|
 Master
Your Domain
Tea
Trek:
Nilgiri
Fresh Cup ROADSHOW Preview
2002
Hooked on
Gadgets
Falling for
Tumblers & Mugs
From the Publisher
The
Green Café
Fresh Products
Fresh Faces
Fresh on the Scene
Trade Show Calendar
Advertiser Index |
|
|
|
Master Your Domain
10 Steps to Successful Coffeehouse Management
by Don Holly
Illustrations by Shannon Wheeler
Operating a successful coffeehouse depends on the proper execution of a million
details in the right order. Certainly, the manager of a shop is responsible for
determining which details to address and for allocating the appropriate resources
so that each is addressed properly. The manager is also responsible for building
and maintaining a team that will get the work done. The following 10 tips should
help put coffeehouse managers on the road to success:
1.
Be an expert.
2.
Defend high quality standards.
3.
Be passionate about your concept.
4.
Define your culture.
5. Attract
good people.
6. Train,
train, train.
7. Give
your team the tools it needs.
8.
Observe and reward.
9. Attend
to the individuals on your team.
10. Give
yourself time to think.
Be an Expert
The definition of leadership in every culture throughout history has included
the concept of leader as expert. Mentors, guides, teachers, and managers all tend
to maintain an aura of knowledge-they know more than the people they lead. It
is a human trait to respect a person of authority-"the guru on the hill"-as long
as his or her knowledge is genuine, relevant and humbly available. To consciously
choose to be an expert on everything pertaining to your business is an important
step toward developing your leadership acumen.
Becoming an expert requires an open mind and an inquisitive hunger.
There are no absolute truths. Everything is relative. Approach the acquisition
of knowledge with the understanding that for each question you answer, you will
uncover two more. All true experts I know freely admit that there is more that
they don't know than they ever will know. This attitude, combined with the immense
joy that comes from learning, will quickly drive you toward becoming an expert.
Read, question other experts and personally experiment when appropriate. Recognize
that what you think you know could be false and that personal knowledge is often
based on a limited set of facts or perspective. Trust in direct experience, and
never close down a new source of information. If you follow all these guidelines,
you will soon become an expert.
The basis of the specialty coffee industry is that knowledge and
skill will yield something of quality, which is greatly appreciated by consumers.
People have taken coffee for granted for so long that they apply more misconceptions
and poor practices to its preparation than commonly known truths and good practices.
In short, plenty of room for experts exists. Your capacity and effectiveness as
a leader will be greatly enhanced if your team regards you as an expert.
Defend High Quality Standards
Despite the almost nihilistic attitudes of the youth in the labor pool, an innate
desire still exists in our culture to adhere to high quality standards. Maintaining
high standards is a noble purpose in which even the most pessimistic teenagers
can find meaning and value. By conspicuously urging your employees toward ideals
in quality, the resulting pride will reflect clearly in their attitude about their
work, their service to the customers and their loyalty to you.
Alternatively, it is easy to predict the poor attitude, service
degeneration and disloyalty that result from managers who talk about quality standards
and then constantly compromise them. Nothing kills the effectiveness of a leader
faster than hypocrisy. As soon as employees learn that "quality" is nothing more
than a freely used marketing term and that they have no "practical" means of accomplishing
high standards, their job becomes just another job and you become just another
"boss." With true quality comes pride, fulfillment and loyalty.
Be Passionate About Your Concept
Your concept is the embodiment of everything about your business that is in your
control-the company name, décor, menu, location, themes, style of service, recipes,
etc. The development of your concept and its constant refinement is critical to
your company's sustainable success. You must be passionate about your concept-it's
the energy that your staff must rally around, like the battle banner of an army.
Passion is infectious, and your staff and customers will quickly adopt and multiply
the joy and commitment you exhibit. A trademark of great leaders is the passion
they foment.
To be genuinely passionate about your concept requires that it
be well developed. The details of design and creation must show craftsmanship.
In typical "chicken or egg" manner, it's difficult to say whether craftsmanship
comes from passion or passion comes from craftsmanship, but there is no doubt
that they are interrelated and self-supporting. Understand how important it is
to hone and consider every detail of your business. The aesthetic quality that
such well-refined details exude yields an atmosphere that promotes passion. Once
you apply passion, your concept will continue to improve.
Because passion is an emotional expression rather than a physical
one, it is not limited to the laws of physics and the limitations of space, energy
and time. Instead, passion allows you to tap into a limitless resource for which
there are no laws and sometimes no rational explanations.
It has often been noted that leaders are capable of yielding the
impossible from a situation, and I believe this is due to a generated passion.
When everything else is in place, add a little passion and you will generate magic.
That's when fun becomes fulfilling, and at the end of a day, you and your team
will have smiles on your faces from the magical work you performed together.
Define Your Culture
Culture, from an anthropologist's point of view, is defined as the ideas, values
and beliefs that members of a group share to interpret experience and generate
behavior. Every culture has "rules," both conscious and unconscious, that it applies
in a given context to guide activity and the interaction of individuals. A leader
must take responsibility for defining the culture of his or her business. In effect,
all of the issues related to leadership are about defining the culture of your
business, and it is inappropriate to treat this subject as a subset of the big
picture-it is the big picture! But it's also important to approach leadership
like a task, consciously choosing the desired result and the manner in which you
will attain that result.
A team with a well-defined culture will perform better than a team
with a poorly defined culture. A well-defined culture implies that everyone on
the team knows the overall purpose of the group, shares the same goals and values,
and understands the specific role that each individual plays in the performance
of tasks. But you must reason and spirit the organizational activity in a way
that is consistent with the shared purpose and personality of the team. You will
know you have succeeded at defining and cultivating a culture when your employees
exhibit a tangible pride in belonging to your team.
 Attract
Good People
The magnetism of a successful team draws recruits like moths to a light. With
a talented team in place, applications for employment will flow in without a "Help
Wanted" sign. Referrals come from other employees, business acquaintances, friends,
and relatives. Everyone wants to work for a winning team. But you have to earn
this laudable condition through hard work, and it takes time to get there.
Hire on the basis of character, work ethic and intelligence-in
that order. Unfortunately, you can't determine any of these qualities in a written
application, and interviews are never as revealing as you hope. I recommend several
interviews, if you can afford them, with several of your key staff sitting in
on the process. Listen to their reactions and insight. I like interviewing in
the "kitchen" during the hubbub of activity, because it reveals the person's comfort
and focus in the intensity of a work environment. Balance your intellectual judgment
of the person's qualifications with your "gut" instinct. If both evaluation methods
agree that this is a person you want to try out on the team, then make the offer.
But if one evaluation method suggests that you pass, then pass.
With very few exceptions, you can tell within two weeks after hiring
whether a person is going to be an asset or a liability. Do something about it!
Nothing drags the team down like a few bad performers, so for the sake of your
good employees, let go of the bad employees as soon as you identify them. Employing
a team of universally good workers is a sure-fire way to succeed.
 Train,
Train, Train!
Whenever my former partner and I had extra money to spend on our business, we
would ask ourselves where we should spend those dollars-on advertising or training.
We chose training every time. Over a 10-year period, our sales increased at an
average annual rate of 65 percent, and we never spent any money on advertising
(except for a small Yellow Pages expenditure).
Training yields value for many reasons. The easiest to understand
is that training improves the quality of your product and the efficiency of your
operations. Better product increases demand, and better efficiency increases the
capacity to satisfy that demand. But from a leadership perspective, training is
a conscious and greatly appreciated investment in your staff. Worker surveys consistently
reveal that employees value training above all other company "investments." Why
is this? The fact that the company "invests" in the staff is seen as confirmation
that the staff is truly valued. Also, making staff members more competent and
knowledgeable gives them greater pride and fulfillment in their work. All of this
translates into better morale, more loyalty and higher performance. There is no
better investment.
Give Your Team the Tools It Needs
One of the leader's principal responsibilities is to equip the team with the necessary
tools, materials and information it needs to perform. This task of "thing fulfillment"
must always take precedence over optional activities. The lights and water must
be on. Coffee must be in the bins, milk in the refrigerator. The staff schedule
must be posted. Paychecks must clear the bank. Failure in any of these fundamentals
immediately and fatally erodes the mantle of leadership. When your staff needs
you to do something, do it. Yes, your employees will take it for granted, not
recognizing the full cost of your effort. Instead, you will have to find fulfillment
in the knowledge that they would have roasted you had you had not done what they
asked.
Observe and Reward
A popular management style of the '80s was Andrew Grove's (CEO of Intel Corp.)
"Management by Walking Around." The idea is that direct and personal observation
is the only way you can develop anywhere near a complete understanding of what's
going on. An additional benefit is that your presence proves your interest, again
boosting the pride and fulfillment of your staff. They want to know you care,
and nothing confirms that better than your physical presence.
What do you do with what you see? The worst thing you can do is
to pull out a piece of paper and start writing down criticisms. Do this just once
and your employees will cringe whenever they see you coming. This is not leadership,
this is bullying, and the results are devastating. Your staff won't want you around.
If you do give praise, it will strike shallow. In our contemporary society, you
must conduct criticism within the framework of the "hamburger" approach, the meat
of which is carefully placed between soft, warm buns. You want to do some good?
Observe what is going right, and write it down without being obvious.
One of the best management tools developed in this century is the
Post-it Note. Unassuming and convenient, Post-its offer an excellent means of
giving pats on the back to your staff. Place them on time cards or workstations,
recognizing good performance or expressing appreciation. Cards or books are also
great rewards. Think about ways to reward your staff that are communications of
the heart. Thoughtful rewards tend to mean more than gifts of money. Money is
okay, too, when appropriate, but it is not the foundation for building a strong
team. That only comes from building a meaningful relationship.
Attend to the Individuals on Your Team
Employer paranoia and the belief that the "captain should be the loneliest person
on the ship" has led many managers to disassociate themselves from their staffs.
This is a shame. Frankly, unless you know your employees well, your opportunity
to guide them effectively is limited. What are their values? What are their goals?
Although your responsibility as a leader is to the whole team, it is important
to understand that your team is made up of individuals, and individuals, at some
point, like to be known and treated on the basis of their personal uniqueness.
Give Yourself Time to Think
With all the demands placed on you as a business person and manager-as well as
by your own individual and family needs-it is hard to find time to think. The
alarm rings in the morning, and the day is a blur until you get horizontal again,
and then you wake up and do it all over again the next day. You have to schedule
time to think. People who practice meditation know they have succeeded in that
practice when they can clear their minds or focus on one idea or task. Meditation
can yield solutions to everyday problems, because with a clear mind you can focus
and find answers. The exercise is meaningful and well worth the time.
Give yourself some uninterrupted time to think, where you can focus
on the team and your responsibility as its leader. How is each individual progressing
as a human being and as a contributor to the team? Do you have a plan of development
for each individual? How are the relationships between team members, and how can
they be improved? It is your job to think about these things and to come up with
strategies and lists of tasks to make things better. Your role as a leader can
be fulfilled only by such conscious focus. It will not happen accidentally, and
planning "on the fly" will not be nearly as effective as planning that results
from a concentrated effort.
Developing Your Own Leadership Style
Leadership is relative. What needs to be done and how it is carried out will depend
on a unique set of circumstances, including the genuine representation of your
own character. Have the confidence that you can become an effective leader. Devote
the necessary time to study, planning and implementation. A common trait of great
leaders is their ability and diligence in communicating; everything else is up
to your own personal interpretation.
So dedicate yourself to developing a personal leadership style.
Of all the possible management venues, I am convinced that none is more fulfilling
than a coffeehouse. During my coffeehouse tenure, the balance of challenges and
enjoyment almost always made me go home with a smile on my face. To be a successful
coffeehouse manager requires a broad array of skills and a solid philosophy of
altruism.
Certainly, part of the joy comes from the wonderful role a coffeehouse
can play in enhancing the quality of life of your community. But the most rewarding
aspect is the part you can play in guiding and developing the people who work
with you. A successful coffeehouse leader is one who actively builds and manages
a team of people who effectively and efficiently deliver high-quality products
and outstanding service, resulting in tremendous growth and profitability for
the operation.
Don Holly is corporate quality manager for
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, a wholesale specialty roaster based in Waterbury,
Vermont. Prior to joining GMCR, Holly was administrative director for the SCAA
and vice president of operations for Diedrich Coffee.
This article was adapted and reprinted from Achieving
Success in Specialty Coffee, published by
Bellissimo Coffee InfoGroup. For more information, call 541/683-5373 or visit
www.coffeeuniverse.com.
|
|
This Issue: $5 U.S.
|
|
|
New to the business?
Check out our
|
|
