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I think if we don’t start looking at ourselves and start saying, “Do I
the climate, and the climate controls the customer experience and
the employee experience really more than anything.”
Even in a franchise, if someone was part of a franchise with a huge
corporate entity above them, they don’t have a whole lot of say
about the brand itself or the messaging or what the core values are,
but every single day in the location that they run, they have a lot of
control over the climate, how it feels to just be in that space. And
those are the two things that great brands do. They’re really clear
about what they’re trying to create from the guest experience side
of things, and then they’re really, really thoughtful and specific every
single day about the climate that’s going on inside.
Nick:
Let me ask you this. What do you think leaders and great brands, bars
and restaurants, pay attention to more of than others, would you say? about Rockford Ricky’s Bar and that’s what everyone is talking
Mike:
This is always the shocking thing when I speak about this onstage or
I lead a workshop or I’m coaching a group. At first it sounds a little
hippy dippy, a little new age, but the thing that great leaders and
great brands do is pay attention to themselves first. They manage
themselves better than people in other places. All great leaders, if
you would ask them, “Hey, what do you want for your people?” they
would say, “I want them to be in touch with themselves. I want them
to have a clear vision of what great looks like and go towards it. I
want them to have passion and excitement about what they do.”
But a lot of times, we’re really bad at turning that and saying, “Don’t
I deserve that as a manager? Don’t I deserve that as a leader?” And
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feel great mentally? Do I feel good about what I’m doing? Do I feel
good physically?” –
This is an industry where we work our bodies really hard, and that
takes a toll on us. So are we taking care of ourselves physically?
Are we in a good spot emotionally? Do I know who I want to be
as a leader? Have I taken the time to think about if someone talks
about me in five years from now, what it was like to work with me?
What do I hope they say? A lot of people in our industry don’t stop
to think about that. A lot of people were bartenders or servers and
they got promoted and promoted and promoted, and they never
really thought about themselves as a leader or manager. They just
kind of stumbled into it. And I think that leaders of great brands,
leaders of great experiences, kind of stop and say, “Let me make
sure I’m doing a good job of managing myself, that I understand my
own energy, that I know what I’m contributing to the team, and that
I’m really checking in on my own stuff.”
Nick:
That makes a lot of sense. The other question I want to ask you is what
are the benefits of focusing on culture? Obviously, you have a great
culture. People are going to love your brand, they’re going to come
back, and you’re going to be busier. But what else? What other benefits
would you say besides growth in business would be beneficial to a great
culture?
Mike:
I mean, I think if you look at some of the great cultures out there
– everyone lately has been talking about Shake Shack or different
places like this. Outside of having a culture that everyone envies and
talks about, it gets you a lot of press. That’s a good thing. Even if
you’re local, if everyone talks about it, it gets you free press. You get
invited to the media.
Nick:
How does it do that? If you’ve got a great culture, what’s going to make
the media reach out to you for having great culture?
Mike:
Let’s take the example of a business in Rockford. If everyone talks
about, the buzz, say that they’re doing a news piece on the Rockford
News and they’re going to do a piece about cocktails. They’re going
to call the place that’s known as being the best, because the media
wants experts. They want people who are great, so they’re going
to think, we don’t want to call the guy down the street, because
nobody’s talking about them. But everyone talks about Rockford
Ricky’s. Everybody knows that that’s the place to go, so we’ve got
to see if they’ll come on and show us how to make a cocktail for
4th of July or Memorial Day. By being known as a place that’s great,
other businesses like the news or media or PR are going to want to
talk to you because they want the best. We want to talk to the best
people. We don’t want to just talk to any bar. We want the guy that
everyone is talking about.