Leadership and Executive Development for women of all races, cultures and backgrounds
Issue link: https://diversitywoman.epubxp.com/i/632328
We Mean Business > d i v e r s i t y w o m a n . c o m W i n t e r 2 0 1 6 D I V E R S I T Y W O M A N 27 So management techniques in a res- taurant are somewhat diferent than in other industries. It's not unlike athletics. You have this team, but it's not a democ- racy. Tere is a hierarchy to it and there is an order in which things have to hap- pen. I know that there are kitchens that are democratic and everybody's opinions matter, and everyone gets to weigh in, but that's not the kind of kitchen I was trained in or the kind of kitchen I run. DW: What would you say are the major differences between challenges you face versus those of other customer-oriented businesses? TDJ: I think that the restaurant business is full of a lot of people like me who are self-made and have learned by doing. For example, I'm not super recipe-based. I don't have precise recipes in my orga- nization. I teach people how to cook and how to taste. In some cases we might have precise recipes, but mostly we're learning by doing and tasting and learn- ing to cook the foundations. To your question, in the restaurant business, I would venture to guess that 65 percent of the people who work in restaurants have no formal training. So they adhere to that learning by doing and lack formal training and structure. It makes sense. Cooking is a creative endeavor, right? Tose are the sorts of people it's going to attract. Some other customer-centric businesses have cre- ative aspects, but many don't. If you're making coats, if they all have to be ex- actly the same, there's a pattern. DW: You are very customer-centric. How do you teach that to your staff and what do you emphasize? TDJ: One of my points of pride in running Jardinière for 18 years is that the feedback is always, "Your staf is so friendly." Tat's a really important piece for me, that we have a sense of hospitality in welcoming people. We're in the business of making people happy, which I take great pleasure in. People can come in a bad mood, and our job is to turn them around. Some- times it almost seems like an impossible task. You have somebody who's had a re- ally bad week or they just had a fght with their wife or whatever, and our job at the restaurant is to balance that. We need to take them in a diferent direction. Tis is a time when you get to relax and share food and have a good time. It's a time to live in our little tactile world for an hour, or two or three. Tat's our job—to create that sense of hospitality and to welcome and take care of people. DW: It's very intimate. TDJ: It is. We're creating an experience with someone. We're giving you things to put inside your body. Consuming some- thing is a very intimate act, I think. It's an act of mutual trust, and you have to have confdence in the person giving you that product. So you think about it like that, and it's diferent than just eating. DW: How do you hire? Is there any one question you always ask? TDJ: Not really. I'm a very intuitive per- son, so I kind of leave it to my instincts in terms of the feeling that I get from some- one. I started out in this industry with no experience whatsoever and have become very successful. I didn't go to school to learn it. I feel like you can go a long way in this industry with common sense, and that's usually something I'm looking for—emotional intelligence, common sense, and a good work ethic. It's really hard work that we do. Tat's never going to change. Tose are attributes that lead to success in our industry. DW: Did you have any formal or semi- formal management training? Was there ever a management mistake you made that you learned from? TDJ: I think there are a million little mistakes [I've made]. I haven't made any huge resounding ones—well, that's not true. Te answer is yes, I've made mis- takes. One of the things that I always preach to my managers is to look at the things that you do well and understand your strengths and weaknesses and be self-refective. Managing a team of people in a restaurant is a very complex thing to do. You've got a lot of diferent people with diferent attributes, and you need them for their diferent attri- butes. Some of them are more creative, some are going to be your workhorses, some of them are going to be organiz- ers, and that team, working together, is going to create what you need to run a restaurant. Likewise as a manager, you have strengths and weaknesses. You have some people who are just great people- people. Tey're going to be out there greeting the guests and will be amazing at that, but they may not be the most or- ganized people. You need that team and you need those diferent aspects. I guess it's really not that diferent from any complex organization. DW: Do you have a vision not only of your cooking but of where you want to go? Do you always have a long-term plan in mind? Or do things just happen? TDJ: It happens both ways. I certainly do have a long-term plan for fnancial sta- bility and the things that everybody else wants. I try to have a 10-year strategic plan, but sometimes things come up that I didn't necessarily anticipate, and that takes me on a path that might be a devia- tion from what that vision is. DW There are kitchens that are democratic and everybody's opinions matter, but that's not the kind of kitchen I was trained in or the kind of kitchen I run.