Danny Meyer is a world-renowned restaurateur. If you haven’t heard of him, he was the previous owner of 2017’s “World’s Best Restaurant,” Eleven Madison Park, and invented Shake Shack.
In his 2006 book Setting the Table, Meyer walks through his journey as a restaurant owner and operator, sharing his vanguard vision for how to deliver hospitality and excellence in the dining experience.
He and his restaurants, as well as his colleague, Will Guidara, are inspirations for the work I now do as a therapist and business owner, and part of the reason Valiance believes in hospitality as one of our three core values.
As we build the One Percent Better community here, I trust many of you are managers, or are at least aspiring leaders among your peer group. So here’s a story from Meyer that’s always stuck with me about what it means to be in a management position:
People Move the Salt, Managers Put it Back
Meyer equates dining out to attending a jazz performance. There's this organized chaos that allows for artistic excellence, constrained by systems and standards. For traditional restaurant experiences, an example of one of those parameters would be having the salt and pepper shakers end up in the middle of the table for guests to easily spot and use.
Inevitably, they are indeed used, and gradually over time, the salt and pepper drifts to different areas of the table.
Your job as a manager is to uphold the standards and notice these little details that, when piled up and categorized, make for a smooth operational flow for guests and employees.
It may not seem like much, but by having the salt shakers in the wrong spot, eventually they may not have been noticed by guests, or go unfilled by the waitstaff, causing unnecessary jam ups to the flow of an operationally strong restaurant.
You need to put the salt shaker back where it belongs.
3 Typical Managerial Errors & How to Solve Them
1). Relying on systems/procedures to communicate the standard without communicating the standard directly to employees.
Many managers substitute working on systems or processes to help iron out what actually is a personnel problem. You don't need more manuals, training decks, or videos...you need to get your hands dirty and build a better base of connection with your staff. When processes or standards are not consistently adhered to, you don't need more bureaucracy, you need to correct the behavior.
As with sports teams, managers, much like captains, are the cultural architects. You are to enact, model, and the uphold the standards that have been set by the business.
The Fix: If the "salt shaker" belongs in the middle, don't email your staff to fix it, work with them to fix it (and make sure it's fixed each time).
2). Rationalizing small things as small things & not attending to the value of small details.
If you've worked with me, or know me, you know just how obsessed I am about attention to detail. It's so oddly satisfying to me. Everything counts. Everything matters. Yes, not having the salt shaker in the middle of the table every time may not be a deal breaker for that guest, but the principle is what's important.
Not attending to standards of how the little things get done allows little things to become big areas of concern...and trust me...it can get so big that there's no turning back. Here are some examples:
- Showing up 5 minutes late to every appointment you have, sets the standard that you don't respect people's time. That's a small thing, that when repeated, signals lack of attention and respect over time: a big thing.
- Not following close out procedure sets the standard that you don't care about how the next team has to start their day, which in turn allows them to treat your team poorly too: a big thing.
- Having a messy or untidy staff room, organizational system, or personal space delays efficiencies and impacts the service or product you're able to deliver: a big thing.
The Fix: Don't ignore small things...because, small things are big things.
3). No clear communication of "why" standards are the way they are.
Your employees or team are entitled to know why the standard is the way that it is. Many managers skip over this part, and simply assert the new standard, uphold the standard of excellence, or fix the errors themselves versus delegating it (claiming that it's just easier). If you refer back to error 2, not everyone believes that small things are big things but if I walk you through WHY that's true, you're more likely to be bought in, especially if I uphold that standard.
The Fix: don't skip out on the "why". It can be a bit high level or may not immediately make sense, but if you can gently and patiently walk a person through the why, at least they understand it, even if they may not agree with it.
Thanks for reading as always. Time to win the week. See you soon.
– J
PS: If this resonated, it would mean a lot if you shared this newsletter with just one friend. There’s a quiet community of people striving to get better every day—and we’d love to have them along for the ride.
