Leading And Managing Author Chase LeBlanc qffers Theories

On PeTjvnnances That ltnprove Profits

Chase LeBlanc is the author of the book High Impact Hospitality Upgrade Your Purpose Performance and Profits He is also founder and CEO of Leadagers LLC a business consultancy serving retail and restaurants LeBlanc began his career as owneroperator of anightclub development and management company After selling that business he has since led a variety of national and global operations as general manager and mUlti-unit regional manager and has also served corporations as vice president and president His range of experiences includes leading corporate training stores entertainment complexes fine dining establishments high-volume theme restaurants and other venues

LeBlanc has a bi-monthly column in Hotel FampB magazine as the Staffing Doctor and blogs for other publications and sites as well In addition he has been a contributing writer for several food-centric publicatIons LeBlanc spoke with ARN about Ieadagers hospitality and the challenges of managing a restaurant business

ARN can you explain the term Ieadager - what it means how it came about and how t IS applicable m a restaurant environment

LeBlanc Leadagers is a smash word that I started using in the 90s to highlight the importance for my managers of being both manager and a leader People might be hired as managers but leadership is equally important and gets all the sugar - the benefits and accolades In my view leader is a term for a role that one seeks or perhaps is thrust into and its brought into play when its speaking about the influence interactions or impact upon others A manager is an accepted term for a job that you can get to control build or buy things YOU can be a leader without management responsibilities which is called a figurehead

42 A R N J U L Y 201 1

Author Chase LeHlan c has w ilted the term Ieadager to c0711ey that managers 1leed to bring leadership qualities as poundvcll as managem ent expertise to their positio1ls

or for example a line lead If you have no other person within your span of inflLJence - say youre operating a street cart - then you can manage things without being a leader There are many accidental managers in our industry Its my opinion that weve left far too many good folks on the management minefield due to lack of adequate profeSSional preparation

ARN Do you think some restaurants actively quash leadership qualfties or do theyjust not develop them

LeBlanc There are a number of examples where there are organizations that are not actually looking for more leaders They are looking for individuals to fit in more of a command and control model where its very top-down driven and most of the leadership or acknowledgement of leadership is given to individuals wno operate at the height of the hierarchylhose individuals sometimes can be reluctant to cede any power or more realistically any airspace to someone who might have ideas different methodologies even opinions Its not clear to me why more people have not attempted to develop leaders within their organizations and make

that a driving part of their mission statement Based on my experiences its probably just extremely difficult to attempt to put that to the forefront when youre worried about other things - running your business and making the bottom line grow - and somehow its easy to make leadership and development of leaders more secondary or tertiary

ARNmiddot Your book High Impact Hospitality offers advice on how to be a leadager What are some key points that you think are crUCial

LeBlanc My favorite saying in terms of leadager is that the manner of your delivery always matters when youre charged with delivering the deliverables That means that how you are is as important as what you do So if you desire to be a well-thought-of manager you have to hone that craft and if you desire to be a well-thought-of leader my suggestion is that you model first teach second ItS more than most are willing to do

MN You talk about t7e tribe and about bringinga sense of community into an organization How difficult is It to achieve

LeBlanc Its my belief that an organizations culture can be a unique value proposition in the marketplace as strong as any product price or promotion With a tribe its easier to work towards missions and values and if the culture is positive honest and complete it can provide strong connections that travel beyond just having a job for an employee

them to help move the program forward as opposed to waiting for somebody to tell the next person what to do These are people who act autonomously within guidelines and need less supervision

ARN In your book you describe capabilities or employee attributes in the food and beverage industry wiJere demand outstrips supply Are these ciJalacteristics

dOing everything at my disposal to identify my key players and key characteristics and try to replicate them Sometimes companies find a key player and then they ask that individual [to recruit) family members or friends A lot of organizations are using more profiling - tests to attempt to extract what they think are the key characteristics for success I know that if it were me I might be thinking about a Facebook page I might be thinking about Twitter If I was the manager at any level I would certainly join Linkedln I would be joining organizations that would help me leverage the power of that connection to

Howyoll ate is (IS

inlportant as what you do the outcome that Im hopeful to accomplish which would be to find better

Im always amazed by the number of companies that suggest I want you to work hard or buy more to make more money for me I dont always comprehend why individuals believe thats an enticing or long-lasting link You can have a person who is your lead cook or a person who is your lead server and tlley can influence and impact the group that they work with if your cultures strong enough TO me this is somebody who is embracing the concept of line-level leaders empowering

identifiable Should managersowners seek to identify them in the hiring process or cultivate them among managers and staff

LeBlanc If you were to ask any leader of any company or industry what types of employees they wish they had more of you d get a list very similar to mine Most everyone is looking for more people they can trLJst and who are going to practice their craft past the point of expertise or will follow through from say to do If I were an owner of an operation today Id be

players I think a lot of people sit on their hands sometimes because theyre very very frustrated and yet it sometimes just takes a lot more work to get unstuck

ARN You point out that the origin of tl7e word hospitallty is hospitable Do you think that some restaUlants lose sight of the fact they are actual hospitality firms more than Just purveyors of food and beverage

LeBlanc I think that the underpinning bedrock of all hospitality establishments is that you gain new customers by how well

Since November more than 150000 travelers have sped past the usual airport security screening lines and through the CLEAR lanes It just takes a few minutes

Were thrilled to share our success with Denver International Airport and the Greater Orlando Airport Association

Help speed your airports customers through the CLEARlanes by calling CEO Caryn Seidman-Becker Lose Wait on (212) 223-1790

wwwclearmecomat the Airport

44 ARN J U LY 20 11

LeBlanc Its my belief that an organizations culture can be a unique value proposition in the marketplace as strong as any product price or promotion With a tribe its easier to work towards missions and values and if the culture is positive honest and complete it can provide strong connections that travel beyond just having a job for an employee

them to help move the program forward as opposed to waiting for somebody to tell the next person what to do These are people who act autonomously within guidelines and need less supervision

ARN In your book you describe capabilities or employee attributes in the food and beverage industry wiJere demand outstrips supply Are these ciJalacteristics

dOing everything at my disposal to identify my key players and key characteristics and try to replicate them Sometimes companies find a key player and then they ask that individual [to recruit) family members or friends A lot of organizations are using more profiling - tests to attempt to extract what they think are the key characteristics for success I know that if it were me I might be thinking about a Facebook page I might be thinking about Twitter If I was the manager at any level I would certainly join Linkedln I would be joining organizations that would help me leverage the power of that connection to

Howyoll ate is (IS

inlportant as what you do the outcome that Im hopeful to accomplish which would be to find better

Im always amazed by the number of companies that suggest I want you to work hard or buy more to make more money for me I dont always comprehend why individuals believe thats an enticing or long-lasting link You can have a person who is your lead cook or a person who is your lead server and tlley can influence and impact the group that they work with if your cultures strong enough TO me this is somebody who is embracing the concept of line-level leaders empowering

identifiable Should managersowners seek to identify them in the hiring process or cultivate them among managers and staff

LeBlanc If you were to ask any leader of any company or industry what types of employees they wish they had more of you d get a list very similar to mine Most everyone is looking for more people they can trLJst and who are going to practice their craft past the point of expertise or will follow through from say to do If I were an owner of an operation today Id be

players I think a lot of people sit on their hands sometimes because theyre very very frustrated and yet it sometimes just takes a lot more work to get unstuck

ARN You point out that the origin of tl7e word hospitallty is hospitable Do you think that some restaUlants lose sight of the fact they are actual hospitality firms more than Just purveyors of food and beverage

LeBlanc I think that the underpinning bedrock of all hospitality establishments is that you gain new customers by how well

Since November more than 150000 travelers have sped past the usual airport security screening lines and through the CLEAR lanes It just takes a few minutes

Were thrilled to share our success with Denver International Airport and the Greater Orlando Airport Association

Help speed your airports customers through the CLEARlanes by calling CEO Caryn Seidman-Becker Lose Wait on (212) 223-1790

wwwclearmecomat the Airport

44 ARN J U LY 20 11

you deliver Of] your promises to the old ones Before there was the ability to advertise in newspapers on television and on the Internet there was word-of-mouth advertising Its still there and I think people reference it but I dont think theres an embracing that needs to exist It used to be that people lived in neighborhoods and they would go to the neighborhood butcher or the gas station or the supermarket drugstore Everybody knew everybody and those experiences kept operators a little bit more honest because they didnt want Mrs Jones to be talking about how she felt cheated to the 30 other people that came to your establishment These human interactionexchanges that used to take place are being diminished and I think that people are not working hard enough to replicate them

ARN In the airport environment its perhaps more difficult to create a bond because the customer base is so varied and transient

LeBlanc But you could still make the day of that customer that you only saw once in your whole life and they could still be talking about that experience if you decided to give them something that was more positive than they expected It can

be as simple as a smile It can be as simple as just checking in with them Hows it going today Maybe they missed their flight may1be they want to grumble a bit and maybe you offer them a moment of consolation and then send them on their way with a pat on back These are the kinds of things that dont necessarily seem to nave value but cumulatively those are the kinds of things that add up to a reputation for that particular concession or that particular organization If you just put more good out when you are attempting to receive monetarHy it is most likely going to pay you back tenfold

ARNmiddotTilat goes along with creatfng the positive guest experienceAre restaurants typically getting it wrong

LeBlanc I like to write a vision of exactly what it would look like if everything went right from a customer experience So walking up Id describe the entire facade Id describe what the individuals look like Id describe everything about the first impression in minute detail and I would do the same to the entire experience including when theyre walking away If you attempt to participate in this exercise you will Invariably see where your gaps are When things slow down I think that its

time to up the engagement maybe make a personal recommendation They think that people everywhere appreciate when people take a moment and they attempt to draw somebody out a little bit but Im not suggesting that at the height of rush that youre chatting everybody up What I am saying is do you have something at the height of rush that is your go-to move so that people feel like maybe you appreciate them a little bit Then the same thing with how theyre getting the order When things are moving pretty fast I know that Id like to be sure that I got what I paid for but I also know that if somebody makes eye contact with me afild they say This is your order that is always preferable to 507 SOl Wheres 5077 I also think that people sometimes really miss the boat What if things go wrong I know that it always feels like it makes your day when there was something that went wrong and it wasnt like pulling teeth to get it fixed Thats something people remember and pass on to others --gt

Wed like to hear your opInion about this ancle Please dired all correspondence to Carol ward at caroairportrevenuenewscom

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