People Book
3125 Build a Learning Culture Not a Training Culture
Last Updated: August 3, 2026There's a fundamental difference between a training culture and a learning culture, and most operators have no idea the distinction even exists. They use the words interchangeably. They don't mean the same thing. The gap between them is where most of your problems live. A training culture is instructor-focused. Event-based — — something that happens...
3120 Push vs Pull
Last Updated: August 3, 2026There are two ways to deliver knowledge to the people who work for you — — and the difference between them starts with knowing which kind of knowledge you're delivering. Push is appropriate — — and necessary — — for technical proficiency. POS systems. Recipes. Role-specific processes. Safety protocols. The knowledge a cast member needs...
3115 Training vs Coaching Know the Difference
Last Updated: August 3, 2026There's a difference between training and coaching that most operators never name — — and the gap between them is where most of your development problems live. Training: Teaching someone something they have never done before. Standard-Setting: Defining how something already known gets done in your operation, for your Guests, at your standard. Coaching is...
3110 Four Bad Training Ideas and One Good One
Last Updated: August 3, 2026The hospitality industry chases training trends the same way it chases menu trends — with enthusiasm, without evidence, and usually at the operator's expense. Here are the four worst offenders I see operators wasting money on right now. Gamification. Relationships and engagement are not games. When you gamify learning, your employees aren't getting excited about...
3105 Training Is Broken
Last Updated: August 3, 2026Every training manual I have ever seen — three-ring binders, digital portals, video libraries, laminated checklists taped to the walk-in door — has exactly the same problem. Not one of them, on its own, has ever turned a mediocre employee into a great one. Not once. Not ever. Here's the part most operators have never...
3100 The Four As of Employee Engagement
Last Updated: August 3, 2026You hire people to achieve outcomes — namely growth. You don't just hire them to create and manage inputs: take orders, push buttons, run food. If that's all you expect from the people on your cast, that's exactly what you'll get. And it will cost you everything. There are three levels of staff. The engaged...
3095 FUNDAMENTAL 3 PEOPLE
Last Updated: August 3, 2026The restaurant industry has a talent competition happening at every level, every day, in every market. Most operators aren't aware they're in it until they lose someone to it. Poaching is the word the industry uses when a competitor recruits one of your people. It carries a connotation of aggression, of theft, of disloyalty. Strip...
3090 Theyre Not Your Family Theyre Your Cast
Last Updated: August 3, 2026It's one of the most common things an operator says about their people. "We're like a family here." It's said with genuine warmth. It comes from a real place — the operator who stayed late with their people, who celebrated their milestones, who showed up when things got hard. The relationship is real. The care...
3085 The Family Hire
Last Updated: August 3, 2026I've hired mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, cousins, brothers and sisters. Some of the best hires I've ever seen came as a pair. Some of the worst did too. The relationship is irrelevant. That's the point. Most operators walk into a family hire already decided. Either they're excited — it's someone they trust, someone...
3080 The Interview Process Is a First Impression
Last Updated: August 3, 2026The way you hire tells a candidate everything about how you value people — before they've worked a single shift. A hiring process that takes a week sends a message. The candidate who walks in motivated, ready to talk, and interested in what you're building is a different person after they've filled out a three-page...