I am a lover of anything that works well. Let me explain.
In restaurants (bars/hotels/etc), there is an order of operations that, when followed, tends to result in a successful, lucrative night for all those involved. This overarching operation is made up of many smaller, more intricate operations that must also be honed and maintained.
If the guy on the fry station got in a fight with his wife and is moving slower than everyone else, a lag develops and tables wait longer for their food. Tables, as you may imagine, do not like waiting for their food. Let’s say a table waits 10 minutes longer for their food than usual because the guy frying the food is having a bad night. The table, full of hungry folks who have budgeted their meals all day in anticipation of this meal, gets angry.
Meanwhile, the bartender is flustered by a pushy guest. When the manager comes up to request a drink ‘on the fly’ (quickly) for the frustrated table, the bartender brings the pushy guest to the manager’s attention. The manager handles the pushy guest while the bartender whips out a beverage or four for the angry table.
The pushy guest is asked to leave, the complimentary round of drinks is delivered to the angry table, and the food is not far behind it. The guests finish their meal happily, bolstered by the free round of drinks. They feel taken care of, the bartender feels taken care of, and the longer ticket times in the kitchen get taken care of.
This is a system that works. There were several opportunities for things to go south, but each individual system maintained operations and worked together to ensure that, though imperfect, the night achieved its goal: full, happy guests and a well taken care of staff.
(By the way, we do not care whether the pushy guest who was asked to leave left happy. Part of a successful management system should always be protecting the staff’s wellbeing from people who insist on being rude or making them uncomfortable).
I pointed out the imperfection of this particular night to highlight something I believe we often overlook: systems that work are not perfect systems.
Things that work well do so because the system in place supports itself. Systems that are made up of human beings by human beings will never be perfect and they must operate with the understanding that perfection is not the goal. The goal of a restaurant is to feed and nurture guests. The goal of a school is to provide education to students.
The goal of a government is to provide safety, nourishment and well-being to its citizens.
But goals are not always reached and systems do not always work. I believe this has a
lot to do with whether or not the people in the system are cared for and nurtured while the system simultaneously strives to reach its goal.
I saw a restaurant totally sink once. The name of the restaurant isn’t important, but what happened, and its implications for the business as a whole, is extremely important.
It was a minor holiday, and the restaurant was abuzz with preparation for the week leading up to it. This is also where the communication broke down, and what ultimately resulted in a miserable failure.
The owner of the company wanted the restaurant fully staffed. Preparations were made for unusual hours, shifts at unusual times and a dinner special that had an ad out in the local newspaper.
We were to cap reservations at a certain number.
We were to expect to be slammed on a Tuesday as if it were a Saturday night. I watched reservations approach, and then surpass, the previously agreed upon number, and though management saw this, they proceeded to let them pile in, presumably with dollar signs in their eyes.
The dinner special was not communicated to staff, so as folks called in to inquire the week prior to the night, we were not able to manage expectations. And as the day approached, someone in upper management decided that the fully staffed schedule was not staffed enough, so another shift was added.
This confused the staff, and when the day arrived, six people waited anxiously for the influx of hungry people that over-staffing had led us to anticipate, only to stand around all morning. Poor planning and inflated hype on behalf of what I can only guess was the owner and operator led the staff to question the judgment of these decision makers.
Confused staff with unusually staggered in-and-out times, coupled with unclear information about what the special was and when it was being served, resulted in a dinner shift that I will probably never not use as an example of complete and total failure.
The restaurant, which could comfortably handle reservations hovering just at 200 people, had let reservations get to 250 without the blink of an eye. The first wave of reservations arrived at about 5:00 p.m., and around this time we learned we had enough of the daily special to feed 25 guests.
That’s right, 10% of reservations, on a holiday night, could have the special that had been advertised and hyped and planned on by our guests. It will not surprise you that by the second wave at 6:30, the special was sold out. Those guests who’d seen the ad in the paper but whose reservations were after 5 never had a chance.
By 7:00, people were waiting 45 minutes for food.
By 7:30, there were 30 people with reservations waiting at the front door, but the entire system had already bombed.
By 8:00, as one of my coworkers put it , we were actively avoiding the kitchen because it was “full of men yelling.”
By the end of the night, everyone, including the owner of the business, could not have spun this as a success in any way, shape or form. We were all rightly mortified.
The failure of the people in charge to effectively communicate to the staff–the system operators–as well as the complete determination to maintain control, resulted in the Worst Night I’ve Ever Worked Anywhere.
I’m not here to vilify the owner of the restaurant or the managers. I’m here to point out that there is a pattern that leads to system weakness, and it has a lot to do with greed and lack of communication.
But there is also a glaring lack of imagination staring down these failures. Stay tuned as I dive into what would have saved this infamous Tuesday night, and what imagination can do for systems at any stage of development.