can be built on top. When we created the Pierarchy Chart last year, I had no idea how critical it would be to us right now. In it we laid out the steps to grow in our company, starting with the “Non-negotiables” and “The Basics.” As we begin to stabilize the different parts of our daily work lives, paying special attention to these foundational elements will give our teams a list of items to execute brilliantly every day. Just like it wouldn’t make sense to worry about the color of your curtains when your house is on fire, it doesn’t make sense for us to focus our efforts and energy on the “higher up” items on our Pierarchy Chart, like Systems and Flow, when what we desperately need is to execute the basics flawlessly each and every shift. When our foundation is solid, we can rebuild the floors of our house from there. On the other side of this is the personal stability we need to demonstrate to our teams. When you come to work, you’re coming as a total person, not just a person coming to do job. We must be well rounded, well rested, excited and confident in our abilities. Stability in our individual locations starts with a stable us. In these coming days and weeks, take time for yourselves and prioritize self care. Meditate. Do yoga. Read a book. Exercise. Journal. The better you are at being your best whole self, the better you’ll be equipped to handle the stresses of the day. Being good to yourself translates directly into being a better, more stable leader for your teams and our teams need our stability more than ever right now.
History – 6 years ago this week, we opened up a location up in Polaris at a bar called Kicks. At the time, our growth model involved going into bar kitchens and running the food programs for them. In the years that have past, we’ve come away from that model and focused on building our own locations with our own bars…a model I don’t think we’ll ever get away from. It’s funny though, this week we also announced our return to running a bar kitchen and our new partnership with Woodland’s Backyard. As companies grow, sometimes they have a tendency to forget the reason they’ve come as far as they have. For us, perhaps we forgot the scrappiness, frugality and true grit that helped us become who are today. Getting back to our roots really excites me. It reminds me of the way we used to be. We didn’t have a lot of resources, so we had to be resourceful. Only this time, we’re approaching this with years and years of refined systems, processes and talent that we didn’t have back then. This forced pause has allowed us to back up from being so close to the trees and see the whole forest we’ve created over the years. Even the parts we said we’d never go back to have their place and their value. And after years and years of being away, perhaps those parts weren’t so bad after all.
Motivation – “Don’t have ambitions that are too high. Just be the best you you can be. And the best you you can be is probably about average. So learn to celebrate average more. Buy better beer.” – Killer Mike
The 5th Thing (something I’m reading, watching or inspired by) – This last week I was inspired by the demonstrations that occurred in our city. No social change has ever happened without a few broken windows and as far as I’m concerned, replacing a window or two of ours is a price I’d happily pay for real, meaningful change. That’s why we took our boards down (where we could). Open windows, open doors, and open hearts. One Human Family.
Baby Update – William said DaDa this weekend. He isn’t association the words with me yet, but damn is this little B-hole growing up fast. Crawling, talking, eating real food. He even has a tooth now!
Thanks for reading! Like or hate any part of this? Let me know! I really value your feedback.
Have a great week!
5 Things to Consider Archive 