2015 Issue 4 |
THE
SCORE
32
down to earth as home plate: everything
running sharp, managers leading, team
focused, nobody hurt, money in the tills
and every customer leaves happy. Other
days, you feel like an octopus; there’s a lot
of motion but you can’t tell if it’s going to
be forward, backward, sideways or out of
control. It takes a certain personality to be
comfortable with chaos, uncertainty and
multidirectional demands.
Sullivision.com has embarked on a
very insightful survey of MUMs at chain
restaurant management and franchisee
conventions. We interviewed highperforming/award-winning general
managers at those same conferences
and were able to assess the types of
leadership skills reflected at the unit
level that point to success at the multiunit level as well. Here’s a little of what
we’ve learned from our research.
When you ask the MUMs what’s
keeping them awake at night, here’s the
top five challenges they list:
1. Time management and distance
between units
2. Too many reports and too much
data to process and manage
3. The right input from
above and below
4. Meaningful store
visits and general
manager coaching
and development
5. Lack of ongoing
personal/professional
development
What’s wrong with this picture?
The last two on that list are areas
where every owner, CEO, chief operating officer or vice president reading
this should see a clear strategic advantage for your company. Enhance your
multiunit leadership talent by investing
in resources that help them learn and
grow both personally and professionally.
Automate systems that choke them with
paperwork instead of people work. It
appears that we’re not investing enough
time and resources into the multiunit
leader’s learning needs, coaching and
development, or giving them time to
do the same for the general managers
they supervise. Information is good, but
transformation is better.
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hey are hidden to the customer and
invisible to most of their hourly
staff, yet they keenly shape and
orchestrate the experience of both.
Without them, vice presidents and CEOs
would stagger and fall, but stockholders
rarely know them by name. The unit
managers know them, some more than
others, for these invisible leaders were
once managers too.
Like Batman, hidden in shadows
from the customer and crew, but always
alert, instinctive and ready to spring
into action, the multiunit foodservice
manager or area director oversees and
directs the success or failure of every
restaurant chain (and multiunit franchisee) in the world, a thousand times
over, 10,000 times a day. However, they
work in near anonymity to both their
guests and our industry (where are the
multiunit manager panels and awards?)
while walking a supervisory tightrope
between producing results and successfully managing a Freudian smorgasbord
of personalities. I say, all hail the hidden
warrior; let us now stop to praise the
accomplishments and assess the challenges of the multiunit manager (MUM).
Talk to multiunit leaders as much
as I do as a speaker at restaurant
manager conferences around the world,
and a distinct persona emerges. Most
raise families and work from a home
office. They are fast-thinking, numbercrunching, paper-pushing, servicedriven mobile leaders with a brain and
a BlackBerry as weapons of choice. They
influence and sh \H H^ \