It’s a question faced by every fast food manager at some point in his career: how do I decrease my speed of service? Let’s face it–there is a lot of pressure from above you to do so. Most of the time, the higher-ups will not accept the fact that customers do a lot of little [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘Motivation’
December 1, 2007
10 Steps to Empowerment 7: Recognition
Recognition works hand-in-hand with feedback. The difference is that recognition is an actual reward for positive work performance, while feedback is a quick note on how work performance is progressing. A One Minute Praising is good for both recognition and feedback.
Since a One Minute Praising might be the most effective low-to-no-cost method of recognition, I [...]
November 22, 2007
One Minute Praisings
I received word today that I’m going to transfer to a different location within my company. This becomes the perfect time to use One Minute Praisings.
One Minute Praisings work like this:
Tell people up front that you are going to let them know how they are doing.
Praise [...]
November 19, 2007
10 Steps to Empowerment 3: High Standards of Excellence
All too often fast food becomes an environment that tolerates mediocrity. Most places I’ve worked at were filled with apathetic workers and managers that sat in the office all day and night. Shortcuts were the norm. The old-time employees knew the procedures, but no one actually followed them. The new people never even learned procedures.
Does [...]
November 14, 2007
10 Steps to Empowerment 1: Clearly Define Responsibility
At Wendy’s, managers were to use a “tool” called TTM–Talk To Me. No one ever actually defined this “tool” while in training, and district managers were very nebulous as to how one should use it. Training indicated that a manager was only supposed to TTM his employees, not actually do anything–but let me tell you [...]
November 13, 2007
Revisiting Empowerment
Diane Tracy’s excellent book, 10 Steps to Empowerment: A Common-sense Guide to Managing People, was the book of 90s management trends. Diane had quite a few good ideas, but as you read later books on management techniques, you discover that many of her ideas were carried too far by the organizational leaders of the [...]
