Andrew Scott on the Pre-Shift Podcast

How do you finally kind of break from that, right? Like, how do you just step away, you know, I mean, to think, do you kind of have to let things go a little bit wrong in order for that to happen?

Yes.

Uh, it, it's kind of the analogy, I used to use this with my managers.

'Cause, like, every September at least one of my managers would call me, like- ... crying.

I, yeah, anyway.

So, like, because there's usually some staff turnover in September because people are going back to school.

Like, there's some different stuff that's happening in that time, so we're trying to hire, hire.

Hiring's also harder in September because there are a lot of people looking for jobs because the labor force diminishes, um, during that month for, you know, for most, you know, lower-wage jobs, for example.

So even though we didn't, like, hire a bunch of high school students, like, you know, it was still college.

It was still, like, that rough age group.

So every September would happen, and I'm like, "Guys, like, the solution is we just need to go out and actually interview more people and hire them." And they're like, "But I don't even have time to interview." So I'm like, it's like you're, you're drowning and you're two feet away from the ladder to get out of the pool.

Like, you just need to, like, let your head go underwater for a second, and then you'll be at that ladder and you can just, like, get up.

So it's...

The, the thing is you kind of have to let some things burn, and you focus on one system at a time.

Here's how I figure out what that system is.

So I used to do this.

Uh, I would grab my leadership team, and I, I did this at a bunch of restaurants.

And I went around.

I'd just grab a dry erase marker, and I would just clear the walk-in of all the prep charts and everything that's usually on it.

And I would just get everyone.

I'd be like, "All right, guys, just tell me every problem that exists in this business right now." And they'd be like, you know, "People don't know how to make the product." They'd be like, you know, "Bad customer service." And they'd be like, "People showing up late." And they'd be like, "Orders aren't correct," and like, "We're not ordering enough," and like, "Sales aren't high enough." And, you know, they would just give me all of the problems, and I would write them all down.

And so, like, the ones I just mentioned here are a lot of, like, people problems, right? And so then what we do is we start to group them into categories.

We say, "Okay.

Well, training is related to, you know, people showing up late." Like, it's a people problem.

So then we start to chunk up and say, "Okay.