Three lessons I learned during my time as a GM

There are three lessons I learned in my last job, that on the day-to-day are seemingly small but have a bigger impact on the culture and efficiency of a company as a whole.

As some of you may know, a few months ago I left my job as the GM of a coffee shop, restaurant and bar in Tampa. I had been there since they opened almost 4 years ago, when I started as a barista, so I was able to see the growth and expansion since day one. To break it down to just three lessons doesn’t scratched the surface of how much I learned, however these three lessons stand out.

Skills vs. Attitude

It’s true you need people will skills to run a kitchen, a coffee shop and a bar program. But you also need attitude. And if you have a few key people you trust with an advanced skill-set, and you need to hire people – hire for attitude. Skills are teachable, but changing a person’s attitude from less-than-ideal to good is an uphill battle. A person who is flexible, teachable, that is easy to be around, and is a team player is gold. A very talented person who doesn’t have those qualities becomes a burden to their co-workers and will easily drain their manager’s energy and time on trivial issues.

Structure

I used to think structure = limitation. But as life gets more complex (marriage, a kid, my own business) I’ve come to realize structure is just a set of systems that free you to do the things that matter more. Structures are guidelines that help you do daily tasks so you can focus on vision work, improving and fixing things in the business, and let you grow. For your employees this means getting to focus on customer service and troubleshooting when problems arise. In short, it helps everyone be on the same page. Practically, this looks like opening and closing checklists, monthly check-ins with your employees, creating systems for different aspects of the business like budget and labor, and going over reports on a monthly basis.

Structure is the difference between working in your business versus working on your business.

Communication

A college requirement during my time was to take a speech class – a waste of time in my opinion. But now, I see the value of it. Not so much because I stand in front of crowds and deliver speeches often, but because of the soft skills it taught us. After deciding on a subject, we would spend weeks structuring it, making it direct and easy to digest, and removing any distractions from the main point. And man, do I wish this type of class was a requirement in high school, and even as a part of training in jobs. 

Having the ability to communicate ideas, concerns, or to ask for clarification is imperative in a company’s culture. But this often overlooked, especially from management teams. If you take anything away from this post let it be to communicate often with your team, even if you don’t have all the answers. If you know for a fact something is coming, let them in and share what you can, directly and succinctly. Often a quick pre-shift announcement can suffice. But keeping people in the dark breeds discontentment and communicates that you don’t trust or value your staff. Other ways to communicate with your employees:

• Use slack to communicate details in writing.
• Do tastings with them for new specials.
• Let your staff know if you’re planning special events ahead of time and how you’re going to support them (training, menu breakdowns, extra staff, etc).
• And for the love of god, do not let them find out about special events/big changes from your social media – let it come from you first.