The Solution to Miscommunication in Restaurants

Communication in restaurants is key to getting anything done, from cleaning to profitability. The big communication challenge in restaurant management is making sure you get your message across in a manner that everyone understands and can execute what you want done how you want it done.

Now, managers and owners have very different challenges when it comes to communicating these wants.

Owners tend to fail to communicate what they want done and how they want it done. As a result they express their frustration often when their managers seem to not get their job done. Then owners start to believe the only way to get anything done is to do it themselves, resulting in highly paid babysitters as managers — people to watch the restaurant, not manage.

Managers have a completely different frustration. It’s their crazy-making owners who fly into the business creating a new list of things they want done, never explaining how they want it done and creating this list that can never be accomplished as fast as the owner would like. When the manager can’t execute on the owner’s expectations, the manager is told what they are doing wrong every day.

These challenges are completely avoidable, and I have the solution.

The best way to avoid these challenges is to have routine manger meetings.

I know what you’re saying to yourself: “David, I meet with my managers almost daily, and we still have this problem.”

When you say that to me, I’m going to tell you very quickly, the “meetings” you’re having with your managers, those are not a manager meeting. And worse, those “meetings” lead to more problems.

A manager meeting is scheduled on a weekly basis. It’s not a five-minute tirade over what didn’t get done at closing the night before. It’s a weekly, scheduled time, set aside to review goals, expectations and challenges and then brainstorm solutions.

Before you say this challenge doesn’t apply to you and your management team because you have weekly meetings, please ask yourself four questions:

1. Are my managers getting the things accomplished I want done?
2. Am I making the money in my restaurant that I deserve?
3. Am I the only one who does the talking?
4. Do my meetings go on and on and on… often running more than two hours?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, keep reading.