One day, I was sitting in a restaurant at the Golden Nugget in Lake Charles, Louisiana. As I mentioned in the previous chapter, it’s critical for business owners at every level to remain involved in their businesses. With that in mind, I decided to wander around a bit to see what was going on elsewhere in the hotel.
As I walked around, I noticed one particular customer who had walked up to the front desk, apparently ready to check in. Everything seemed fine, so I moved on.
About thirty minutes later I went back down to the lobby and spotted that same customer sitting there. She obviously hadn’t checked in, as her bags were still by her side.
I walked over to the front desk and asked what was going on. I was told there was “something not right in the room” that was holding everything up. Now I was genuinely curious, so I took the elevator up to the room to see what was happening.
As I walked up to the room, staff members were busy getting it ready. By all appearances, checking in shouldn’t have been an issue.
“What’s going on?” I asked one of the people.
“We’re waiting for an iron for the room,” she replied.
“What?”
“We’re waiting for an iron for the room. Somebody hasn’t signed off on it yet, and we can’t get the iron in here until someone does.”
I shook my head. “Do you mean we’re going to let someone sit in the lobby for forty minutes—for an iron?” I demanded. The staff member shrugged.
As I looked around, I also noticed that other elements of the room were far from being guest ready. Apparently, everything had been slowed down or put on hold while the all-important decision about the iron was being made.
I hurried back down to the front desk and asked what other rooms were currently available in that class. There was one all ready to go, I was told, but it was being held for another guest—one who wouldn’t be arriving until that evening, hours from now.
“I don’t give a damn about the person coming in later,” I told them. “Let’s solve this issue right now. Let’s not piss off the person who’s already here! Let’s put her in the room that’s available, and we’ll worry about the other person later.”
Obviously, there had been a breakdown in communication. Somebody should have called in a senior manager, who probably could have fixed the situation in a few seconds, but nobody was thinking on their feet.
The good news was that I knew they could all learn from the experience. And that’s why it’s so important that great leaders also be great teachers.
How that teaching takes place will change every day. One day it may be a lesson learned from dealing with a crisis that never should have happened in the first place, like the guest stranded in the lobby needlessly waiting for a room. Others occur as a result of even more routine, everyday problems—a wet spot in front of the main entrance that takes too long to be mopped up, for instance.
As you deal with issues on a daily basis, don’t be shy about explaining to the people around you how you arrived at the decision geared to solving that particular problem. Let them know the details of your thinking, so they can learn from how you thought things through.
That doesn’t mean explaining every little decision. If there’s a wet spot at the entrance, there’s no need to show others how you found a towel and wiped it up. But you can share the lesson of always keeping your eyes open and constantly watching for small problems (chances are good that your staff already knows how to use a towel).
LISTEN!
The best way to sum up your goals as a teacher is to teach your people to act how you would act in a particular situation. If you’re confident in your own ability to make decisions—and, as a business owner, you’d better be—use yourself as the template for teaching. If it works for you, don’t be shy about sharing it with others.
Show them the value of making quick decisions as well. This comes back to knowing your business inside and out, from the numbers behind your business to your overall understanding of how things work and why. If you have that battery of knowledge at hand, you’re better positioned to make fast decisions. You know what you’re talking about and apply it in a practical manner.
Of course, that’s not to say that all the decisions you make are going to be right. As we all know, running a business has enough surprises and unknowns to keep even the most informed entrepreneur from batting a thousand. But a mistaken decision can always be corrected, and people learn from that as much as they do from a decision that was right from the start. Often, that lesson from the wrong decision is even more valuable.
A quick decision not only promotes a sense of confidence about the business—a sense that leadership is connected and in control—it also teaches people the value of being able to think on their feet. This is as valuable a lesson as any that you can share with those with whom you work. Encourage people to use the knowledge they have to make decisions on the fly. Urge them to be creative and approach problems from new perspectives. Tolerate mistakes, as long as someone comes away having learned something from the experience.
Being able to think and act on the fly is a critical lesson because, for most businesses, no two days are exactly the same. Each day brings new challenges, new problems, and new issues that need to be addressed. These challenges require people with the ability to think as they move.
As we like to say around here to people interviewing for positions, if you want a script for every day, we don’t have it. Every day is so new that any script would be pointless. I bet your business is in the same boat. That’s the ideal situation for people with the ability to think on their feet.
That’s one of the things I really liked about Brittany Hankamer and Megan Oberly of Eat Drink Host.
I first met the two women to learn about their custom paper products company. And I was very impressed by the quality and creativity they brought to the operation. (Who wouldn’t like to be snacking off a small paper tray embossed with the words “Lil’ Plate, Lil’ Calories”?)
Further, the company passed my tests with flying colors. Prior to a Houston Rockets game, we offered fans a selection of paper and food-servings goods from both our usual stock and samples from Eat Drink Host. The results: 87 percent of fans responding said they preferred Eat Drink Host’s products—a terrific result.
However, like many small businesses, they lacked sufficient scale to make their products affordable for operations such as mine. Still, I liked the design and offered $15,000 for exclusive rights to use the designs at Bill’s Bar & Burger restaurants.
They accepted on the spot—no hemming and hawing, no getting-back-to-me nonsense. It wasn’t the exact sort of deal they had been hoping for, but a quick assessment of the opportunity I offered them made them confident that this fast decision was the right one.
Or, as they might put it: Think. Fast. Succeed.
It’s also helpful to be a hands-on teacher, one who works one-on-one whenever possible to help others learn and improve. I love working closely with my marketing and advertising people to show them how I think an ad or campaign might be improved. They may not love it as much as I do, but I like to think that everyone learns from it—including me.
Sometimes the best lessons are taught in an environment where not everyone is comfortable or, for that matter, happy. To drive home a message, I’ll do certain things that, with the goal of teaching in mind, aren’t particularly nice at the moment.
When we were still relatively small, we had a meeting of general managers. One of them explained that he was actively recruiting new employees and said he wanted to create his own logo to help do that.
I wasn’t very happy. I told him in no uncertain terms that we had a marketing department and we already had a logo and it was in place for very good reasons. I said there was no way I was about to permit a new logo to distract from the overall message of the company.
I realized at the time that I was singling him out in front of the others. But I also realized that my meaning was absolutely clear—I knew that no one else in the room would ever do or even suggest something like that again.
Afterward, I went up to the general manager and apologized for how I had treated him. I told him I hadn’t meant to be so hard on him but that he had given me an opportunity to drive home a message.
That’s something that happens a great deal, and I always make a point to put my arm around the person and explain why I did what I did. I want their memories about the experience to be short. I want their memory of the lesson learned to be long.
Another time, I was in one of my restaurants in San Antonio. I went into the kitchen and noticed silverware was in the garbage. It turned out that the servers and bussers getting rid of the remaining food on plates were also dumping silverware into the trash can.
I was so mad that I turned over the garbage and dumped it on the floor in front of everyone. With everyone in the kitchen watching, I got a busser and the manager, and the three of us picked up the trash, making sure to separate out the silverware. And, to make the busser feel a bit better, I tipped him twenty dollars.
That story underscores several important points. First, protect your assets. Second, when the owner of the company bends down to pick up trash, people start to pick up on a culture. They learn that everyone can and should do that sort of thing. That’s when the managers start doing it, along with the waitstaff and everyone else. It’s okay to get your hands dirty.
Although I believe in recognizing people who do their jobs well, teaching and ongoing contact with the people you work with shouldn’t mean a never-ending rah-rah session. Great work should be recognized and rewarded, but remember, doing your job well is something to be expected, not constantly applauded. That comes back to culture. Your culture should mandate top performance. If employees do their jobs well, that’s great, but that’s also to be expected, not recognized as something special or out of the ordinary.
Taking a one-on-one approach should be applied to everyone with whom you work, not just certain people. One of my most important rules is simple and has everything to do with teaching: don’t think that you’re too important or too high up in a company to teach anyone. As I’ve said before, a great leader is always a humble leader, and that applies to teaching as much as it does to everything else.
In my restaurant division I tell my upper-level managers this: don’t ever think you’re too important or too busy to teach a busser or to help train a cook. Don’t slough it off on your front managers or kitchen managers. Instead, take a busser, bring him over to a table, and explain clearly what you want him to do. You want him to wipe it off exactly like this. You want him to look at the base and see if there’s any food down there—after all, people’s feet deserve the same level of cleanliness as their hands do! Make sure there is no ketchup, little piece of butter, or anything else left in the seat because a kid was sitting there before.
That kind of teaching is invaluable. If a manager takes a busser and trains him or her, showing that circumstances and situations are always going to be different—and how to react—you can get more out of five or ten minutes’ training than if the busser took part in a week of group instruction.
It also shows that employee something that’s every bit as valuable as any part of the training—he or she is important. He or she feels valued and starts to think, If the general manager is taking the time to show me how to do my job well, then this job is important to the success of the entire business.
“Don’t ever think that your position is too high to teach others. Because I still teach every single day. And, just as important, I learn as much as I teach others.”
Every day is an experience in learning for me as well as everyone else. Somebody always does something in a day that makes me a little bit smarter than I was when the day began. If you’re a leader who’s dedicated to teaching everyone around all that you have to share, you can be every bit as open to learning and benefitting from all they can offer in return.
What makes a good learner? Being able to stop and listen. I know that if I take the time to listen, and I can pick up even one little thing each and every day, I’m going to be a better entrepreneur, owner, manager, employee—whatever—the next day.
TILMAN’S TARGETS
• A great leader is also a great teacher. Take every opportunity to teach those around you.
• Encourage people to think on their feet and be creative.
• Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Mistakes can be a more effective teacher than success.
• Great leaders are always learning.