Why It Is OK to Let Your Restaurant Manager Go

Hey there restaurant pros, it’s David Scott Peters and welcome to episode 54 of the Restaurant Prosperity Formula. I’ve been coaching restaurant owners since 2003 and the Restaurant Prosperity Formula is based on what the most successful restaurant owners I’ve worked with do on a daily basis to achieve their success. The basic premise of the formula centers around achieving prosperity, freedom from your restaurant and the financial freedom you deserve. To achieve prosperity you have to follow a very specific formula made-up of leadership, systems, training, accountability, and taking action.

Today I want to talk about why it’s important to know when it’s time to fire a manager and how to put yourself in a position to easily weather that storm. Let’s get started. One of the most difficult things to do is let someone in management go. Heck, sometimes these people are like family to you. They help you build your business. They sacrifice their time and their lives to help you grow.

And other times? There’s not a good culture fit. No matter the reason, coming to the conclusion that it’s time for some manager to be fired, it sucks. Nobody likes to fire people, especially when you really care about them personally. Now, what I want to do today is help you with one, how to know when it’s time to fire a manager, two, why I would rather run short staff than have the wrong people on my team, and three, what to do to put yourself in a position that when a manager leaves voluntarily or through disciplinary action, you’re not worried about it.

To start, let me share with you a few examples of coaching calls I had recently with some of my restaurant transformation intensive members and my Bastry Plus members. Let’s call this story #1. The kitchen manager who is good until he gets busy. Well, I have a member who has gone through the program, made incredible changes in the business, changed the culture around, put full management team in place, doesn’t have to walk in the door if he doesn’t want to, is a great leader of people, is learning to market better, tied in the community, just a great all-around restaurant owner who has really shown the ability to be very successful.

And in this process of implementing systems and making change, his kitchen manager, while can do the tasks really well, has struggled managing people, especially when it’s busy. When it’s busy, he gets, the kitchen manager gets upset, the kitchen manager gets short-tempered, the kitchen manager ******* and moans, this is the big one, ******* and moans to everyone around him. The leader of the kitchen is going, my God, I can’t believe it’s busy. Oh, this is horrible, blah, blah, blah. When that’s what we strive for.

Now the challenge is as an owner, this person has worked his way up, has done a really good job up until, except for, when it gets busy. And isn’t that what we strive for? Has been battling, he and the GM have been battling back and forth on how it’s been hurting the culture in the kitchen. how certain things are getting done and certain things are not getting done. And they finally came to the conclusion that it’s time to kind of let this person go.

But the difference is we’re not really letting them go. They’ve decided not to fire them, this manager, but reposition this manager. Put them in a position where it’s really a production job. Now I will tell you, 9 out of 10 times, I highly recommend that you don’t do this. that often when you demote a manager they don’t work out. But they believe this is such a good culture fit for their business. This individual is really a good person. They care about this person. They’ve worked to help this person get through difficult times. And they feel like this person, this kitchen manager, could still be an asset for the company if he can handle not being the kitchen manager anymore.

So they’re in a process of repositioning that person as we speak. Let me tell you about story #2. The GM that was full of excuses. Now this owner when they first came to me was in a position of I can’t get my managers to do anything. I keep asking, keep asking, keep asking. I need to get financial control of my business. We’re wasting money on labor. We’re wasting money on food costs. We’re just not getting things done. My general manager tells me how things can’t be done. My general manager tells me that he’s going to do something and just ultimately never does it. What do I do?

Well, from the beginning, I said to this owner, I told her, you need to fire this general manager, but I need this general manager. You don’t understand it’s a small town. I need this person. Can you relate? I need this person. I don’t have enough time in the day. I don’t want to go back in the restaurant on a day-to-day basis. I want to spend time with my family. That’s reasonable.

I said, you’re ultimately going to have to let this general manager go. He’s A saboteur. He’s yesing you to death and doing nothing. And time went on week after week after week. We kept talking about how this general manager wouldn’t do. In fact, in my program, we picked an implementer. She picked an implementer who wasn’t even a full-fledged manager, was a key employee. Because the owner couldn’t trust that the manager would get anything done.

Then we talked about the importance of teaching what the job is, how to do it, how well it should be done, more importantly by when, ensuring that he understood. So the owner started to hold the general manager very accountable with deadlines and dates and making sure he understood and he still wouldn’t get it done. Finally, the owner said, you gotta go. It was very painful because it pulled the owner back into business. learning to cook on the line to running shifts and discovering all the things that weren’t happening.

And as the owner started to get back in the business on a day-to-day, realizing all these things that were not happening to her standard, she started to put her stamp on her restaurant again, raising the standards. And a couple other employees were lost at the same time. But all of a sudden the company culture started to lift in the whole restaurant. People were willing to come out of the woodwork to work harder to help.

The owner started to feel confident that her business was hers again and it was going to be run to her standard that all the supervisor types that were coming up behind this general manager who was not doing his job were willing and able to follow the new standards, wanted to be a part of the solution. So ultimately, It was something that needed to happen and as soon as it was done, culture change began.

How about one more story? We’ll call it story #3, the chef that was destroying company culture. Well, this is a high volume restaurant. High, high volume, summer business, just like unbelievable volumes. And the chef in this restaurant started actually on the line with the owner. At some point in time, literally started their careers on the line together. And as their careers grow, one became a restaurant owner, the other one became chef.

And while an incredibly creative individual could make pretty food taste good, look good, right? Just be unbelievable. Great culinary palate and brain on how to create menu items and so on. But awful at managing people. Single-handedly destroying company culture in the kitchen. Not willing to follow or change standards. And this is somebody who the owner is personally, personally close to. They started their careers together. They work together. It’s a small town.

And how difficult it is to come to the conclusion that all of your challenges in your back of house stem from one person, lack of leadership, one person, the chef that you hired to do the job. And while not an easy conclusion to come to, the truth is every time we had a conversation, whether in a group coaching call or one-on-one, and I mean multiple, multiple times, kept coming back to, this is somebody I care about, the owner would say. I know it needs to happen. I know it needs to happen.

But decided not to until the end of season. Now I’m not going to judge. I think we all have, as owners and managers, have made decisions to hold employees a little longer just to use them, if you will, to fill a schedule. Knowing the devil I know, right? I know this person’s problems and I’m going to learn to live with it to get through my busy time. But this one individual was literally tearing down the culture in the kitchen.

And in all these stories, the restaurant owners kept the managers on way too long. The owners chewed up more of their own personal time and energy, just the energy alone dealing with all the negativity, just trying to fix things around these managers. And between feeling guilty and the fear of being short-staffed, these managers were allowed to continue to do damage in their restaurants.

Damage their profitability, damage their company culture, drive employees away. See, you know, it’s one of those things. It’s like if you’ve got an ailment, let’s call it cancer, the most awful thing in the world. Often what do they want to do? If it’s skin cancer, they go cut it out. If it’s breast cancer, they go cut it out. Like as soon as you know you’ve got an ailment, your best bet is to be aggressive and cut it out to save your body.

Well, in your restaurant, it’s no different. When you have a proverbial cancer, a figurative cancer in your business, it’s better to go cut it out to save the restaurant, the team, your culture, your business. Now, only when each restaurant reach their breaking point, and that’s really what we’re talking about, is when you finally reach your breaking point, Did they finally take the action to put their restaurant on a path of having a team that wants to do what they want them to do and create a positive work environment where all the team members feel appreciated? It took a point to a breaking point.

What do I mean? Well, let’s go backwards with story #1. Ultimately, the owner decided to demote the kitchen manager because he’s actually still a good company fit. He fit company culture. He did a good job. He just couldn’t handle the pressure or manage people. See, sometimes we talk people into going to managers and they shouldn’t have been. They’re good tacticians. They do a great job. They can’t manage people, nor do they want to.

With story #2, the general manager was ultimately let go and the owner again discovered that things were getting done their way and was re-energized as she imposed her will, ensuring the restaurant was now going to run to her standards. as well as having team members come out of the woodwork to help because all of a sudden the wicked witch was dead, by the way. Right? This terrible general manager that was destroying the business.

And finally with story #3. While this one is still playing itself out, through networking, the owner and the general manager have already found what could be the perfect replacement to a point they almost have to pinch themselves. could this potential chef really be that good, that much of A culture fit? They are literally interviewing over and over and over again, invited them in, like really trying to figure out, do we take this person on right now? Could we find somebody that fast and be that much of A fit?

So this one is still playing itself out, but I’m going to tell you any day now, the two things are going to happen. The season is going to end and the chef is going to be given their walking papers. And very shortly thereafter, a new chef will be in his place. Now let me be perfectly clear. Nobody likes to fire people, especially when you care about them. We’re hospitality people. We care about people.

often to a point where you bleed financially because you give your kitchen people overtime. You give your people the time off they need and go short staffed and put yourself in position because you care about people. So when you care about somebody and ultimately they’re putting you in a position to have to make a decision about their employment, that’s really hard. How about this?

The manager I would say to you, the manager is the one who put themselves in this situation. You didn’t. Each of these managers, kitchen managers, chef, that put them in a position to even be considered to be fired. The owner didn’t put them in that position. Now, could the owner have done a better job of leading them? Yeah. Could the owner have done a better job of training them? Yes. Could the owner have done a better job of holding them accountable much earlier on in the situations? Yes.

But doesn’t the employee, the manager themselves, don’t they have a decision to make? Do I want to become a change agent, be a part of the change, help the restaurant continue? Or is it time for me to move on and find another job? Because often, you know, we think about, we hear about this new phrase called quiet quitting. Well, that’s been going on in the restaurant business as long as I can remember.

That’s when you go, I feel so taken advantage of. I’m so unhappy here. I’m going to do the absolute bare minimum of punch in and punch out. I’m not doing anything extra. Tell me that hasn’t been going on in the restaurant business as long as there’s been restaurants. Now there’s again, we label things quiet quitting. And I would dare say that some of that quiet quitting or these managers got to this position because you as a leader didn’t take care of it early on. You created the situation that allowed them to continue in that role.

How about this? The manager may have done a lot of good things for you in the past. Like I talk to my members all the time as we I routinely have this discussion. Hey, I think you need to get rid of that person. Oh, but they’ve done such a good job for me. They helped bring us from point A to point B. They really are good people. Great. maybe they’re not able to or they’re not willing to help you go to the next level.

There’s something called the Peter Principle back in the early 90s, I think it was. I cannot remember the name of the book. It might have been one of Drucker’s books, but the Peter Principle, where you rise to your highest level of incompetency. We keep promoting until we can’t do the job anymore. Well, sometimes people rise to their highest level of incompetency. But in most cases, they’re just not into it.

They don’t want to make change. They’re happy with the status quo. And the most dangerous phrase in your business is that’s the way we’ve always done it. I need people on my team who want to go to the next level. Unfortunately, that sometimes means We have to make change in personnel. But hey, that happens all the time. If you’re a sports fanatic, and you look at professional sporting teams, men’s and women’s, how often do they change the coach?

How often do they change the star player? How often do they change the assistant coaches and so on? They need to make change. And sometimes change means shaking it up at the top. You never settle because if you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got. It takes change. by not taking action, by not disciplining these managers, counseling them, ultimately holding them accountable, you’re telling everyone around them that there’s two different standards, two different performance standards, two different sets of performance standards.

Think about this. You’ve got the people around who want to do a great job. But there’s this other person who doesn’t do a great job and continues to earn, continues to be there, continues to fight and make things harder for everyone else. Why should I as a good employee continue to work so hard when that person gets away with murder? Because there’s two sets of performance standards.

This is what happens when you don’t take action early. It tells your team members you don’t care about them. You’re not on the in. You’re not on the inside crowd. You’re not one of the managers. There’s so many things that go wrong when you don’t take action. So let me ask you a question as you listen to me. Right now, are you looking for permission to actually fire a manager? You know, that’s what I find happens on a lot of these calls.

Like, are you torn between letting a manager go or wondering How are you going to find the time to take over their job responsibilities or their shifts? And that’s often what drives us to keep people too long. Just like the three owners we just talked about. Well, I want to teach you the key to knowing when it’s time to pull the trigger and why I believe it’s better to run short staff than have the wrong people on your team.

You heard me. I’d rather be short staff than have the wrong people on the team. Here’s the deal. First thing I want to teach you is what I call the three strike approach to management. The three strike approach to management. See, if I train you what your job is, how to do it, how well it should be done, more importantly by when, and you demonstrate you could do that on your own with me.

Over your shoulder, but especially when I’m not over your shoulder, now we reach the three strike approach to management. I know that you’ve got this. You know what to do. So At least I think so. Now all of a sudden you do something wrong. Well, that’s strike one and it’s got to fit your disciplinary program. Whether it’s upon the third strike or 4th strike is termination. That is up to you.

But upon that first strike, I sit there and I go, okay, if you don’t know what to do, that’s my fault. I’ve got to train you again. People learn differently. Auditory, tactile, visual. Best trainings have all three. Tactile learners, that’s who I am. I’ve got to do it. Visual learners see it, read it, got it. Audio, they hear it. They can do it. Best trainings have all three, but we all learn differently.

Again, I’m A tactile learner. I’ve got to do the task over and over again until I make it something I can do. Well, upon that first strike, it’s time for me to retrain them. That disciplinary action means I’m going to retrain you. Come around the corner, you’re doing it wrong again a month later. that’s strike two. Again, my fault. I haven’t figured out how you learn, so I’m going to teach you again.

There is disciplinary action. Upon the third or fourth strike, we now have reached something called don’t know versus don’t care. Don’t know is my fault. I haven’t trained you. I haven’t trained you well enough. I haven’t figured out how you learn. I’ve got to dive down deep and figure out how you learn best and provide information, systems, processes, ways, the way you learn to ensure you got it.

So don’t know versus don’t care. Hey, by week or by the third or fourth strike, depending again, your disciplinary program, I know you know, it ain’t me. It’s you. the manager, you the employee. Now it’s time to where I promote you to customer. See, I don’t snap my fingers and say, oh, you should have known what to do. I stay coddled, I trained, I coached, but I also was willing to be that coach.

What do I mean? I was an athlete in high school. I was a rower. Then I was a scholarshipped athlete at a D1 school. Sat on my *** went backwards on the Muddy Charles in Boston, Massachusetts at Northeastern University. Those 8 years of my life as a rower were amazing. Now I’m going to tell you right now, my coaches didn’t hug me. Say, David, are you okay? No, they pushed me. They pushed me because when I knew what to do, when I knew we were trying to achieve excellence, I took those beatings in stride.

They weren’t, you’re a bad person. It was, hey, you need to perform better. You need to make a change. I know you’re capable and I’m not going to be easy on you. The same can be held true in your restaurant when you’ve got good managers and when you as an owner teach your managers. your expectations and you tell them your dream and what we’re working towards and how you want excellence and that you’re going to push them.

You see, reaching the conclusion of don’t know versus don’t care says I’ve done everything I can as an owner to help you be successful. You as the manager have chosen not to do the work. So when you reach that, I’m going to tell you that in a perfect world, which we don’t live in, You’re going to know within three weeks when I teach you on a system how to do something and I stay with you 3, 4, 5, 6, 10 days, don’t care, whatever it takes for you to know.

Within 3 weeks, I’m going to know if you’re going to do the job or not. And I know my social working friends, your big hearts, you give people three months. But by God, within three months, if this person does not step up and make change, it’s time to let them go. Now I’m going to tell you One of the things I love about systems is that there’s a system, a process, a way to doing anything and everything your way, in your business.

And when I train people to my systems, my process, my way, I take human beings out of it, meaning personalities. See, that’s why I love systems. You take the personalities out of it. You either did your job or you didn’t. It’s not whether I like you or dislike you. It’s not whether you’re somebody who everybody loves or you’re a tyrant as a manager. Or hopefully you’re a coach somewhere in between.

Don’t care where you fall. You either did your job or you didn’t. I taught you the system. I ensured you knew how to do it by when, how well, you demonstrated you could do it. We’re easy. We’re done. And so here’s what happens. Believe it or not, you’re going to find this strange to hear out of my mouth unless you’ve known me for a long time. I think managing people sucks. I don’t like it.

See what I want to do is I don’t want to manage people. What I want to do is manage systems. I want to develop people. instead of putting all this time, money and energy into one person who knows how to order, who knows your recipes, who knows how to program the POS system, who knows how to take inventory, just that one person in their brain that if I fire them as a manager, I lose that knowledge and where will I be? Oh my gosh, nobody knows how to make anything. Nobody knows to order. Nobody knows how to, blah, blah, blah.

When I have my system, my process, my way, I have a trained replacement. I’ve got supervisors and other managers who are trained on the same damn systems and as they move on, they move up. That’s incredible. By having management, whether supervisors hourly or salaried, management who knows my systems. I’m managing systems, not people. I’m developing people. And that makes coming to work a much happier place for you to be.

Now to make all this happen, You just can’t throw the keys to your restaurant server and promote them to manager. You’re cook to manager. You can’t just take any employee and wave a magic wand and bling you’re a manager. No way, man. You must teach them what their job is, how to do it, how well it should be done more importantly by when. You’ve heard that from me over and over again.

This is episode 54. Can you count how many times I’ve said it in just the past 50 something episodes? I bet this has come up over and over again because I know me. I’m a broken record. You probably have a nightmare of me saying, teach them what the job is, how to do it, how well it should be done, more important by when. This has been a part of my vernacular, my culture, my training, my coaching for almost 2 decades.

It’s that simple. It’s that hard. See, the keys to your success, again, is simple. There’s a system for everything that you do. There’s a system, a process, a way to doing anything and everything in your business. And there’s great training that goes along with it. So you just can’t have, here’s my process if you don’t train people. And training means ensuring they understand what it is.

We can’t go back to the 80s and the early 90s where you say, follow me for three days and good luck. And let me tell you what you’ve done wrong on a daily basis. You’ve got to stick with people. You’ve got to stay with them until they can demonstrate with your over the shoulder that they can do it without asking any questions, at least once, if not twice. Because now they truly understand and you don’t get the excuse, you never told me you wanted it done to that level by this time and so on.

Again, I now have a system, a process away, and I’ve ensured they understand. You understand what I’m saying? System, process away. And it’s your way, by the way. If you train them and you hold them accountable to your standards, you’re going to be in a position to always have trained replacements. See, ultimately, you’ve got to be willing to hold people accountable. What this comes down to is you must be willing to hold people accountable.

Be the coach to push somebody to strive to be greater. To show the rest of the team that you’re willing to hold everyone to the same standards. You’re not special if you’re in management and you’re nobody if you’re a line employee. Everyone’s held to the same standards. This is huge for creating a culture that’s positive, where people feel valued. I know this is a lot. It’s a lot to take in.

And I know that ultimately it sucks to fire people. But again, I would rather be short staffed than have the wrong people on my team. I’ve lived it in my life as a manager. I’ve lived it in my life as an owner, as far as an entrepreneur. I walk the walk, but I get it. I’m not in your restaurant. I’m not experiencing labor shortage as we speak. I’m not experiencing challenges. But let me be very clear.

I’d rather be short staffed than have the wrong people on my team. If I have to, if I have to, I’ll reduce my menu to almost nothing and tell people how excited we are with the new menu that’s coming out, but we’ve worked it down and this is what we can provide you now due to labor shortage. If I have to, I’ll remove tables, just like we did in COVID as we customers came back and we didn’t have the staff to handle it.

If I have to, I’ll get back on the line. I’ll get on the floor. I’ll do whatever’s necessary to make sure my business works. Knowing I’m working towards refilling those positions and put myself on a path to where people are doing it my way. That I’m not spending 80% of my time on the 20% of the people that are trying to tear my business down. Instead, I’m spending 80% of my time on the rest of the team, the 80% that want to do good.

I know either you are right now or have been in the same situations as I described for my 3 owners, as I’ve described in just all of this. Hey, I’ve got this person, this manager, and I’m having, I’m struggling whether I should let them go. Just know this. I feel for you. I empathize. I’ve been there, done that. But just know this, you created this situation. Yes, it’s their decision to either do the job or not.

It’s their decision to quietly quit or to actually quit. And quietly quitting means I’m asking you to fire me. But you created this by not being willing to hold people accountable from the get-go, by training your system, your process, your way. This is where systems truly make a difference. While great training of those systems truly makes a difference, while it makes you the leader your restaurant needs, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t hold people accountable and ultimately if you don’t take action.

Man, does that not sound like the restaurant prosperity formula? Like do you understand how that formula truly shapes how your restaurant runs? How you are as a leader in your business? This one topic of when is it time to fire my manager? How do I make sure I’m not in that position to feel stressed that I’ve lost somebody ever again? All stems from the same exact formula over and over and over again.

There’s nothing new in this business, but you have to be willing to change. More importantly, while you may have created this situation, You can get yourself out of it. Hey, that was an awesome episode. I want to thank you for taking the time to take action on building a better, more prosperous restaurant. Before you go, I want to give you these three thoughts. One, by combining leadership and taking action with systems and training, being checked by accountability, you are on your way to creating prosperity for you and your restaurant.

Two, I have something I need from you. Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you happen to listen to podcasts. By leaving us a review, other restaurant pros seeking out this information are able to find it. I read the reviews, and hearing how this information has benefited you does wonders for me. And 3, if you find any of the discussions helpful, share them. The more restaurant pros who have access to them, the better we become as an industry. com. Be passionate about what you’re doing. Be persistent, but more importantly, become better and help everyone around you become better. And your restaurant is going to kick some ***.