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Are you kinda being stuck in the middle? Feeling trapped in it and it's poor predl. It's time to break free. Time to leave the change. Welcome to break in the server leaders.

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Many years ago I took over a restaurant from a colleague who was going on maternity leave. At lunchtime the place felt really busy. Properly busy. It was like just people everywhere, tables really full. But when I looked at the screen to see what tables were we had in, it didn't match what I could see with my own eyes. Welcome to Breaking the Circle for Leaders. I'm John Manning, and if you've ever known something was wrong, before you ever had a shred of proof you're in exactly the right place. And my colleague was going on a maternity that ran the other one. So my area manager asked if I would run both both the restaurants. We used to do a buffet at lunchtime, and it was quite common that two people would come in, they'd both have buffet and they both have soft drinks. Yeah, and so that was always sort of the same amount on one ticket. And when I went into this other restaurant, I sort of looked at the screens that told us the orders, and then looked at the restaurant, and it just didn't feel right. You see, this other restaurant was declining year on year. It was on an off pitch site. The town was gradually moving up the up the road, and so it was expected that perhaps the take-ins would be down, and perhaps it would just be losing a bit. But it was losing quite a bit. See quite a bit more than people felt. So I took over this restaurant, and for the first few days I just observed, I just had a look to see what was going on. I'd look at the tables on this on the screen, and I'd look at the restaurant and see the people in there. And sometimes I'd see that oh, there was a table there when no one's there, so I'd speak to the staff and they'd go, Oh, I haven't put the ticket in yet. Because it's buffet, you can get the customer to sort of start and go and go and start and get their food, and then you can put put it into the system a few minutes later. But the more I watched this, the more a pattern seemed to appear. And there seemed to be a lot of tables, and not so many entered into the system. And I knew there was a way of cheating the system. You see, there was a way of just if you had two customers, having two buffets and having two drinks, they just needed one receipt, and the total would be the same. And so there was a way if you use the same receipt that you could pocket the difference if they paid you in cash, because they paid the serving staff and they got cashed off at the end of the day. You see, I had a gut feeling, and the numbers just didn't seem to quite tally, didn't quite add up. The volume was there. How could we be down? So I started to have a suspicion that perhaps some of the staff weren't ringing everything through. But because I wanted to be fair, and I didn't want to accuse people that were working honestly and working hard. I took the opportunity as I was new there, running that particular restaurant, to have a staff meeting and just talk about how the restaurants were run and the different things. But I knew how I was going to address the lunchtime buffet. I was honest with them. I told them I knew this way of pinching, this way of theft, this way of conning the system. I made it clear that I knew how it worked, so therefore if they thought they could continue doing it, well I would probably know. I didn't accuse anyone, but I made it known that if you were doing it I knew. You see, because I had a dilemma. And the dilemma was if there was a lot of staff doing it, and they all left, well actually then the service would be poor because I wouldn't have enough staff. And not having enough staff would mean that the business the sales would go down. So I put some new rules in place. A lot of it was really procedural, but made sure everything was being followed. So as soon as you served a customer, you entered that table before you took another order, things like that. And at the end of the day, when they were um cashing off, that they had to declare what other money they had because you could get a gist, sort of you know, how many tips they were likely to have. And also you just did those things about don't do things add up, but you know, you talk to the staff, and the staff may say to you, Oh, we went out last night, we did this and we did that, and unless they've got other jobs, which often you would know from their conversations and by talking to them, you'd know whether it stood up, whether it added up. And more often than not, it didn't. You heard what they'd been up to the night before, what they'd bought, where they'd been, and it never matched what they're actually being paid. There was always a gap. You just didn't always know how it was being topped up. You see, the other thing that was happening there was the Labour bill was under pressure because if you're not taking the revenue, you can't put the staff on, and if you don't put the staff on, it gets harder for them. So, again, for the ones that were being honest and doing the job properly, they were having to work harder because on paper it looked like you couldn't put more staff on, but in fact, they should have more help. So we soon started to see things turn around, we started to see more revenue. So rather than this restaurant that was in decline, it started to go even year on year, and in fact, in the end, it started to make profit. But that's not the reason I'm telling you this story. You see, it's about how you treat those staff. Yes, those that were con in the system, those that were thieving, you needed to deal with. But my reason for dealing with them was much more to do with the ones that were doing a good job, being fair. Those that were having to work harder because we couldn't put the labour on because we didn't think the labour was due. You see, by being straight at that staff meeting, I'm being fair. I couldn't say names out loud because of confidentiality, and that would not be fair anyway. And I didn't want the ones that weren't being dishonest to feel that I was accusing them. There's a difference between being straight with people and keeping their confidence. I could have stood up and named names. That would have been straight. It wouldn't have been fair. And even later, when I did dismiss people, it was never horrible. It was always factual. Because it was my job. You see, in situations like this, you have to treat everyone as individuals. And they're all innocent. Unless there's reasons that you find and can prove. You see, my goal was never was to be the manhunt, to go on the manhunt. It was always about being fair to those that were doing it right and those that were doing a good job. You see, some people we did have to get rid of, and some left. It was about four or five people in the end. We dismissed, I think, two of them, and the others left on their own. Once the extra money had dried up, and that told you something too. If the honest wage wasn't enough to keep them there, it was never really about the job. But what it left us was a far more motivated, happy team. Because people felt that we were treating them fairly and that we were recognising them. We had the right amount of people and we had more labour. They didn't have to work so hard, and they could give better service and better service when you work in restaurants, often means better tips, so therefore they were rewarded. So this week, when you're back in your working environments, see if you can notice the gaps. What gaps there are. Things don't quite add up. You see, what you see versus what you're told in those projects, in those working groups, whether they're remote or work next to you. I'd say this: don't act, just take note of them. You see, because it's easy to go and look for those that are underperforming, for those that might be thieving. And sometimes what we end up doing is forgetting about those that are doing a good job and those that are working hard and working quietly. So this week, notice one gap, one place where what you can see doesn't quite match to what you're being told. So don't act on it. As I say, just write it down. Because the moment you start looking for the gap, you're already doing what matters most. As I did in that restaurant. You see, you're not trying to catch everyone. Being fair to the ones that are quietly doing it right is the important thing. In the show notes below you can get hold of my free guide, where your conversations keep going sideways, and the one shift that fixes it. Thank you for listening to Breaking the Circle for Leaders. I hope you've enjoyed this week's episode, and subscribe to make sure you get next week's two. And as always, I'm rooting for you.