What Are You Waiting For?

Why a sense of urgency is one of the most valuable operating disciplines in a restaurant

By Jamie Galler | Restaurant Advisor

Restaurant operators are busy.

There is always another employee issue, vendor problem, catering order, equipment repair, guest complaint or scheduling challenge demanding attention.

And that's precisely why important work so often doesn't get done.

Not because operators don't know what needs to change.

Not because they haven't made a decision.

Sometimes, it's simply because today's urgent problems keep pushing aside the work that would make tomorrow's restaurant better.

I've been reminded of that recently with one of my clients.

We Knew What Needed to Be Done

I'd been working with a restaurant client for several weeks. Early in the engagement, we analyzed their product mix and identified several opportunities to simplify the operation and improve profitability.

The data was pretty clear.

There were menu items and processes adding complexity without adding enough value. By making some targeted changes, we believed the restaurant could:

- Streamline production.

- Reduce food cost.

- Eliminate unnecessary complexity.

- Improve speed of service.

- Reduce labor.

And these weren't theoretical benefits.

We estimated the changes could reduce food cost by almost two percentage points and save several hundred dollars in labor over the course of a week.

That's real money.

We agreed on what needed to change. We identified who was responsible for each component. We established completion dates.

In other words, we had already done much of the difficult work.

We knew what needed to be done.

Then the deadlines started slipping.

There Was Always a Good Reason

Some pieces of the project were completed.

Others weren't.

A catering event came up.

There was a staffing issue.

Something else in the restaurant needed the owner's attention.

Then something else.

And here's what made the situation interesting:

The excuses weren't really excuses.

They were legitimate business issues.

A catering event does need attention.

A staffing problem does need to be solved.

An operational fire does sometimes require the owner's immediate involvement.

But eventually I realized those legitimate short-term issues were preventing him from completing the work that would produce longer-term improvements in the business.

The owner was extremely busy.

But being busy and moving the business forward aren't necessarily the same thing.

Every Day We Waited Was Costing Money

Eventually, we needed to have a fairly direct conversation.

I reminded the owner why we had agreed to make these changes in the first place.

More importantly, I reminded him that these were among the very issues he'd hired me to help him address.

We weren't debating whether there was an opportunity.

We had already analyzed the data.

We weren't debating what should be done.

We had already agreed on the actions.

We weren't even debating who should do it.

We had assigned responsibility.

At that point, the primary obstacle was execution.

And delay wasn't free.

If an initiative can save hundreds of dollars in labor every week, postponing it for four weeks has a measurable cost.

If changes can reduce food cost by nearly two percentage points, every week you continue operating under the old system is another week you don't realize those savings.

That's an important concept for restaurant operators:

> Once you've identified an improvement that will make or save money, every day you delay has a cost.

We often think of procrastination as neutral.

We'll get to it next week.

Let's wait until after this event.

We're too busy right now.

We'll tackle it when staffing settles down.

But the financial clock keeps running.

Once the decision has been made, delay isn't neutral. It has a price.

Urgent and Important Aren't the Same Thing

Restaurant operations make this particularly difficult.

Restaurants generate urgency naturally.

A cook calls out two hours before dinner.

Urgent.

The POS system stops working.

Urgent.

A large catering order needs to be completed.

Urgent.

A guest is unhappy.

Urgent.

A delivery doesn't arrive.

Urgent.

Those issues are visible and immediate, so they naturally receive attention.

But improving food cost by two points may not feel urgent today.

Neither does rebuilding the schedule, retraining the service team, correcting recipes, renegotiating purchasing, simplifying the menu or implementing a better inventory system.

The restaurant will probably open tomorrow whether you do those things or not.

That's what makes them so easy to postpone.

But those are often the projects that materially change the economics of the business.

Good operators have to create urgency around important work, not just react to urgent problems.

Make the Project Smaller

In this case, simply telling the owner to “get it done” wasn't going to solve the problem.

The project had begun to feel too large.

So we broke it down.

I call this “chunkifying”

Instead of looking at the entire project, we identified smaller, specific actions that could be accomplished immediately.

Do this piece first.

Then this one.

Now this.

Each step had a clear outcome.

Each step was manageable.

And each completed step created momentum for the next one.

With my assistance, the owner recommitted to the work and we completed the remaining tasks on an expedited basis.

More importantly, the improvements began showing up where they mattered: food and labor costs.

The lesson wasn't that the owner suddenly had more time.

He didn't.

The restaurant didn't stop having problems.

It didn't stop being busy.

We changed the priority and made the work easier to execute.

Urgency Doesn't Mean Recklessness

There's an important distinction here.

A sense of urgency does not mean making careless decisions.

It doesn't mean implementing ideas before you've thought them through.

It doesn't mean everything is an emergency.

And it certainly doesn't mean constantly running around the restaurant yelling, “We need this now!”

That's chaos, not urgency.

Real operating urgency is much more disciplined.

Analyze. Decide. Assign. Execute.

Take the time necessary to make a sound decision.

But once the analysis has been done and the decision has been made, recognize that additional delay may provide little additional value.

There is a point where more discussion stops improving the decision and simply postpones the result.

A good decision implemented today can sometimes be worth more than a perfect decision implemented next month.

Put a Dollar Sign on Delay

One way to create urgency is to quantify what waiting costs.

Suppose you've identified a scheduling change that should save $400 per week.

A four-week delay isn't just “four weeks.”

It's potentially $1,600.

Suppose you discover that portion inconsistency is costing approximately $200 per week.

Every month you postpone fixing the recipes, tools and training could represent roughly another $800.

Suppose a menu pricing change should improve gross profit by $1,000 per month.

Waiting until “the next menu update” six months from now potentially leaves thousands of dollars on the table.

The exact numbers won't always be that clean. But the principle is useful:

> Translate delay into dollars.

Suddenly, “We'll get to it next month” sounds very different.

Assign an Owner, and a Date

There's another lesson from this client experience.

“We need to fix food cost” isn't an action plan.

“We should simplify the menu” isn't an action plan.

“We need to get labor under control” isn't an action plan.

Every important initiative should eventually answer two very basic questions:

Who owns it?

By when?

And I would add a third:

What's the next action?

Not the entire project.

The next action.

That's where chunking becomes particularly useful.

Large projects create procrastination because it's difficult to see where to begin.

Small, clearly defined actions create movement.

And movement creates momentum.

Don't Let Perfect Become the Enemy of Better

Restaurants don't need more ideas.

Most operators I meet already know dozens of things they'd like to improve.

The challenge is converting those ideas into action.

That means accepting that some improvements won't initially be perfect.

A new checklist may need to be revised.

A menu change may require adjustment.

A new prep procedure may reveal another problem.

A labor model may need refinement after a few weeks of actual results.

That's okay.

Implementation creates information.

You learn things by doing that you'll never learn while discussing.

The goal isn't to recklessly implement unfinished ideas.

It's to stop using perfection as justification for unnecessary delay.

Make the best decision you can with the information available.

Implement it.

Measure the results.

Adjust.

A Sense of Urgency Is a Competitive Advantage

Think about two restaurant organizations.

Both identify the same opportunity in January.

One spends three months discussing it, revising it, getting distracted and waiting for the “right time.”

The other evaluates it, makes a reasonable decision and implements it in February.

Even if both eventually reach the same solution, the second restaurant has already had weeks—or months—to benefit from the improvement.

Lower costs.

Better service.

Faster production.

Higher average checks.

Better employee performance.

Whatever the initiative was designed to accomplish.

Over the course of a year, dozens of those decisions compound.

That's why execution speed matters.

Restaurants that improve faster have more time to benefit from their improvements.

The Operator Challenge

Look at your current project list.

Not the emergencies.

Not today's staffing problem.

Look at the improvements you've already decided need to happen.

Which one has been sitting there for weeks?

Then ask:

What exactly are we waiting for?

If there's a legitimate reason to wait, fine.

But if there isn't, ask four more questions:

What is this delay costing us every week?

Who owns the project?

What's the next manageable “chunk”?

When will it be completed?

Then start.

Not next month.

Not when things slow down.

Because if you run a restaurant, there's a good chance things are never going to slow down.

There will always be another problem competing for your attention.

Leadership means making sure the important work doesn't continually lose to the urgent work.

Break it down. Assign it. Put a deadline on it. Get started.

Because once you know what needs to be done, procrastination doesn't pay.

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Jamie Galler‍ ‍

Restaurant Advisor

The Practical Creative

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