Win-Win – Team Building

The phrase ‘Win-Win’ is widely used across many different professions, business situations and even personal relationships. In this blog we highlight the benefits of applying this principal to managing your teams. It is about ensuring that everyone in your operation(s) gets something from your actions and the way you manage, including you and your customers. There are five key beneficiaries from taking this approach to team building:

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• Your staff
• Your customers
• Your suppliers
• Your management/owners
• And you

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All of these will help your business become more successful and will improve the working life of those around you, as well as yourself.

The most important part of your business are your staff. Sure, ‘the customer is King’ – BUT, serve them with disgruntled, unhappy and unappreciated staff and you will have no customers to crown!

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Focus on a few key factors, about how you can improve staff morale and performance. Think about these key words:

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• Interest
• Listen

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• Care
• Support

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• Development
• Training

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Interest

Take an interest in who your staff are, where they come from, what they are trying to get out of their career. Talk to them and get to know what their aspirations are and take notes on each of them so that you can refer back to this later on. Ask them leading questions about what they want to achieve whilst they are working with you.

Listen

Whenever communicating with any of your team, you need to listen. This may sound obvious, but really listen to what they are saying. Turn your mobile off, nothing is worse than talking to someone who is constantly answering a call or looking at their phone. Look them in the eyes and really listen to them and again take notes if necessary or possible.

Care

Your team needs to know that you care about them. Show the occasional act of kindness to them and wishing them a Happy Birthday, or congratulating them on the birth of their new child.  Even congratulating them when they do something good and remember to thank them and shake their hand at the end of the day. Small things mean a lot. Choose your words carefully, you will be surprised how much they remember exactly what you said to them.

Training

No chef has ever left an operation because he has been trained, cared for and listened to too much! Firstly establish the training needs of your team and then carefully put a structured and manageable training plan together to meet those needs. Put it up on the wall so everyone can see this and know what is coming. Remember: ‘Under promise and over deliver’ – you still have a kitchen to run, ensure that you and your senior chefs can and do and deliver this plan.

Other points to consider:

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• Apply this to your service team. You are responsible for making sure they know the menu, products and suppliers.
• Ask your team what they would like to be trained on.
• Use your suppliers to assist or supply training.

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• Invite local farmers, suppliers of your products to come and talk about them.
• Take your team out to suppliers, farms, production areas you buy from.
• Record your training on a training sheet/form so you know what has been achieved.
• Pass your knowledge on and remember keep it fun, focussed and professional.

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Support

While your chefs are going through part of their career with you, it is your responsibility to support and encourage them. Assist them where they are struggling, train them when they need knowledge or skills. Be open to their ideas and thoughts – EVERYONE likes to be asked their opinion. If they have personal issues ensure that you give them time and support to overcome these, as long as they have a problem their performance will not be 100%.

Development

People need to be developed throughout their careers and the better you are at doing this, the longer the chefs will stay. Develop their culinary, managerial, financial and inter-personal skills. They will benefit – and so will you and your business/kitchen.

WIN-WIN

Start to think and work as suggested above. And everyone will benefit.

• Your staff will be happier, feel more appreciated, focussed, better at their jobs, more loyal, driven.
• Your customers will get a better level of service from a happier team that has more knowledge on your menus, suppliers and products.
• The service team will also appreciate working with happier chefs
• Your suppliers will feel appreciated, recognised and if looked after as you do your team, they will look after you.
• Your management/owners will now have a more focussed, driven and happy team with happier customers. This ultimately will drive more business.
• And YOU – you are now ‘the King’ because you have made this all happen. You will keep your staff longer, which will help you deliver a more consistent product. You will be less stressed, you may have to work less and you will feel extremely satisfied in your achievements.

Think about how you could work differently TODAY.

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